The Forest of Hands and Teeth

The Forest of Hands and Teeth

by:Carrie Ryan

(USA)

Summary of the story:

Once upon a time, a fenced-in village existed in the middle of a Forest infested by the Unconsecrated (i.e. flesh-gobbling zombies). Enter Mary. She's minding her own business, washing her clothes in the stream, when her childhood pal Harry pays her a visit. And pops the question—yup, that question.

Before Mary can answer, the village sirens start a-wailing, which is code for… zombies in the house. Save yourselves, people. Mary hightails it for the village, knowing full well as she hustles along that this siren went off because she dilly-dallied at the stream. See, her mom really wants to find her newly zombified hubby, and Mary knows that because she stayed away too long her mom probably got too close to the fence while looking for him and is now infected herself. Bummer.

After Mary's mom joins the ranks of the moany-groanies, Mary's brother Jed kicks her out of their house (as a Guardian, he's not keen on having to chop off his mom's head if he sees her in the Forest). So Mary joins the Sisterhood, led by the power-hungry Sister Tabitha. Sister T can see that Mary isn't super happy about becoming a God-fearing nun for life, so she threatens to sic the Forest of zombies on her if she refuses to toe the line and act like she likes it.

While cooped up in the Cathedral, Mary finds out her other childhood pal, Travis, has a ridiculously bad leg injury and the Sisters are taking care of him. Mary visits him every day and "prays" with him… which means she actually just tells him stories about the ocean. Dreaming of the beach together means true love for Mary and the Travster, which is too bad since he's Harry's brother and engaged to Mary's bestie, Cass. Drama.

Harry asks for Mary's hand again, and she says yes. Insofar as this means she can escape the Sisterhood, this is a pretty awesome development; but insofar as she's in love with Harry's brother, it's pretty lame.

In the meantime, Mary notices that a girl in a bright red vest entered the village from Outside and is locked in a room in the Cathedral. She finds out her name is Gabrielle and is eager to learn more about her and where she's from.

Mary and Travis run into each other at the Hill and have a nice make-out session. Mary asks Travis to come for her and whisk her away from Harry, but before he can answer, they catch a glimpse of Gabrielle, who is now a super-zombie and totally freaky. So much for getting to know her.

Fast forward to the morning of the wedding (PS: Travis never came for Mary). Instead of waking up to church bells, the village wakes up to the screaming of the sirens. Turns out super-zombie Gabby and the zombie horde are attacking the village.

Harry and Mary escape by the skin of their teeth onto one of the fenced paths into the Forest. They're joined by Travis and Cass, Jed and Beth, a little boy named Jacob, and Mary's new pooch, Argos. See ya, village, wouldn't wanna be ya.

The gang wanders down the path for a while before stumbling upon another village. Mary knows it was Gabrielle's village, though it's also been overrun by zombies. While the rest of the gang escapes into the tree house part of the village (zombies aside, Shmoop wants to go there), Mary and Travis end up stuck in a big ol' house together. Alone. Ah, shucks.

At first it feels like heaven on earth, but then Mary stumbles onto some old photos and dresses and becomes super obsessed with escaping the village. Luckily for her, some zombies finally break down the house door, forcing her and the Travster to get outta there. Thanks to Argos and his furry jaws of death, Mary shoves Travis into the attic and swims through a sea of zombies unscathed.

The tireless threesome crosses the divide into the tree house village with a sheet-rope, a barrel, and some serious climbing skillz from the Travster (who still almost gets chomped to death by the zombie horde).

Mary and Travis have a heart-to-heart, and Mary realizes that she needs more than the Travster to be happy. She just can't quit thinking about her ocean. The others agree to head back to the forest paths once the weather cools down.

You know that phrase about how the best laid plans are meant to be broken? Jacob accidentally starts a fire and burns down the village, so it's go time—so much for waiting for the weather to cool down. Travis saves the day by running the rope through Zombieville to the gates, though he also gets himself bitten in the process. Mary slides down the rope to help him, but he's already on his way to becoming a zombie. Before Mary slices off his head, he tells her that he'd already been bitten back at the big house, so he was a dead man either way.

The gang is back to wandering through the Forest, and by this point everyone's depressed and starving. They come to the end of the path, and Beth about has a hissy-fit.

Mary leaves everyone in the dust and scoots into the Forest to find the ocean. The Unconsecrated dogpile her, and she'd be dead, except that Jed saves her life. Yep—he decided to help her follow her dream. Unfortunately for him though, he slips off a cliff and dies.

