THE CHISELLERS by BRENDAN Ó CARROLL SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE CHISELLERS by BRENDAN Ó CARROLL

SUMMARY
A woman named Agnes Browne lives in Dublin in 1970 with her children and Agnes' husband, Redser, died three years before the novel begins.  Agnes' children are named Cathy, Dermot, Simon, Mark, Rory, and Francis.  Francis is the eldest son and prefers the nickname 'Frankie'.  Frankie is  belongs to a gang of skinheads, or, neo-nazis, who target homosexuals because there are no people of color in Dublin during this novel's setting.  Mark is an apprentice at the carpentry business of an old man named Benny Wise.  Rory left school at 14 and entered into an apprenticeship with a hairdresser.  Cathy is in her final year of school, at age 13.  Dermot and Simon are twins and together in their first year at Technical School.  Simon has a severe stutter and is thought to have a vocation for Priesthood while Dermot is talented at carpentry and runs a newspaper route.  Thomas is six years old and is thought to be either intellectually deficient or dyslexic by his teachers.
A man named Sean McHugh who works at Benny Wise's carpentry business asks Mark Browne to participate in a company meeting with a firm called 'Smyth and Blythe' which is pivotal to the future of Benny Wise's carpentry firm.  Browne and McHugh market a product called the 'Elizabeth Suite' to Smythe and Blythe which the British customers believe is named for Queen Elizabeth, but in reality is named after a woman named Elizabeth whom Mark wishes to marry named Elizabeth Collins.
Agnes Browne wins the local bingo game for £310.  Frankie is expelled from school, and Agnes threatens to disallow Frankie to live with Agnes if Frankie does not find a job and pay rent.  Dermot goes shoplifting the next day because Dermot is bored and does not have any money.  Mark witnesses Dermot shoplifting and invents an excuse on behalf of Dermot which Mark tells Agnes, but Mark scolds Dermot for stealing privately.  Agnes goes on a date that evening.
Mark Browne borrows £50 from Agnes Browne and spends all of Mark's savings on carpentry supplies for the 'Elizabeth Suite'.  Mark is successful in building the Suite and secures an order with 'Smyth and Blythe' for as many Suites as Mark can make for a price of £80 a suite.
Manny Wise is an emigrant and the son of Benny Wise and lives in London, selling drugs via younger Irish emigrants who often become addicted to the heroin which they are attempting to sell.  The police are watching Manny closely.
Simon overcomes his stutter to secure a job as a porter in training with the local hospital.  Frankie and the skinheads corner Rory in an alley because the skinheads suspect Rory of being homosexual as a hairdresser and the skinheads, including Frankie, physically assault Rory, injuring Rory badly.  Frankie steals the remainder of Agnes' bingo money and sails off for England.
Frankie assumes the alias of Ben Daly and becomes Manny Wise's right hand man in London.  Frankie begins selling drugs and using cocaine with Manny Wise.  Frankie sends home two £20 notes to Agnes and apologizes for stealing Agnes' business money in an attached letter.  Years pass by.
Cathy Dowdall is a friend of Cathy Browne's and goes on a data with Simon Browne.  Cathy Dowdall attempts to give Simon genital stimulation with her hand while Simon and Cathy are sitting in a theater.  Simon is petrified and Cathy Dowdall is arrested for lewd behavior.  Simon joins the priesthood after Cathy Dowdall attempts to give Simon manual genital stimulation.
Manny Wise is arrested and calls Frankie, whom Wise believes is named Ben Daly, from prison.  Wise sends Daly to Wise's apartment to collect Wise's money for bail.  Instead of only taking out the money necessary for bail, Frankie steals all of Wise's money and an envelope in which Manny Wise kept the deed to Benjamin Wise's carpentry shop.  Frankie goes to the prison and bails Manny out but then makes an excuse to leave Manny.  Frankie stays in England but hides where Manny cannot find Frankie, although Manny sends guards to all the airports and border crossing areas when Manny discovers that Frankie has stolen Manny's money.  Frankie develops a heroin addiction while on the run from Manny Wise and spends almost all of the £3000 stolen from Manny Wise during a three month period in London through a combination of drinking, gambling, and heroin use.
Mark Browne marries Elizabeth Collins in 1978 and Benjamin Wise dies of excitement during the ceremony.  Manny Wise flies into town for Benjamin Wise's funeral.  Benjamin Wise's lawyer calls Mark Browne, Sean McHugh, and Manny Wise into the lawyer's office to read Benjamin Wise's will.  Benjamin Wise leaves Benjamin Wise's home to Sean McHugh, the Wise carpentry shop to Mark Browne, and Benjamin Wise leaves Manny Wise's ego to Manny Wise.  Manny Wise laughs, and claims to have the deed to Benjamin Wise's carpentry shop, making Benjamin Wise's will void.  The lawyer gives Manny Wise three days to produce the deed.
Manny Wise flies back to London and finds that the deed has been stolen.  A former employee of Manny Wise's, named Joe Fitzgerald, assaults Manny Wise in the lobby of Manny Wise's apartment building for heroin, and Manny Wise attacks Joe Fitzgerald, and in the process Manny Wise punctures a foil package of cocaine, which explodes all over the lobby of the apartment building.  Police witness the scene and arrest Manny Wise.
Frankie hides in a cargo freight of a train headed toward London and dreams of Ireland while using his last fix of heroin.  Frankie dies of hypothermia and the coroners find Frankie's body with the crumpled deed to Benjamin Wise's carpentry shop.

