The Garden of Forking Paths: Jorge Luis Borges

This author is interesting in that he writes in a way that hasn't been done before. The collection of stories I read were all focused on critiquing or retelling of "stories" that don't actually exist. I was confused at first, but then you realize there must be something else the author is trying to tell by not just telling the story. The author distances himself from the work by putting another, though fictional, author in between the story and himself. The story is about an Asian man, Dr Yu Tsun, who was living in England during WWII and became a spy for Germany. The only reason he became a spy was to prove that an Asian could pull it off. He learns of that his handler has been found out and that a British captain named Madden is after him, He devises a way to get his last mission completed and sets off, narrowly missing Madden at the train station. Once he gets to a man named "Albert"'s house he is shocked to learn Albert was expecting him. We learn Yu's grandfather had been a famous writer who had supposedly also created a labyrinth. No one understood his book, and no one had found the labyrinth. Albert tells Yu the book is a labyrinth and talks about the meaning of his grandfather's work. He explains that there are many times and places and that Yu could have come to his house as a friend or enemy. When reading you suspect Albert knows why Yu is there and accepts his role in the story as the one who will die. Yu asks Albert to get something for him once he sees madden coming up the road, and then shots Albert in the back. We learn Yu's last mission was to get the name of a town to be bombed back to Germany. The town's name was "Albert" and Yu hears that Germany does bomb the town while he is awaiting his hanging. This book haunts you long after you've finished reading it because you think "what are the chances he would end up at this Albert’s house who was familiar with his grandfather's work", it all seems predestined.

Nothing but the truth: Avi

This book made me mad because it could happen so easily. A high school boy doesn't like his English teacher and doesn't understand the books. So he doesn't try in her class and becomes disruptive as the class clown in order to get his classmates to laugh. He gets his report card and gets a D in English and then finds out he can't try out for track if he isn't passing all of his classes. Instead of being mad at himself he takes it out on his teacher and is disruptive during the morning announcements. The teacher asks him to stop and he does, but when he gets home he changes the story and his parents tell him to stand up for his rights. The next two days he is disruptive during the announcements and will not stop. The teacher sends him to the principal both times. The principal decides to suspend him for two days. The parents are upset because they work and this is a hassle for them, the father goes to the media thinking his son was suspended for singing the national anthem. Soon TV and radio talk shows get the story and begin bombarding the teacher with hate mail and demanding her removal. The boy goes back to school thinking he will be a hero and when he goes to the teacher to try to get extra credit she informs him he has been placed in another English class. He pouts and tries to get the track teacher to let him on the team because she can't change his grade now, the track teacher sticks up for the teacher and has two students try to get the boy to admit he lied. He no longer has friends at the school because he gets the teacher fired because of his anger at not getting a passing grade in her class. Both lives end up being ruined.

The Elimination: Rithy Panh

This was a novel about the Khmer Rouge. It was told in two formats, Panh's memories of growing up and surviving through the Khmer Rouge rule and through interviews with "Dutch" a commander of the killings. Panh speaks of losing half his family, watching his dad, niece and nephew starve to death, the various duties he performed and the violence. The story is told in a semi-linear fashion, things are mentioned as they flash back for him. Towards the end he talks about how remembering what happened still makes him physically ill today. This was an incredible story of survival against all odds.

A Long Way Gone; Memoirs of a boy soldier:Ishmael Beah

This was very well written and needed to be written. It is the Biography of Ishmael Beah during the 1990's in Sierra Leone's civil war. I appreciated how the story was told. It is in a linear order, but then after leaving the army the atrocities of war are told through flashbacks. This mimics the way he experienced the events since he was on drugs and caffeine pills while in doing the fighting and had very little emotional responses as the events transpired. Once something triggers a memory he has to deal with it, years after the event. This book leaves a lot of unanswered questions, I wanted to know if he saw his aunt again and what happened to that family. A boy’s village is taken over by the rebel army and he wanders the country with a band of boys searching for news of his family. He comes to the town they fled to and as he comes into town there are gunshots and fires. I am still bothered by how close he was to reuniting with his parents and brothers when the town was overtaken and no one survived. He is then taken in by the country’s army and becomes a boy soldier. All the children are then taken into the capital to be rehabilitated. He meets up with his uncle, who then dies when the rebel’s take over the capital. This was a very powerful story.