Mary tries to find his body in a raging river, but falls in and ends up gasping for air on a beach. Turns out the ocean is at the end of the river (funny how that works). A man comes along and almost cuts off her head, but she proves she's alive and they end up walking hand-in-hand back to his lighthouse. The end.

Background of the author:

Born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, Carrie is a graduate of Williams College and Duke University School of Law. A former litigator, she now writes full time. She lives with her writer/lawyer husband, two fat cats and one large rescue mutt in Charlotte, North Carolina. They are not at all prepared for the zombie apocalypse. 

Appreciation of the story:

Most of the Filipinos in this times are fun of doing or making a horror movies.According to the old persons the Philippines in their times are prone of stories that the certain places is come from like some places they say that this place is the place of the vampires because once upon a time the people their when the colonizers went to a far-far way land that they haven't know the people out their but they're so thirsty and hungry theirs a one house that they so and then knock at the door then  sudden they shock cause theirs a old woman has a long hair. The old woman welcomed them to her house then they saw a lot of fruits and foods after they eat those foods they're tired so they sleep.Suddenly, at one time its a full moon then the old woman transform then suddenly theirs a one survivor that say that place is the places of vampires.    

Importance of the story:

In Mary’s world there are simple truths.
The Sisterhood always knows best.
The Guardians will protect and serve.
The Unconsecrated will never relent.
And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth.

But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future—between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

The Boy Named Crow

The Boy Named Crow

By: Haruki Murakami

(Japan)

Summary of the story:

In "The Boy Named Crow," a prologue of sorts, "Kafka" Tamura is preparing to run away from his home in Tokyo. He talks about his plans with his imaginary companion, Crow. Tomorrow is Kafka's fifteenth birthday and he has taken a substantial amount of money from his father, along with his cell phone and hunting knife. Crow warns Kafka that he can expect many trials on his journey, and he must be the toughest teenager ever to withstand it.

In Chapter 1, Kafka is planning his escape. He has been planning to run away for years, and in preparation he has been working out. He now looks older than his age. He takes a picture of his sister with him. Kafka's father destroyed all the pictures of his mother when she left, taking Kafka's...

Background of the author:

Thanks for A2A. I've yet to attain a coherent impression of Kafka, as I've only read it once so far. So it's my first attempt at forming an opinion about its plot points.

When it comes to Murakami, I am a firm believer that he tells the same story in his most mystical books. A story of a person thrown out of the usual, of the habitual, clashing with the mystical, turning to the inner sanctum and re-discovering oneself, impeded by the dark but aided by unusual old men and two women, one earthly and one mysteriously afar and hard to grasp (but far more attractive for the protagonist). You can find similar points in Norwegian Wood, Hard-Boiled Wonderland, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, wherever else if you squint well enough. :)

I believe Kafka follows the same pattern - which made it only more enjoyable for me, finding the familiar checkpoints of the story but disguised in new, unusual shapes.

As such, The Boy Named Crow is Kafka's alter ego that holds his better, stronger, saner qualities. It is his projection of his desirable self, which he envisions as a 'friend' for the sake of easier communication. (Similar to the Shadow of the protagonist in Hard-Boiled Wonderland which also undergoes a stage of separation.)

Johnny Walker, like many other things and personalities in Kafka, has a role and a purpose. He has a job to do in the scheme of the events, which he acknowledges repeatedly throughout the book. (Again, I feel a strong connection here between Kafka and the Hard-Boiled, as well as the Bird Chronicles.) Yes, it is not a nice job but it must be done to keep the world wheel turning. I do not believe that Kafka/Crow, in seeing Johnny Walker for the first time, recognizes Walker's significance or spiritual connection to the whole fabric of the plot, but the important part is Kafka's own position at that moment. He has come to the point of reaching closure. He is on the brink of stepping out of the forest and finding that the entire mysterious event has reached its logical conclusion.

I believe neither the darkness inside nor the link with Nakata has anything to do with Crow's attack on Johnny Walker. His goal is to remove the last bit of the ending plot: the stone is closing, Nakata and Miss Saeki have died, Kafka has made his decision to leave the forest village and return to the normal world - Johnny Walker is the last element that clearly belongs to "THERE" and not to "HERE". All "there" elements must now be removed. The Boy Named Crow acts instinctively and does the only thing that makes sense - to clear up the finished scenario by killing Johnny Walker.

