THE PRIVILEGES by JONATHAN DEE SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE PRIVILEGES by JONATHAN DEE


SUMMARY
A young couple, Cynthia and Adam Morey, are getting married in Pittsburgh, US.  The bride has chosen an unpopular bridesmaid.  In total, the wedding costs $38,000 American, and everything is being paid for by Cynthia's stepmother and father.  Adam's parents buy the couple a honeymoon in Mexico during which Cynthia becomes pregnant with a girl named April.
One year later Adam and Cynthia are living in New York, US, and have another child named Jonas.  Adam worked at Morgan Stanley, but quit to work at a smaller firm named 'Perrini Capital'.  The Moreys send their children to private schools which cost $60,000 each year, and Cynthia likes to buy her children expensive items.
Cynthia is a stay at home mom.  Adam's boss at Perrini capital takes Adam, Cynthia, and the children to his vacation home for the weekend.  Cynthia is offended by the boss' wife and the family leaves early.  They are jealous of the boss' luxurious home and expensive car, the boss promises Adam that one day he will be just as rich, and Cynthia encourages Adam to pursue the wealth they've seen.  Adam wants to succeed, but not become a clone of his boss.
Cynthia's mother calls her and asks her to pick up her stepsister named Deborah from the hospital.  Deborah was in the hospital because she overdosed on drugs.  Cynthia has to rush to take the children to the dentist, and briefly loses them in the New York train system.  After this event, years pass without the two speaking to eachother; this silence is a result of mutual ambivalence toward eachother.
Adam feels pressured by Cynthia to increase his earnings.  He begins using illegal insider information to profit from stock market put and call options.  The illegal network which develops involves switching prepaid phones each month for Adam and his partner, offshore bank accounts, and stock broker accounts in fake names.  After Adam is fired from his job at Perini because the boss is angry that Adam doesn't want to take over Perini Capital and suspects him of plotting to start his own firm and steal Perini's analysts, Adam confesses his insider trading to Cynthia, who applauds his bravery and diligence.
By this point, April is 15 and Jonas is 14.  One of April's friends, Robin, hides at the Moreys after being beaten by her father.  Cynthia allows April and her friends to go to parties and drink alcohol. Jonas is in a band which he wants to call, 'The Privileges'.  Robin's mother commits suicide.
Jonas goes on to attend the University of Chicago where he feels divided from the rest of the student body because of his family's wealth.  Nikki is the name of Jonas' girlfriend.  April visits Jonas and meets Nikki. Later, April goes clubbing in New York with Russians, taking drugs and drinking alcohol, and the driver of the car April is in crashes into a van.  She is not hurt in the car crash.  Jonas happens to see April by the side of the road while he is shopping the next day, and takes her home.
Adam has opened up his own hedge fund which is preparing to file for its own IPO.  The Moreys begin receiving unwanted media attention and commit to getting April out of the clubbing scene.  Cynthia's father falls ill in Florida, US, and a stranger calls on his behalf asking Cynthia for money, which she denies, but agrees to go to Florida and assist her father emotionally and financially.  April and Adam return from a business trip in China to Florida.  Cynthia's father's cardiac problems progress in unison with dementia.
Jonas is working on a Master's thesis in art and goes to the apartment of an artist he likes.  The artist, named Joseph Novak, beats Jonas with a pipe and drags Jonas into the apartment.  Cynthia is calling Jonas but Novak throws away Jonas' cell phone and Jonas is afraid, so he stays in Novak's apartment.  As Novak finishes an elaborate drawing, Jonas gets up and leaves the apartment.

ANALYSIS
This book offers a unique insight into the lives of the richest people.  Through Jonas' wrestling with stereotypes, Dee depicts rich people as complex human beings, rather than contemptuous, carbon-copy moneybags on two feet.
There is a persistent theme of the Christian religion throughout the novel.  Cynthia repeats to herself, 'God gives you nothing you can't handle'.  Her father prepares for battle in a war flashback in his hospital bed as he is about to die, preparing him for his last fight.  Jonas discovers his strength as he is pushed to the limit by an attacker.  April, who felt as though she was shortening her useless and boring life with drugs and partying, receives a speech about keeping faith from her father.
In the beginning of the book, April asks her father where they come from, and the father says his family is from England, and the mother's from Russia.  April meets up with Russian drug dealers and her father buys an expensive flat in London, GBR.  I doubt Dee was implying that Russians are inferior to Englishmen, but if that's not what he was implying, I'm not sure what his purpose in including those details was.
A suspiciously coincidental sequence of events in the Moreys' lives wrap themselves up in an equally suspicious neat little bow about staying positive.  Unrealistic and corny, but positive.  The book kept me entertained and left me feeling better than when I started reading it.

