MINI DEVILS by WILSON KAIGARULA SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

MINI DEVILS by WILSON KAIGARULA

SUMMARY
Kyaro is a peaceful village in Tanzania.  Saulo is a boy who lives in Kyaro.  One day, Saulo shoots an old man named Kushindwa in the eye with a slingshot.  Kushindwa does not see Saulo, and the entire village is punished as a consequence of Saulo's behavior.  Mugurusi, Saulo's grandfather, is stoned for defending Saulo to the village, and Saulo is ashamed of himself because Saulo respects Mugurusi and Mugurusi has suffered because of Saulo's mischief.
Believing that an evil wind has blown into Kyaro, local mosque preacher, and christian preacher, each bless the village, attempting to cleanse the village of evil spirits.  Mugurusi threatens to kill Kushindwa.  Villagers call the police, and Mugurusi flees to an unknown location.
Saulo meets a girl named Frida whom Saulo proposes marriage to within a letter.  Frida initially ignores Saulo.  Saulo and his friend Kaleju set a trap for a local boy named Mizano together.  Kaleju and Saulo begin stealing many items from the private school both boys attend.  Eventually, Saulo and Kaleju are expelled from school.  Kaleju changes his name to Kidevu.
Saulo and Kidevu are taken in by a friendly shop owner whom the boys rob for 23 shillings, and Saulo and Kidevu hitchhike to Bukoba, TZ.  Saulo and Kidevu board a train where Saulo robs an old woman's purse for 120,000 shillings.  Saulo gives Kidevu 60,000 shillings.  Saulo and Kidevu arrive in Mwanza, TZ, and decide to lodge in a suburb of Mwanza, Kirumba.  Kidevu and Saulo get jobs as taxi drivers and form a musical group in Kirumba entitled 'Hot Boys', with Kidevu providing percussion, and Saulo adding vocals.  Saulo proposes to Kidevu that Saulo and Kidevu fast and attend church in order to augment their spirituality.  A jealous husband named Mike believes that Saulo and Kidevu are trying to make sexual advances on Mike's wife, named Rose, and Mike threatens to kill Saulo and Kidevu, so Saulo and Kidevu leave their rental home in Kirumba, but remain in Mwanza.
A man named Suedi insults Saulo and Kidevu kills Suedi for the offense.  Kidevu and Saulo decide to leave Mwanza, and inform their boss, Mbele, that they are travelling to Bukoba for a funeral.  Saulo and Kidevu buy train tickets for Dar es Salaam.  Saulo and Kidevu befriend a group of Christians during the train rider, and rob the Christians during the middle of the night.  The Christians become aware of the robbery, and the Christians retrieve the stolen items from Saulo and Kidevu's luggage while Saulo and Kidevu are sleeping.  The Christians leave a note for Saulo and Kidevu expressing knowledge of the theft and announcing that Saulo's best pants have been ripped as retribution.
Saulo begins dating a woman named Naomi in Dar es Salaam.  Naomi accuses Saulo of sexual assault, and Saulo is saved from stoning by a woman named Mama Sauda.  Mama Sauda is a woman named Sauda's mother.  Sauda and Tamira, Sauda's sister, have devised a plot with a set of Arabic twins named Kassim and Issa to manipulate Saulo and Kidevu into supporting Sauda, Tamira, and the women's respective boyfriends.  Sauda converts to Christianity to please Saulo and changes her name to Sarah.  Tamira pressures Kidevu into marriage by claiming to be pregnant with Kidevu's child when Tamira is actually pregnant with an Arabic man's child.  Initially, Kidevu resists, but Saulo convinces Kidevu to proceed with the marriage.
Saulo and Kidevu have a joint ceremony as Saulo marries Sarah at the same time that Kidevu marries Tamira.  During the wedding, Naomi approaches Saulo and pours water over Saulo, and then Naomi leaves the wedding.
After the wedding, Tamira gives birth to her child while Saulo and Kidevu wait in the lounge.  The doctor tells Kidevu that Kidevu is not the child's father.  Later, Saulo finds that Sarah is missing and he finds a note from Sarah who is also Sauda, informing Saulo of the plot between the Arabic twins Kassim and Issa and Sauda and Tamira.
Kidevu and Saulo leap to the conclusion that they are both infertile, and decide to kill themselves.  Saulo convinces Kidevu that Saulo and Kidevu should relocate to another town before committing suicide in order to give life another chance.  Saulo and Kidevu have their sperm tested and find that both of them are, in fact, infertile.  Saulo and Kidevu travel to Sinza, TZ, to apologize to Mike.  After Saulo and Kidevu visit a church and decide to devote themselves to spirituality, they plan a final gig under their current band name Nyembe Kali, which means, The Razor Blades.  A woman named Eliza confronts Saulo and Kidevu with the knowledge that Saulo and Kidevu's wives were stolen by Issa and Kassim.  Saulo and Kidevu draw pen knives and murder Eliza.
Saulo and Kidevu return to their home in Sinza and write a suicide note which confesses to the murder of Eliza.  Saulo and Kidevu drink rat poison and pass out, only to wake up in the hospital with police nearby.

ANAYLSIS
Throughout the book, Saulo, who is the narrator, compares his struggle for survival to an Olympic athlete's struggles in succeeding at the Olympics.  When he attempts suicide, Saulo announces that he has withdrawn from the game of life as a loser.  This straightforward analogy compares life to a game, and life's struggles to fatigue, adverse conditions, or opponents within a game.
Another straightforward analogy of this novel is the comparison of Saulo and Kidevu to two devils who, despite their best intentions, cannot spread love and peace in the world.  Apparently, the instinctive hatred which is present in Saulo and Kidevu's souls is so strong that neither man can resist his primal urge to commit sin.  Saulo writes at the end of the novel that even mini-devils deserve human compassion.  The solution to all the problems in this novel is a universal sense of compassion which involves no single man having an extraordinarily large burden of compassion placed on him.  If nobody had ever wronged Saulo and Kidevu, beginning with the old man whom Saulo shot a slingshot at, Saulo's primal urge to retaliate would have never taken over, and he would have not been launched down a path of uncertainty where he was prone to be tempted to do wrong.  In a world where everyone is nice all of the time, nobody would hurt others because nobody would have any cause to retaliate against others, and nobody would gain by hurting others.  Humanity as a whole must take the blame for the wrongs of one person if we are to make a serious commitment to treating eachother with respect.
As a side note, the translation of this novel is off in many places, making the novel difficult to read at times.

• 2 boys run away from their home village after one of them shoots an old man with a slingshot
• after roaming around Africa, and stealing from people as part of a two-man band, one of the main characters begins dating a woman whom he later breaks up with
• the two men start dating a pair of twins whom they become engaged to
• the twins reveal themselves to be part of a plot with a set of Arabic twins and ditch the two main characters
• the two men decide to kill themselves and, after a brief period of hope, continue with the plan, but are unsuccessful

SOURCE
Kaigarula, Wilson. Mini-devils. Dar Es Salaam: E & D, n.d. Print.

