Monthly Archives: tammikuu 2015

The Fault in Our Stars written by John Green was published in 2012. It is his sixth novel and hopefully there will be many more to come. It is a joy to read his intelligent writing and dive into the different worlds created by him.

The Fault in Our Stars is not an original love story. Hazel is a cancer patient and her life feels quite empty until Augustus, a boy with incredible charm, appears into her life. These two teenagers have something in common; cancer. She feels a special connection to him since they both have pretty visible faults in their bodies. Augustus has his other leg amputated and Hazel needs to have an oxygen machine to help her breath no matter where she goes. Cancer darkens every step Hazel takes, but now she has something new to live for. Something that feels more permanent than she is used to.

Hazel has a really deep view of life. She thinks everything has a purpose in this universe and the title of this novel is probably inspired by her thoughts. The story is written from Hazel’s perspective. It is easy to see that she has gone through a lot more than an average sixteen-year-old has. Since she knows almost for sure that she will never grow old with Augustus she tries to live the life to the fullest with him.

This is a really touching novel. It takes you into the world of cancer. The story is realistic and makes you appreciate your own health a lot more. The story shows how unfair the world can be. From the very first page of this novel I truly loved it. This is one of those books you just want to keep reading and never stop. It just takes you with it. It was nice to read this book in English. It is hard to translate everything like the author has meant it to be. From the bottom of my heart I would recommend this to anyone who wants to see life differently. This book gives you a whole new perspective to life.

Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens and was first published in short parts from December 1860 to August 1861. It’s widely considered to be the masterpiece of Dickens’ work and has been adapted in to several movies and at least a few tv series.

Great Expectations tells the story of Philip Pirrip, commonly referred to as Pip, from his childhood through to his thirties. The story focuses on Pip’s growth both physically and mentally. It’s a very typical coming-of-age book as it not only shows the better parts of Pip’s life, but explores the downsides of his great expectations as well. The title, Great Expectations, is a reference to Pip suddenly becoming wealthy and therefore having greater expectations than he would have had without the money.

The book’s main character and narrator is, as said before, Pip. In the beginning of the book Pip is an orphan living with his sister and his sister’s husband. The book has a very interesting set of characters who all have their own motives that are expertly woven in to the fabric of the story. As the story is told from Pip’s perspective the difficult relationships he has with some characters are painfully clear. The two very constant relationships throughout the book from Pip’s youth to the very end of the story are the ones with his brother-in-law Joe and the unattainable love of his life, Estella. Estella is an interesting character as she is shown to be awfully cold to Pip and yet, Pip never lets go of her. One might question whether or not that’s healthy, but in the true fashion of literature, Pip’s love for Estella is portrayed as almost undying. But of course, one must not look past the character of Joe. Throughout the book Pip mentions feeling that he has let Joe down by not visiting him or sending him letters as regularly as he should have. This might describe the fact that after coming in to wealth, people often disregard their previous friends and family. Indeed, Pip even specifically mentions being ashamed of Joe as Pip watches Estella. Thus, Estella and Joe, in an odd way, represent the two sides of Pip’s life.

Great Expectations was written in the 1860s and that is very obvious in the style that it is written. The English used in it is somewhat old and Dickens uses several words that are no longer common. However, the thing that makes Great Expectations a little difficult to read is Dickens’ way of writing the characers’ speech. In the first chapter Magwitch demands Pip to bring him ’wittles’. For a person whose native language isn’t English, it may be difficult to comprehend that Magwitch is trying to say ’vittles’ which is another form of the word ’victuals’. In other words, Magwitch is asking Pip to bring him food. Many of the characters use these type of words that would perhaps not be difficult to understand when spoken aloud but are terrible to read. You have to repeat the words in your head and try to figure out what vowels may have been left out in order to make clear that the character’s dialect isn’t exactly polished.

Out of all the English books I have read, I think Great Expectations was the hardest. As a reader I usually look for stories that are easily relatable and as Great Expectations is set in an entirely different era with its own manners and style, it was hard to get a hold of it, so to speak, at first. However, I did enjoy reading it and finding out what happened to Pip and Joe and Estella as well as Pip’s amusingly named best friend, Herbert Pocket. The thing that truly drew me in to the story was how real it all was. There was no attempt by Dickens to mask Pip’s poorness or his misery. And in the end I think that’s what I appreciated the most.

And Then There Were None is written by Agatha Christie. It was published in 1939 by Collins Crime Club. The book is considered as Christies best book – a masterpiece.

The book is kind of a mix up of a detective story and a since it captured excellently the fearsome thoughts of the characters but also had some brain work for someone who sees theirselves as clever detectives. The horror of the book crept up on me when suddenly started happening ”unnatural”, meaning that the characters’ heads were figuratively speaking falling apart of all the stress from the incidents happening around. The excitement and curiosity of the murderer sustained my interest towards the book.

