The Other Hand - second blogpost

Hey :)

I have now read the whole book, The Other Hand by Chris Cleave, and I thought it was fantastic! It was funny, well written, interesting and very sad sometimes. I will definitely check out some of the other books that Chris Cleave has written, because he is an amazing author. You can read more about the book in my other post about it. In this entry I will try to describe a conflict in the book by using quotes from the book.

First of all, I think that the themes in the book are many, and one example is hope for a good future and friendship. The two women, Little Bee and Sarah, are from to different cultures and different in so many ways. Sarah is a editor of a magazine that focuses on superficial stuff, while Little Bee is the asylum seeker from Nigeria with a terrible background. But in the end they bond of the fact that they both have lost someone close to them, and wants to move on and they find comfort in each other. They learn that they have to appreciate what they have at the moment, because they see how life can change so fast by things they don't have control over. They both have a hope for a better future, because of the things they have experienced in their past. Little Bee wants to finally be free, and not live a life on the run from the soldiers in her home country.

One conflict that you maybe don’t think a lot about when you are reading the book is the conflict that Little Bee struggles with herself. In the book there are a lot of conflicts between people, but everyone also has their own personal conflicts. And the struggle Little Bee has is mostly hidden behind the use of humor and stories that she tells. One of the things she deals with is her past in Nigeria, and she is haunted by the thought of some men coming for her. Throughout the book she describes ways she could kill herself in different ways everywhere she goes if the men would come. One example of this is this quote:

If the men came suddenly, I will be ready to kill myself. Do you feel sorry for me, for thinking always in this way? If the men come and they find you not ready, then it will be me who is feeling sorry for you.

When she talks about suicide in the book, it really difficult to take her seriously, because it seems as such an easy think for her to do.

I worked out how to kill myself in every single one of the situations a girl like me might get into in a detention centre. In the medical wing, morphine. In the cleaner’s room, bleach. In the kitchen, boiling fat.

I think this quote describes the way she always had irony when she spoke, but deep down she was actually serious.

Another conflict she struggles with is that she finds it irritating that everyone always says that she is not selfish at all, and she goes around carrying a image of herself as very selfish because of what she did to Sarah’s husband (she thinks she caused him to take his own life). This quote is from a conversation with her and Lawrence, Sarah’s lover, where she tries to explain to him that she is in fact selfish too like everyone else.

I shook my head. “I am selfish too, you know”
“No, you’re really not”
“Now you think I’m a sweet little girl, do you? In your mind you still don’t think I really exist. It does not occur to you that I can be clever, like a white person. That I can be selfish, like a white person”

She is regretting leaving Sarah’s husband “hanging in the air” and therefore she wants to help Sarah as much as she can to make up for what she did. Throughout the book Little Bee is afraid of meeting police and that they would find her and send her back to her country, but in the end she does something that is very unselfish and puts another person’s needs before her own. I won’t tell you what this is, because that would ruin the book for you, so I will just leave you with this quote:

[Lawrence]”(…) And Bee, you take my phone and you go to where you can get reception and you call the
police. Then you wait at the plantation gate for the police, so you can show them where we are when they arrive”
(…) [Sarah] She just stood there. I couldn’t work out what the problem was.
“The police, Sarah,” she said.
I stared at her. Her eyes were pleading. She looked terrified. And then, very slowly, her face changed. It became firm, resolved. She took a deep breath, and she nodded at me.”

I really though that this was a great book, and I recommend it to everyone! You will laugh, cry and smile when you read it, and you could actually learn something from the book.

Anna

Gran Torino

Today in English class we watched a movie called Gran Torino. It is a drama film from 2008 directed by Clint Eastwood, and was named one of the ten best movies of 2008. Eastwood also plays the main character in the movie, a grumpy old man called Walt Kowalski, who just lost his wife and is dealing with his own problems from his past. As a young man he was in the Korean war, and memories of his killings and this time seems to haunt him deeply. Living in a neighborhood with Hmong people (a people from parts of Thailand, China and Laos), he is constantly annoyed with these people.

