Why, Honey?

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”Why, Honey?” is a short story written by Raymond Carver. It tells about mother and her son who is acting odd towards her.

Their cat dissapeared on the Fourth of July and it was found next day in their neighbours backyard. Someone had stuffed firecrackers into Trudy’s ears and you know where. The neighbout said to the mother that one of the boys was her son but the mother could not believe it.

Son was working as a stockyboy at Hartley’s. The night that he was given his first check he came home and lied about the wage that he got, he said that he was paid 80 dollars but it was really 28 dollars. There is no particular reason why he would lie about his wage.

If mother asked from her son that where was he last night and he answered ”to the show”. But mother found out that he was lying. She did not know why he lied to her instead of telling the truth.

One day son was supposed to go to a field trip and mother asked what did he saw during the field trip and he looked mother into the eyes and lied that he saw land formations ash and so on. The next day mother got a note from the schoold saying they need permission for the field trip.

Mother found a bloody shirt from son’s car trunk and thought that he had murdered someone but son said that his nose had been bleeding. It scared the mother.

One day son had made a supper for mother as an apologize. Mother told him about her feelings towards the sons lies and asked why he did that. Son kept staring at her but didn’t say anything. Then son moved alongside mother and said ”kneel is what I say, kneel down is what I say”. Mother ran into her room and locked the door. Son packed all his necessary thing and left that night for good.

One night mother went to sons room when he was bent over the dresser and slammed a drawer and shouted to mother to get out. Son said that he is sick of her spying on him.

Mother’s claims about her son are very unfortunate. Her evidence is very convincing. The mother writes about her son very distantly and does not mention his name in any turn. The final paragraph tells about the narrator that she has been holding this unfortunate story inside her and she has wanted to tell it to somebody. I consider that the narrator is very reliable, nobody could lie about this kind of story, expect his son. I think that the mother is writing to son’s wife.

 

 

 

 

The Seven Dials Mystery

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The Seven Dials Mystery

Agatha Christie wrote the novel called The Seven Dials Mystery in 1929. This novel was first published in Great Britain by Collins. Lady Agatha Mary Clarissa Mallowan is best known from her thrillers which she had written by name Agatha Christie.

The Seven Dials Mystery is one of these thrillers. The story is based on a mysterious secret society called the Seven Dials. Along the story two characters gets killed and their nearby friends starts to investigate what on earth is happening. Different kind of clues comes to them; letters from the victims of this cruel chain of events, words from a dying man trying to tell them about the Seven Dials and so on.. When these young, curious people realise that all of these clues are related to each other and the mysterious words “Seven Dials” shows up in many contexts, they muster their courage and begin to find out what is going on.

This novel has many characters which makes the story complete. The main ones are Superintendent Battle, Lady Eileen “Bundle” Brent, Bill Eversleigh, Jimmy Thesiger, Loraine Wade and of course the two victims Gerald Wade and Ronny Devereux.

The sructure of the book is very well built together. In the beginning happens something that defines the whole idea of the story and when you get to the end of the book, it turns out why eveything went that way. The excitement stays all the way to the last pages of the novel which keeps the story captivating. The ending is nothing like you could have thought it would be, the heros aren’t that much heros anymore. Of course, love is added to a murder thriller.

The language of the book is old-fashioned and very much conformable to etiquette.
“Perhaps, Caterham, you begin to have some inkling of my purpose in visiting you this morning. – – I have given this matter my deep and earnest consideration. I can assure you, my dear Caterham, that I will cherish her exquisite youth..”.

At first, it was a bit difficult to stay in track among all these characters and their nicknames which are used a lot. But the further I read the more structured it all started to feel. I admire the character of Bundle; very self-confidence young lady with a huge amount of courage. I also can’t stop wondering how skilled writer Agatha Christie is when creating this kind of thrillers!

Written by Anniina

Not so sparkly

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Twilight is Stephenie Meyer’s book series which first book came out in 2005. Books’ main character is 17 years old Bella who moves to her dad into the little town. There she meets boy called Edward who later turns out to be a vampire. They fall in love and start to date. Edward and his ”family” don’t drink human blood but they live on animals’ blood. Generally vampires are super fast and extremely strong in Twilight. They don’t sleep therefore they don’t need coffins and in addition sunlight don’t burn them to ash because Twilight-vampires shine like diamonds. Moreover they aren’t scary but they are supernaturally beautiful and attractive, they even smell good.
Meyer’s Twilight series has been judged and criticised a lot about how vampires aren’t vampires anymore. Twilight has been mocked much. Now I want to tell my own fan fiction which little make fun of twilight even though I personally like these books.