This is the best I could come up with so far. It doesn't entirely make sense to me, but I've grown to accept the fact that Murakami's books never entirely make sense and leave me hanging every time (I've read Hard-Boiled, like, ten times but it always leaves me hanging just a tiny bit.)

Appreciation of the story:

As a Filipino the attitudes of the teenagers right now is very naughty .The teenagers or "Kabataan" in this times the they're prone to technology so more of them are engaging to love stories that orient them to engage the early independent like teenage pregnancy .Now the Philippines is facing the 3rd world country because of them they're the most common or one of the problem that could make the Philippines poor .It is because when the population gets high the the budget of the government will increase too.Most of the teenagers are tried to escape because of their parents don't have a time to bond with them.

 I'd experience it one time in life my father and I, in the past years we are quarreling most of the time because I want to go in my grandmother because she said your Father can't sustain your need so if you want to avoid that kind of life that waiting at you in the future you rather to go with me. She persuade me because I want my father to feel not so tired because he want to sustain our needs as will as a good father to as.

The Folded Earth

By: Anuradha Roy

(India)

Summary of the story:

The girl came at the same hour, summer or winter. Every morning, I heard her approach. Plastic slippers, the clink of steel on stone and then her footsteps, receding. That morning she was earlier. The whistling thrushes had barely cleared their throats, and the rifle range across the valley had not yet sounded its bugles. And, unlike every other day, I did not hear her leave after she had set down my daily canister of milk.

She did not knock or call out. She was waiting. All went quiet in the blueness before sunlight. Then the soothing early morning mutterings of the neighborhood began: axes struck wood, dogs tried out their voices, a rooster crowed, wood-smoke crept in through my open window. My eyelids dipped again and I burrowed deeper into my blanket. I woke only when I heard the General walking his dog, reproaching it for its habitual disobedience, as if after all these years it still baffled him. “What is the reason, Bozo?” he said, in his loud voice. “Bozo, what is the reason?” He went past every morning at about six thirty, which meant that I was going to be late unless I ran all the way.

I scrabbled around, trying to organize myself—make coffee, ?and the clothes I would wear to work, gather the account books I needed to take with me—and the milk for my coffee billowed and foamed out of the pan and over the stove before I could reach it. The mess would have to wait. I picked up things, gulping my coffee in between. It was only when I was lacing my shoes, crouched one-legged by the front door, that I saw her

Out of the corner of an eye: Charu, waiting for me still, is drawing circles at the foot of the steps with a bare toe.

Charu, a village girl just over seventeen, lived next door. She had every hill person’s high cheekbones and skin, glazed pink with sunburn. She would forget to comb her hair till late in the day, letting it hang down her shoulders in two disheveled braids. Like most hill people, she was not tall, and from the back she could be mistaken for a child, thin and small-boned. She wore hand-me-down salwar kameezes too big for her, and in place of a diamond she had a tiny silver stud in her nose. All the same, she exuded the reserve and beauty of a princess of Nepal—even if it took her only a second to slide back into the awkward teenager I knew. Now, when she saw I was about to come out, she stood up in a hurry, stubbing her toe against a brick. She tried to smile through the pain as she mouthed an inaudible “namaste” to me.

I realized then why she had waited so long for me. I ran back upstairs and picked up a letter that had come yesterday. It was addressed to me, but when I opened it, I had found it was for Charu. I stuffed it into my pocket and stepped out of the front door.

My garden was just an unkempt patch of hillside, but it rippled with wild? Owners on this blue and gold morning. Teacup-sized lilies charged out of rocks and drifting scraps of paper turned into white butteries when they came closer. Everything smelled damp, cool, and fresh from the light rain that had fallen at dawn, the? Rest after many hot days. I felt myself slowing down, the hurry draining away. I was late anyway. What difference did a few more minutes make? I picked a plum and ate it, I admired the butteries, and I chatted of this and that with Charu.

Background of the author:

Late in this quietly mesmerizing novel, set in a Himalayan hill town in the north of India, Anuradha Roy describes the crystalline beauty of the peaks in winter, viewed long after the haze of the summer months and the fog of the monsoon, held in secret for those who choose to brave the cold: “After the last of the daylight is gone, at dusk, the peaks still glimmer in the slow-growing darkness as if jagged pieces of the moon had dropped from sky to earth.” In the mountains, one of Roy’s characters observes, “love must be tested by adversity.”