A Light in August: William Falconer

This story follows the live of Lena. Her parents both die when she is a child and she goes to live with an older brother. She lives with him for several years until she gets pregnant and then decides to go after the man who claimed he would marry her once he made a living. She arrives in the town her boyfriend Lucas supposedly ran off to and sees a house on fire. As the story progresses we learn Lucas aka "Joe Brown" started the fire and murdered the woman in it. The story doesn't come right out and say this, but it can be deduced. The story switches back and forth between points of view and we learn pretty much every character's history. The story centers on Joe Christmas. He was raised in an orphanage until he stumbles upon the dietician having sex with a doctor. The dietician wants to get rid of him in case he gets her in trouble. He is adopted by a very religious couple. The man is obsessed on religion and abusive to Joe. Eventually Joe accidently kills him when he finds Joe with a prostitute. Present day, Joe comes into town and decides to live as a white man after spending the last 15 years crossing the lines every few years. The abolitionist he lives with gets pregnant shortly after "Joe Brown" comes to town and starts helping Joe Christmas with his bootlegging. Joe Brown finds out Joe Christmas is partially black and sleeping with a white woman so he kills the white woman and burns her house down trying to hide the evidence. There is a $1,000 reward for the murderer and he makes up a story that it was Joe Christmas, who recently left town. Since Christmas is black the town instantly believes he was the murderer and goes after him. He is eventually killed and castrated. During the man hunt we meet Christmas' grandparents who recognize him, his grandfather wants him killed, his grandmother wants him to live 1 more day as a free man. We learn Christmas' mother died in childbirth and the grandfather dropped him off at the orphanage after killing the black father. At the end of the story Joe Brown runs off after finding Lena and his baby. The man helping Lena, who had fallen in love with her, is seen at the end of the book with her still helping her track down Brown.

Jane Eyre: Charlotte Bronte

This is the second time I've read this book. This reading surprised me since I didn't realize how much it was a book about violence when I read it as a teenager. There is violence in Jane's childhood, Mr. Rochester, his wife Bertha, and her cousin St John. It seems like Jane and Mr. Rochester can only be equals once he feels inferior to her. The roles reverse where she picks on him. The book follows Jane through her rough life. Her parents die when she is an infant and her mother's brother vows to raise her as his own, but then he dies and makes his wife promise to care for Jane as if she were her own child. Jane grows up in a sad household where no one shows her love. Finally, at the suggestion of a doctor, Jane is sent off to school where she gets along quite well. Many girls die of tuberculosis, but she survives and eventually teaches at the school. Needing a change she advertises as a governess and is taken into a house where an orphaned girl is cared for by a bachelor who is rarely home. Jane ends up falling in love with the guardian "Mr. Rochester" who is engaged to someone else of his standing. This flirting goes on for a while, and then he finally admits he loves her and they decide to get married. When they are at the church she finds out he already has a wife, the crazy woman living in the house. She goes off to find work at another place and wanders aimlessly for a while. Quite by chance she ends up with her cousins and learns an Uncle left her everything from his estate when he died. She ends up sharing it with her cousins and starts a school. Her male cousin wants her to marry him and do missionary work with him, but she refuses because she doesn't love him. Right when she is about to give in she hears Rochester's voice. She goes back to him to find all she finds is a burnt up estate. From rumors in town she finds Rochester at another of his houses, blind and missing a hand. They get married and he recovers a little of his site, enough to see his first born son.

The Lightning- Rod Man: Herman Melville

This was a short story about a man who hears knocking at his door during a thunderstorm. He opens it to a man that hurries to the middle of the house. He introduces himself as a "lightening Rod Man" he was selling lightning rods. He was frantic during the storm telling all the ways you can die. He is holding the lightening rod the whole time. The owner of the house seems to know more about lightening that the "expert" and is soon thrown out of the house.