**spoiler alert** Common enough theme in Young Adult Literature, parents separated. Here in this book however, Katherine Paterson stretches sadness to**spoiler alert** Common enough theme in Young Adult Literature, parents separated. Here in this book however, Katherine Paterson stretches sadness to a point of no return…
Father in jail, Mother who likes life and has no desire to look after her children, disappears leaving the children with an elderly grandmother who sleeps a great deal. Somehow the children Angel and Bernie manage a decent sort of a life on their Grandmothers Cheque.
Then the wandering Mother appears on the scene and kidnaps Bernie from school. Angel and the Grandmother do not see Bernie for a long while.
Meanwhile, Angel has found a friend who teaches her how to admire and study stars. He is her bright spot in a very dark world, but the friend turns out to be a blood relative who very ill dies in the hospital. Paterson piles more and more unhappiness on Angel…
And then out of the blue Bernie calls up…he is at the hospital. The Mother’s boyfriend was driving recklessly and meets with a terrible accident, injuring everyone…
At the ICU the vagrant Mother confesses that she has not been a good Mother to Bernie and that Angel was a better Mother. She then decides to leave Bernie with her Angel
Angel a naïve young girl hopes that the entire family would be reunited and that everyone including the Grandmother would live happily together.
Jaded old me feels that such things happen only in Hollywood movies and that the vagrant Mother is planning her getaway.
Feel that Katherine Paterson has given the children no hope at all and has pulled at their sadness until there is a point of no return....more
Susana Kaysen in her Autobiography, 'Girl Interrupted' shows us how getting better from mental illness is a long, long difficult road...
At the asylum Susana Kaysen in her Autobiography, 'Girl Interrupted' shows us how getting better from mental illness is a long, long difficult road...
At the asylum she was in she makes friends and keeps a Diary that is the basis for her Autobiography.
But her story struggles, there are incomplete patches where she trails off, leaving the reader hanging midway...
I never thought I would say this, but it is Hollywood that comes to her aid, stitching up her story beautifully. Who can forget the amazing performances of Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder.
Yes it is the movie that shows us what Susana's World really was......more
Susana Kaysen in her Autobiography, 'Girl Interrupted' narrates to us how getting better from mental illness is a long, long and a difficult road...
AtSusana Kaysen in her Autobiography, 'Girl Interrupted' narrates to us how getting better from mental illness is a long, long and a difficult road...
At the asylum she was in, she makes friends and keeps a Diary that is the basis for her Autobiography
But her story struggles; there are incomplete patches where she trails off, leaving the reader hanging midway...
I never thought I would say this, but here Hollywood comes to her aid, stitching up her story beautifully. Who can forget the amazing performance of Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder?
Yes it is the movie that shows us what Susana's World really was like......more
**spoiler alert** He was summoned by Cromwell… He, Shardlake was a protégé, a Commissioner in Cromwell’s vast office, he did not want to be late...He f**spoiler alert** He was summoned by Cromwell… He, Shardlake was a protégé, a Commissioner in Cromwell’s vast office, he did not want to be late...He feared as did everyone, Cromwell’s ire.
So he scurried because of his twisted back and the mind numbing cold... The streets were filled with the poor huddling in filth, shivering in cold and looking in awe at Shardlake’s well groomed horse.
Cromwell had assigned him the task of finding the person who had beheaded Robin Singleton...now beheading rings a bell... A while ago Anne Boleyn has been beheaded accused of high treason... she is supposed to have had so many lovers, one of them Mark Smeaton. That poor young naïve Mark, never knew Cromwell was waiting for him much like a black spider awaits its prey and so he babbled and boasted. Cromwell listened patiently, waiting for his confession. Of course Smeaton was tortured horribly and it was to the Tower that Robin Singleton had been sent to extract a last confession from this young, naïve, brutalised boy. Yes, he was just a boy who out of bravado had babbled to Cromwell, a man feared by the entire Nation.
Robin Singleton had been sent to investigate St. Donatus Monastery at Scarnsea. This was a time of great turmoil; King Henry had founded a new 'Christianity', to facilitate his marriage to Anne Boleyn. Now that King Henry VIII had his own religion, there was really no need for all those Abbeys which were Catholic and so the process of dismantling these huge Abbeys was on. The Abbeys were very rich owning land as well as masses of gold and precious stones.
Canny Henry the VIII and cannier Cromwell realized ... ‘Hey there is so much wealth in these Abbeys and Convents what about helping ourselves to most of it’ and they did...