It’s the inherent conflict in human attraction — the inescapable fact that all people remain at heart unknown, even to those closest to them — that forms the spine of the novel. In marrying a Christian, the narrator, Maya, has become estranged from her wealthy family in Hyderabad. But after six happy years together, her husband has died in a mountaineering accident. Rather than return to her parents, she seeks refuge in Ranikhet, a town that looks toward the mountains that so entranced her husband. Overcome with grief, she stows away his backpack, recovered from the scene of the accident, and refuses to inspect its contents. She can’t bear to know the details surrounding his death.

In Ranikhet, Maya settles into a routine: teaching at a Christian school; spending time with her landlord, Diwan Sahib; and observing the sometimes comic rhythms of the village and its army garrison. Roy manages to capture both the absurd and the sinister in even minor characters, like a corrupt local official who embarks on a beautification plan that includes posting exhortatory signs around town. (One, meant to welcome trekkers, is vandalized to read “Streaking route.”) His crusade, inspired by the Sing­aporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who embraced caning as a punishment, also includes the persecution of a simple-­minded but harmless herder.

Of course, a sedate world exists only to be shaken, and soon enough the town is disturbed from all sides. An election brings issues of religion to the fore, threatening to stir sectarian violence. Curious military maneuvers prompt rumors of Chinese spies and fears of a border conflict with Pakistan. Diwan Sahib’s nephew, Veer, a mountaineering guide, moves into the elderly man’s villa, and Maya finds herself drawn to him, despite the bad habits he encourages in his uncle and, more alarmingly, his tendency to disappear without warning.

While there are scenes of tension and intrigue — a political goon attacks a young girl, Veer’s work in the mountains starts to appear suspicious — the novel’s mood remains elegiac rather than fraught, expressed through small tragedies like the burning of a valuable manuscript or the death of a beloved deer. Roy is particularly adept at mining the emotional intricacies of the relationship between Maya and Diwan Sahib, which also serves to symbolize India’s uneasy passage from tradition to modernity.

The novel’s one weakness is its culminating revelation (and its consequences), which feels strangely insignificant, as if Roy couldn’t bring herself to commit to the more outrageous implications she has set in motion. “If you told a stranger that there are actually big snow peaks where that sky is,” a character note of a day when the Himalayas are shrouded in clouds, “would he believe you? . . . But you and I know the peaks are there. We are surrounded by things we don’t know and can’t understand.” Perhaps Roy prefers to keep the heights of her story, like those mountaintops, shrouded in mystery.

Appreciation of the story:

The Filipino’s like Islam’s and INC this is the common religion in the Philippines and following the rules that if you’re a Muslim girl then you married a boy that is not disbelieving their tradition. Each and every one should follow the rules if they don’t follow they are free to change their religion. In INC or Iglesia Ni Cristo they should follow the rule that each and every one should marry they called “Kaanib.” For instances Pedro is an INC then Mary is a Jewish they are engage .The parents of Pedro disapproved of their engagement. The advantages of having a the same religion to the couple they well understand what are the traditions and cultures of their parents .It shows that the each and every one should engage their own cultures and it is really hard to engage the other it will cause a big effect in their minds.

As a kid I’d experience so many things usually in religion my parents didn’t teach us what are norms, beliefs and most the salvation. The family is our first teacher in terms of believing to the Almighty God. My grandma said you should marry a Catholic the same religion because if you don’t I will not approved your engagement and I will never ever accept you as my grandson. I will see you as nothing.

Coraline

By: Neil Gainam

(England)

Summary of the story:

Our story starts out when a young lady named Coraline Jones moves into an apartment in an old house with her parents. Her neighbors include two elderly retired actresses and a strange man who lives upstairs and trains mice for a circus act. Despite this weirdness, Coraline is very bored. Her parents work a lot and they tend to just ignore her.

One day, Coraline discovers a door with a brick wall behind it. Seems kind of strange, right? But get this: when she opens the door later, there's a hallway back there. Now that's strange. When Coraline goes through the door, she ends up in an entirely different world: it's kind of like her own, but something's a little off. In the other world, Coraline has another mother (the beldam), another father, and other neighbors. And bonus, cats can talk.

