Quarter Four Choice Book Report

           I read the book Life Of Pi by Yann Martel.  It is about a boy named Piscine Molitor Patel.  He is the son of a zookeeper and he lives in Pondicherry, India.  Him and his family live in the zoo, and so Pi has a chance to study each animal and their life.
     
          Pi understands religions.  He goes to all the different houses of prayer in his town, and always opens his mind to the clergy's stories.  Pi studies Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity, and thinks none better than another.  Over time, the clergy learn that he is practicing all of these religions, and they kick him out.  Pi did not give up.  He continued to pray by himself to God, Allah, and Vishnu. 
 
          Pi's family is a middle class family.  This is due to the fame of their zoo.  People from all over India come to see their zoo.  When Pi is fifteen, the political party that his family opposes becomes successful, and his father decides to move the family, and the animals, to Winnipeg, Canada, where the animals will be sold.

          Pi doesn't know what to think of this.  Pi has never been out of the country, rarely leaving Pondicherry.  He doesn't really want to move away, but, he tells of having no friends other than his older brother, Ravi. 
    
         It takes a year to get the paperwork done, but finally they leave on the Japanese cargo ship Tsim-Tsum.  Pi has a bad time on the boat.  He does not become seasick, but rather becomes disappointed in the crew.  The crew constantly gets drunk, and the officers never speak with Pi's family.  He reassures himself that it will be over soon.  At one particular stop in Manila, Pi notices the officers talking to the mechanic about a possible problem with the ship's engine.

        The Tsim-Tsum sinks, taking Pi with it.  Pi is pushed into a lifeboat by a crewman, and is the sole survivor of the shipwreck.  Sole human survivor, anyway.  In Pi's lifeboat are a hyena, an orangutan, and a wounded zebra.  Even though Pi had been around animals his entire life, Pi was deathly afraid (and had a right to be).
    
        The hyena quickly killed the other two animals, while Pi hid for his life.  The hyena, however, did not attempt to kill Pi.  Pi discovered an adult Bengal Tiger in the life boat under the tarp.  The tiger killed and ate the hyena.

        Pi realizes that the worst part of being trapped on a lifeboat is loneliness, and at least he had Richard Parker (the tiger) as company.  The second worst thing, as Pi finds out, is hunger, and even though surrounded by water, thirst.

        Pi becomes very brave when he is hungry, and decides that even the crew of the Tsim-Tsum would've packed emergency rations.  Pi sneaks through Richard Parker's den and finds a locker full of equipment on food.  Pi's mission was successful.  Pi becomes used to living with Richard Parker, even though Richard could easily kill Pi for food.  Pi has no fear.  Pi establishes his territory in the boat, and during the process gets himself knocked off the boat by Richard countless times.  But he is persistent, and eventually succeeds.

        Pi is very smart.  Pi knows that tigers need a lot of food, and that Richard Parker will eat him if he gets the chance.  He decides that the only way to survive is if Richard Parker survives as well.  He does not proceed to just keep him alive, he tries to tame him, and by the end, he has Richard jumping through hoops and using only half the lifeboat.  Pi somehow makes a seaworthy raft in another chapter, using just oars and lifejackets.

        More than anything else though, Pi is lucky.  First of all surviving a shipwreck that kills fifty others is lucky, let alone making it to land without dying.  And I still haven't mentioned Pi's miraculous survival with Richard Parker.  Especially when Richard is about to attack Pi and somehow, a rat finds itself in Pi's hand, and Pi is saved.  Also, about to die, Richard and Pi find themselves on an island full of algae, fresh water, and meerkats.  Another time, Pi has been having a terrible time fishing, Richard is getting hungry, when a flock of flying fish lands in the boat.

      Pi is interesting character, with some interesting opinions on life.  Developing Pi's character in the beginning of the book is necessary in making the book very good.






          I loved this book.  This is the second-best book I have ever read (The Scarlet Pimpernel).  This may be surprising to some people, and I have a feeling that this book generates a strong reaction from all readers, whether good of bad, it doesn't matter.