THE DARK VALLEY by VALERIO VARESI SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE DARK VALLEY by VALERIO VARESI

SUMMARY
A police officer named Saneri is married to a woman named Angela who complains that he is too stressed and tells Saneri to go on vacation.  Saneri travels to his hometown of Montelupo to forage mushrooms.  Once Saneri arrives in his hometown, he hears that Palmiro Ridolfi, a wealthy factory owner in the area, has gone missing.  Ridolfi was friends with a man called 'the woodsman' and another man who committed suicide a few years earlier.  While Saneri is in the misted woods foraging mushrooms, Saneri hears gunshots.  When Saneri is back in town, Saneri speaks to the town's mayor and other locals who inform Saneri that Ridolfi was the shooter and the target was Ridolfi's dog.  The people of the town have a celebration during which townspeople steal items from citizens' homes and leave the stolen items in easily accessible places such as the town square.  All of the townspeople, and Saneri, hear gunshots during the celebration.  During another trip into the woods, Saneri finds Ridolfi's festering body hanging from a rope with Saneri's dog.  Paride, Ridolfi's son whom Ridolfi was disappointed by, is found dead.  Saneri goes into the neighboring town where Ridolfi's wife lives and delivers the dog to Ridolfi's wife, but Ridolfi's wife does not want the dog.  While at the home of Ridolfi's wife, Saneri meets Ridolfi's housekeeper.  Ridolfi's wife expresses rejoice at liberation from Ridolfi's wife's confinement with Ridolfi and Paride in the rural town.
The local police of Montelupo quickly assess 'the woodsman' whose real name is Gualerzi, as the lead suspect in the murder of Paride.  Gualerzi exchanges shots with the police, and Gualerzi hides himself in the mist and the thick forest.  Saneri's wife, Angela, comes to join Saneri.  Angela is exasperated at Saneri's obsession with police work when Angela discovers that Saneri has been working on the Ridolfi case during Saneri's vacation.  Saneri is out for a walk when Saneri sees Ridolfi's housekeeper and concludes that Ridolfi's housekeeper has been sent by Ridolfi's wife to spook Saneri off the case.  The next day, Saneri is informed that Gualerzi is dying of cancer, and Saneri meets Gualerzi's daughter, who begs Saneri to talk to Gualerzi and get Gualerzi to return to Montelupo before the police kill Gualerzi.  Saneri talks to the police and is given a short period of time to bargain for Gualerzi's surrender.  That night, an elderly man approaches Saneri and tells Saneri where to meet Gualerzi, in a bar at nine o'clock the next morning.
Saneri meets Gualerzi at the bar.  Gualerzi tells Saneri that Gualerzi did not kill Paride.  Paride was shot by people in a heavy fog so that Gualerzi could not see the killers.  Immediately after Paride was shot, Gualerzi heard police.  Gualerzi tells Saneri that Gualerzi is content to die in the mountains and does not want to return to the village.  Saneri goes back to the village alone.

ANALYSIS
This was an odd murder mystery, as I was still not sure who the killer was by the end of the novel.  The Ridolfi housekeeper is suggested as a suspect as he was probably sent to scare Saneri by Ridolfi's wife.  Ridolfi is established as a suspect because of Ridolfi's disappointment in Paride.  Ridolfi was a wealthy businessman and Paride was a drug addict who had no prospects.  Given that killing one's son is considered by most ethical people to be a shameful act, it is possible that Ridolfi ordered Paride's death, and then decided to hang himself in shame.
Another scenario is that the townspeople organized a collective killing of Paride.  Ridolfi, as the local factory owner, controlled the economy of Montelupo.  If the factory were left to Paride, the drug addict, the town's economy could be negatively affected.  Thus, Paride may have been killed by some conscientious objectors of the town.
Varesi's manipulation of the standard crime novel format produces the interesting effect of refocusing the novel on small town sovereignty.  The woodsman's plight is explored, as he is a respected hunter, and the police are hated by some of the townspeople for interfering.  If the townspeople did murder Paride to save themselves, was the murder justified?  Varesi raises some interesting questions.

• wealthy factory owner of rural Italy goes missing, and is found hanged
• the factory owner's son is murdered
• the lead suspect, a childhood friend of the factory owner, is hunted into the woods by the local police
• the lead suspect is found to have cancer and refuses to surrender to police

SOURCE

Varesi, Valerio. The Dark Valley. London: MacLehose, 2011. Print. Book about a suicide and a murder in a rural area.

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

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.

THE JONAH KIT by IAN WATSON SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE JONAH KIT by IAN WATSON

SUMMARY
The governments of the USA and a team of Russia and Japan, have been creating submarines which look like animals and are programmed to behave using the brain of dead astronauts.  A child named Linin, who was in a US training facility, being programmed into the submarines, escaped, and began swimming across the ocean.  At the same time, a dolphin which has begun to think for itself, begins to swim off course, as well.
Richard Hammond, a lead scientist on the project, is on vacation with his wife.  The Hammonds meet an Italian tourist who is interested in the project, and Hammond's wife begins to flirt with the Italian tourist.
When the Linin child comes ashore in Japan, he is taken in by the Japanese government.  The Japanese government, who share a headquarters in Japan with Russian forces, return the child to the US.  There, the boy asks for a radio headset with which he can communicate with the submarines.  The submarines begin to swim off-course on a mass scale.
The Italian tourist and Richard Hammond's wife quickly become sexually attracted to eachother, and have sex while Richard Hammond is at the hotel resort.
The first submarine to swim off-course washes up on the Japanese shore.  Many submarines begin washing up on shores all over the world.  When submarines wash up on the shore of the island where the Hammonds and the Italian tourist are vacationing, the Italian tourist is upset at Richard Hammond's irresponsibility, and heads toward the hotel to kill Hammond.  Hammond's wife agrees to help, but when Hammond's wife and the Italian tourist reach the hotel, they find a note from Hammond explaining that he has returned to the US to quarantine the submarine problem.
Back at the base, Hammond fanatically tries to convince the other US submarine team members to try and preserve the submarines by temporarily shutting them down.  Shutting down the submarines has become impossible because the submarines have developed their own mind.

ANALYSIS
The treatment of the Linin child was cruel, because the child chose to escape rather than stay with the US government.  While he was not physically strong enough to retaliate, he had ill will against the US, because he chose to poison the submarines against the US, presumably, as the submarines began to veer off course after the child communicated with them.  The US foolishly entrusted security of the US equipment to a person who had been abused by the US.
Hammond attempts to control his wife, and she cheats on him.  This is not equivalent to the loss of control Hammond experiences over the submarines, but from the structure of the novel I gathered that the author was trying to make the point that just as Hammond cannot control his wife, he cannot control the submarines to whom he has given a semblance of a human mind.  While the submarines with a human mind could adapt to battle situations more readily, it is impossible to control a human mind which has free will.
On an interesting side note, the name Richard Hammond is in this novel, and is also in Jurassic Park, which has a similar theme about trying to control living beings.  Because The Jonah Kit predates Jurassic Park by more than 10 years, and there are many commonalities between The Jonah Kit and Jurassic Park, The Jonah Kit is a spiritual predecessor to Jurassic Park.  Watson was not a part of the Jurassic Park staff.