Coraline decides this other world is weird (we agree) and so she heads back home. But when she arrives, her parents are missing: the beldam has kidnapped them, and Coraline will have to go back into the creepy other world to rescue them. Fast forward a bit: and, spoiler alert, she succeeds! She gets her parents back and, in the meantime, also rescues the trapped souls of three kidnapped children who have been stuck in the other world for a long time. Coraline beats the evil beldam, saves the day, and returns home.

But wait: it's not quite over. It turns out the other mother's hand has followed Coraline home (it's like Thing on the Addams Family!). Coraline plays one last trick to trap the other mother's hand in a deep well. Phew, finally the scariness is over. After all this excitement, Coraline is ready to start the school year; and boy, is school going to seem really tame by comparison.

Background of the Author:

Coraline is a popular stop-motion movie released in 2009. While the film appears to be aimed at young people, Coraline’s imagery tells a hidden story: The programming of a mind control slave at the hands of a sadistic handler. We’ll look at the hidden meaning of the movie Coraline.

Appreciation of the story:

Most of the Filipino’s are known as “imaginary” kind of person. It is because of our imaginary side they can make fictional stories that we called Epiko, Alamat, Bugtong and, Maiking Kuwento. We all know that Filipino is prone in making stories that is very fictional and unbelievable mostly the places, things and plants are its own name here in the Philippine. The horror stories are common because most of the writers are imagining or questioning there selves why theirs a monsters that they called “manananggal ,tik-tik  ,tikbalang, kapre, and white lady.” The story about a syndrome of a kind isn’t popular but some writers they are trying to conveyed their audience to engage. Theirs a one story that in tells that a kid is talking to someone that she is only the one who know that person. Just like in Coraline when she dreamed it is really true to her that her other parents is really love her so much so she’d choose to sleep. After she demands that she want a parent that could care her much and bond with her.  At last she regret about what she do because she rather want to choose her other because it could make her happy.

I’d experience at one time in my life. I’m so ambitious in so many things .At my grade-10 regime I’m so ambitious I’ve strive so hard because I want to show to our First honor that she’s not deserved at the top so I want to show to her that I can show to her my brilliant side. In 3^rd grading I failed because I just focus on my favorite subjects that I know I can be at the top then my Math was 77% that was really frustrating and I was so depressed at that certain times because of watching the workers of the others so I failed. I realized at one time in my life that I should focus on my worker then I should challenge myself to strive harder by not watching the workers of the others then I will be at the top by watching my own workers.

The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier and Clay

The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier and Clay

By: Michael Chabon

(Afghanistan)

Summary of the story:

 Joe is an immigrant from Israel he migrated to New York for a very reason that Adolf Hitler wants to kill all the Jewish persons because according to him they’re the human raise that God have chosen. The Jewish people was punished by the German’s in a long time because according to them it’s really unfair that God chosen them their jealous so they’re the people that can save in this world. The stigma to the Jewish person in a cruel curse when they got to see the Nazi sign they got anger. Joe was escaped from his hellish life in Israel. His family was lifted behind. He remember that things are seemed lie folded then their banks accounts was frozen they can’t withdraw. He took to his pocket the orange that Anapol had given to him. He’d compare the orange like his world that monstrous and illicit.

Background of the author:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a 2000 novel by Jewish American author Michael Chabon that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001. The novel follows the lives of two Jewish cousins before, during, and after World War II. They are a Czech artist named Joe Kavalier and a Brooklyn-born writer named Sam Clay. In the novel, Kavalier and Clay become major figures in the comics industry from its nascency into its "Golden Age." Kavalier & Claywas published to "nearly unanimous praise" and became a New York TimesBest Seller, receiving nominations for the 2000 National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In 2006, Bret Easton Ellis declared the novel "one of the three great books of my generation," and in 2007, The New York Review of Books called the novel Chabon's magnum opus.

Appreciation of the story:

In the Filipino when the colonizer’s went to the Philippine. Filipino’s were prohibited for so many things in the Spanish regime from learning or speaking Spanish language. They don’t have a freedom and lastly, they need to pay taxes or else they well died nor punished .In the American regime the students in those times is really fine in terms of communicating in the English language in all of their subjects. The Thomasites teaches their students to engage the English language than to learn more about their native language or dialect. All of those colonizer’s have a good influence to each Filipino’s .The Filipino are known as the ordinary English speakers we are good speakers than Americans .The tourist destination here in Philippines are more because of the Spanish priest that forced to make a church then to influence the people of the Philippine to engage their religion. The Philippine known for the tourist that one of their destination to go because of the old infrastructure.

