The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

the kite runner

Summary:Jajuba

Sin and the quest for redemption draw the parameters of our life. For Amir too it had been one long suffering from childhood till he grew a man and sought his salvage in the ruins of his life. Born and brought up in a wealthy and renowned family in Kabul, Amir was unaware of the advantages, which fell his way by his birth. His mother was a rare combination of beauty and brains. She had been the greatest asset and win for his father and also the reason for the gulf that stood between father and son. She died giving birth to Amir and his father couldn’t forget that. For Amir father was a pillar of strength and courage. He was a true Pathan in his virile spirit and bearing. He was a man liberal beyond extent. Just as he would rail against superstitions, he would build with utter dedication an orphanage for the poor. He was a man from whom none returned empty-handed. Being his son Amir often felt he possessed neither his father’s magnanimity nor his courage. It was Hassan who always saved him from the teasing boys of the neighborhood.

Hassan was the only playmate and companion that Amir had since childhood. Hassan’s family had served them for three generations. The allegiance that they bore was one of a kind. If Amir had lost his mother by death, Hassan had lost his by her waywardness. Seven days after his birth Sanobar disappeared with a man. Amir was told that they were breast-fed by the same woman and hence they were more of brothers. But Amir would have none of it. He felt that it was beneath his place to have a Hazara boy for his brother. He was a Pathan, the ruler and Hassan was a Hazara, the ruled. But what disconcerted Amir was his father’s deep affection for Hassan of which Amir at times was deprived. Amir would often put Hassan to the test of his loyalty for him. He would claim absurd things of Hassan, which he would perform obligingly. Amir enjoyed the little power he could wield over Hassan, often though he knew that Hassan gave in to him not out of fear but of love. With Hassan though he made the most of his childhood till the fatal day that doomed him forever into sleepless nights and nightmares. It was the annual kite flying day and for Amir the last chance to win his father’s heart.

He won the chase as he snipped kite after kite till only his one floated gloriously in the sky. Hassan was running after the winning kite with which Amir had promised to make a gift to his father. He grew impatient of Hassan’s return with the trophy and went down to hunt him. In a deserted alley he found Hassan cornered by Asef, the sadist and self-proclaimed big brother of the neighborhood. He saw how vehemently Hassan refused to surrender the winning kite to Asef and how brutally he was beaten and raped for that. Amir witnessed it all, dismayed at his own cowardice to step into Hassan’s rescue. To rid himself of the guilt he heaped on himself more guilt by accusing Hassan of stealth. As always Hassan read into his thoughts and without a word of vindication left with his father Ali the place where he was born. While Afghanistan fell into bloodshed and violence Amir and his father fled to America. A new life awaited them there.

With his penchant for writing Amir became an established writer. He married the outcast Soraya and helplessly watched his father being nibbled away by cancer. Only in America did the father-son bond strengthen and he bore the loss of his father with difficulty. Yet amid the din and bustle of life the pangs of guilt remained. Being childless even after years of marriage he was hardpressed with a sense of sin. And then like the deus ex machina his father’s friend Rahim Khan beckoned him to Pakistan. Meeting the ailing Rahim, Amir came to know of a shocking truth. Hassan was his half-brother. All his years of discrimination and justification set heavy on him. It made him question his father’s honesty. He found himself on a journey to retrieve Hassan’s son from Afghanistan. It was in this journey that his life wouldcome to a full circle. He found Sohrab in the clutches of a beastly and sadistic Taliban official. He was none other than Asef. Once again like his father Sohrab became his savior. They fled and took shelter in Islamabad. They struck a rare friendship. Sohrab began to trust him and Amir felt cleansed of some of his guilt. But he yet had to pay a heavier price.

As Amir failed to convince Sohrab of his love he found the child slip away into a state of torpor. Though Amir took him along to the States, though Soraya took him as their own child yet he stood unresponsive. Hassan with his martyrdom had initiated him on the journey of sin and redemption and by gaining Sohrab’s love would he be able to redeem himself. When he saw a glint of a smile on Sohrab’s face he ran the kite for him for in his happiness lay his freedom.

The Kite Runner Originally published in Shvoong: http://www.shvoong.com/books/novel-novella/619632-kite-runner/

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Little Prince

Summary:sappho

This is the story of a prince who lives on a small planet. The unnamed narrator encounters the little prince when he crashes his plane in the Sahara Desert. The narrator sets about repairing his plane, when he hears a little voice asking him to draw him a sheep. The narrator turned and saw the little prince.