• submarines which look like animals are programmed using the mind of a famous astronaut's son
• the famous astronaut's son communicates with the submarines
• the submarines malfunction and wash ashore all over the world

SOURCE
Watson, Ian. The Jonah Kit. New York: Scribner, 1975. Print. Book about submarines which look like animals and use a human brain.

NIKOLA THE OUTLAW, or, NIKOLA SUHAJ LOUPEZNIK, by IVAN OLLBRACHT SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

NIKOLA THE OUTLAW, or, NIKOLA SUHAJ LOUPEZNIK by IVAN OLLBRACHT

SUMMARY
Nikola Suhaj is from a town laying in a valley which is  the only place in his world where God still exists.  In this valley, Jews and Christians live harmoniously.  A woman named Erzika and Nikola are engaged to be married.  When the war begins, the town's farmers, including Nikola, are forced to fight, leaving their families without income.
A German soldier and Nikola are in the same unit and skipping duty  under  the pretense of looking for  missing companies when they find  quarter with an old witch.  The witch puts a hex on Nikola and the German to  be enforced if the soldiers do not marry the witch's daughter when the war concludes.  After seeing that the witch has a tail, the soldiers become afraid and shoot her.  While doing target practice in the woods they discover that Nikola has supernatural control over the direction of bullets.
Eventually Nikola completely deserts the army and returns home.  He spies on Erzika before finally approaching her.  An army officer named Bela is hunting Nikola to return Nikola to service.  Guised as a woman lost in the woods, Bela takes Nikola captive.  Once back on the frontlines, Nikola deserts the army  again, and when Bela tracks him down for the 2nd time, Nikola fends them off  in a shootout and returns  home.
When soldiers are denied their rations, they pillage the countryside and Bela uses the unrest to become the new regional captain.  Poor conditions persist for soldiers.  With a larger group, Bela tracks Nikola down and kidnaps his father.  Nikola fends off the group in another shootout and  rescues his father, but is arrested when the soldiers return shortly after.
Nikola is released and resumes his relationship with Erzika against her family's wishes.  A sergeant named Vlasek arrests Nikola and Nikola has Erzika send for  Nikola's family's last money to leave as bail while Nikola escapes as Vlasek sleeps.  At this point, Nikola enlists a group of poor travelers to assist him in robbing rich people along the highway.  Soldiers hear of the robberies but cannot find Nikola so they beat  Nikola's family.   When Nikola returns home, he rescues his uncle in a shootout  with the soldiers.  Nikola shares the money from his robberies with the townspeople and helps revitalize the town's  economy.  Before long, the soldiers return to  arrest Nikola and he disappears into the forest.
While Nikola is in hiding, the soldiers shoot travelers from the town on the highways and frame Nikola.   Nikola becomes ill in the forest and sees a witch and a doctor who help him recover.   Poor marksmanship exposes Nikola's imposter and Nikola's brother Juraj finds Nikola's secret hiding place through intuition.  On their way home, the brothers attempt a robbery in which they are not  able to stop the wagon in time, yet Juraj still shoots the driver, and Juraj laughs at the sight of the horses' frantic galloping while Nikola condemns Juraj's unneccessary violence.
A man named Svozil begins pursuing Erzika, and is  refused.  A man Nikola once trusted accepts and fails a contract to capture Nikola.   Juraj convinces Nikola to burn down the would-be captor's home.  Erzika gives in to Svozil's advances.
Nikola sees Svozil with Erzika and kills Svozil as Erzika faints.  Vlasek beats Erzika as she awakes and Erzika reveals that she gave Vlasek money for Nikola's release.  Bela punishes Vlasek.
Bela puts a bounty on Nikola's head.   The soldiers hold a town meeting where they unsuccessfuly try to convince farmers Nikola has aided financially that Nikola is evil.  The man who once attempted to capture Nikola is found dead and the man's son, Adam, vows to kill Nikola.  Two other men named Danilo and Ihnat also vow to kill  Nikola.  Danilo, Ihnat,  and  Adam go  up to  see Nikola to  give  him  supplies.  Juraj is  suspicious as usually only one man comes to give Nikola supplies, but Nikola  tells  Juraj that  all will  be  well.  Adam,  Danilo, and  Ihnat  kill Nikola  and  Juraj.   The soldiers  steal  the bounty  from  Adam, Ihnat, and Danilo, and dump the bodies of Nikola and Juraj on the lawn of the army station as trophies.
Years later, a biographer comes to the valley to tell Nikola's story.  A herdsman relates Nikola's story to the biographer.  The  biographer believes that Nikola lives on in the mountains as an immortal legend.

ANALYSIS
Like all Robin Hood tales, this story questions authority's supremacy over morality.  Bela, the captain obsessed with hunting Nikola for deserting, states himself that he is only hunting Nikola so that he will not have to fight on the front lines, either.  In this case, Bela has no moral high ground, but is doing the right thing in the eyes of the law.
While it is legal for the government to take farmers away from their work and cause families to starve, the farmers do not believe they are being treated fairly.  When Nikola robs the rich who do not have to fight because they can pay their way out of it to assist those who were forced to fight he is compensating the farmers for their loss.  The farmers and Nikola believe that just as the government stole the farmers' compensation, Nikola stole the rich men's money, and that there is no difference between these two crimes.
The Jewish and Christian townspeople are torn apart by Nikola's presence, despite his financial aid to the farmers.  Vlasek, who is a Christian, blames Jews for Nikola's influence growing, and the Jewish captain blames Christians for lying to him about Nikola's whereabouts.  If Nikola had lived longer, the harmony of the valley would have been jeopardized.  Nikola's legacy for bringing the town to its feet financially would have been tainted if he had also driven apart the residents along religious lines.  It is implied that God took NIkola's life, which Nikola seemed to be willing to sacrifice by not resisting his killers, so that the religious harmony would be preserved.
Nikola is not, however, perfect.  He killed the witch who put a curse on him for falsely promising himself to the witch's daughter.  Later, his wife leaves him for an officer.  Because Nikola has paid for his crimes, his good deeds are morally pure.

• soldier deserts the army
• soldier begins robbing the rich to help returning soldiers
• the army puts a bounty on the soldier
• three men kill the soldier and he becomes a legend

SOURCE
Olbracht, Ivan. Nikola Suhaj, Robber. Trans. Roberta Finlayson-Samsour. Prague: Artia, 1954. Print. Fairy tale about a Robin Hood figure living in the early 20th century.