ANALYSIS
Family values are heavily underpinned in this novel.  Frankie and Manny are disrespectful toward their respective parents and both Frankie and Manny experience unfortunate endings.  Mark, who scolds his brothers Frankie and Dermot for misbehaving, is rewarded with vast riches.
This book is an excellent example of religious cohabitation in Ireland.  Benjamin Wise is Jewish and the Brownes are Catholic.  While Jewish burial customs confuse Dermot, everyone is happy to honor Benjamin Wise's wishes at Benjamin Wise's funeral.  This book provides a realistic contrast to the public media image of Ireland as presented by British sources in a sectarian light.  While sectarian conflict has been part of Ireland's history, the progress made on this front is totally underestimated in the international media.  Rather than political dissenters and civil rights activists, Catholics who resist British oppression are depicted as religious fanatics in the British media, while the British Episcopalians are depicted as merely defending the British culture.  Why the British culture needs to be defended against a group of people it has oppressed for hundreds of years and continues to oppress today, is unknown to me.
Ranting aside, this book is iontach craic, or a lot of fun as bearla, or English.  Brendan O'Carroll fills the book with sly jokes and likable characters.  The plot twists and drama make The Chisellers very enjoyable.

• a boy in Ireland beats up his brother and flees to England
• a brother of the boy who flees to England becomes a successful carpenter
• the boy who flees to Ireland steals from his drug dealing boss
• the carpenter gets married and the drug dealing boss' father dies, leaving a carpentry business to the successful carpenter
•  drug dealing boss must produce a deed to keep the carpentry business
• drug dealing boss is arrested and the boy who fled to England dies of hypothermia

SOURCE
O'Carroll, Brendan. The Chisellers. New York: Plume, 2000. Print. Book about an Irish family in 1970s Dublin.
Part 1 of Vice's British biased, hyperbole-ridden documentary on terrorism in Ireland.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nzDuiv3U8o

THE MAN OF FEELING, or, EL HOMBRE SENTIMENTAL, by JAVIER MARÍAS SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE MAN OF FEELING, or, EL HOMBRE SENTIMENTAL by JAVIER MARÍAS