As a kid my grandmother teach us not to be lazy because “lazy kid don’t have a brighter future in the end” according to their works. It is because they haven’t orient by their parents. When at 4:00 am in the morning in should wake up because they’re work that I need to be done. At one time I didn’t wake up in 4:00 am in the morning I wake up at 6:00 am in the morning so my grandmother punished me not to go in school because as a working student I should follow the rules and regulation that they want to implementing their house.         

The Silence of Snow

The Silence of Snow

By: Orhan Pamuk

(Turkey)

Summary of the story:

Ka or Ka’h is sitting at the bus. He will go to Kars because he left his family. He traveled to Kars to refresh his mind .He go to his compartment .After five years he go at a Frankfurt Kaufhof then he bought the soft, downy beauty of a coat .The attention of snowflakes are swirling at the sky he might realized that he was traveling at a straight away blizzard; the start of his journey that would change his life forever and chosen to back. The life that he had at his days was full of happiness and purity he is so innocent about the world that he is standing .After 12 years he back to Istanbul to attend his mother funeral .Then after traveled his neighborhood seen him wearing the charcoal coat then the reaction of his neighbor  he is so ambitious . He went home after twelve years that his mother was died. He didn’t went home when his mother is breathing .After 4 days he came back to Kars it seems like nothing was happened .At last he realize that “it snows only once in our dreams.” He is on his bed then he realizing that all his deeds was wrong. 

Background of the author:

Ka, a Turkish poet exiled for many years in Germany, takes a trip to Kars, in Turkish occupied Kurdistan, ostensibly as a journalist for the left-wing periodical Republican to investigate a plague of suicides and to cover the local elections.

Ka has another reason for being in Kars, to meet Ipek, recently divorced, the love of his student days.

Kars is a border town close to the Armenian border. For hundreds of years it has been fought over by warring empires. For a brief period during the 1920s after the First World War it was independent. It experienced a period of liberalism. Now it suffers under Turkish occupation and the rise of political Islam. Women, as everywhere under Islam, are suffering oppression.

Ka arrives in Kars in the the middle of a snowstorm. No sooner does Ka arrive, than the town is cut off, the roads blocked by snow.

Girls have been committing suicide in nearby Batman, now the problem has spread to Kars.

All the girls, bar the one who refused to obey the headscarf edict, have been very badly treated by their families. Sadly the lot for girls in a backward of Muslim community.

The 'headscarf girls', egged on by Islamists, are demanding the right to wear a headscarf.

The headscarf girls are seen in 'modern' Turkey as misguided souls who fight for the right to wear the symbol of religious oppression.

As Ka wanders around the town, the shadow, the spectre, of the PKK (The Kurdish separatist movement) is everywhere. Everywhere he goes, Ka is followed by the hated secret police. Informers are everywhere.

Ka is a poet. Once he sets foot in Kars, the poems flow. For reasons that become apparent, the poems do not appear in the novel.

The only poetry that is reproduced, are a few lines from 'Bishop Blougram's Apology' by Robert Browning:

Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things.
The honest thief, the tender murderer,
The superstitious atheist.

There is also a reference to the epic poem 'Kubla Khan' by Coleridge, and how it was written and the end was lost.

Coleridge had taken opium in the guise of medicine. The poem came to him whist in an opium stupor. When he came to, he could remember the poem word for word and carefully wrote it down as though it was being dictated to him. Then a man from Porlock knocked on the door to collect a debt. Coleridge dealt with the man, then to his horror, found he could not remember the remainder of the poem, just a few word fragments, the general gist of how it went.

This is the fear that drives Ka, the man from Porlock. He has spent years in exile in Germany, unable to write, then on his return to Kars, the words flow, as though they are being dictated to him, from where, he does not know, maybe God. He hastily writes them down, fearful that the man from Porlock will interrupt the flow before he has set the words down on paper.

The Islamists are poised to take control in the local elections. The local military take advantage of the fact that Kars is cut off by snow and mount a coup and seize control of Kars.

Life imitating art, the coup is initiated and masterminded from the stage during a rowdy production at the National Theatre, the proceedings broadcast live on the local TV network, the first time the network has ever carried a live broadcast.

Karl Marx said, "Hegel remarks somewhere that history tends to repeat itself. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." The farce is repeated with the theatre coup, this coup de theatre as it is called by Serdar Bey the proprietor of the Border City Gazette, the local newspaper.