        It is very sad that I almost did not have the opportunity to read this book.  The first couple of days I brought it to school, it caught a lot of eyes and drew a lot of attention.  Apparently this book was read by most of the grade last year, and I had no idea about this.  Anyway, all comments it recieved were negative. A few included "Boring the whole way through," "Terribly confusing,""Disgusting as hell," "Just a terrible book," "You won't like it," or even as subtle as "It only gets good in the end." (the last of which I found to be quite the opposite with me).  My thoughts now take me to the possibility that a certain not-so-likeable teacher may have forced students to read this book last year, and now the students forever associated Yann Martel's gem with this infamous educator.  These remarks left me wondering if I should even start the book.  Reading the inside cover for a second time, it wasn't as good as before, and I ended up deciding to put my book project on the back burner until I could find something else to read.   I ended up reading the book out of pure curiosity in the end, and also because it sounded more interesting than, say, The Paperboy Of Chicago or something of the sort.

     Good thing I picked this book.  I found out right away what everybody else classified as boring.  A lot of people think that the book would be a lot better without the nearly one hundred page exposition, or at least an abridged version of it.  However, deleting a single sentence ruins the whole story in my opinion.  As I have stated farther above, this part is necessary in learning Pi's character.  The book only has effect if you know Pi from head to toe.  The author writes that " I will not write a book if I don't say everything I wish to say."  Not everything Martel has to say relates directly to the book, but even these words are necessary and make the book fuller.  I do admit that it is impossible to read the first one hundred pages in rapid succession, and I prescribe lots of rest and recovery between Martel's first one-hundred pages.  The last two hundred go much quicker, of course until the end of the climax, in which perhaps the longest, most tedious of all chapters takes place, slowing the story down quite a bit.

      Reading the book I have two regrets.  Both are in the last fifty pages, and both are frustrating to read.  One is on the subject of Pi's landfall in Mexico.  Richard Parker jumps out and enters the forest without a formal, or for that matter informal, goodbye.  He justs walks away from the man who fed him and kept him alive.  My regret here is not that Martel tries to avoid the cliche storybook goodbye sequence in which the tiger puts his front paws upon the boy's shoulders and licks his face, before trotting away with a definite smile on his face, but that Martel shows Pi as dismissing the matter as unimportant and going on with his life.  Just being a sideline spectator on these actions made me stop abruptly, vowing to continue the next day, only with half as much hope.
    
      My other regret happens to be on Pi's interview with the Japanese men.  Let me say something before I start with this.  Let's say this is an autobiography.  Readers know that the story is true, and first-hand, and can practically feel the rolling of the boat.  This book would earn very high marks, and would be world famous because of the certain divine miracle.  The author would paint great masterpieces for readers, comparable to Vincent Van Gogh.

       Let's say this story is a biography, despite the first-person point of view.  Readers know that the story is true.  This is the most important thing.  The story probably also has good description, but certainly not as good as the autobiography, and just the fact that a book is an autobiography will propel its ratings over a biography of the same name.  The picture painted would be an exact copy of the painting by the autobiographer, but it loses its feeling of real paint and the brushstrokes can not be seen anymore.

     Let's say the story is a fiction story.  The story may be false, but this is expected of most novels.  The story has amazing description, but the story has lost its feeling of reality and has spiraled off into another direction entirely.  That being said, the book achieves great marks, because the story holds more interesting conflicts and is exciting the whole way through.  Using the painting metaphor, the picture here would be a 100% genuine Picasso, with bright colors, and forces the imagination upon a seer to be stretched.

    Let's get back to the point here.    The end of the book reveals Pi's journey to be not only fiction, but maybe even fictitious story inside a fiction book.  Pi's journey was taken, but perhaps not with animals, alone, and many parts of the story may be false.  We learn that Pi may have been lying the whole time, when he tells another story to the interviewer.  You can imagine what effect this has on the reader.  The picture painted is a few colors splotched on canvas in a thougtless way, meaning nothing whatsoever.

    Maybe I only dislike this ending because, cheater that I am, I started the report before finishing the book.  I have no heart to start the first section over.  I will end up saying that I had "insufficient information" to otherwise report on Pi's being.  Maybe Pi was telling the truth.  Martel does well to keep the reader hoping that maybe Pi's first story was true, and the second was made up to satisfy the interviewers.

     Somehow, the thing that I seem to have loved the most in the book was just Martel's style of writing.  I have no idea  what makes me love it, but I feel like a bit of it has rubbed off on me. This story has changed the way I view the world, and I reccommend it to everyone.  Hopefully you will be a love it as well.

Just one more thing.  When I finished this story, I noticed something.  A book is like a baseball game that can be won or lost.  Understanding is worth a game ending grand slam, and your team will lose in extra innings if you do not follow through.  In this instance in particular, I feel as though I have beaten the Yankee-like novel. 4-0.