A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE by MORLEY CALLAGHAN SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE by MORLEY CALLAGHAN

SUMMARY
Ed Shore is an author living in a city with his wife.  The house the Shores inhabit is next to a river which separates the more affluent side of the city from the less affluent side of the city, with the Shores being fortunate enough to live on the affluent side of the city.
Alexander Delaney is known as 'Al' and Al is a taxi driver and graduate student who is working on a dissertation concerning Norman Mailer and similar modern authors, and Delaney plans to develop his dissertation into a book following his graduation.  Delaney meets a woman named Lisa Tolen one night while he is out driving his taxi and gives her a ride.  Al and Lisa both live across the river from Ed Shore.  Lisa and Al talk about literature at a bar where Al's brother Jake serves alcohol.  Lisa goes to Al's house for the night.  Al and Lisa see Shore's picture in the newspaper and, because she lives near Shore, Lisa meets Ed Shore.  Realizing that Al does not have a lot of money and cannot afford to rent his own apartment comfortably, Lisa asks Al to move in with her.
Al accepts Lisa's offer.  He repaints one room of Lisa's house and writes in the repainted room.  Lisa types all of Al's work as Al writes the work by hand.  Al procrastinates and decides to write his dissertation on Ed Shore, rather than Norman Mailer. Growing frustrated with Al's lack of progress, Lisa contacts Ed Shore again and arranges a meeting between Al Delaney and Ed Shore.
Shore and Delaney meet one night and speak as they walk.  Delaney tells Shore that Shore's work helped Delaney to understand life, and Shore tells Delaney that Shore does not know the meaning of life and the reason why Shore's work makes life seem more complicated is that life begins to seem more complicated to Shore each time he thinks about it.  Shore and Delaney go for a drive and Shore stops the car to pick up a newspaper which Shore pays for by sliding a quarter under the plastic binding holding the bundle of newspapers together.  Shortly after Shore and Delaney get back in their vehicle, a police officer named Jason pulls over Shore's car.
The police officer accuses Shore of stealing the newspaper and, after Shore successfully shows the police officer proof of payment for the newspaper, the police officer writes Shore a ticket for a broken tail light.  Shore insists that he will protest the ticket in court.  The police officer leaves and Jason goes home.
Lisa finishes typing Al's notes into a book and shows the notes to Al.  Al dislikes Lisa's arrangement of Al's notes to portray Ed Shore in a negative light, and Al tells her that he doesn't want to finish the dissertation he originally planned to do.  Lisa pressures Al to finish his dissertation and Al leaves Lisa's home.
Lisa contacts Ed Shore after she has not seen Al for several days.  Ed Shore tells her not to worry because it is natural for a writer to become upset when a writer is overworked.  Al comes back to Lisa's apartment to get his notes, and Lisa claims that all the work Al completed in Lisa's home is Lisa's property, and they fight.  Lisa destroys Al's notes.
The police officer who ticketed Ed Shore for having a broken taillight, Jason, has a mistress and a wife.  Jason becomes frustrated and beats his mistress.  Jason's wife is unstable and after a breakdown, he takes her to a sanitarium.  On Jason's first shift home from delivering his wife at the insane asylum, Jason and his partner stop a teenager named Juan Gonzalez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, in an alley.  When Juan reaches for his driver's license, Jason, mistakenly assuming Juan is reaching for a gun, shoots Juan.  Juan's younger brother witnesses the killing.
Jason goes on trial for shooting Juan and Ed Shore is called as a character witness by the prosecution.  Ed and Al meet and watch several days of the trial prior to the day on which Ed testifies.  Ed offers to interview Jason and get Jason's side of the story, but Jason refuses Ed's request.  Al becomes frustrated with Ed's sanctimonious treatment of Jason's plight and calls Ed self-righteous before leaving.  Ed Shore gives an unflattering testimony concerning Jason.
After the trial, Al and Lisa reconcile.  Ed Shore is hit by a car while he is walking home drunkenly one evening.  Al feels remorseful for departing Ed with harsh words, but Al is glad because Al feels he understands Ed's work more than Ed did.

ANALYSIS
This book deals with the intentional fallacy, which is when a reader attempts to discover what the author was trying to communicate rather than what the piece does, in fact, effectively communicate to the reader.  Ed does not intend the meaning that his pieces communicate to Al, while Al feels that because he understands Ed's personality from an outsider's perspective, he can see what environmental factors drove Ed to write in the manner that Ed did.
Sexual issues are also prevalent in this book.  While Lisa appears to be an obedient woman as she types up Al's notes, she is quietly assuming ownership of the notes.  Al is too conceited or naive to realize that Lisa expects recompense for her contribution to Al's success.
Ed is prone to keeping up appearances.  The book details that Ed keeps a manicured lawn, and projects the appearance of a good neighbor, while quietly Ed's marriage is failing.  The most revealing detail about Ed's shrouded personality is the manner in which he conceals his drunkenness after walking home from a poker game with a man who has a bad reputation each week.  Ultimately, Ed dies because he was too drunk to spot a car driving toward him, although he may not have appeared drunk to an average bystander who Ed projected the image of a perfect, orderly neighbor to.
Many of the character surnames in this book are Irish, although none of the characters' first names are Irish.  There may be a subtext about anti-Irish discrimination for lacking the appearance of conformity.  Ed Shore is an example of conformity to urban, English culture, and Shore is described as wearing a bowl hat which "looks very Irish".
The reader never learns of Jason's fate in the trial.  Other than that loose end, the book is an interesting read with a surprising ending.  Callaghan did an excellent job of making a story about authors sitting and chatting interesting.

• Man studies a local author for his dissertation
• man and local author are stopped by a police officer
• officer kills a different boy and local author is called as a character witness
• local author dies and man finishes dissertation

SOURCE
Callaghan, Morley. A Fine and Private Place: A Novel. New York: Mason/Charter, 1975. Print. Book about an author discussing his work with a graduate student.