Is the theatre coup performance art? Ka appears to think so in a conversation with Sunay Bey, the director of the touring theatre group, the man who staged the coup:

I know that you stage this coup not just for the sake of politics but also as a thing of beauty and in the name of art. Just to look at his career is to see that Sunay Bey's every political move has been for the sake of art ... you know only too well that a play in which Kadife [leader of the 'headscarf girls' and younger sister of Ipek] bares her head for all in Kars to see will be no mere artistic triumph; it will also have profound political consequences.

Orhan Pamuk has written a strange, surreal novel with episodes of very dark humour. At times strongly reminiscent of Franz Kafka, also of Paul Auster, especially The New York Trilogy – a writer, this times a poet, searching for answers, self-referential. The style has strong echoes of Edgar Allan Poe.

In the opening pages Orhan Pamuk paints a very depressing picture. The setting could be 19th Century Russia. It is as though the words flow from the pen of Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Ka though is an optimist, like Santiago in The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho; he is prepared to take risks to achieve what he sees as his destiny. Santiago wants to find treasure, Ka to find happiness with Ipek with who he is hopelessly in love.

Orhan Pamuk poses the same questions and dilemmas as he does in My Name in Red, the conflict between East and West, between Islam and secularism. To do so in a novel set in the past you may get away with. To do so in a novel set in the present day, even worse, set in Turkish occupied Kurdistan, is to be asking for trouble, and trouble is what he got.

From the opening pages we have a highly political novel. Orhan Pamuk describes Snow as his first and only political novel. An absolute no-no, in Turkey, where being a journalist, an academic, a trade unionist, a human rights activist, is a very hazardous occupation. To be a Kurd is even worse. Human rights in Turkey are non-existent.

The state fears the Kurds, the people fear the state, but everyone fears the Islamists.

Orhan Pamuk exposes what secular Turkey fears most, that Turkey will turn into an Islamist state, like neighbouring Iran, run by Islamist fundamentalists. He also highlights a dilemma that secularist liberals are rendered safe from blood-thirsty Islamist fanatics by the army.

No one who's even slightly Westernised can breathe freely in this country unless they have a secular army protecting them, and no one needs this protection more than the intellectuals who think they're better than everyone else and look down on the people – if it weren't for the army, the fanatics would be turning their rusty knives on the lot of them and their painted women, chopping them all into little pieces.

For writing a political novel Orphan Pamuk earns the wrath of the Islamists and the Nationalists. For his outspoken comments on the Kurds and the Armenians, he was persecuted by the state. He was eventually forced to flee Turkey.

The background to the novel is snow. Wherever Ka looks he sees snowflakes. It is snow that has cut off Kars and made the theatre coup possible.

Like each individual life, snowflakes are unique, no one like another, each shaped by mysterious and existential forces.

Ka wrote nineteen poems whilst in Kars. Each he associated with a point on a snowflake. The last he wrote was 'The Place Where the World Ends'. It was a snowflake that inspired 'I, Ka', which he located at the centre of the snowflake. He wanted twenty poems to turn them into a book, a book that was to be called Snow. 'The Place Where God Does Not Exist', the poem he read on stage at the National Theatre, from where the coup was mounted, he never wrote in his little green notebook.

We learn from our narrator, that Ka never wrote poetry again. On his return to Germany, he spent the rest of his short life reflecting on the meaning of his poetry. On reflection, he was also trying to decipher the meaning of his own existence. And by the time he was writing these thoughts, he was convinced that every life was like a snowflake, all alike when viewed from afar, but each unique when viewed close up.

His poems, which he wrote in his little green notebook, were never published. On his death, the little green notebook was never found.

Our narrator, a lifelong friend of Ka, writes Snow, in an attempt to ascribe meaning to the life of Ka.

Our narrator goes by the name of Orhan, author of The Black Book.

In the opening pages, we learn he is going to tell us about the life of Ka. Snow opens with the journey Ka takes by bus to Kars.

The silence of snow, thought the man sitting just behind the bus-driver. If this were the beginning of a poem, he would have called what he felt inside him, 'the silence of snow'.

Ka seeks happiness, but even when he is at his happiest, he feels the pain of unhappiness, racked by the fear that he will have to suffer for the happiness in order to create balance.

A strange of somewhat surreal novel.  Very existential.  A very powerful novel.

Snow is also a tragic love story.