Quarter Three Choice Book Report

          I read the book Nation by Terry Pratchett.  Pratchett says that the book is set in a parallel universe, although it is easy to believe that the book is set in the Pacific Ocean in the 1850s.  The main character is a boy named Mau.  He lives on an island called "Nation" to his people, or "Mothering Sunday Island" to the white people.
      
          He is sent to leave his boy soul on a small island.  While he is there, a tsunami wipes out the entire nation.  When he returns, him and a white girl are the only ones on the island.  Other people will come to live on the island, but this cannot make up for Mau's only family.
      
           Mau is mad because he has no soul.  This makes him distrust himself.  He has no soul because he left his boy soul on the small island, and he never gained the soul of a man because there was no one to grant him his man soul.  From this we can tell that Mau is probably a teenager.    He describes himself as a hermit crab, scuttling from shell to shell, but there are no shells left to scuttle to.
      
            Mau is constantly disturbed by the Grandfathers.  The Grandfathers are all of the great hunters, warriors, and philosophers who lived on the island.  They yell commands at Mau, and Mau obeys.  No matter how many things Mau does, the Grandfathers are never content. 
      
           As a result of his sad experiences, Mau is never truly happy.  Mau, being the chief of the island now, is continuously absorbed in worrisome thoughts, about pirates, food shortages, island laws, and the white girl.  After all, Mau takes the whole of the nation on his back.  The fate of the tribe is his responsibility alone.
     
          Mau is brave. He duels First Mate Cox, who has a gun, while Mau uses a spear.  Mau also enters the cave of The Granfathers to find out about his culture's past, not knowing what could be waiting for him inside.
    
          Mau wants answers about life.  Mau asks questions that are hard to answer about his own tribe's religious beliefs.  He asks these questions to a priest, and still comes up with inferior answers.  Then, at the back of the cave of The Grandfathers, Mau finds the gods.  They are stone statues, made by men.  Mau now thinks that his gods are a lie, made up by men, to make other men feel like there is an answer.  Mau now has to find the truth on his own.
   
        Mau is never happy, but he seldom gets sad or angry.  This may be because of his belief that life happens because it is supposed to happen.  When his friends die, he keeps a straight face.  He will make new friends.
   
       I think that Mau has been put in a position that is too tough for a boy his age.  He is not ready to be chief of the Nation, but he is forced into it.  But still, Mau tries his hardest to do what the Nation had done before the wave.  And, most importantly, he succeds. 

The Game

Me and my friends are some of the coolest people around.  Some people think that we are just plain stupid, but we don’t care.  We know that they don’t know the whole truth.  It pays to be like us.  When we walk into a place, people watch out for their health.  We are the bad boys.

I bet you’re thinking “Hey, how did that guy get so cool?”  I didn’t wake up one morning and BAM!  I’m cool.  I got this way through a long and hard period of reputation building.  The boys and I meet down at the club every Thursday, Friday, Monday, and, well, pretty much every other day of the week, excluding Sundays, when we go to church.  It’s hard to become bad.

We go right to the table and sit down chatting.  After a few hours, someone gets out the gun, and we are in business.  Then, slowly the gun goes around the table, click, click, click. And then, all of a sudden, BANG!  And when we look up, there is one less person at the table.  There used to be hundreds of us. Bad boys. But now there are few.  Eddie and Brandon died last week, a couple of the toughest guys I know.  I will mourn their tragic deaths forever.  But I will keep playing the game. Click, click, click. All around the table. BANG. And now there is one fewer.

The game is life, and the club is charging more and more these days, getting to be hundreds of dollars to play for a year.  You must pay a price to be cool.  To be bad boys.  That’s our motto.  But, I still play.  Click, click, click. And I always win.  We play for reputation, and we play for sport, but most of all, we play to win. 

Until one day, when there are three of us left, too tired to pull the trigger, and too broke to pay the bills.  Maybe that day, years ahead, when all my friends have already lost the game.  Maybe we will come up with a better idea.  Maybe then we will become normal. Good boys.  Maybe we will find a better use for our time. 

Anyone for checkers?

     Click, click, click            

BANG



Pro Bowl

Even though the NFC lost, Alex Mack, the Brown's center, ran for a touchdown on a 67 yard flip play.