• Man with family is pressured into making more money
• Through illegal means, he builds a legal Hedge Fund empire
• The man's wife's father becomes ill in the hospital
• While the man's son is kidnapped, the son's grandfather is on the verge of death
• The son escapes his kidnapper

SOURCE

Dee, Jonathan. The Privileges: A Novel. New York: Random House, 2010. Print.Book about a family keeping their faith amidst struggles in their climb up the social ladder.

1985: WHAT HAPPENS AFTER BIG BROTHER'S DEATH by GYORGY DALOS SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

1985 by GRORGY DALOS 

SUMMARY

This book is told through 3 memoirs and various newspaper articles and official documents.  The authors of the memoirs are Winston Smith, James O'Brien, and Julia Miller.

Big Brother died on December 10th, 1984, after a brief period during which he showed signs of recovery.  He was the commander of a country called Oceania.

O'Brien employs Smith to command the staff of a propaganda newsletter extolling the virtues of Oceania.  This newsletter, called the TLS, forms the beginning of the resistance against the thought police.

2 factions initially fought to replace Big Brother: The Aluminists, led by Big Sister, and the Paper faction.  While the Paper faction wants peace, the Aluminists want to keep fighting.  A public meeting is held to discuss the future where the public demands better leadership.

The TLS begins to publish sentimental pieces which trigger a response in the community.  Big Sister demands the instigators be arrested by the thought police but is killed by the thought police because they fear she will cause rebellion.  When her Aluminist counterparts threaten to release the number of people killed or imprisoned by the thought police, the thought police begin releasing those in their custody.

A Shakesperean play is effected, the first play which was not  propaganda piece to be performed.  Citizens revolted against dissenting thought policemen in the audience.  The TLS staff and their supporters form the Intellectuals Reform Association, or, IRA.

After signing the peace treaty, Oceania lost all of its colonial empire to Eurasia, and the 2 million unemployed colonial soldiers who return home cause crime and food shortage, so that the government delivers food according to level of unrest to suppress revolt.  The IRA demand a 10-point reform including the dissolution of the thought police, an end to propaganda and anti-freedom campaigns, and the reduction of army size.

Working-class Muslims begin rioting in the city and the IRA teams up with them to secure more social liberties.  The remaining thought police government holds a contest for citizen-inspired policy reforms in response. 

Together, the IRA and working-class overthrow the thought police and seize power.  However, they are quickly overthrown by the old thought police.  In order to compromise with the people, the new Oceanian government promotes social liberties.  Winston Smith and the leader of the Muslims are executed.

ANALYSIS

Obviously, the events of this novel follow those of 1984, a book by George Orwell.  Information about 1984 by George Orwell is readily available and can be easily accessed using any search engine.  This book does make sense without its predecessor.

The revolution of the IRA in this novel is compared to the Russian and French Revolutions.  Repression is mocked as people hurriedly release emotions quite different from the feelings they expressed under Big Brother's dictatorship.  Dalos paints O'Brien in a sympathetic light.  While dictatorships and oppressive governments are awful, the people enforcing these laws are human like the people they oppress.  Deep down, everyone seems to want freedom in this novel.

The alliance of an organization named the IRA and the Muslims caught my eye in this novel.  While the IRA and terrorist organizations such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are sometimes compared, they share little in common.  Thankfully, no psychopath such as Osama Bin-Laden has come to power in Ireland, which is why the level of "terrorism" committed by the IRA consists mostly of graffiti currently, while car bombs and other violent attacks are an everyday occurrence in the Middle East, where the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are based.  The IRA stands for Irish Republican Association in real life, and was formed by Protestants and Catholics who sought to overthrow the British colonial rule in Ireland.  There was a period in Ireland when the Loyalists, who advocated for British rule both in religion and government, fought against the Republicans, each using terrorist tactics against eachother, attacking bars and other meeting areas.  However, Dalos does not compare the IRA to Muslims in a negative light.  I enjoyed his comparison of the struggle for religious freedom in the Muslim community to the struggles of the Catholic community in Britain.  Additionally, Dalos  named the Muslim and Catholic organization an Intellectual association, implying that he respects the intelligence of Muslims and Catholics, Irish or otherwise.  His depictions were well-informed and respectful.

