The Runaway by Morley Callaghan

This story was written by Morley Callaghan, and it`s included in the book “The eye of childhood”.This story was really interesting for me. The topic of the story is connected with real life , with the point of view of a teenager. The story develops the feelings that a boy has because he doesn`t have a good relationship with his father and his stepmother. So, he decided to run away home, in order to have a better life.
Teenagers are difficult to manage. They can be very sensitive, perhaps too sensitive in some occasions. Nobody understands what they are going through; “nobody in the universe has ever felt like this before”.
Michael, the teenager of the story, in some way is a little boy, but in others is like a young man. He has fun with his friends, and suffers because of the tensions at home between his dad and his stepmother. He is in love with a girl, but he can`t find the right words to talk to her. Nothing in his life seems to be perfect; so for him there`s only one possibility to make things better… his solution is to run away…
Anush

Notes on culture

Last year, I had to read some copies for a final examination about how culture is seen all around the world. So, I wrote down some ideas which I want to share with you because I guess they could explain the art of reading with a cultural aspect:
1. Technologically advanced nations ( cultural background) always dominate not well equipped ones.
2. English is the logical global language ( why is important to read and speak English as a global language?)
3. There are more things that unite a world´s peoples than separate them, such as culture.
4. There will never be only one culture.
5. It is possible for people to have multiple identities, taking into account culture.
6. The natural flow of culture is that people continually move and interact, and in so doing it change, absorb or reject culural ideas.
7. Local cultures are more powerful than national cultures.
8. Consumer demands tend to indicate the level of culture of an area.
9. The world can be politically united, but not united in a single culture.
10. The Internet and cellular phone will bring into being totally new and different `metaculture´.
Isn´t it related to reading, what do you think? Can we improve as a society our cultural aspect if our students read enough? I´ll be waiting your comments.

Miss Squirrel

"My Son the Fanatic" by Hanif Kureishi

"My Son the Fanatic" is a short story by Hanif Kureishi about a teenage boy, Ali, and his father, Parvez, who are immigrants of Pakistan now living in England. The underlying theme is the struggle they face in a new society. There is a sharp contrast in the way Parvez and his son Ali deal with the sense of belonging and being a part of society. With all the compromises and losses Parvez suffers in his migration; he appears to take them as a part of his experience and adventure of life; to him it seems to be worth the price. On the other hand, his son Ali seems to have considerable anger and is not happy with his new lifestyle. Ali focuses his thoughts on the Koran, a Muslim form of belief that denies him the pleasure of society in which he lives. His past life, being devoted to this pleasure, is now spent in abstinence.
Kureishi shows how living in a new society can cause one to lose fundamental family values and disrupt family happiness.

Emma

Rememberings

Last Sunday, I was sitting in front of my computer trying to think about a story to tell you. After some minutes, something came to my mind. It was like a brainstorming of ideas connecting events and feelings. Now, you are entering into this world of emotions. This story is called, Rememberings.
Sharon, a skinny twenty-five-year-old girl who was a solitary person lived in a one-storey house which belonged to her grandmother. Sharon always remembered her granny´s caresses and kindliness as if she was in the house.
It was spring time and there were groves of orange trees all around where Sharon would spend the morning hours. The orange blossom fragance surrounded her in a confortable atmosphere. She always went to that place with some old newspaper cuttings from the 1940s. She enjoyed looking at them, because there were photos of her grandmother who had been a ssuccessful dancer and had died of a heart attack the year before. They used to share feelings and many anecdotes about dancing under the orange trees. In those days, she could sense the mystery that the greenish forest had.
Though winter would come one day and Sharon would be sad, spring would come afterwards, and she´d be just sitting under the orange trees again.
It is really important your opinion about this sweet story. What were your feelings when you were reading it?

Miss Squirrel

Horror films

I was a frightened ten-year-old girl. My group of friends and I decided to see horror movies at my place during the evening. I would say that was the worst evening I´ve ever had, because the first film showed a killer, called Jason, who had drowned near a camp on Friday 13th years before, but nobody could find his body. Then he became a dangerous person, who started killing everyone, especially young people.The second movie started with Jason´s mother´s death and he saw how she died. Someone, I don´t remember who, cut off her head and then put it in a freezer. All of us thought that he was dead, but what happened next...The police took him to the morgue, but he unexpectedly stood up and killed the doctor, and the nurse. After that, he went to the place where he had died. There, lived a family with a young girl, a little boy and of course their mother. A lot of bloody assassinations happend again. Because of the blood and suspense that the films had, I felt so terrified and I said I would never see another horror film again. That was not true; in fact, they are my favourite now. What about you?