 

It was almost midnight when Bella was lying on her bed. Her dad Charlie had fallen asleep about an half hour ago on the couch and Edward hadn’t come yet. Bella spinned impatiently in bed dreaming about how beautiful she would transform after she had become a vampire: ”Oh that would be so perfect! My hair would always be shining and vibrant and I never had to wash them. My face would be like marble; smooth and pure. I would smell better than rose garden. My teeth would be straight and pure white. I would be so flawless that nobody could resist me!”

Suddenly Bella heard rattle outside which interrupted her dreaming. She thought that noise was Edward who soon would climb to the room from window just like he always did. Bella closed her eyes and waited his cold, mellow lips on her skin. But for some reason it took this time longer than normally. When Bella finally opened abashed her eyes above her was a dark shape. That thing didn’t look like Edward so Bella turned lights on. That not so dark shape anymore was the scariest and the most disgusting creature which she had ever seen. It looked like human, man actually but only much more uglier. His skin was grey like dead and eyes, the eyes were beastlike. Man’s hair were shineless and rickety and his teeth were filthy and yellow and his breath smelled appalling. The whole creature was dirty and stinky like he would live in landfill. Actually man was like he had lain hundred years under the soil.
”Edward is that you? Like… a thousand years older?” Bella asked.
”What? No! I am a vampire!” creature said.
”Really? You don’t look like a vampire. They are beautiful and shining and they smell good” Bella wondered.
”Oh well, maybe because I am a real vampire, not just teenagers’ wet dream! vampire whizzed.
”In that case, could you transform me to a vampire because…”
Frustrated vampire didn’t give a chance to Bella that she could finish her sentence. He bit her to neck and sucked all blood from her. Bella’s transformation started immediately but instead that it would have took three days it happened right away.

Bella jumped out of bed and ran excited front of the mirror. In minutes transformation was ready but she wasn’t happy about her new look. Bella’s circles extended into her chin. Her hair were absolutely dead and she was paler than albino. Her eyes weren’t golden like she had thought to but they glowed red.
”This isn’t cool! This is horrible!” Bella shouted. ”Why do I look like this? I wanted to be shining and fabulous!”
”I don’t care what kind you wanted to look. You are now a vampire so deal with it.” vampire growled.
Bella stared terrified herself from the mirror while vampire jumped of the window. Before he left he shouted to Bella: ”And by the way don’t go out to the sunlight. You won’t beam like Twilight-vampires… you’ll burn alive.”
”Life sucks!” she cried.

Slytherin?

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This fan fiction is based on the J.K.Rowling’s book serie ”Harry Potter”. I think that you all have some view who’s Harry Potter and what kind of books they are.

Harry Potter stood in the Great Hall, in the Hogwarts, with all others who strarted at Hogwarts in the year. All the older students were starring at them and the Sorting Hat, which was on the chair front of the Hall. The new students sat on the chair in their turn and put the Hat on their head, and the Hat told everyone what was the student’s house. Harry was waiting for his turn, and watched how some first-years were biting their fingernails. Harry felt a little pinch in his stomach, too, but he didn’t know what he should have scare about.

“Potter, Harry”, the Hat shouted finally.

Harry stood up and walked suspiciously in front of. He sat on the chair and put the Hat on his head. At first the Hat didn’t say anything, and Harry begun to think that it didn’t work. Then he heard muffled mutter.

“The Harry Potter… The big, famous Harry Potter. What should I do with you? What do you think boy?”, it said thoughtfully.

“Oh, I really don’t know what you have to do”, Harry whispered quickly. He was embarrassed because the all-knowing Hat couldn’t tell what was his house.

“Don’t you know, boy, don’t you know? Are you sure? Have you any ideas?”, the Hat continued.

“I really don’t know. Please, tell me to what kind of house I’ll go. I don’t want to go to Slytherin”, Harry begun to get nervous a little.

“You don’t want to go to Slytherin! Oh no, boy, you make me amazed. You were born to Slytherin, and I’m going to put you there”, the Hat answore slowly, but decisively.

“No, you cannot do this! You cannot! I’ll go to where ever other house than Slytherin”, Harry groaned desperately. He tried to be peaceful, but he remembered all that he had heard about the Slytherin. What have I did that I deserve that, Harry thought.