The narrator learned that the prince came from a planet so small that he could watch the sunset whenever he liked, just by turning around. The reason he wanted the sheep was that sheep eat little bushes. He wanted the sheep to eat the baobabs that were such a problem on his planet. The narrator pointed out that baobabs are large trees, but the prince pointed out that they started out little. However, the prince grew concerned, because sheep eat flowers too, and the prince had a very special flower on his planet, one he loved very much. The flower, though beautiful and sweet-smelling, was vain and demanding. Though naively unafraid of tigers, believing that her thorns would protect her, she demanded that the prince up a screen to shield her from drafts. She told him to put her under a glass globe at night to protect her from the cold. Though the prince loved her, he grew tired of listening to her words and her demands, so he left his planet.

Before arriving on earth, the prince visited many planets. A king lived on the first planet he visited. The king was happy to have a subject. The king demanded obedience. He tried to get the prince to stay, but the prince left, pondering the strangeness of grown-ups.

A conceited man occupied the second planet. The conceited man wanted the prince to clap for him and salute him, and he asked the little prince if he admired him. The prince grew tired of this, and as he left, he was more convinced than ever the grown-ups were very strange.

A drunk occupied the third planet. The prince asked why he drank. The drunk replied that he drank so that he could forget he was ashamed of drinking. The fourth planet was occupied by a businessman who did nothing but count stars, saying he owned all of them. The prince thought that these men were as odd as the others. The fifth planet was the smallest, and it was occupied only by a lamplighter, whose job it was to light the lone street lamp. The prince thought that at least his job had some meaning. However, the lamp lighter was exhausted, saying that his job used to be much better. He lit the street lamp at night and put it out in the morning, giving him the rest of the day off, and he could sleep all night. However, the planet started turning faster and faster. A day lasted only one minute, so he was constantly lighting the lamp and putting it out again. The prince sorry to leave this planet, however, since the short days meant it had lots of sunsets.

The sixth planet was much larger and occupied by a geographer. However, he was unable to tell the little prince anything about his own planet, since he was not an explorer. He asked the prince to tell him about his planet instead. The prince said it wasn’t very interesting, since it was so small. The geographer advised the little prince to visit earth.

When the prince visited earth, he didn’t see any people at first. He kept walking and eventually came upon a rose garden. He was very sad to realize that his flower, whom he had thought was completely unique, was only a common rose like all those in the garden.

Then he met the fox. He asked the fox to play with him, but the fox said he couldn’t, since the fox was not tame, which the prince didn‘t understand. The fox explained what he meant, and said that if he wanted a friend, the prince should tame him. Then they would form a bond, and be unique to each other. The prince realized that his rose had tamed him. He came to see the fox every day, sitting a little closer each day, until the fox was tamed and they became friends. When the prince moved on, the fox told him he was responsible for his rose, since he had tamed it.

The prince realized hhe needed to go home to take care of his rose. The narrator was very sad, but the prince said they’d always be friends and that whenever the narrator looked at the stars, he’d think of the prince.

In his travels, the prince learns what it means to love someone. He realizes how important his rose is to him even though she is difficult at times. The people who live alone on the planets the prince visits seem to be a metaphor for the loneliness and isolation among adults. The king, the conceited man, and so on get locked into one way of seeing themselves and interacting with the few people they encounter, and they are unable to genuinely reach out. They have retained none of the open-mindedness they may have had as children. The prince comes away from the whole experience believing that loving someone, though it may make you sad sometimes, is worth the pain.

The Little Prince Originally published in Shvoong: http://www.shvoong.com/books/4451-little-prince/

Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich

Plum Lovin'
Summary:Paris Kaye
Janet Evanovich introduces her latest installment, Plum Lovin’, in the Stephanie Plum series which currently sits atop the New York Times Best Seller listing.

In Evanovich’s latest adventure, skip tracer (i.e. bounty hunter) Stephanie Plum is placed in a unique position. Fellow skip tracer Diesel has the one thing that Stephanie needs to collect her latest bounty, Annie Hart.

Before Diesel will produce Annie Hart, Stephanie must fulfill five specific conditions as they relate to Annie Hart’s profession as relationship expert. Evanovich masterfully blends and interweaves adjoining subplots that strictly deal with matters of the heart and, as we all know, these matters rarely run their expected course.

A parallel plot evolves as we learn that Diesel is providing protection for Annie Hart as the rash infective Bernie Beaner tries to exact revenge for the dissolution of his “200 year old” marriage as he believes that Hart initiated these difficulties.