SUMMARY
The unnamed narrator grew up in an oppressive household.  As a child, he moved to Madrid to live with his grandfather, Seńor Casaldáliga, who was very strict.  The narrator was not allowed to leave the bedroom while Casaldáliga was away, and Casaldáliga was not financially supportive of the narrator, although Casaldáliga was financially successful.  The narrator develops a talent for opera singing whilst living with Casaldáliga.  Later on, the narrator falls in love with a woman named Berta.  The narrator marries Berta and Berta and the narrator move into a home together.
After some time, the romance in Berta and the narrator's relationship fades.  The narrator visits prostitutes while on tour with the opera, and when the narrator returns home, the narrator is more concerned with attempting to fall back into a routine of home comfort than with connecting to Berta, emotionally or physically.  Berta and the narrator divorce, and the narrator leaves some books at their formerly shared home during the narrator's departure.  Berta remarries to a man whose name is either Noriega, Noguer, or Navarro, and the narrator cannot remember the exact name of Berta's second husband.
Just as the narrator is inwardly lamenting at the loneliness opera singers feel in each new city visited on tour by opera singers, the narrator meets a man named Dato and a woman named Natalia Manur in Madrid.  Dato complains to the narrator that Dato feels as though Dato's marriage has become dispassionately ritualistic.  At this juncture, the narrator professes to stop thinking about the narrator.  Natalia is the wife of the director of the opera.  During one rehearsal, the director of the opera, known simply as Manur, flies into a rage at the entire cast of the opera and then becomes enraged at the venue's staff.  That night, Natalia Manur comes home from a late night with Dato and the narrator and Manur expresses his jealousy.  Natalia ignores her husband and rolls away from her husband's grasp in bed.
The narrator realizes his sexual attraction for Natalia Manur and decides to ease his tension by hiring a prostitute on the first night after the opera opening, which is atypical for the narrator to do on opening night of the opera.  The narrator goes to the front desk and arranges for a prostitute to be sent to the narrator's room by the hotel's concierge.  When the prostitute, who is named Claudina and claims to be Argentinian while speaking in a Spanish accent, arrives, the narrator decides to sit and chat with the prostitute rather than have sex with the prostitute.  During the narrator's interaction with Claudina, the narrator tells Claudina that his name is Emilio, but thinks that this is a lie.
The next morning, Manur comes to the narrator's hotel room, and Manur asks the narrator for a private dialogue over breakfast in the narrator's room.  During the dialogue between the narrator and Manur, Manur accuses the narrator of calling Manur's house with the intent of speaking to Natalia Manur after midnight.  Manur suspects that the narrator is having an affair with Natalia Manur, and forbids Natalia Manur from speaking to the narrator.  Manur reveals that Manur is blackmailing Natalia Manur into the Manur's marriage because Manur is financially supporting Natalia Manur's brother, Roberto, who is a fugitive.
Manur informs Dato of Manur's suspicions regarding the narrator's intentions.  After the narrator becomes intoxicated and vomits on a fellow opera singer who the narrator feels uneasy in the company of, Dato summons the narrator to Dato's room.  Dato tells the narrator that Natalia Manur is waiting to speak with the narrator.  The narrator goes to meet Natalia Manur and Natalia Manur and the narrator begin dating.  Natalia Manur divorces her husband Manur.
After four days, Manur shoots himself.  Natalia Manur insists on keeping Manur company during Manur's final days, and, after Manur is deceased, Natalia Manur returns to the narrator.  Rather than stay at home while the narrator is touring with the opera as Berta did, Natalia Manur accompanies the narrator while the narrator is touring with the opera.
After some time, the narrator and Natalia Manur have grown apart.  Natalia Manur does not speak to the narrator when Natalia Manur is in the narrator's hotel room, and Natalia Manur does not tour the city and is lonely in each town she visits, just as opera singers are lonely in each touring stop.  Natalia Manur demands that only Spanish be spoken during the trips.  Four years after the narrator first met Natalia Manur, Natalia Manur ends her romantic relationship with the narrator by leaving the narrator during an opera tour, despite the narrator's desperate plea to Natalia Manur to keep the relationship together.
The narrator receives a letter from Berta's second husband, but doesn't learn the husband's name from the letter.  Berta's second husband informs the narrator that Berta has died and that Berta's second husband is willing to send the narrator the narrator's old books, if the narrator desires to reclaim the old books.  The narrator takes the fact that Berta kept the narrator's books as a sign that Berta cared for the narrator more than the narrator originally thought.  The narrator does not want the old books and has a flashback spanning the past four years and his relationship with Natalia Manur.