There are ten main characters, who have never met, seen nor talked to each other but they all have one thing in common: they were responsible for murdering someone, excluding one. They are brang to an isolated, peculiar island called Soldier Island, where they will see the last glances of life. The characters are all from different enviroments and some have trouble coming along.

After they had had their first dinner at the island Mr Rogers, the butler of the island, turned on the gramophone just as his employer had told. The voice from the gramophone told accusations toward every person for being part of a murder, excluding one. After that there started to happen weird events and deaths and within days there were none left.

The book is narrated by an all-knowing outside the story narrator but sometimes also someones in the story pondering different occurenses and characters. The language on the book is fairly simple and easy to follow with a couple of exceptions like old words in example the word ”queer” was used often used as the synonym of the word ”bizarre” so I had to look up a word or few to get the meaning.

At first the book was an extremely dulling experience because I had a bunch preconceptions. But, luckily, the book turned out interesting with its intensity of events and the curiosity of knowing the murderer was bugging me. Reading an English novel didn’t really differ from my experiences of reading a Finnsih novel. Only problem was a few words I wasn’t familiar of. If anyone is a bookworm and haven’t read this I suggest you do.

If I say the name Johannes Vermeer, I suppose that you’ll think about a work of art where a girl watches over her shoulder. The girl is in a dark room and tired. She has a blue and yellow cap so that her hair has been covered, and on her ear she has a big earring. The book which I read tells about the model of painting and her life.

Girl with a pearl earring is a historical novel written by US Tracy Chevalier and it has published year 1999. Novel’s story line is invited by Chevalier, so it’s not happened in 17th century in real life. Writer Chevalier has told that she had bought a poster when she was young and years later she wanted to create a life to the painting’s model. She got inspiration from the model’s look which she images ”ambiguous look”. When I look at the painting, I agree with Chevalier. Model’s face is unclear, she looks tired and innocent but yet hard experienced, tearful and full of thoughts. The novel is same kind of than the painting, full of many feelings and thoughts, but at the same time it is so empty.

Girl with a pearl earring ­novel tells about Griet’s life, the model of the Vermeer’s painting has appointed Griet by Chevalier. Griet is 16-­year­-old and she lives with her family in Holland. Her father has been recently blinded in an accident, so they need promptly money. Griet’s parents has to find her employment as a maid in Vermeer’s household. Living with Vermeer’s family isn’t bed of roses, for example Griet doesn’t get respect from the other maid and Johannes’ wife. Also because Griet is a maid, she is treated in ”maid attitude”. Johannes’ wife doesn’t trust her and Griet has to sleep in a locked room, which result in different things. Chevalier has created Griet’s life herself and reasons why the masterpiece was painted.

First when I had finished the novel, I thought that it doesn’t have any deep importance. It told just about Griet’s life as a maid. But now I have realized that it was some kind of growing up story. Griet was very young, unexperienced when she left home to the unknown world. Working and living in the big and unknown family made Griet to try new things which resulted in meeting new people. She faced a boy every day in a meat hall, and they made friends. One thing led to other which got Griet to think about her past and future. Troubles grew Griet mentally and now when I analyse the 16-­year-­old Griet and the Griet at the end of novel, she is so much more adult. She experiences both good and unpleasant things while living in Vermeers, what changes her personality harder.

Although novel sets in 17th century, I think this could be happened in the 2000s. Griet fights with difficult and unknown things. She scruples with things which don’t have true answers. She can’t ask opinion from her friends or parents, she just needs to ask herself what she wants for real in her life. Only way to make a decision is to hear her own heart’s voice. These things are normal today, teenagers want to be distinct and become independent, but at the same time they want to get care from parents. Young people want to get attention from boys or girls though they are not quit with their body. These things might result to uncertain decisions, which will be repented in the end. Difficult things, for everyone.

Back to the book review and my opinions. Like always, it is hard to describe my feelings in words because the novel doesn’t make me feel one certain emotion. I have meditated those many feelings and I have become to the result that the novel is not just like other novels I have read. It is not just the literature and story of a maid, it is more. It is like its cover, a work of art. The way you experience it depends on your attitude, view and artistry. If I wasn’t interested in the art and I wanted to read exciting novel which had a lot of happening, I would have other feelings. But luckily, I liked it, it was very compelling, time just flied because I felt like I was Griet. Chevalier has succeeded to express Griet’s feelings and milieu so closely. It is amazing to think that Griet lived four hundred years ago and the book has been written just ten years ago. Always when I opened the book and involved myself deeply in story, I felt that it was like a time travel to the past.

One negative point I want to say. If I had read this book in Finnish, I suppose that it could have been little bit boring. Now when it was in English it was easy to read, maybe because of it didn’t have any difficult plot twist or relationship problems. There was just normal life in the book which was easy to understand. Other thing which I’m not quite satisfied is the character’s names. There were so much other people and difficult foreign names that I wasn’t always sure who was who. Thus I didn’t get certain image of every person.