A gang in the Hmong society one day tries to get Walt's neighbor Thao Lor (a young and mannered boy) to join their gang, and though he refuses at first, they make him steel Walt's car, a perfect Gran Torino from the 1970's and the most possessed thing in Walt's life. Walt almost caught him in the action, and Thao is more afraid of his angry neighbor than ever. But one day the gang comes back to get Thao, and they start a fight with the Lor family. The leader of the gang is also Thao's cousin. When someone in the fight accidently steps on the lawn that belongs to Walt, he threatens to kill everyone of them if they ever set a foot on his property again. This scares the gang and they run. The next day, the Hmong people of the neighborhood treats Walt like a hero, because he saves the life of Thao. He also rescues the daughter in the Lor family, Sue, from some other gang bangers, and after a while he starts hanging out with both Sue and Thao - and he starts feeling joyful again. But the trouble with the gang continues and the struggle for the Lor family is almost to much to handle - so Walt decides to end the fight one in for all.

I got a task to answer this question: How do Hollywood films portray people of different races and ethnicities?

And I will try answering this as best as I can.

I think Hollywood movies portray people of different races and ethnicities very stereotypically. The image of the people are almost exactly how you expected it to be. But movies like this, challenges the stereotypes, as we can see for instance the character in Thao. They say in the movie that it is normal for the Hmong girls to og to college, while the Hmong boys end up in jail. But Thao is a good kid, who isn't looking for any trouble, and wants to stay away from the gangs and the crimes they commit. He'd rather do a woman's job, as they say in the movie, and do gardening and clean dishes. He is a hard working boy, who wants to do good in life.

Gran Torino is a great movie, and I recommend it strongly. Absolutely a movie you should see before you die. It's interesting, moving, funny and a movie you really learn something about. It brings up different problems, like gang violence, communication between different races and ethnicities, family issues and the fight for justice.

Anna

The Kite Runner - movie and book!

Hey!

In English class we watched the movie Kite Runner, and we were supposed to see if they used the quotes we had written about in the movie.

I choose this paragraph, and listened closely to hear if they used it in the movie:

Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words.
Mine was Baba.
His was Amir. My name.

But they did not use this quote in the movie. I think this is a important paragraph that should have been in the film, but I guess the film used another paragraph to describe these relationships (between Amir and Baba, and between Amir and Hassan) and showed it in another way.

Anyways, I liked the movie and thought it was a touching and good movie! Definitely a movie you should watch :)



Here is the trailer:



Anna

The Kite Runner - Continuation

Hey!

I'm finished with reading the Kite Runner now, and I think it was a good book and very touching. It had a slow start, but when I read further in the book, it became very interesting and made me want to read more. In this post I will try use some quotes from the book to describe different elements in the book.

Relationships

From the book, page 10:
 
Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words.
Mine was Baba.
His was Amir. My name.

I think this quote from the book describes two relationships.
 
The first one is the one between Amir and Baba, at least the way Amir sees it. Amir always looks up to Baba and wants everyone to know that this is his father. As a kid he was always longing for Baba's approval and wanted to make him proud, so that he would show him off to others as his son. All he ever wanted was for his father to approve of him, and forgive him for killing his mother. But his father was very ignorant to him a lot of times, so this was a long struggle for Amir.
 
The second one is the one between Amir and Hassan. This quote shows that Hassan was always looking up to Amir and wanted to be by his side and protect him, maybe in the way that Amir looked up to his father, Baba. In this relationship, Amir was the boss of the two of them, and Hassan was always the one who followed him.


Conflict

When Amir sees Hassan being captured by the mean boys (Assef, Kamal and Wali), page 64:
 
Assef yelped as he flung himself at Hassan, knocking him to the ground. Wali and Kamal followed.
I bit on my fist. Shut my eyes.

This is describing a conflict between Amir and Hassan. When they get bullied by the mean boys, Hassan stands up for Amir. But when Hassan ends up trapped by the mean boys after the kite flying competition, and ends up being raped by the three boys, Amir doesn't interfere even though he sees it happening. This is definitely a conflict in the book. This episode changes the friendship between Amir and Hassan, and even though Amir has let his friend down, Hassan continues to stand up for Amir. Amir is feeling guilty for what he did, but doesn't make the relationship between them any better by ignoring and being sort of mean to Hassan. This conflict is ongoing from when the conflict started, which is the rape-situation and until Hassan and his father leaves Baba and Amir.


Theme

About the friendship between Hassan and Amir (in the early days), page 24:
 
After school, Hassan and I climbed its branches and snatched its bloodred pomegranates. After we'd eaten the fruit and wiped our hands on the grass, I would read to Hassan.