ANALYSIS
Because the narrator receives news about his first wife at the same time as a long term relationship has ended, the two relationships are juxtaposed naturally as the narrator is forced to think about the relationships during the same time interval.  While Berta did not accompany the narrator on opera trips, Natalia Manur did.  The narrator knew Berta when he was young and innocent and vying to escape from his oppressive grandfather's home.  The narrator knew Natlia Manur when he felt sickened by the egotism and dishonesty the narrator felt was rampant in the opera industry, culminating in the narrator's vomiting on an opera singer who reflected the negative traits of the opera industry.
The narrator began to grow apart from Berta when the narrator used prostitutes, and toured incessantly.  However, when the narrator dated a woman who was involved in the same industry, he still grew apart from his partner.  When the narrator expresses happiness that Berta kept the narrator's books and therefore must have cared more than he thought about him, the narrator realizes that the opera singing industry has corrupted him and he should not have allowed the profession to drag him away from a woman whom he says made every effort to be a good partner.
When the narrator met people, including Natalia Manur, in a strange city, he said he stopped thinking about himself.  After Natalia Manur left, the narrator began thinking about himself again.  The narrator complains that during long road trips, he was given too much time to think about himself in the hotel rooms of strange cities, surrounded by strangers.  The narrator was too busy thinking about himself because he traveled alone to appreciate his first wife, Berta.
It is not the opera itself that is blamed for the narrator's corruption, but the personality traits acquired by the narrator in the process of traveling from city to city in solitude and developing an ego around a crew of similarly affected, conniving performers.  Rather than try to make his life fit the opera singer's lifestyle by dating a woman in the same industry, the narrator discovers that he needs to make his profession fit his life, and not become corrupted by his work.

• oppressed child becomes an opera singer
• opera singer marries a woman whom he later divorces
• opera singer falls in love with the wife of the director of an opera he is starring in and dates the director's wife
• the opera director commits suicide
• opera singer's second long-term partner leaves him
• opera singer receives a letter informing him that his first wife is dead

SOURCE
Marías, Javier. The Man of Feeling. Trans. Margaret Jull. Costa. New York: New Directions Pub., 2003. Print. Book about an egotistical man who loves and loses two women during his opera singing career.

SIN, or, ГPEX, by ZAKHAR PRILEPIN SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

SIN, or, ГPEX, by ZAKHAR PRILEPIN

SUMMARY

As a young child, Zakhar is splitting wood with a hatchet, and accidentally splits his fingernail with the hatchet.  He feels tears coming to his eyes, but Zakhar hides his crying from his grandmother, and Zakhar bandages himself in secret.
While Zakhar is in his late childhood, he plays tag with other children from his neighborhood in an abandoned lot.  One of the children Zakhar plays tag with is named Sasha.  Sasha has run away from home.  Someone finds Sasha's dead body in a freezer where Sasha was attempting to take shelter from the cold.
In the summer, Zakhar goes to visit his grandparents in a small village, where Zakhar's grandfather is proud to own one of the village's largest huts.  Zakhar's cousins, Rodik, Sasha, and Syuska, live nearby.  Zakhar is sexually attracted to his cousins Sasha and Syuska, and Rodik is a younger child who does not speak much.  After Zakhar awakes one morning at his grandparents' house, he goes to his cousins' house to spend time with his cousins.  Zakhar's cousins and Zakhar walk to Zakhar's grandparents' home.  Sasha and Zakhar get into a tickling match, which Sasha enjoys, but Zakhar insists that Sasha stop tickling because Zakhar is afraid that he will become aroused.  Night falls, and Zakhar's grandfather invites Sasha, Rodik, and Syuska to spend the night at Zakhar's grandparents' home.  The invitation is accepted, and everyone lays down to sleep, with Zakhar lying close to his cousin Syuska, and again, Zakhar struggles with the attraction he feels for her.  Rodik begins calling for his mother, and Zakhar eagerly places Rodik between Zakhar and Syuska.  Zakhar decides that sleeping with the goat will be more comfortable, so Zakhar goes to the barn to sleep with the goat, and feels that he has overcome attraction for his cousin.
After Zakhar finished school, he stayed at home with his brothers to work in the family gravedigging business.  Zakhar and his brothers steal vodka from the funeral receptions of their clients and drink the vodka outside in the cold.  One day, Zakhar decides that drinking in the cold is too unpleasant, and Vova, Zakhar's friend and fellow mortician, suggests that Zakhar drink in one of Vova's classmate's apartment building.  Zakhar drinks in the apartment building of Vova's female classmate, and one of the building's residents unleashes a vicious dog on Zakhar, driving Zakhar out of the building.  As Zakhar is leaving the building, he tears the railing off of the wall, and worries that he has offended Vova's female classmate.  Zakhar returns to Vova's house and gives Zakhar's telephone number to Vova's female classmate so that the two can arrange a date, but Vova's classmate is repulsed by the fact that Zakhar wrote his telephone number on the back of a picture of a dead woman which Zakhar collected at the funeral reception.  All of the morticians go home and the next night, after drinking with the other morticians, Zakhar stumbles across the railroad tracks.
Years later, Zakhar has a girlfriend who takes him to an art exhibit where Zakhar meets a man named Alexei.  Alexei is fat and Zakhar is muscular and lean.  After Zakhar breaks up with his girlfriend, he also quits his job as a bouncer to join the military.  Zakhar excels in basic training and eagerly awaits deployment, as Zakhar is poor and needs money from military service.  Zakhar meets Alexei by chance and the two men begin drinking together in the park and browsing, but not buying, books in book stores.  Zakhar and Alexei grow fond of one another and Zakhar writes part of a novel starring Alexei, but Zakhar doesn't use Alexei's name in the book.  Alexei reads Zakhar's novel at Zakhar's request.  One night, Alexei and Zakhar have an argument, which ends with Alexei expressing jealousy for Zakhar.