St. Donatus Monastery at Scarnsea was one of the 800 religious houses destroyed by Henry and his protégé Cromwell. Every precious object in these monasteries found its way to King Henry and Cromwell. Every relic was emptied of its contents and the gold melted away. Roofs were melted for lead, huge beautiful resonating bells melted for iron... And the properties were divided amongst those who were in the favour of the King and Cromwell.
When Shardlake arrived at St. Donatus, to investigate Robin’s Singleton’s murder, he was thrown in a cauldron of fear, of dread.
The monks were terribly scared, ‘where could they go now?' They had been in the Abbey for such long time. This was the only home they knew. Everyone lived in panic. A tiny lapse or a mention of anything to do with Catholic prayers and religion invited malevolent hostile gazes... This charged atmosphere has been admirably portrayed by C. J. Sansom.
There were a couple of murders... which Shardlake with cool thinking and a great deal of astuteness unravels, but it is mostly the fear and the uncertainty emanating from the monks and brothers that grips the reader by the throat. Every murder that takes place in the Abbey has at its root the panic that the Dissolution has created. Every Monk and Brother has this one question at the back of his mind...’Where will we go. ‘How will we survive?’
The Abbey has a great deal to hide, all the sins that we humans commit, especially when a huge group of men live together...Homosexuality, which the Prior had worked hard to eradicate. When one of the Monks confesses to being a homosexual and how very hard he had tried to stop thinking of men...your heart stops with sadness.
What really gets the reader is the Dissolution of huge Abbeys, the plundering of their wealth, the destruction of very beautiful edifices. It is sad that edifices so beautiful and proud were reduced to rubble....more
I may sound flippant but... If it means that... I do not slaughter a beautiful strong animal for steaks... If I do not have to see lambs and calves patI may sound flippant but... If it means that... I do not slaughter a beautiful strong animal for steaks... If I do not have to see lambs and calves patiently waiting in line to be slaughtered, knowing they are about to die. If I do not have to hear how a defenseless octopus is bashed on the rocks to have its meat tenderised. If I am spared details of how geese are force-fed till they just cannot do anything but die. The list endless...
Then yes I welcome Chicken Nuggets grown in petri dishes....more
There was nothing in this book which can even remotely be called 'powerful'. A understated tale of brother-sister love and separation. It is a book fuThere was nothing in this book which can even remotely be called 'powerful'. A understated tale of brother-sister love and separation. It is a book full of violence, a terrible boarding school where the boys are violent. The twins feel the separation and loneliness intensely which leads them to acts of violence and confusion much like my feelings as I struggled to see some glimpse of the plot ...more
**spoiler alert** Started off on a good footing, the story of a family, essentially the story of a pair of twins, of mixed origins, African and Englis**spoiler alert** Started off on a good footing, the story of a family, essentially the story of a pair of twins, of mixed origins, African and English. A dysfunctional family which is financially sound. The father 'Mr. Hyde', however, is dominating, much like the plantation owners. On a trip to Nigeria, one of the twins, is nearly raped by their watchman. She never gets over it and just slides down into an abyss of no hope, the other twin who did show great promise of being an independent young woman, comes back to 'save' her twin from her despair. The end is messy, Georgia (twin who nearly got raped) gets more and more depressed and ultimatelly commits suicide and the other twin Bessi just gets ill and more ill and and 'joins' the other sister. I think the concept of the bond between twins is taken to new, unwanted proportions. The book just slides down after the 'attempted' rape and never shows and promise of being ressurected...more
**spoiler alert** I am glad I read Raj Kamal Jha's 'If you are afraid of Heights' first instead of ‘The Blue Bedspread’. It might have put me off Jha **spoiler alert** I am glad I read Raj Kamal Jha's 'If you are afraid of Heights' first instead of ‘The Blue Bedspread’. It might have put me off Jha forever.
The book deals with terrible things done within a family by other family members. Incest and sexual abuse are so terrible that sometimes the mind refuses to accept that such things happen and exist in everyday families, but it does happen and it is there although well concealed from everyone. Jha opens this terrible Pandora's box, revealing to us in all its sordid details that middle class families in India are not as wholesome as we would like to believe they are.
However, no matter how I stretch my mind I cannot believe that incest can be ‘solace’ in any case. That is probably the reason why this book did not quite take my fancy as it should have; the brother and sister have sexual relation as a solace. Sadly, there is not even a spark of hope in this book as there is in ‘If you are afraid of Heights'. There was this teeny spark of hope, when the sister leaves home, but her death puts an end to this little flicker. ...more
Loading...