Quarter Two Choice Book Report

         I read the book  The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emmuska Orczy.  The main character is named Lady Blakeney.  Her maiden name is Margeurite St. Just.  She is called by either name depending on the speaker, though the narrator refers to her as "Marguerite."  Marguerite is perhaps the most beautiful woman in England.  She is a blonde of average height.  Marguerite is the wife of Sir Percy Blakeney, a dumb, drunken, funny, handsome, fool who's devotion to Marguerite is never-ending.  Marguerite was born in France and went to England following her wedding to Percy.  Marguerite is the fashion leader for all of Europe.  Whenever she walks around in public, people flock around her looking to see what she is wearing.  Marguerite is clever, because she thinks quickly when she is following Sir Andrew by fainting when he figures out she is following him.  She is often called the most clever woman in Europe.  Some people (such as the Comtesse de Tournay) hate Marguerite for her denouncing of Marquis de St. Cyr to the guillotine.   Marguerite did not mean to do this however, and could do nothing after knowing what she had absent-mindedly done.  The author makes you hate Marguerite at the beginning by writing about her faults.  As the book progresses, you begin to like Marguerite more and more.  You also start to feel sorry for her during this time.  Marguerite is rich.  She and Percy own a riverside mansion north of London.  Marguerite thinks that her husband has stopped loving her at the beginning.  Towards the end, she knows that her husband has always loved her.  Marguerite trusts no one except her older brother, Armand St. Just.  She thinks he is her only true friend.  One of Marguerite's favorite things to do for enjoyment is to go on a late night horse and cart ride with Percy.  Percy says little, if anything, and they enjoy the cool breeze and nature.  Marguerite is anxious many times, usually as the result of Chauvelin's cruel either-or- statements.  Marguerite is very serious, as she never smiles until the end of the book, never tells a joke, and talks only of important business.  Marguerite is extremely worrisome.  She stays awake for days worrying when husband is gone, and scarce spends a moment not worrying about him, her brother, or another one of her many friends. Marguerite does a fine job of disguising her worries from others, and appears content for most of the book.  To summarize, Marguerite has an overworked mind, and is, with this strange mix of traits, very deceiving at times.  Marguerite needs to lighten up, because right now, she is as black as pitch.


         There were a few conflicts in The Scarlet Pimpernel, and they seemed to happen all at the same time The obvious conflict is between Chauvelin (this book's "bad guy"), and The Scarlet Pimpernel (this book's "good guy").  Chauvelin is trying to catch The Scarlet Pimpernel helping condemned aristocrats escape the French Revolution.  Another conflict is inside Marguerite.  Marguerite has two big decisions in the story.  They are both decisions given to her by Chauvelin.  The first one is a choice of who dies (indirectly) between her brother and The Scarlet Pimpernel. Will she sacrifice the life of her brother for the safety of The Scarlet Pimpernel? Or will she let The Scarlet Pimpernel die?  The second is a choice of who will be sent to the guillotine, this time between The Scarlet Pimpernel and her brother and three other men.  She debates with herself for a long period of time on each of these questions.  A fourth conflict happens when Marguerite accuses Percy of not loving her anymore.  The resolution to the first conflict is The Scarlet Pimpernel escaping from France with the aristocrats.  The Scarlet Pimpernel uses his extremely clever mind to outwit Chauvelin.  The resolution to the second conflict is Marguerite picking her brother to be saved.  This may seem like a fairly easy decision, but she doesn't yet know that her husband, Percy, is The Scarlet Pimpernel!  The resolution to the third conflict is Marguerite's choice to try and save her husband, The Scarlet Pimpernel.  This is a hard decision, even if all the men escape safely in the end.  The solution to the fourth conflict is for Marguerite to figure out that Percy is The Scarlet Pimpernel.  A last conflict inside Marguerite makes her feel guilty of her actions in giving Chauvelin a major hint as to The Scarlet Pimpernel's identity.  The intertwined conflicts make this story more interesting than a book with one conflict at a time. 

The Scarlet Pimpernel is a novel that every person should read at least once in their lifetime.  It is the best book I have read in a couple of years.  It's really no wonder that this book has found it's place on the bookcase of classics.

The Browns have won nailbiting games in Carolina and Miami.  Peton Hillis has been phenomenal, rushing for more than 100 yards three games in a row.  Browns 24, Panthers 23 - Browns 13, Dolphins 10 
The Brown's playoff hopes are slim, but with next week against Buffalo, they might still have a chance at 5-7

Cleveland

Recently, the browns have been looking a lot better on offense in wins against New Orleans and New England.  This week however, Joshua Cribbs was injured and the browns lost to the Jets with just 16 seconds left in overtime.