WANTOK by WPB BOTHA SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

WANTOK by WPB BOTHA

SUMMARY
A man who is born in England moves to Africa at the age of 21 as a missionary.  He has a daughter in Africa who is named Rachel.  For the girl's birthday, her father buys her a horse named Prince Harry who she renames Ngai.  Soon, Ngai becomes sickly and is old and too expensive for the family to take care of, so the family kills Ngai without Rachel's permission.  Another man from England, also working as a missionary in Africa, has a son named Richard.  Richard and Rachel meet, marry, and travel to Polynesia together to work as English teachers.
Richard teaches a boy named Nixon who is a member of the Bolgi tribe.  Nixon is expelled from school.  After hearing that Richard is angry about the expulsion, Richard travels to meet with Nixon's brother, Nathaniel.  Nathaniel has made peace with the expulsion but the Bolgi tribe is still upset and because the educational board members are worried that the Bolgi tribe may attack the colonial establishments and citizens, Richard is sent to Nixon's home village of Gelmbolg.  The Land Rover Richard is using belongs to the colonial government and the Land Rover breaks down.  Richard is told that he will have to drive the Land Rover to the coast of the island where the island's only mechanic lives and pay for the vehicle repairs himself.  Nathaniel and Richard make the trip to the mechanic together.
After visiting the mechanic and getting the Land Rover fixed, Richard meets with the Minister of Education, who is concerned about the stability of the colony on the Polynesian island as a government vehicle was recently stolen by members of the Bolgi tribe.  Nathaniel then takes Richard to Gelmbolg, where Richard meets Nathaniel's and Nixon's mother.  Nixon's mother is furious with Richard because she spent all of her savings to send Nixon to school against the wishes of the Bolgi elders because Nixon is intelligent and she believed he could look after her and other members of the Bolgi tribe in the future if he received a good education which would enable him to have a high income.  Nixon's mother demands that Richard repay her the money she spent on Nixon's education.  While Richard is in Gelmbolg, he hears that the nearby Endai tribe are feuding with the Bolgis.
The next day, as Richard looks for Nixon's mother in order to repay her because the sum of money Nixon's mother seeks is trivial to Richard, Richard sees a group of Endai warriors rush the Gelmbolg village.  None of the Bolgi are present in the village.  The Bolgi elders meet and decide to join forces with the Endai to resist the Colonizers.
Richard meets with a member of the Educational Ministry in town, where some Endai come and smash bottles angrily as a rite of initiation for their youthful members.  A nearby village is burned to the ground and Richard drives to the nearest airport with Nathaniel and Rachel.
Nathaniel asks Richard to loan him the money for a plane ticket to England while at the airport.  Richard is initially reluctant but Rachel convinces Richard to purchase the ticket.  As the fire begun by angry native citizens of the Polynesian island spreads, Richard, Nathaniel, and Rachel, board a flight headed to England.

ANALYSIS
This book stresses the ideal that colonial cultures should not seek to change the lifestyles of the native citizens of an area.  A major theme in the book is the burden that Western influence places on the preexisting culture of Africa and Polynesia.  Nathaniel realizes that his family and friends will criticize him for pursuing Western education, and accuse him of following the ways of the white man, but he believes that obtaining a Western education will enable him to make transactions with foreigners directly, and eliminate the colonizers as middle men in the export trade of Polynesia.  Nothing in the book suggests that either culture is superior to the other, but a counter argument to the idea that Western education signals financial freedom for Polynesians is not expressed.
Much of the story is told in flashbacks and there are many metaphorical descriptions of the landscape and animals of the territory.  The novel has an unreal tinge and the generic characters give way to the metaphorical implications of the story relating to colonialism and financial independence.  Botha constructs vivid images of the scenery and incorporates psychological descriptions which convey an emotional state of each scene to the reader rather than a photorealistic image.

• A Polynesian boy is expelled from an English school
• The boy's tribe becomes angry with the English settlers and revolts
• The boy's English teacher leaves Polynesia for England with the boy's brother

SOURCE

Botha, W. P. B. Wantok: (one Talk). Oxford: Heinemann, 1995. Print. Book about the development of a revolt on a Polynesian island.

EVA THE FUGITIVE, or, EVA Y LA FUGA by ROSAMEL DEL MAR SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

EVA THE FUGITIVE, or, EVA Y LA FUGA by ROSAMEL DEL VALLE

SUMMARY
In an unnamed city man named R who narrates the book meets a woman named Eva as a child.  He falls in love but she finds him melancholic and doesn't reciprocate.  R forgets about her.
As an adult, R dreams of a woman named Eva.  The woman floats between his country and Norway on a fiery bridge.  Eva tells him in his dream of her dream in which she is kidnapped by a man who takes her to a hotel room and wants to chop her up.
R dreams he sees Eva in an arcade 2 days later where she tells him she thought of devoting the prior day, her birthday, to him, but decided not to.  R complains about Eva to his friend Ignacio who encourages R to move on.
Eva and R cross a bridge in R's next dream but Eva stops and says she saw an illegal immigrant arrested on the bridge.
A man named Estefano begins to appear in R's dreams and R recognizes Estefano as the voice of love.  Estefano speaks to a dove in one of R's dreams.  Santiago has a dream in which he meets another woman who tells him that she possesses the spirit of Eva but he doesn't believe her.  Eva appears in the dream and spreads her legs to open like a fork in the road.  R sees Eva's death down one leg and love down the other.
Eva appears to R after being absent from R's mind for a few days and he imagines her bleeding in a blue dress before she transforms to an angelic figure and tells him a story about an ill-fated relationship she was in which both members pursued despite each knowing the relationship would not last.  R and Eva meet in a crowd and walk together in the next dream and Estefano appears.  Estefano tells R that death has just passed the group.
R imagines himself in prison where Estefano appears.  After the prison dream R sees Eva in his room, and she is dressed in blue.  She reads to him and leaves.  R thinks that he will not see her again.  In italics, a letter concludes the text in which R professes that he has lost all hope besides the possibility of an exit from the pain of life.

ANALYSIS
R likely has a psychiatric disorder which is causing him to hallucinate a girl he fell in love with as a child.  The girl takes on an adult form he imagines for her in his mind.  Eva tries to tell R to let go of her by hinting that their love is not meant to be through the story she tells him about an ill-fated love.  Additionally, when Eva reminds R that she knew him as a child, she describes him as melancholic.  Later in the novella, she tells him that she is leaving the world because it is too melancholic.  Eva's stories are clearly meant to encourage R to move on.
The prison R finds himself in is a metaphor for the prison of love he has locked himself in, which is why Estefano, the voice of love to R, appears in the prison.  The reference to illegal and immigration caused Santiago to feel mournful about wasting time hallucinating while people suffer.  Eager to escape the misery R feels bound to in life, he writes what appears to be a suicide note which is the final page of the novella.  I believe Santiago killed himself.

• Adult man hallucinates his childhood sweetheart
• Man can't stop hallucinations
• She says goodbye to him and he kills himself

SOURCE

Valle, Rosamel Del.  Eva the Fugitive.  CA: University of California , 1990.  Print.  Tragic book about a delusional person.

THE INSECT SUMMER by KNUT FALDBAKKEN SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE INSECT SUMMER, or, INSEKTSOMMER, by KNUT FALDBAKKEN