Snow would make an excellent radio drama.

Appreciation of the story:

The story is all about the boy traveled to Erzurum to Kars. It’s really hard to leave behind your parents .For an important thing that could them happy .That advantages of this story it could convince as at the last part they say “regression is at the last”  because Ka’h say that “it snows only once in our dreams” Ka’h regret about of what do because his mother die without  he’s presences.

I regret at my childhood days because I didn’t express my love to my one and only mama I’m so spoiled because I know to myself that they give all that I want and I didn’t change it a good value or love .Until this days the pain was remained the same when I remember those days that my mom had pass away I’m getting emotional .The importance of having a parents is a guide to your life that could orient you at your childhood days .The mother that will always remind you to take good care of yourself. I remind to persons who disobey their parents is a big sin. They will always at your side to guide you because without them you do not exist in this universe. They will always remind as of what we do to them will back to as soon if you are parents to our kids.

As a Filipino we must obey are parents because “kung ano ang iyong tinamin ay siyang iyong aanihin” that quote says that must of the Filipino is thinking before they do. The respects of the Filipino teenager to their parents they really obey their parents .For some aren’t obeying their parents is get their at the last because of what they do to their parents wasn’t not good .For instances there was a to scenario first Mario is a poor kind of a kid that live at a Tondo, Maynila he’s parents always remind him that life is like a cycle .He pursue his dreams in life to prove to his parents that he is trying hard for his future. Then after 10 years he is a professional Engineer .His parents didn’t regret of what they do before. Second Pedro is an archaic kid that his parents provide all he wants at his life. He always tells his parents vulgar words because of them didn’t attend their child “Parent’s day” that’s why kid was going rebelled to them but the was understand that his parents do their jobs for his brighter future but he waste those times that his parents support him financially. After 10 years he’s life was miserable.              

A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns

BY: Khaled Hosseini

(Afghanistan)

Summary of the story:

Mariam is an innocent woman that never worn a burqa then Rasheed is a man help I to worn that burqa .Then Rasheed brought him to go into the bus placed that they called Shar-e Nau Park where the children are playing swings and slapped volleyballs .They went to small Kebab house near the mosque they called it Haji Yaghoub. The floor was so sticky and air smoky. When the two went to the city of Afghanistan its Kabul they saw women wear miniskirts, their nail polish is dark then they didn’t wear a burqa. Those girls their husbands are oden Afghan men. At last Mariam know to her that there was so many things that she haven’t know yet.

Background of the author:

Hosseini disclosed that in some ways, A Thousand Splendid Suns was more difficult to write than his first novel, The Kite Runner. This is partly because when he penned The Kite Runner, "no one was waiting for it."He also found his second novel to be more "ambitious" than the first due to its larger number of characters, its dual focus on Mariam and Laila, and it’s covering of a multi-generational-period of nearly forty-five-years. However, he stated, "As I began to write, as the story picked up pace and I found myself immersed in the world of Mariam and Laila, these apprehensions vanished on their own. The developing story captured me and enabled me to tune out the background noise and get on with the business of inhabiting the world I was creating." The characters "took on a life of their own" at this point and "became very real for [him]".

Similar to The Kite Runner, the manuscript had to be extensively revised; Hosseini divulged that he ultimately wrote the book five times before it was complete. The novel's anticipated release was first announced in October 2006, when it was described as a story about "family, friendship, faith and the salvation to be found in love".

Appreciation of the story:

As a Filipino I have many things that I haven’t know yet. I don’t know the different kinds of dresses that other tribe’s worn and what are the effects of the modernize style of dresses in the world of fashion then the effects of this to the elders. The effects of the cultural change to the social change is really a big impact in our society for instances those women is wearing a skirts the effect of this to the cultural change just nothing but when an individual’s engages those changes it is really big impact to the culture of an individual .The effect of the technology in an individual is so big the way people dressing up there selves.

As a only boy in our family my father decided to give me in my grandmother in Iponan,Cagayan de Oro City . I’m a working student in 1 year so came from the land of Wao that has a really big difference in Cagayan de Oro because the way people talk, dressing up and the way they work. For me the impact of the modernize society has a big impact to me as a person because from old kind of person into the fast worker kid of a student and at first time I questioned myself why am I here so I committed to myself that their so many things that I haven’t know yet. Then as time goes by me engages the way the people I’ve in Cagayan and I’m not an ignorant for so many things because I can work with them.