To summary my opinions, Girl with a pearl earring was good novel. At the same time so boring and flavorless, but still great plot. I appreciate Chevalier that she has dared to write so outrage and beautiful story about the model of painting.

Lähteet: Wikipedia

Will Grayson, Will Grayson (2010) is a novel written by two young-adult fiction authors John Green and David Levithan. John Green is the author of well-known novel The Fault In Our Stars. David Levithan’s production includes works like Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and Every You, Every Me.

The novel tells a story about two teens, both of them named Will Grayson. Other one tries to live his life without being noticed and the other has an online relationship with a guy he has never met. Boys have different lives which are suddenly going new directions. And then there is Tiny Cooper, huge and determined high school student and playwright. He is best friend of Will1 and later Will2’s boyfriend. So Tiny is gay and he definitely doesn’t hide it or his largeness.

In the book every second chapter is about Will Grayson1 and every other is about Will Grayson2 and those chapter have written with small letters. Green wrote capitalized Will Grayson’s story (Will1) and Levithan wrote about lower case will grayson (Will2). Novel’s narrator is first-person, Will1 or Will2, so narrator and point of view change always when new chapter begins. The plot of novel itself is pretty simple so characters’ growth and development comes out well.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a story about friendship and life. It’s about menthal growth and exceeding yourself. But I have to say that two stories which have main characters with the same name is a little bit challenging equation, but you get used to it quite quickly. In spite of all I liked the novel. Characters were all different and that’s why they complete each other so well. Especially I liked Will Grayson2 who exceeds himself in the end of the story only because of Tiny Cooper and his greatness. The novel ends to the Tiny’s play which is totally worth reading. All in all novel was good and I can recommend it to everyone and I’m sure that I’ll read more John Green’s and mayde David Levithan’s novels.

Life of Pi is written by Yann Martel and was published in 2001. It was also adapted into a film by Ang Lee in 2012.

The book tells about how a 16-year-old Indian boy called Pi and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger called Richard Parker form an unlikely friendship. After surviving a sorrowful shipwreck, they live together in lifeboat for 227 days.

I didn’t really like Pi, but I thought that Richard Parker was a well written character. He really was a tiger, not a human being like animals in many books tend to be. I also adore how much research the writer must have done for the book.

I hated the first part of the book, which was mainly about Pi being a smartass and struggling with three different religions that he all somehow practised. There were also these really long and boring stories about how animals behave. Pi grew up in a zoo and his knowledge was what helped him to survive but if I wanted to know all the things he did I would just go and read a non-fictional book about animals or something. I almost stopped reading because I was so annoyed.

The second part, where all the action took place, was easily the best part of the book. Pi fights for his life and uses all the survival tactics he possibly can imagine. Somehow, eventually it all works out and both Richard Parker and Pi get their happy endings. The part started repeating itself after some time but was quite amusing anyway, and if it was the only part of book I would have liked it a lot more than I did.

In the third and final part, Pi meets the marital officials who investigate the shipwreck and tells them his story. The officials don’t believe a word he says, so he tells them another story where there are people instead of animals. The book leaves it to the readers to choose which one they prefer and believe to be true.  It kind of bothered me that the book didn’t take a stance on which one was true. I was also confused with the whole narrator within narrator thing, and I think the writer tried too hard with that.

In this article I will be reviewing the novel ”Licence Renewed”. It is written by John Gardner, and it was published in 1981. It was the first James Bond-novel since 1968 (Colonel Sun). John Gardner has written multiple Bond-novels during 1981-1996, and he is best known for them. Gardner got the copyrights to use James Bond as a character by Ian Fleming Publications, and he wrote fourteen continuation novels of the original James Bond-novels. So he sort of ”revived” the novel series after over ten years.

The character ”James Bond” was originally created by Ian Fleming in 1953 (Casino Royale). Fleming wrote a total of twelve novels featuring Bond. Fleming used himself and Hoagy Carmichael as the basis of the character. Bond is described as tall, dark and mysterious. He is a spy also known as 007, his code number. ”-That black hair falling down over the right eyebrow. Much the same bones. But there was something a bit cruel in the mouth, and the eyes were cold.” This is how Bond was described in ”Moonraker”. He’s quick thinking and strong gadgetry are some of the main characteristics of 007.

In this particular novel, Bond is making a return after fifteen years. The story is rather similar to the other novels. The world needs a saviour against evil, in this case two people: Nuclear physicist Anton Murik, and a terrorist called Franco. M, Bonds commander, assigns Bond to  stop whatever it is they’re planning. The story stays interesting because of Bonds cool improvisation and jokes. Bond also has a woman in every novel, and his love-hate-relationship with M is fun to follow.

Towards the end of the novel, Bond finds out what Murik and Franco are planning; Murik wants to take over six nuclear plants around the world, and he wants Bond to kill Franco. Obviously that is not going to happen.

This novel was a pretty basic fiction novel, therefore it was not on my A-list. I would much rather read something real, from which I could learn something.