A 15 year old boy named Peter lives in a city of Norway.  Every summer he goes to the countryside to spend time with his Aunt Linn and Uncle Kristen on their farm, during which time he celebrates his birthday.  Kristen is Peter's biological uncle.  A girl named Marie lives in a cottage on Kristen's land and performs maid services for the family.  Peter has a friend named Jo who lives on one of the nearby farms.  Jo's sister, Gerd, has shown interest in Peter in the past.
When Peter gets off the train in the countryside, his uncle informs him that Marie has disappeared, and that there is a new tenant living in the cottage, named Cathrine.  Jo trades Peter pornographic magazines for dancing lessons.  Linn sends Peter up to deliver milk to Cathrine, and Cathrine makes a sexual advance toward him.  Kristen sends Peter into town to pick up some roofing supplies, and Peter runs into Gerd along the way.  As Gerd and Peter ride their bicycles back into town, it begins to rain and they take shelter in a barn.  There, Gerd and Peter kiss eachother and Peter feels her breasts.
The next day, Peter is fishing when he decides to find a place to take his clothes off because it is so hot outside.  Stretched out on the grass, he sees Cathrine, and some of his uncle Kristen's items.  Peter returns to fishing.  As he looks around for a new spot, he sees Kristen cutting Marie's dead body loose from a tree limb overhanging the river, and Kristen explains that she had drown by becoming entangled in the limb.
A funeral is held for Marie.  In his bedroom, Peter finds a love letter addressed to Kirsten from Marie.  Although he cannot prove anything, Peter becomes suspicious that Kirsten killed Marie.  The town has a dance.  At the dance, Peter drinks alcohol with his friends who dare him to dance with Cathrine.  As he approaches Cathrine, however, he runs into Gerd.  Gerd and Peter dance until a fight breaks out over Cathrine at the dance.  Kristen and Peter both fight well, and then Kristen takes Cathrine home.  Peter returns home an hour later and, observing that Kristen is not home, Peter tells Linn that Kristen is with Cathrine.
Linn sends Peter to deliver milk to Cathrine.  While Peter is at the cottage, he confronts Cathrine about her relationship with Kristen.  Cathrine promises to break off her relationship with Kristen and to have sex with Peter if he can sneak away from his birthday party.
During Peter's birthday party, Peter sneaks away to the barn to wait for Cathrine.  Gerd shows up instead of Cathrine.  Peter sees Cathrine and Kristen sneaking away together and has sex with Gerd.  Peter returns home to find that Kristen is informing Linn that divorce papers will be arriving the next day.  In the morning, Peter finds Linn hanging in the barn, having committed suicide.  Kristen remarries to Cathrine immediately and Peter returns home to the city.

ANALYSIS
This book approaches the subject of becoming a man.  Peter begins to notice women for their beauty.  He feels jealous of Cathrine and of Gerd for their romantic interests, yet he pursues both women simultaneously because he is so eager to have sex.  Peter and Jo have a borderline homosexual relationship as they waltz with eachother, and Jo offers to masturbate with Peter and asks Peter how gay men have sex with one another.  While he is standing in the woods, Peter has a moment during which he realizes his heterosexuality as he ejaculates in his pants while staring at a woman.  Generally, Peter is confused and sexually aroused.  He acts upon any opportunity he gets to pursue a heterosexual relationship and is unaware that Jo's actions imply homosexuality.
The subplot regarding Kristen's murder of Marie, and then divorce of Linn, keeps the book exciting.  Kristen probably murdered Marie to keep her quiet about their relationship, although there was not much motivation for him to do this if he planned to divorce Linn, anyway.  Kristen represents full yielding to sexual urges over morality, to me.  Peter looks to Kristen as a role model in his time of need and is greatly disappointed.

• Boy goes to visit aunt and uncle on a farm during the summer
• He meets the new tenant of their cottage and wishes to have sex with her
• Boy finds the old tenant of the cottage dead in the river, suspects his uncle of killing her
• Boy ends up in a relationship with his best friend's sister, and his uncle divorces his aunt
• Boy's aunt kills herself, and the uncle marries the new tenant, and the boy goes home

SOURCE

Faldbakken, Knut. The Insect Summer. Trans. Hal Sutcliffe and Torbjorn Stoverud. London: Peter Owens, 1991. Print. Book about a boy's summer at his aunt and uncle's farm.

IN THE UNITED STATES OF AFRICA by ABDOURAHMAN A. WABERI SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

IN THE UNITED STATES OF AFRICA by ABDORAHMAN A. WABERI

SUMMARY
The world began as Pangea, a single land mass, and split apart into several continents.  Africans had high confidence from the beginning due to their high degree of separation from other races in regard to skin color.  There was once a Devil in Africa, but African Queens defeated the Devil, banishing it to Europe.  Europe is then chronically consumed by war and strife between ethnic groups while Africa is relatively peaceful.  One uncharacteristically violent African administration left in its wake the country's first railroad.
In the 21st century, many impoverished Europeans are flocking to Africa.  Many Africans advocate a practice known as 'Africanization', or, the removal of all non-native Africans from the continent because European refugees are draining the African economy.  When European settlers die there is no investigation into their murders, and there exists a city cleanup machine in Africa to sweep bums off the streets.
A white girl named Maya lives with adopted parents.  She excels in school and the arts, despite being taunted for her race, and creates inspiring European art.  Maya's adoptive mother falls ill and she returns home in time to watch her adoptive mother die.  Her adoptive father is unable to care for himself so Maya must supplant her adoptive mother as the old man's caretaker.
Fed up with prejudice against whites in Africa, and her curiosity enlivened by the death of her adoptive mother, Maya goes to France to meet her biological mother.  Maya's biological mother lives in Paris, FR, and has rotting teeth due to France's poor dental care.  Next, Maya meets her biological father in a shack which smells badly.  As Maya's father prepares to give her what looks like a packet of coal, the room's stench overwhelms Maya, who runs out of the room, and showers in her hotel room immediately.  The next day, Maya is on a flight back to Africa.

ANALYSIS
This book attributes Africa's poverty to random bad luck.  In this universe, the problems of Africa have stricken Europe rather than the cradle of life, leaving Africa to rapidly progress as Europe has.  Considering the first great civilization, Egypt, was in Africa, a highly advanced Africa in comparison to Europe is not an impractical scenario.
Maya's personal journey transitions from dissatisfaction to gratitude.  She is unhappy that she faces racism until racism is the least of her problems in impoverished France, when she becomes grateful for her adoptive African parents.  The inconveniences of first-world problems are put in context by her experience.
On the other hand, Maya is, in a sense, homeless.  She is viewed as an outsider in Africa for her skin color and she is viewed as an outsider in France for her cultural background.  Maya's predicament raises the question of what gives a person their national identity.  However, the novella does not answer the question it poses, which leaves the reader to decide what defines a person themselves.
Waberi writes this book from the perspective of an unknown narrator who speaks in the tone of a bedtime story and is intimate with Maya.  The narrator is not one of her adoptive or biological parents.  The novella is told through a sequence of stories which have occurred in the past as they are related to Maya.

• an advanced student from 1st world Africa is adopted
• the student is mocked for having European heritage
• the student visits Europe to find her biological parents
• the student is appalled by her parents' poverty and gleefully returns to Africa

SOURCE

Waberi, Abdourahman A. In the United States of Africa. Trans. David Ball and Nicole Ball. Lincoln: U of Nebraska, 2009. Print. An adopted woman seeks out her biological parents.