As any reader of the Plum series knows, Stephanie is in need of her own relationship rescue as she delicately balances her relationships with Morelli and Ranger. Now, she must wear the hat of relationship expert as Diesel teasingly dangles before her.

It is not long before Lulu joins in on this wacky adventure as they race against the clock, trying to resolve relationship issues for five people before Valentine’s Day. Lulu plays the part of a collective conscience that presents the reality of each situation, no holds barred.

Having a strong interest in this case, Diesel works both ends as he attempts to locate the elusive Bernie Beaner while assisting Stephanie with the five relationship subplots. Let’s just say that the closer Stephanie works with Diesel, the greater the flirtatious tension.

Evanovich creatively draws into the story the lives of a bureaucratic DMV clerk and unwed mother of four leading a no thrills lifestyle, a veterinarian who’s being manipulated by a bold and beautiful barmaid, an introverted butcher who can not string a sentence together whenever in the presence of a certain coffee shop waitress, a thirty something year old virgin who must take a crash course in love anatomy and, finally, a relationship involving Stephanie’s very own sister.

The reader is taken on a roller coaster ride of twist and turns, racing toward the denouement. The action packed end leaves the reader turning pages racing to see what will happen next as these plots draw to their collective conclusion.

Plum Lovin’ is a fast read (two to three hours), and offers something for everyone. Followers of the Plum series will particularly enjoy watching yet another chapter of Stephanie’s life unfolds. Those new to the series are not left in the cold as Evanovich artfully draws the new reader into the series and character without feeling like something is unknown or lacking. That is why readers are loving Plum Lovin’.

Plum Lovin' Originally published in Shvoong: http://www.shvoong.com/books/mystery-and-thriller/2047771-plum-lovin/

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Summary:darleen
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the 6th book of J.K. Rowling’s adventurous novel series, documenting Harry Potter’s 6th year of attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry Potter is now 16 and is getting ready for new life-changing events, including being able to apparate and taking suitable classes to prep him for an Auror career (a job position responsible in seeking out and fighting against dark magic). Along the way, Harry and his friends discover the meaning of adolescence, with young romance blossoming all around them, but that is not all.

After realizing and building up his wizarding abilities for the past 5 years and developing his rival relationship with the greatly feared dark wizard Lord Voldemort – Harry, and his school headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, are on a mission to understand Voldemort’s past – in attempts of getting the upper hand in defeating him and his dark followers (the Death Eaters).

Meanwhile, Harry suspects that Draco Malfoy, a student in the same year is working closely with Voldemort, stewing up a plan to put them all in danger. Harry spends a lot of time trying to incriminate Malfoy, even though his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermoine Granger are against the idea.

Along the way, his Potions teacher, Professor Slughorn unknowingly gives Harry a textbook containing potion-making shortcuts and un-heard of spells and charms. Harry finds that the book once belonged to a student who called himself the “Half-blood Prince”. Little does Harry know that he has already met this previous student, and that he is already a major part of Harry’s life.

Through magical means of research, Harry and Dumbledore uncover a puzzle that unlocks the mystery behind Lord Voldemort and his seemingly impossible return to the wizarding world (he was thought to be killed long ago when Harry was born.) Together, Harry and Dumbledore go on a quest to retrieve an object that could possibly help them defeat Voldemort.

Upon returning to the school, they find that the Death Eaters have come to Hogwarts, resulting in a major fight. Several truths are discovered, and Harry vows that he will do whatever it takes to defeat Voldemort, in a set-up for book 7..

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Originally published in Shvoong: http://www.shvoong.com/books/science-fiction/2829-harry-potter-half-blood-prince/

Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America by Andrei S. Markovits

Review By Louis Flores

I first learned from my best friend, Randy, about the shootings at Virginia Tech. His e-mail alert framed the shooting around his forecast for the European headlines the shootings were going to make in Germany. This was worrisome -- not because Randy's first thought was about our nation's public relations in Europe instead of concern over the dead and their survivors -- but because Randy was right to worry about the European headlines. Yes, everyone was going to feel sorry for the victims and the survivors of the shoot-out; that was a given. But immediately, Randy began to try to give this shooting some context: Our self-inflicted national disaster was going to reinforce our own self-inflicted international disaster.

The prejudice that some Europeans have about the extremisms in our form of society and government are summarized as the "American way," what, for example, the French call "à l'Americaine." What if, for a minute, we did not look at the "American way" as a prejudice, but as an observation?

In Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America, Andrei S. Markovits, a distinguished professor at the University of Michigan, examines the recent spread of an anti-American sensibility within Europe. Progressives in the United States can agree that a certain responsibility for the inflation of anti-Americanism can be traced to the totalitarian and hypocritical foreign and domestic policies of the current Bush administration. But let's set that aside for the moment. In respect of the Virginia Tech massacre, and its intersection with the European anti-American sensibility, let's focus on the persistent, unchangeable, reckless gun promotion policy of the United States. (The gun promotion policy, which President Bush has said needs no change is the same gun promotion policy, which has been left unchanged for some time.) So, let's not also single out President Bush, yet.

In the April 30th issue of The New Yorker, Adam Gopnik made the case that now is precisely the time to find a way to "treat" the social disease created by our domestic gun promotion policy. (We'll save for a later conversation the subject of what social diseases we create from our international gun promotion policy). Mr. Gopnik singled out the leadership and critical thinking limitations of the Virgina governor, who tried to shut down the necessary conversation, which we must have, in order to go beyond "healing" this most recent tear in our social fabric and reach some kind of "treatment." Mr. Gopnik's essay addressed the continuing confusion among the American citizenry, which goes along the lines of, "Why do these kinds of mass, mad public killings keep happening, over and over again, in America?" Naturally, for some unbiased perspective, Mr. Gopnik turned to anecdotal evidence outside the United States for some answers.

In Europe, Mr. Gopnik wrote, the reaction of nations, where similar mass shootings have occurred, has been some form of either gun-control legislation or honest public dialogue about gun-control. In contrast, in America, following this latest incident of domestic gun violence, politicians are trying to clamp down on any conversation even approaching the possibility of gun-control. Consequently, the larger conversation being broadcast by the mainstream media has been about every subject except gun-control, such as the need for making available mental illness treatments on college campuses, according to the CNN report I saw one recent morning, for example.

In the context of Mr. Markovits's book, the gun problem in America is seen by Europeans as a function of our extreme systems of society and government. Mr. Markovits's argument is that without further specificity, this kind of criticism -- like other generalizations, which collectively form "anti-Americanism" -- merely rises to a form of a prejudice. Simply calling the conditions, which give rise to the relentless and repeated gun violence in the United States, "American conditions," for example, gives no access to any truth, which could give people power to address the problem of gun violence.

But in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy, we can see some specificity, that which is withholding power from citizens from addressing the problem of gun violence: It is the censorship of our national conversation. That is what is keeping us from addressing the problem caused by gun violence.

Somewhere in the literature, there is a test, which describes, in layman's terms, the state of insanity. It goes: "Do you do the same thing, over and over again, each time expecting a different result?" Only someone (or a society), who (which) is insane, would keep doing the same thing, over and over again, each time expecting a different result.

Americans must be crazy to think that its citizens and leaders could create a different solution -- maybe even a solution that would work -- to the problem of gun violence -- if we keep allowing politicians to let us have the same muted and censored conversation. When are we going to realize that politicians would rather drape 32 more coffins with the American flag than to allow us to have a free and unrestricted conversation about gun violience, a conversation that would include having a discussion about the need for gun-control? When are we going to stop listening to the same, tired record?

What if we allowed ourselves to have a different conversation about gun violence, a conversation which would include having a discussion about the need for gun-control? What would be a result of having a different conversation? Would a different result become possible, if we would have a different conversation? If only we could break out of our cycle of doing the same thing, over and over again! But how?

Uncouth Nation provides us the kind of necessary feedback we need to see outselves behaving in a pattern, but only if we can look past the generalizations of "anti-Americanism." While the premise of Mr. Markovits's book is to expose and dispel the consequences of these negative generalizations of Americans is admirable, what he too quickly glances past is that there might be some insight for us to experience about ourselves, if we could only see how we as Americans are coming across to people in other cultures.

In terms of gun violence in our society, for example, we can choose to talk about college students, who may indeed need mental help, but we don't see that collectively the conversation the entire citizenry is having about gun violence needs some mental help. Maybe when the French, for example, use the pejorative, "à l'Americaine," the sensibility that they are honing in on about America is really insanity. Perhaps one of the "American conditions" that frightens the Germans is really the "condition" called insanity. The stubbornness that American politicians display after incidences of gun violence, for example, after Vice President Dick Cheney shot his hunting partner in the face -- by refusing to talk about gun-control -- is precisely what is keeping us from having a different conversation, and possibly a different result. Instead, as Mr. Gopnick wrote, we'll keep worrying about the same thing, waiting for our politicians to give us the same answer, which has never worked in the past, and yet which we keep expecting will work some day in the future, and which, in the end, if we were sane, we would know was no answer at all.

Buy Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America (The Public Square) on Amazon.com.