Alexei moves away.  After a few months, Zakhar begins to work at a loading dock.  One night, Zakhar receives a phone call from Alexei, and Alexei is slurring words and expressing a feeling of betrayal in response to Zakhar's neglect to ask about Alexei's welfare.  Zakhar hangs up and, a few days later, Alexei and another man appear at Zakhar's loading dock.  Alexei and Alexei's friend want to take shelter inside of the store to which the loading dock belongs, but Zakhar tells Alexei that nobody can enter the building until Zakhar's boss leaves in an hour.  Zakhar, Alexei, and Alexei's friend begin talking to one another at the loading dock, and Zakhar and Alexei's friend, who are both fit men, decide to box eachother with open hands.  Alexei's friend breaks the agreement and punches Zakhar with a closed fist, sending Zakhar reeling to the ground.  Alexei, standing over Zakhar, says in a flat tone that Zakhar fell down.

Zakhar begins dating a new woman named Marysenka.  Marysenka and Zakhar find a group of 4 stray dogs and shelter the dogs in their home.  Although Zakhar and Marysenka are poor, they are happy, and they have sex frequently.
A local Jewish man named Valies is a respected actor in the local playhouse and, as Valies is growing older, Zakhar wishes to interview him.  Zakhar interviews Valies and is disgusted by the amount of gossip Valies discusses during the interview.  After the interview, Zakhar goes home and types up the story, and drops off a copy of the story at Valies' house.  The next day, Valies calls Zakhar and tells Zakhar that Valies does not approve of the interview and that Zakhar should not print the interview in its current form.  Zakhar adheres to Valies' request, even though Zakhar and Marysenka are starving.  Marysenka is frustrated and offers to interview Valies on Zakhar's behalf.  Zakhar agrees, and Marysenka interviews Valies and Zakhar writes an article based on Marysenka's interview.  Valies approves of the new interview and Zakhar and Marysenka are able to get money to buy food.  Valies begins calling Marysenka every day, and asks Marysenka to marry Valies.
 One day, one of the stray dogs which Zakhar and Marysenka shelter escapes and Zakhar chases after the dog.  Zakhar follows the dog into a poor neighborhood, suspecting that poor people are planning to eat the dog.  Zakhar eventually finds the dog in an apartment which is shared by several poor men.  After threatening the men, Zakhar leaves the apartment with the dog.
Valies dies.  Zakhar and Marysenka give away all of the stray dogs to new owners whom Zakhar and Marysenko trust.  Zakhar and Marysenka attend Valies' funeral.  Eventually Zakhar and Marysenka marry and have children.
Zakhar works as a bouncer again.  A man who Zakhar describes as a poser is sitting at the bar.  A group of tough men who are bodybuilders come to the bar, and Zakhar and the other bouncer, Molotok, don't feel that they can physically overpower the tough men.  Borisych, Zakhar's boss, comes to the club, and informs Zakhar that Borisych will be hiring another bouncer for the bar.  At one A.M., a fight breaks out between a Caucasian and a Russian.  Then, a man takes a woman's purse and Zakhar demands that the man return the purse to the woman, but the man who took the purse refuses, saying that the man who took the purse knows the woman to whom the purse belongs, and that Zakhar does not need to interfere in the two people's relationship.  An expensive car full of Moscow teenagers pulls up in the parking lot, and the group of tough men come out and fight the Moscow teenagers.  During the fight, the man who Zakhar described as a poser emerges from the bar, and using a subtle fighting move, incapacitates all of the tough men and the Moscow teenagers singlehandedly.  Zakhar approaches the poser to talk to the poser, and the tough men and the Muscovites take the opportunity to drive away.  A woman emerges from the club to flirt with Zakhar.  Zakhar rejects the woman.  Molotok and Zakhar go back inside the club where the poser disrespects them and the poser spills wine on Molotok's shirt.  When the poser leaves the club, drunk, the poser hails a taxi, at which point Zakhar recognizes that the poser is drunk and punches the poser in the face, incapacitating the poser.  Zakhar leaves the poser lying in the parking lot and Zakhar goes home to his family.
One night, Zakhar lies awake looking at his children, named Ignat and Gleb, thinking about how much he loves the children.  Zakhar receives word that his grandmother died and Zakhar plans to drive back to the small town in which Zakhar grew up and where Zakhar's grandmother lived.  Although Gleb and Ignat are sad that Zakhar is leaving, Zakhar begins to drive toward the small village where the funeral for Zakhar's grandmother will be held.
Zakhar is called by the military to service again.  Eventually, he becomes a Sergeant.  One day, when Zakhar's unit is covering a shift at an outpost, the next unit does not arrive to relieve Zakhar's unit.  An enemy unit steals Zakhar's jeep and Zakhar's unit hides in the bushes, following the jeep as the enemy unit is driving slowly.  Eventually, the enemy unit pulls up to an abandoned building of a town which the enemy army has pillaged, and the enemy unit go into the abandoned building.  Zakhar's unit recapture the jeep, and hotwire the jeep, and Zakhar runs the jeep into an enemy soldier who emerged from the building to investigate the noise.  Zakhar drives back to the base and Zakhar's unit enters the home base.  There is a loud explosion, and Zakhar looks back and sees a disfigured soldier with mutilated eyes limping toward him.