WHIRLPOOL by LIU HENG SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

WHIRLPOOL by LIU HENG

SUMMARY
A man named Zhou Zhalou who comes from Fujian, CN, studies medicine in urban China.  While at school, he had to dissect a woman who had donated her body to science and remarked that her essential humanity was absent in her lifeless body.
Zhalou goes on to become a Department Manager at a Scientific Institute in Beijing and regularly gives lectures around China.  He has a wife, a 10-year-old son, and a daughter who is slightly older than his son.  After giving a lecture, Zhalou returns to his hotel to find a note from a stranger requesting a meeting.  Zhalou obliges the stranger, and arrives at the meeting place to find a beautiful woman named Hua Naiqian who works under him at the Institute.  Although Naiqian is married, her husband, Lin, is impotent and she is not attracted to him.  Zhalou and Naiqian kiss, but vow to keep their working relationship intact.
Naiqian is a Master's student and has just completed her final thesis.  A man named Liu, who is an older peer of Zhalou's, grades Naiqian's thesis and penalizes her for incorrectly citing 2 works in her bibliography.  Zhalou attends a party at Naiqian's house, after which she drunkenly tells Zhalou that she finds Lin to be weak and cowardly.
Zhalou's family has been planning a vacation and request to come with Zhalou on his next lecture trip, but he insists that his family stay at home.  On this trip, Naiqian and Zhalou have sex for the first time.  Angry with himself, Zhalou attributes his weakness to primitive urges.
When Zhalou returns, he beats his son for smoking cigarettes.  At work, he is awarded a prize for outstanding achievements in science, a feat embroidered by his young age, and Liu congratulates him.  The executives of the Institute offer Zhalou a chance to interview for the position of Vice President.
Zhalou breaks up with Naiqian, because he does not love her and is only excited by her body, but insisting that he once did love her, and that their love has faded.  Naiqian is upset by the breakup, and tells Zhalou that she is divorcing her husband Lin.  Unaware that Zhalou has been sleeping with Naiqian, Lin approaches Zhalou and asks him to intervene in the divorce.  Lin feels that the divorce would hurt his children, and he and Zhalou both fantasize about killing Naiqian.
Zhalou wins the job of Vice President and sends word to his family, who are on vacation without him.  Naiqian comes to Zhalou's apartment, begging him to have sex with her again.  After Zhalou refuses, she becomes upset, and says that while she will not tell his family, she will prevent him from leaving her without consequence.  Later that day, Zhalou gives his acceptance speech for the Vice President position, and although he knows Naiqian is in the crowd, he ignores her completely.

ANALYSIS
This novella is about what makes a person human.  Zhalou was upset by the lifelessness of the corpse he dissected in school, indicating that he has a passion for the human spirit.  The urges Zhalou felt for Naiqian were, as Zhalou describes them, primitive, and he describes the emotion he felt when beating his son similarly.  Scholarly pursuits give Zhalou a sense of self-worth because they demonstrate to him that he is not an animal or a corpse.  Morality also factors into his perception of humanity as he feels compelled to act out of interest for his family.  Zhalou has control over himself, which he feels makes him dissimilar to animals and corpses, thus making him human.  When Zhalou ignores the woman who ignited his primitive desires to focus on his scientific achievements and the moral sanctity of his family, he realizes what he feels is his full potential as a human.
Zhalou's need to prove himself as being extraordinary is complicated by the fact that he comes from rural Fujian, CN, and is seeking to prove himself to elites in urban Beijing, CN, who initially viewed him as being primitive because the elites of Beijing, CN stereotype rural areas and their inhabitants as being primitive.  Additionally, Zhalou is much younger than his peers of similar stature.  His youth represents a perceived inadequacy to some and he is eager to prove that what he lacks in age he makes up for in capability.  By conquering temptation, he has conquered the demise that his enemies expect he will meet.  Zhalou's successful cessation of his extramarital affair represents a victory for him on multiple levels.
This book was great!  Without preaching or generalizing, this book takes the reader along for the journey of a young professional accomplishing their personal goal, which is what I certainly want to do in my life, making me all the happier for Zhalou.

• Accomplished scientist begins an affair on a lecture tour
• Scientist is offered a chance to interview for a promotion
• Scientist breaks up with the person he was dating
• Scientist achieves the promotion

SOURCE

Liu, Heng. "Whirlpool." The Obsessed. Trans. David Kwan. Beijing, China: Chinese Literature, 1991. N. pag. Print. Book about a scientist conquering temptation.

AFTER THE SNOOTER by EDDIE CAMPBELL SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

SUMMARY
Eddie Campbell lives in Scotland and enjoys playing football with his friends who are Celtic fans.  He makes a shot that is important to him in a game.  On the day when his father was scheduled to take Campbell to a match, Eddie is hit by a car and hospitalized.  At the hospital, he begins reading comics and falls in love with them.
There were no artists living in Campbell's neighborhood.  His father discouraged his interest in art as impractical.  Campbell is the only boy at many events he attends.  The first job Campbell gets as an artist is as a court room sketch artist for the local news station.  An insect called a 'snooter' flies into Campbell's home at night and bites him, causing a rash.  Campbell designs a 'snooter' superhero costume which resembles a quadruped fly.  The goal of the 'snooter' is to reduce complacency but it has little effect.
He moves to Australia from Scotland.  Against his father's advice, Campbell begins self-publishing out of his home in Australia and starts a family with his wife.  He rents a home and enjoys the simplicity of the rental arrangement.  A man from Georgia, US, represents Campbell's artwork in the United States.
A Hollywood company shows interest in Campbell's work for a film, and, although the movie is never filmed, Campbell receives a check large enough to buy a home for his family.
The family spends more than Campbell earns per year after buying the home and Campbell is stressed about money.  Although Campbell sees no need for his family to have a dog, he buys his children a dog due to the children's demands.  Neighborhood cats choose to hang out at Campbell's home rather than at the homes of their respective owners.
In the middle of the night, Campbell awakes to find an old man and the quadruped 'snooter' in his kitchen.  While the old man is eager to drink, the 'snooter' lectures Campbell on the evils of alcohol.  Campbell unmasks the 'snooter' to find that it is 'Mr. Dry' wearing Campbell's old 'snooter' costume.
Time passes and Campbell's income becomes more steady.  Campbell goes on a lecture tour with a friend named Neil who practiced self publishing, just as he did.  One of Campbell's movies is filmed and Campbell is invited to the premiere in Paris.  Campbell goes on a world tour giving lectures and selling his graphic novels to precede the movie premiere.  During breaks on his trip, Campbell puts the finishing touches on a new manuscript.
On his journey, Campbell visits all the significant places from his childhood.  When he returns, his children tell him that they barely remember what he looks like.  While Campbell is home, his daughter cuts herself breaking in through the window because Campbell's son locked the house doors as a prank while accessing pornography on the internet.  Before long, Campbell goes to Spain for another business trip.
Campbell goes to Paris with his family for the movie premiere.  He visits a famous cemetery where many artists such as Oscar Wilde are buried and pays his respects.  While Campbell is watching the film, Campbell hallucinates the 'snooter' as a character in the movie, offering Campbell a drink.  After the premiere, Campbell's wife congratulates him and while they are having sex, Campbell finds himself unable to perform because Campbell is comparing himself to his father and his wife to his mother.