Miss Squirrel

“Man, woman and child” by Eric Segal

I have just finished reading “Man, woman and child” by Eric Segal. I started to read it, just for pleasure, few months ago and I could not finish it.
This book explores the relationship between as the title says, man and woman, woman and child and child and man. The only thing is that the child is not theirs, but is the result of his affair with some female on a business tour. The story of the book is pretty simple. It´s about how a family accepts a child as their own. Furthermore, how the heroine accepts the child.
What is more important about this book is the way it shows the relationships developing and breaking between people because of one incident. For example, we have the hero who cannot just let go his son, and there is the heroine who just doesn't seem to forgive her husband for his mistake. The story unfolds beautifully how eventually the heroine comes to terms with the child and how the child eventually gets approval from the woman. The book told the love story, in the most interesting way. Man, woman and child is still a beautiful book to be read and re-read!"

Candy

An unforgettable story of love is ´ Man, Woman and Child,` by Erich Segal. The main characters, Bob and Sheila are happily married, professionally successful and they have got two great daughters. However, the story has an unexpected turn. A fatal accident and a phone call bring a child into the plot, but the thing is that he is not Bob and Sheila`s. Actually, the child is the result of an affair Bob had on a bussiness trip to France ten years before. In my opinion, Segal tries to show us the relationships developing and breaking between people because of an incident. Thus, human emotions play the main role throughout the story. So if you are fond of novels, do not hesitate to read it, you will find it catchy.

Sparkling

Lamb to the Slaughter by Roal Dhal.

Lamb to the Slaugheter is a dramatic short story written by Roal Dhal.
Mary Maloney, a pregnant, housewife, is waiting the arrival of her husband from work very anxiously. Mary adores her husband. However, her husband tells her he is leaving her. Mary pretends she has not listened to her husband's news. She goes to the kitchen so as to prepare something for dinner although her husband tells her he does not want to eat; she takes a frozen lamb from the refrigerator and hits her husband in his head while he is looking through the window. The man falls dead on the floor. Mary gives a very organized aliby to the police who believe her.
I love Roal Dhal's stories, since they are appealing. They catch the reader's attention through mistery, black humour, ironic comments, etc.

Angels

Nice Work by David Lodge

I really enjoyed reading Nice Work by David Lodge. The setting is the industrial heartland of hatcherite Britain in the early 1980's. It deals with with the story of industrialist Vic Wilcox and his unlikely relationship with marxist, feminist and post-structuralist academic Dr Robyn Penrose. The author analizes the industrty and the Universitiy and the interaction among them through the visits of a Dr Penrose to Wilcox’s industry to act as his shadow. What is really interesting about this campus novel is that it portraits the decay of the university because of Thatcher’s policies which included the reduction in expenditures on social services such as health care, education, and housing. Thatcher was commited to reduce the funds for higher education and because of this policy Dr Penrose’s job was in jeopardy.
The author is able to use Robyn to develop a range of themes including literary semantics, feminism and a whole range of biases including race, class and gender . Other issues this novel deals with are capitalism, racial discrimination. unemployement and betrayal. Sometimes the novel becomes a bit difficult because of the vocabulary but it is without any doubt a story to recommend.

Cheeps

A short story: Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemingway

This is a story of a man called Krebs, who was a student at the Methodist College in Kansas. In 1917 he enrolled in the Marine and went to War. He only came back years after the war when there was no place for heroes any longer. When he returned home he led an idle life, no work, no studies or amusement. His heart was empty, no feelings even towards her mother. Finally, he decided to move to Kansas City and take over his old life.
From my point of view, this is a very well written story in which the author allows us to appreciate the devastating effects of war in human’s soul. The way in which the author describes with many details the story is really exciting and motivates the reader to keep on reading up to the end.

Black Angel

It is time to get real and make the punishment fit the crime

We live in a country and according to the article I have read in a world where every citizen implores to the political leaders to do something about the rising crime rate. But what can be done about it? Are we, as a society, responsible for it? Is it a result of something deeper?

Basically, the article explains two opposing general positions which a society can take towards crime and criminals. One view says that punishment, usually in the form of long prison sentences, discourage the criminal impulses and persuade them from repeating their offences. Is it not a simple solution? We all know, and the facts support the truth, that after the prison the offender is outside with new tools to commit another crime and with more hatred against the society from which now want revenge.

According to the second position to crime, a society accepts responsibility for creating its criminal elements, and takes steps to rehabilitate and train offenders so that they will no longer feel the impulse to commit crimes. Such a community, will use probation and parole systems helping these people to have a second chance in the society. But Do all of them deserve this opportunity? May I want to see again someone who had destroyed my family on the streets? On the other hand, I know it just does not make sense to place criminals in the adverse social conditions of a prison for the length of their sentence and then expect them to adjust to society outside through a brief period of time at rehabilitation or retraining centre.

I am just part of this society which is longing for a change. I do not know the right solution. But what I am absolutely sure that one important step is to pay special attention to education as the strong basement for this enormous building that is our society. With educated people you include them in a “The social system” (like or not the way it is made). You give the opportunity to that person to try to get a place in the group he belongs to. This is the first step before thinking of harder second chances, before we have tears in our eyes.

Pedro

April reading assignments

What have you read this month? Tell us about it