Category Archives: Yleinen

”Medal of honor” is a war related book based on the latest ”Medal of honor” game. The book is written by a former British SAS soldier, Chris Ryan, who is known as the only survivor of the mission ”Bravo Two Zero” during Gulf war.

The book takes place in Pajay, a small village in the Middle East, where American soldiers, Voodoo, Dusty, Rabbit and British Jock are orderd to find an Afghan informant, Malouf, who has intel about Al-Zaranj, a terrorist. The mission goes almost as planned and they call an airstrike to take Al-Zaranj down and then they head back to the base.

The protagonist and the narrator of the book is Jock. He is a British SAS soldier and a part of the squad as a battle casuality replacement. He is very skillful, tough and calm, like all the other professional soldiers. The story is told from his perspective.

The antagonist of the story is Al-Zaranj. The story only tells that he is marked as a high value target due to connections to Al-Qaeda, which was involved in terrorist attacks in USA.

The main conflict of the story is USA getting people who were involved in terrorist attacks to pay. In this book, it is Voodoo, Dusty, Rabbit and Jock who are taking down Al-Zaranj. The conflict is resolved by the professional soldiers using the intel which an afghan informant Malouf gives to the squad, although it is incorrect first.

There are three main themes, which all come out clearly: ”getting revenge”, ”who to trust” and ”reputation is everything”. Because the plot is so fast-developing, there isn’t much foreshadowing. Also the use of figurative language is very limited.

After all, the book was easy and interesting to read but as soon as I started to read, I was already at the end and everything had happend.

Alexander Hoffmann is having a very bad day. It starts in the wee hours of the morning, when he startles an intruder in his palatial home in Geneva. The man, who bypassed the security system, is determinedly sharpening the family cutlery and has brought along some bondage gear. He slams Alex over the head with a fire extinguisher and flees. Alex  has to go to the hospital for scans and stitches
Things go downhill from there: the day includes a rift in Alex’s marriage, a frantic scramble in the financial markets and mayhem. Lots and lots of mayhem. Behind it all is a sense that everything has been orchestrated, seemingly by Alex himself. But who is really pushing  the buttons?
After reading this novel, I find myself   weirdly of liking and hating this book. Here is why.
I definitely enjoyed the pace of the book. I couldn’t put it down. Every chapter had a hook, something that would make the reader think twice whether he would want to put the book down, or find out what happens next given the current chapter. I definitely was not bored with this book.
However, there are also parts of The Fear Index that I despise. First of all, Alexander Hoffmann is a tough main character to sympathize with. Seriously, his earnings are in the billions and he lives in a 60 million dollar house in Switzerland, so when his house gets an intruder, part of me feels that I couldn’t care less. He’s the type of person who would rather save his computers than his wife if he gets caught in a burning building. I find myself hard to identify with the main character.
Overall, I think I enjoyed this novel. It made me think. However, I am afraid that most people will simply see this to be a cheap thriller and read it as such. When they’re done reading, they’ll just think “Oh, that was a cool book.” and move on.

The Host is a science fiction and romance novel written by Stephenie Meyer. The plot is not very easy to follow. Earth is invaded by ”souls”. Souls are implanted into a host body and then the original owner of the body loses her/him memories. Only a few people have been survived and they are trying to stay ”alive”.

Protagonist of the story is Melanie Stryder, she is a human rebel who was captured and implanted with a soul. Wanderer ”Wanda” is an other protagonist who is an alien Soul inserted into Melanie’s body. Antagonists are all bodies with souls into them.

This story is narrated by the protagonist Melanie Stryder. Whole story is told from her perspective and there are no other narrators.

In my opinion story tries to make people think about the world and what living in this planet means for reader. The story makes questions; What could be different in this big world? Is there something stronger and more intelligent than us? Every people has their own opinions and answers.

Ending of the story is a little bit too quick and simple. When I read it, it felt like the writer had run out of ideas. This book, like many other, has a happy ending. All in all, the book leaves the reader with many questions. The questions are almost impossible to answer.

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Alice in Wonderland is telling a story of young Alice’s epic adventure in Wonderland. Wonderland is a place where  everything’s quite absurd compared to the real world: animals speak and eating mushroom makes you grow grazily.

Time has an interesting role in the book from the very beginning when the rabbit is agonizing that he will be late. Time has a different meaning in wonderland than in the real world. Time is relative to your state of mind for example sometimes time flies and sometimes it seems to have been frozen.

At the end the reader finds out that the story occured in Alice’s dream so the story should be interpreted as a dream. The things Alice experiences may be reflected in her real life. In Wonderland Alice feels herself lonely and lost. Maybe she’s feeling this also in her real life. In the story Alice is too big or too small doing different things. Or she feels like she isn’t capable doing something. So it’s possible to deduce that in real life Alice has problems about her physical size.

I read a short story which is called ”Why, Honey” and Raymond Carver have written by it. In my opinion a story haven´t a real plot because the story is like a letter.  But that´s what I could say the plot was this:  The mother writes to someone a letter about her son´s childhood. She writes how her son hasn´t been truhtful and how she has started to afraid him. The mother and the son haven´t seen each other for a long time. The mother writes that she has read only newspapers about her son because he is famous nowadays.

Although the story was easy to read, I think that the plot is quite unclear to me because i don´t  to whom the mother writes a letter or why the mother afraid her son so much. The story is told about the mother´s point of view and she is a narrator and a protagonist. The son is an antagonist because he hasn´t been truhtful and mean to her mother.

The end of the story is little open and the reader can by own to decide to whom the mother writes the letter. And maybe the theme of the story is that everyone should tell the truth and be honest.

Written by: katariina

Don’t start writing your analysis to the blog. Write it first with Word or Open Office etc, spell check and check grammar and then copy paste it into the blog.
Remember to use the nickname! Make sure the teacher knows who has written what!
Also, add a category from the right side of the page and indicate which class you are from.
When you start your writing process, here is a suggested order of writing:
1. Write the body of your essay.
State the purpose of your analysis. Elaborate and give examples that support your statements. Do not worry about an introduction, yet.

2. Read over your essay as a whole. NOW write the introduction to your essay.
Reread and edit your work if necessary. Make sure every point you make is supported with evidence. Make sure all quotes are correctly referred to and explained thoroughly. Make sure that everything that you are saying ultimately supports your statements.

3. Write the conclusion of your essay.
Complete your work with a suitable finish.

Having written the film review, your next task is to write a blog entry. The entry consists of your short story- or novel analysis. You can read a book in English and base your analysis on it, THIS IS RECOMMENDED! However, if you feel you simply do not have enough time to read through an entire book, you can use the short stories in the book or other short stories, for example, published in different short story collections. Which ever literary work you choose, bare in mind that it has to be originally written in English and that you read it in English.

We will be practicing the necessary vocabulary during class, as well as, the structure of the analysis.

Have fun reading! =)

English 5 has now started. The course will open up windows to culture and art in the English- speaking world. The themes covered are broadly: the cinema, visual arts, literature and music. Open Road 5 begins with the theme films, and texts 1 and 2 provide you with material on the world of cinematic art.

Your first task is to write an analysis of a film.   Continue reading →