ANALYSIS
Campbell is unsure of many of the decisions he has made in his life.  He identifies the car crash as a life changing moment for himself where he chose the path of the artist.  As an adult, he looks back on his life and imagines himself progressing in several different ways.  At the end of each of these imaginary paths, however, he finds that he winds up living in a cliche.
Being an artist is not as much fun as Campbell imagined it would be.  The insect he calls the snooter which bit him identifies his drinking alcohol and becoming complacent with old habits as the poison sucking the fun out of his life.  Because Campbell's father is a drinker, and Campbell does not want to become his father, Campbell dislikes himself for drinking and behaving similarly to his father.  What he most wants is to break free of a cliche and ordinary existence, and his alcohol and complacency in his lifestyle is the hindrance to that achievement.
In this graphic novel, Campbell tells several stories of people being bitten by the snooter and their lives being ruined.  In each of the stories, the person drastically changes the direction of their course in life due to regrets.  It is unclear if Campbell is suggesting that complacency saves people from making bad decisions to change, in certain instances.
My University recently added 'Comics' as a Major.  This book is a graphic novel and makes an excellent case for the art form as a serious academic endeavor.  Campbell is good-natured enough to poke fun at the parable-like nature of some of his stories, which lessens the feeling that he may be speaking down to his reader.  While this book is 90% autobiographical, it contains enough fictional elements to be considered fiction, at least for me, and I'm the one who wrote the page.

• Man becomes an artist
• An insect bites the man and begins speaking to him as his good conscience
• Man self-publishes and ends up with a movie deal
• The insect still haunts the man after he is successful

SOURCE
Campbell, Eddie. After the Snooter. Paddington, Qld.: Eddie Campbell, 2002. Print.Book about a man on his journey to success in the art industry.

THE LAKE by GERHARD ROTH SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

THE LAKE, or, DER SEE by GERHARD ROTH

SUMMARY
Paul Eck is a representative for a pharmaceutical company who is travelling to various Doctors' offices and offering his drugs to them.  He takes many pills to improve his cognition, aid digestion, relieve allergies, induce drowsiness, and reduce pain, and is dependent on the drugs he takes.  Paul Eck's parents divorced 30 years prior to the start of the novel.  He has not seen his father since the divorce, although his father is wealthy from a hunting and fishing business and continued to pay for Eck's medical studies after they ceased contact.  Eck's father participated in the Hungarian resistance movement and was involved in smuggling guns from Switzerland through Hungary to Serbia.  Eck's mother committed suicide exactly one year before the novel begins, and Eck was forced to mop up his mother's blood after she'd died.
Eck takes a bus to a historic castle and accidentally wanders into a former concentration camp. The next day, he tries to sell drugs to Professor Basaglia at a medical clinic where there are many sick and hopeless people.  Eck meets two women in a cafe who pleasure him sexually and then he is robbed of his money, wallet, and passport by a group of men who were alerted by the women that Eck had money.  After he awakes, he sneaks across the border to return to his home and checks into a hotel to rest.  He decides to not accompany his father for a boating trip which Eck's father invited Eck to, and a storm breaks out on the day of the trip.
The next day, Eck reads in the newspaper that his father went missing in the storm.  Eck visits a friend of his who is a mechanic and takes Eck on a boat trip across a river where Eck sees a trailer park which rents rooms by the night, and Eck checks into the trailer park.  He then goes to see his family doctor who uses acupuncture, and spiritual healing, as well as brutal surgery and recommends his drugs.
A boy named Hermann asks Eck for a ride and Eck obliges, first stopping at a hunting store to buy a gun using a false identity and steps outside where two policemen find Eck and ask him to come to the morgue to look for Eck's father's body.  After identifying the body, Paul Eck is announced as a suspect for the murder of his own father, and told to stay in the trailer park by police.  He is approached by a strange man who knows that Eck was invited to the lake by his father and tells Eck to be careful.
Eck visits his grandfather's home in Hungary and is followed by a blue Toyota for the whole trip.  A police officer emerges from the Toyota the next day and accompanies Paul Eck and his friend named Robert on a boat ride while they look for a clue Eck's friend claimed to have seen.  While they are gone, Eck's trailer is stripped and searched.  A journalist who is interested in the story approaches Eck and offers to help piece together information on the case.  The next doctor Eck visits is named Dr. Goriupp and tells Eck of his father's involvement in the gun trade.
A gypsy who previously worked for Eck's uncle finds the car in which Eck's father was murdered before  the body was chopped up and put in the ocean.  Eck sees his stepbrother there and they plan to go fishing to discuss family matters the next morning.  On their fishing trip, Eck and his stepbrother fight and capsize their boat, resulting in a cut on Eck's forehead.
To get his wound stitched, Eck returns to Dr Goriupp.  While stitching Eck's head, the doctor begins coughing blood, and Eck hallucinates that the doctor is a cannibalistic monster, causing Eck to shoot the doctor in the eye.  A short while later, Eck awakes in the gypsy's home after experiencing drug-induced amnesia.  When Eck returns home he meets the journalist who tells him the police suspect a military man named Laposa of shooting both Dr. Goriupp and Eck's father.  Eck and the journalist go to the military base where they witness Laposa being arrested and confessing to killing Eck's father.
A gun fight breaks out in the trailer next to Eck's trailer which sparks a fire.  Eck takes some LSD he was given by a Swiss colleague.  Paul Eck and Robert fly away in Robert's plane.

ANALYSIS
There are many references to genocide in this novel.  Eck visits both a Jewish and a Serbian cemetery.  He also sees a former concentration camp, a Swastika, and a racist meeting in his journeys.  Paul Eck clearly feels guilty about the crimes of Nazis and the Bosnian Serbs.  Eck mentions that he feels like the stains of the past are haunting him presently when he discusses cleaning up his mother's blood.  I believe the purpose of the thematic inclusion of wartime material is to emphasize that the aftermath of genocide still haunts Europe.
Some silverfish infest Eck's trailer.  Although they appear to fall with gravity after the murder is resolved, Eck sees them the next day when he opens the Bible, which he falsely swore on earlier in the novel.  He leaves the trailer where the silverfish are contained.  The silverfish resemble most closely his conscience, and after the trailer park burns down, it is implied that Eck feels relieved as he hallucinates becoming one with the birds under the influence of LSD.
Throughout the novel, Eck experiences many discomforts within his body.  The reaction of his body to alcohol, and drugs, is well documented.  Every stomach ache Eck endures in The Lake is well documented and it is clear that he likes to tense his abs, and feel warm and full.  Why Roth shared these facts about Eck, I don't know.  To be honest, spending so much time as a reader swimming around inside of Eck's body as well as spotty translation made this book sort of dull for me.  Next week, I promise by book will not have anything to do with genocide, as that seems to be a recurring theme in my selections.

• pharmaceutical representative goes on trip to sell prescription drugs
• the representative's estranged father is secretly involved in the illegal gun trade
• the representative's father is murdered and the representative becomes a suspect
• the police discover that the representative's father was murdered by someone involved in the illegal gun trade

SOURCE

Roth, Gerhard. The Lake. Trans. Michael Winkler. Riverside, CA: Ariadne, 2000. Print. Book about a man suspected of killing his estranged father.