• The leader of a dictatorship dies
• An Intellectual Reform Association forms and promotes social freedom
• The Reform movement is quelled but the government implements more liberal policies

Dalos, Gyorgy. 1985. Trans. Stuart Hood and Estella Schmid. New York: Pantheon, 1983. Print. Book about the aftermath of Big Brother's death.

THE PATIENCE STONE by ATIQ RAHIMI SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE PATIENCE STONE, or, SYNGE SABOUR by ATIQ RAHIMI

SUMMARY
A man and a woman live together in a wartorn village.  The notable background of the story is unfolded through the woman's flashbacks and are as follows:
The man was a hero in a religious war.  The woman was promised to the man at the age of 17 by her father who was infatuated with the idea of his daughter marrying a hero.  Before they got married, the woman was captured by a religious merchant who tied her up in a basement and forced her to have sex with many men.  When the hero returned from war and first met his new wife, he did not acknowledge her, he merely sat down next to her in silence, claiming her as though she was a possession.  Not until 3 years after they were married did they first have sex, and because she was on her period she bled, which the hero took to be proof of virginity.  During a battle, the hero was shot in the neck, yet he miraculously lived in a comatose state.
In the present, the man sits in the living room, attached to an IV and breathing tube, staring absently at the wall.  Although the woman tries to keep her 2 daughters away from the man, one of the daughters sneaks in and complains that she is not allowed to see her father, and takes the tube out of his mouth long enough for a fly to dart in, which the hero does not notice.  The woman increasingly laments the countless prayers she offers to God as she takes care of the hero injured in a holy war.  The people of the village keep time by the cycle of prayers they are instructed to make.  While the woman recounts the story of their first intercourse, she draws menstrual blood onto her finger, and jams it into the man's beard, insisting it is clean.
The woman begins to question her faith.  An old, mysterious woman appears, babbling incoherently.  Religious soldiers embark on a raid of the neighborhood and find the old woman, and break into the main characters' home and steal the man's wedding band and Koran, allowing the hero to live only because they see he is a good Muslim.  The children play in the rubble, but are sent to stay with their aunt for their safety.  The woman laments that her Koran is stolen.
The woman tells the man that she is upset about their history; and tells him he has become her patience stone, listening to her stories.  The woman recounts her mother's story about a King who kills all of his newborn daughters because he wants a son.  The Queen speaks to one of the daughters who is magical and is told she will inherit a grand realm if she saves the daughter.  After the Queen runs away, the King goes on a warmongering quest for her, and eventually the Queen's realm prepares to do battle against the King's invading force.  Instead of a traditional ending, the woman says that this story leaves the listener's bias to its own devices.
Another Religious force sweeps the area and the woman hides the hero.  When the soldiers are gone, she tells the hero the story of her rape.  He rises from his comatose state, and the woman proclaims that it is a miracle, but then her husband murders her.  The book ends with a fly buzzing around the dead woman's body.

ANALYSIS
While the woman believes the tables have been turned on the hero and he now serves her instead of her serving him, it still appeared to me as though she was getting a raw deal by tending to him while he contributed nothing.  The stories told by this woman exposed a difficulty in being forced into a situation and then accused of being unholy because of it.  Unfortunately, the hero, soldiers, and merchant, were strong enough that they could choose to overpower and eventually kill her.
The recounted story about the cat suggests that the woman was seen as a pet, like a cat, with which her father could do whatever he pleased.  Bearing a great similarity to Henry the 8th of England, who killed his wives if they gave birth to a daughter, the King from the woman's mother's story is incredibly cruel and immoral, also treating woman as though they are less than human.  Asserting a strong belief in one's cause is emphasized by the need to imagine your own ending to the mother's story.  In the world of the mother's story, if you do not believe you will win, you may lose.
This story feels less like a didactic message and more like a slice of life.  It is tragic, and what is most unjust about the sexual relations in the story is that the hero cannot even be asked to stay in a coma, the easiest state to exist in, in order to give his wife moral support, and rises from the dead just to kill her because, in his mind, she allowed herself to be raped.

• man who has mistreated his wife becomes her patience stone in a coma
• woman is harassed by men and then blamed for allowing herself to be mistreated
• man rises from his coma to murder his wife for being impure

Rahimi, Atiq. The Patience Stone: Sang-e Saboor. Trans. Polly McLean. New York: Other, 2009. Print. Book about a man who becomes his wife's patience stone.