ANALYSIS
This book is written in nonsequential short stories, allowing the emotional value of each story to be emphasized rather than its chronological placement within a larger plot.  The narrator for all of the short stories excluding the final story is a first person narrator named Zakhar, which is the same name as the pen name of the author of the novel, however, Sin is not an autobiography, but a work of fiction.  Additionally, Zakhar Prilepins birth name is not Zakhar.  The final story is told by a third person narrator and Zakhar is the main character.
Zakhar's inner monologue discusses the feeling of weight and interaction between Zakhar and food frequently during Sin.  During a few intervals of Zakhar's life, Zakhar has been starving, but fitness has been a constant for him.  Zakhar explains that he feels light as a bouncer, watching many heavy people frequent the bar, but also complains that he himself feels heavy as a soldier, comparing the weight he feels on his body to the added grief Zakhar feels in his mind.
The relations between Caucasians, or, people from the Caucasus mountain area, and Russians, is described as being slightly hostile in the book.  Additionally, Zakhar recognizes Valies' facial features as being Jewish and sneaky.
In the bouncer story, Zakhar interestingly misjudges the poser's fighting ability by the poser's slight stature.  There does not appear to be a philosophical message to the bouncer story, but the reader learns several interesting items from Zakhar's experience: men are not proportionately talented fighters to their muscular size; all men are vulnerable when drunk; the smartest fighter wins.  Zakhar and Molotok allow the poser to disrespect them, so that the poser will let his guard down and become drunk so that Zakhar can hit him.
The story with Alexei is similar to the bouncer story in that it contains fighting advice.  Because Alexei is not surprised and not sympathetic that Zakhar was knocked out by Alexei's friend, it is probable that Alexei planned the attack.  If this is true, then Alexei outwitted Zakhar by luring Zakhar into a false sense of trust and, although Alexei is not as strong as Zakhar, Alexei ultimately stood over Zakhar after Zakhar was punched to the ground.
Poverty in Russia is juxtaposed in this novel with national pride.  Zakhar, who was a soldier, expresses hatred for Stalin at leading his beloved homeland astray.  The reader sees gripping poverty in Russia, and sees that the Russian army manages its soldiers poorly in the episode about Zakhar as a sergeant.  Zakhar expresses that he loves Russia but feels betrayed by his government.