“Keep calm boy. You’ll survive it, I know it. You are created to Slytherin. You are their last hope, boy, remember that… Last hope. SLYTHERIN!”, the Hat shouted the last word so loud, that everyone in the Hall heard it.

“SLYTHERIN, SLYTHERIN, SLYTHERIN”, the voice grumbles in Harry’s head. He holds his head but the voice doesn’t stop. At the moment Harry realises that the voice comes out of him. He opens his eyes as soon as he realises he keeps them closed. Harry looks at around, and notices that he is in his own bed in the Hogwarts. For good measure he straightens his arm and touches carefully the curtains around  the bed. They feel the same than always before. Suddenly he hears the familiar voice.

“Harry? Harry, are you awake?”, Ron whispers from the next bed.

Harry breathes deeply. Yes, he’s in the Gryffindor’s bedroom in the Hogwarts. He’s at home.

The Fault In Our Stars

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As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.

The Fault In Our Stars is a book written by John Green and published in 2012. It tells the story of Hazel Lancaster, a seventeen-year-old girl with a terminal case of cancer, and how the rest of her life changes once she meets a boy named Augustus Waters.

The Fault In Our Stars is the kind of book you know is gonna end in tears, but love it for exactly that. As a friend of mine put it: ” This book ruined my life, and i have never read anything better.” However, it’s far from being depressing or rolling in the pain and sadness brought by cancer as such a major topic. It actually feels wrong to introduce this book with the mention of cancer because people often have a strong picture in their minds what ”cancer books” are like. And in my opinion, The Fault In Our Stars doesn’t fit that picture, it’s so much more than that. I think the best way to read it would be to just start in the beginning, with no clues on what the book is about, making yourself able to fall into the story with no expectations for it whatsoever.

Now, it has probably already become apparent how much I enjoyed reading The Fault In Our Stars. That’s actually one of the book’s biggest strengths: it’s incredibly enjoyable to read. Green’s writing is original in the best way. He has the gift of writing text where every word seems to be carefully picked out and thought about, and yet the sentences flow effortlessly, capturing you and making it impossible to put the book down. Over and over again he takes you by surprise with sudden bursts of happiness and sadness thrown where you’d least expect it. He also toys with language and storytelling by, for example, intentionally having a character use as complicated words as possible.

Another extraordinary thing about The Fault In Our Stars is the characters. They’re impossible to not fall in love with, they feel real in a way that makes you really care about their lives and what happens to them. As much as The Fault In Our Stars is a love story of two teenagers, star-crossed lovers at that, it gives these teenagers the depth that makes the book not just about their love but also their friendship and their bond, the things they like and the things they hate. Each character has some little quirk about them so that you can’t help but get fond of them. Especially the main character Hazel is something completely different from usual love-sick teenage girls portrayed in books and media. She’s smart and witty and overall so very lovable. She’s the kind of female character that I can and want to identify with.

All in all, The Fault In Our Stars is a beautiful and breath-taking book. It’s a whole experience with bot laughter and tears, it’s a book that demands to be read again many times to make sure it’s understood through and through. It’s the kind of book that you don’t want to go around shoving at everybody’s faces, but rather pick out people that you know will be able to appreciate it in a way it deserves, and then try your best to get them read it.

The Last Spin

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The Last Spin is an English novel. Evan Hunter has written this short story. Story tells about two club members from rival clubs. Those two clubs decide to solve their quarrel with one guy from both clubs playing Russian roulette because they don’t want fight on the streets.

The story starts when story’s two main characters Tigo and Danny are sitting in the small basement room. First they were like normal rival club members, with little excitement in the air. In Russian roulette you must put one cartridge in the cylinder and twirl the cylinder and then put the gun against your head and pull the trigger. Odds for that you are going to die is one-in-six. Both survives the first stage and they but other cartridge in the cylinder. They are lucky and still survive. At same they have started to talk about their lives. They tell about their families and girlfriends. But they must keep playing. Odds in third stage are one-in-two. Both pull the trigger but only what they can hear is “click”. They keep speaking and notice that they don’t like their clubs other members very much. They understand each other and become friends. They still keep playing and put fourth cartridge in the cylinder. Tigo still make it. It is Danny’s turn. They agreed to go rowing on the lake at next Sunday if Danny survives. Danny pulls the trigger and like Evan Hunter writes: “The explosion rocked the small basement room, ripping away half of Danny’s head, shattering his face.”

I expected totally different ending to this short story. I thought everything will end happy and both survives and become good friends.

