Author Archives: renemaki

Cannery Row is a novel by John Steinbeck. It was published 1945 and there is also a film version of it. Steinbeck is known for his comic novels Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat. Cannery Row is a short book, it only has 115 pages, so you can read it through in few days.

The main characters in Cannery Row are Mack and his friends Eddie and Hazel, and marine biologist Doc. There are many side characters. Mack and his friends are unemployed except Eddie, who works as a part-time bartender. Doc is a gentle and the smartest man in Cannery Row. The novel is set in Monterey, California.

Mack and the boys want to do something nice for their friend Doc, so they decide to throw a party for him. The party gets out of hand before Doc even gets there and his home and lab were ruined. The boys want to make it up to Doc somehow, so they decided to ask Dora what to do. Dora suggests the boys to throw another party where Doc could actually attend. The party is a success, and the novel ends the morning after the party. There are also few subplots tied to the main plot.

The book was quite easy to read. There weren’t many complicated sentence structures so someone with basic English skills could read this book,  though there were parts that had some strange words that i had to translate with my phone. The narrator in Cannery Row is omniscient. He knows what everyone’s thinking and feeling. The book teaches the reader that if you screw something up, you have to make it up somehow.

Cannery Row was a good book, even though i don’t really like reading books. The characters were funny and there wasn’t too much of them. Some books have a problem that they have too many characters, but i’m glad this didn’t. The plot was easy to follow and the novel was easy to read.

Taxi Driver is a thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader. The movie was released February 8, 1976, so it’s almost 40 years old. It was ranked 52nd-greatest American film on AFI’s 100 years… 100 movies list and it was nominated for four Academy Awards. Leading actors are Robert De Niro who plays Travis Bickle and Jodie Foster who plays for teenage prostitute Iris. De Niro was nominated for Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA film award for the best leading actor and Jodie Foster was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Famous quote ”You talkin’ to me”  is from the Taxi Driver.

Taxi Driver is a story about a former disturbed U.S Marine, Travis Bickle. He’s deeply depressed and lonely man living in New York City. Before he became a taxi driver, he used to drive his car every night until the morning. He also spent a lot of his time at porn theaters. He applied for a job as a taxi driver, and started working every night seven days a week. Travis was disgusted by the prostitution and crimes that he saw every night, so he started intense physical training and bought four pistols from a dealer, that one of his customers had suggested for him. One night when Travis was on shift, a young girl named Iris jumped in the back of the cab. She was trying to escape from her pimp, called Sport. Sport pulled 12-year old Iris out of the car and threw a twenty-dollar bill for Travis. That twenty-dollar bill kept reminding Travis of her. One day Travis found where Iris was working and hired her for 15 minutes, but not for having sex with her. He was trying to get Iris to leave prostitution and go back to her family. He got obsessed on helping Iris, and one day he left a letter to her at his apartment saying that he will be dead soon. There was also few hundred dollars for Iris to get back to home. After that Travis shaved his head into a mohawk and tried to assassinate Senator Palantine, but he failed. Then he drives to Sport and shoots at him and kills everyone that is in the brothel. He tries to kill himself but he had run out of ammunition. He fell in to a coma, and when he woke up, the media hailed him as a hero. He then gets back to his job as a taxi driver.

The movie is a great description about society unscrupulousness. It tells us how  the dregs of the people crawl to the streets when the day gives way to the night. Taxi Driver provokes the society model harshly and as no one is doing anything about it, Travis decides to take the matters to his own hands. This quote by Travis summarizes it all: ”Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads. Here is a man who would not take it anymore. A man who stood up against the scum, the cunts, the dogs, the filth, the shit. Here is a man who stood up.” The acting in the movie is great and the soundtrack was relaxing and fit the movie well. In my opinion, Robert De Niro played one of his best, if not the best role in this movie. I’d recommend this movie for those who like thriller movies and don’t get frightened about few blood spatters.

Sources: Wikipedia, IMDB