• Zakhar is born in a small village in Russia
• Zakhar has a crush on his cousins who live in another village one summer but does not visit again
• One of Zakhar's friends freezes to death in Russia after running away from home
• Zakhar works as a gravedigger and is rejected by a girl who finds his profession disgusting
• Zakhar works as a bouncer
• Zakhar quits his job and makes a friend who is jealous of Zakhar and then moves away
• Zakhar works as a loader and the friend returns with another man who incapacitates Zakhar while Zakhar is unsuspecting
• Zakhar finds a girlfriend
• Zakhar interviews a local actor who becomes obsessed with Zakhar's girlfriend
• The local actor dies and Zakhar and his girlfriend get married and have kids
• Zakhar works as a bouncer again and learns how to win fights by cunning
• Zakhar is forced to leave his happy home to return to his small, depressing village of origin to attend his grandmother's funeral
• Zakhar is forced to return to the army where he becomes a sergeant
• Zakhar's unit jeep is stolen and he and his men return it to the base where Zakhar sees a horribly disfigured soldier limping toward the base with mutilated eyes

SOURCE

Prilepin, Zakhar. Sin. Trans. Simon Patterson and Nina Chordas. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print. Book about a man named Zakhar's journey from childhood to adulthood in Russia.

JUMPERS by TOM STOPPARD SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

JUMPERS by TOM STOPPARD

SUMMARY
An entertainer named Dorothy falls in love with her philosophy professor, named George Moore, at University, and Dorothy and George become married.
Years later, Dorothy becomes well-known in her community as an entertainer.  The night before Dorothy has a show, the Moores host a party in their home, and many acrobats come.  One of the acrobats is named McFee, and McFee is killed in the ballroom of the Moore's home, but his body is not discovered immediately.
The next night, Dorothy is the singer of a show where acrobats also perform.  Part of Dorothy's act in the show is to deride the acrobats and insist that she is the superior talent.  After the show, Dorothy, and her husband, George, return to their apartment.  George begins to talk about philosophy with Dorothy, focusing on the question of the existence of God.  George believes that people can not speak on the will of God because they can not define what God's existence is comprised of, and juxtaposes the certainty of many people regarding God's will to the confusion many people experience concerning basic facts.
Inspector Bones arrives at the Moores' apartment to investigate an indecent exposure claim made by someone who watched Dorothy dance around nude through the Moores' window.  Bones professes his admiration for Dorothy's work and George takes the blame for the indecent exposure charge.  George tells Bones that George phoned the police as a ruse in order to embarrass George's wife, Dorothy, during an argument.  Bones begins to inspect the apartment.
Archie, a psychiatrist, comes over to the Moores' apartment for a routine evaluation of Dorothy.  Archie unpacks a dermatograph which he uses to read Dorothy's skin for psychological discomfort.  Bones finds McFee's body in the other room.
At length, Archie explains McFee's death as a suicide.  Still, Bones asks to speak to Dorothy alone.  Outside the bedroom, Archie and George discuss philosophy, until Dorothy's cries are audible from the hallway, and Archie and George run into the Moores' bedroom.  Dorothy is crying, and indicates that Bones tried to force himself on Dorothy, which George vehemently denies.  Bones decides to accept Archie's explanation and George puts the ultimate conclusion to his philosophical argument to his audience.

ANALYSIS
George's message is stated very clearly: he does not see how humans can anticipate the behavior of a being which they do not fully understand.  This is a very Catholic mentality, it seems to me, as it implies that the common man cannot communicate with God.  Personally, I agree, but I'm a Catholic, so my perception is definitely biased.
A sexual analysis of this piece is interesting.  While Dorothy is treated as intellectually inferior and prone to sexual temptation by her husband, she is also cleansed of wrongdoing by assuming the pose of a sexually abused woman, taking advantage of Archie and George's sympathies for woman in a presumed ruse.  Given Dorothy's voiced contempt for the acrobats who steal her attention, and the fact that such an acrobat was found dead in her home, it is not unreasonable to presume that she may have had a role in McFee's death.

• performer has a party during which a man is shot
• the next night performer returns home after a play
• a detective arrives and finds the body
• performer accuses the detective of sexual assault and escapes blame in the killing

SOURCE
Stoppard, Tom. Jumpers: A Play. New York: Grove, 1972. Print. Book about a dead body found in a performer's home.