I think “The Last Spin” was pretty good but not a masterpiece. I think the story repeat itself little too much, nothing different didn’t happen for a long time. Story was still well written and interesting. The language in this novel was pretty easy to understand. There still was some hard words example some slang words and little bit guns special glossary.

Harrison Bergeron

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I read Kurt Vonnegut`s short story Harrison Bergeron. Work tell story about society which is reached completely equality. Hero in this story is Harrison Bergeron who is really handsome, clever and anyway gifted person than most other person. The story be placed on future more closely in year 2081. Equality is reached thus that all more gifted person have cutted at others person level. For examble the story hero get pack heavy weights, he had to kept plastic nose therefore that he wouldn`t seem handsome. Also his ears shutted by noice so that he can`t create anything rational thoughts.

All in all the story is really absurd but however interesting. Kurt Vonnegut`s short story show bare way and also generalizing that absolutely equility is not ever possible. The story is quite unhappy dystopia. Because the hero Harrison Bergeron finally died and his parents George and Hazel Bergeron leave grieve. Luckily it is only Kurt Vonnegut`s short story neither real life.

Why, Honey?

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The short story called ”Why, Honey?” written by Raymond Carver was interesting to read, though it took a while to understand every part of it as it should. The story made up many thoughts on my mind.

 

The mother is worried about her son who has disappeared and left his mother many years ago. The situation between the son and the mother is complicated, sad and even tragic.  As a comprehension part I´m going to discuss about what does the mother accuse the son of? And what evidence does she give to back up her claims? :

1.The mother hears something  terrifying from her neighbour.  Her son might  got involved  into their cat´s (Trudy) dead. The neighbour had seen two boys in the field putting firecrackers in Trudy´s ears and in her anus.  At the moment mother thinks that her son wouldn´t do a thing like that, but when the son tells to the mother not to take it too hard because Trudy was old already, she changes her mind and even believes the neighbours story.

2.After  the ill-fated death of the cat, the mother recognizers another problem, lying. The son was supposed to work as a stockboy at Harley´s.  The night came when he was to draw his first check, and the mother asks how much did he earn. The son answers:  “ 80 dollars.” The mother has to doubt it because it was way more than she thought.  When the mother did the laundry, she founds  the stub from Harley´s in his pocket where is number of the son´s real wage (28 dollars).

3.The mother surmises, that if she would ask her son to tell where did he go last night, the son would maybe answer “to the show” but actually he might went to the school dance or spent the evening riding around with somebody in a car. The reason why she believes that the son might lie again and again is that he has been dishonest very often.

4.Once the son was supposed to have gone on a field trip and the mother naturally asked him what did he see back there? The son starts to tell nonsense about a desert and its history assuming that the mother would believe him. The mother does believe but suddenly the next day she gets a note from the school saying they wanted a permission for a field trip which moment in time would be soon hereafter. Therefore again the son made up the story.

5.Near the end of the son´s senior year  the mother was concerned about his grades and worried also because she was not able to know enough about her son daily activities. The mother notices the bloody shirt, the shotgun and the knife but she wasn`t able to find any groceries though the son said he had been “an appetite hunting”. Furthermore the son was very nervous and lied that he just had a bloody nose and that’s why the shirt was totally wet and full of blood. The mother may have thought that the son had done something very horrible.

7. One night the mother surprises badly the son in his room while he was bent over by the dresser and quickly slammed the drawer  and turned to the mother and shout that he is sick of spying him all the time. The mother got very confused and cried herself to sleep. She claimed that the son broke her heart that night.

8. In my opinion almost every claims of the mother was fair enough and realistic, but considering each of the claims in turn, the evidences were sometimes more clearly convincing than other ones. The tragic dead of the Trudy cat was horrible and the neighbours story was reliable.  I do not think that lying to parents about everything is ever acceptable. The mother has rights to be angry and at least confused and sad when the son acts like he does with wages, show, field trip, bloody shirt, kneeling and “surveillance.”

9. She talks very vaguely and distantly about her son to show how little she had contact with him. She never mentions the sons name or any positive things about him. “Who I am afraid is him” “he was good boy expect for his outbursts and that he could not tell the truth.” “I can´t give you any reasons”  “I should be proud but I´m afraid”

10. The mother is hiding somewhere and she´s scared. She is probably alone because she doesn´t want anyone from the past life to know where she is. The narrator is writing because someone who needed to contact her has found out where she is and wrote a letter to her too.