There are many themes in this book. But one strong theme is friendship, and especially the friendship between Amir and Hassan, and how it develops throughout the story. Another theme is identity, because many of the characters struggle to find their identity. Amir wants to form his identity throughout his actions in his life. But his actions aren't always as noble as he would like them to be, for instance the time when he hides his watch and money that he got from his birthday under Hassan's bed, so Hassan looks like a thief.



That's all I had to say about the content of the film, but I deeply recommend everyone to read The Kite Runner, it is definitely a book you should have read before you die ;) So go get yourself a cup of warm tea and lay down in your couch - then start reading The Kite Runner!


Anna

The Kite Runner

Hello :)


We are reading a book called "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini in class this semester.

The book was published in 2003, and it's Hosseini's first novel. The novel is set in Afghanistan, in the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, and it is about a boy named Amir and his friend Hassan who is the son of his father's Hazara servant. The period of time where the story is set includes important settings, for example from the fall of Afghanistan's monarchy though the Soviet invasion, the mass emigration of refugees to the United States and Pakistan, and the rise of the Taliban regime. Hassan is guilty for abandoning his friend in his country and returns to Afghanistan and to his childhood home to correct his past. A movie based on the novel was made in 2007, directed by Marc Foster.

I've read three chapters and my first impression of the book is not so good. This is probably because it has a slow start and I don't find it very interesting yet. But I hope, and think, that this will change when I read some more of the novel. Because most of the people I have talked to, says that the book is a great book, extremely interesting and when you start reading it, it's really hard to put it away. I hope this is true!



One thing I like about the book is that it is written in an easy language, so it is understandable for those of us who are not native speakers of English. I really liked this quote from "The Kite Runner":
"I looked up at those twin kites. I though about Hassan. Though about Baba. Ali. Kabul. I though of the life I had until the winter of 1975 came along and changed everything. And made me who I am today". (page 2). I like this quote because it tells me that he thinks that his childhood has formed him and made him who he is. When he is thinking this he is sitting on a bench in San Francisco, and he is thinking about how different his life was back in Afghanistan.


I haven't read as far yet, so this post will be longer soon! I just have to read some more in the book :)

Anna

Erin Brockovich - the movie

Hey!

In International English last week, we watched the movie "Erin Brockovich", which is a drama film from 2000 based on the true story about the female lawyer called Erin.

Erin is a twice-divorced mom, with three kids, who gets a job at a lawyer firm after a trial with the same lawyer who runs the firm that helped her with her case. Since she lost her case, and had no money left, she refuses to leave the office until she gets a job there. After almost begging, her lawyer agrees to offer her a job. She starts to sort different documents, and after a while she comes over some very interesting papers. Erin starts digging and soon she finds out that something is up with the case in Hinkley, California. She discovers that the company PG&E is responsible for the sickness of all the people in this small-town, and she wants to make it good again by getting the recidents of Hinkley the money they deserve and need from the big company. Erin, without education and money, becomes the spokeswoman for many sick people against a billion-dollar-company.

I thought the movie was great, and really interesting, because it's based on a true story. It was inspiring to see one person making her way thought the crowd and making so much different. It shows that if you fight hard enough for what you want, you'll get it. You should never give up, like Erin never did, no matter how hard things get and how many people who are against you. She definitely sacrificed a lot when she worked on her case, for example spending time with her kids and new boyfriend. But in the end, it was all worth it because she won her case and got enough money to support her kids. Erin Brockovich is definitely a role model for everyone in this world. She shows us that you don't have to be well educated and brought up in a nice home to make a difference in the world! If you really want it, you can do it!

Trailer:



Anna :)

The Butterfly Circus

In the first International English class we had, we watched a short movie called “The Butterfly Circus”. It was about a man, Will, who was born without limbs, and he was a performer at a circus, where people laughed at him. One day, a circus director from another circus came to see him and the man without legs or armed decided to join his circus instead. There he devolved and became a strong man who managed to swim without legs and arms, because he was so driven and gave all he had.

The topic was hope, and this is a perfect topic for the movie, because it illustrates that you need to have hope and believe in yourself, in order to success. You should never give up, no matter how hard things get, because in the end, you will make it if you only try hard enough. :)

Every performer in the circus had struggled with an ugly past, but now they lived a great life among friends and happiness, because they joined the circus and could develop into something brighter. They were all like caterpillars, which turned in to beautiful butterflies, therefore the name “The Butterfly Circus”.

I think it was a great movie, really well made and it had a very important message!
You should definitely watch it, and here is your chance:





//Anna