11. Yes, I do believe that the narrator is reliable. She writes and tells the whole story systematically and clearly. “I am very ashamed” “I have been praying no one knew” “but you did. Why did you?”

12. I guess the mother is writing to an old friend or to the sons wife.

Aldous Huxley- Brave new world

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Due to the teacher’s recommendation I decided to read the novel Brave new world by Aldous Huxley. It was originally published in 1932 and it takes place in the future London, where technology controls virtually everything. The story is based on futurology and it has been voted as the fifth most successful novel written in English in the 20th century. Mr. Huxley himself was interested in, let’s say, unconventional things, such as parapsychology and mysticism. I wish I’d studied him a bit closer before I started reading, because this novel was clearly not intended for my kind of reader/ person.

I’m really unable to explain the plot, at least in a way that someone, who has not read the book, could understand a single word of it. So instead, I shall give you glimpses of the ‘’Brave new world’’, so you can decide on whether you want to proceed to the point when you have the book in your very own hand. Anyhow, the world is a very peaceful place to live and there is an endless supply of all necessities, because the population is permanently limited to 2 billion. People are divided into 5 castes (Alfa, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon) and each and every one of them has a predestined place in the society. To this point it all seems quite understandable, but then we have the Bokanovsky process, which has something to do with the reproduction.  The whole novel is littered with these kind of words, that, at least to me, mean absolutely nothing.

This brings us to a critical point in my review: You CAN’T under any circumstances understand the novel without checking these terms from the internet, which can make the reading process rather tedious. The only term that I could understand all by myself was Fordism. It is a kind of a religion, where they worship Henry Ford. They have even replaced the cross with a T, which refers to the legendary Model T Ford from 1909.

The language is actually rather modern and understandable, when you consider that it was written in the early ‘30’s.  Here’s an example: ’’ We don’t permit their magnesium-calcium ratio to fall below what it was at thirty. We give them transfusion of young blood. We keep their metabolism permanently stimulated. So, of course, they don’t look like that. Partly,” he added, ”because most of them die long before they reach this old creature’s age. Youth almost unimpaired till sixty, and then, crack! the end.”.

On the other hand: ‘’ Two, four, eight, the buds in their turn budded; and having budded were dosed almost to death with alcohol; consequently burgeoned again and having budded–bud out of bud out of bud–were thereafter–further arrest being generally fatal–left to develop in peace. By which time the original egg was in a fair way to becoming anything from eight to ninety-six embryos– a prodigious improvement, you will agree, on nature. Identical twins–but not in piddling twos and threes as in the old viviparous days, when an egg would sometimes accidentally divide; actually by dozens, by scores at a time.’’ I mean, I had to read this about a billion times to work out the meaning. (And I’m still not sure I got it right)

I got quite mixed feelings after reading this book. I knew it was a dystopia, so it was going to be a bit weird. But the oddest thing above all has to be this: I understood the text, but I haven’t got a slightest clue what I read. So go ahead, give the book a shot and tell what you think of it.

 

 

 

The last spin ENA 5.2

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COMPREHENSION

Danny and Tigo are members of street gangs, based in different clubs. Danny’s gang had been shooting at a store in Tigo’s turf the day before. They were to settle this privately, without anyone else getting hurt by taking a shot at Russian roulette.

Tigo goes first. He just wants it over with. Danny starts chatting. The first click. They both think that Russians are crazy. They talk more and find out they both have families. Neither of them really want to be in the gang. Danny knows Tigo’s girlfriend. They start to hesitate.

Both of them are immigrants. Likely from the south. They decide to add more rounds to make their inevitable, untimely deaths more likely. They discover that they’ve lived fairly far away from each other and don’t know each other. A friendship forms between them and they decide to go to a lake on Sunday. Danny pulls the trigger for the last time.

ANALYSIS

8. Either Tigo wasn’t going to be able to tell about it or he wouldn’t have any more worries.

9. At the beginning the text seems to tackle the case of gangs in the US. Soon the two men, however unlikely, develop a kind of friendship. The text talks more about the stupidity of people and their hate rather than gang wars.

10. There were a lot of words that were colloquial. E.g. the words like the excessively used ’piece’ or the humorous sounding ’diddlebop’.

11. They trusted one another. Even liked each other. Minutes earlier he’d seen him as an enemy, a threat to his personal safety.

INTERPRETATION

They’d joined their gangs because they thought they had no choice at the time. They found the thought of somebody looking after them appealing.