Archive for March, 2007

The Stars’ Tennis Balls by Stephen Fry

The Stars' Tennis Balls

The Stars’ Tennis Balls by Stephen Fry is based on the novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas but in this novel Fry places his characters in the age of the internet.
The main character, Ned Maddstone is a boy of seventeen and he is the kind of boy who has everything in life. He is handsome, very good at sports and of course he is in love with a girl called Portia. But his life is about to change dramatically.

One day Ned finds the diary of his friend Ashley Barson-Garland and reads part of it, and discovers that Ashley hates his past, and his working class origins. Ashley notices that Ned has read his diary and then, with the help of two others takes revenge. The two others are Rufus Cade who is jealous of Ned’s success, and Portia’s cousin, Gordon Fendeman, who hates Ned too because he is also in love with Portia.

They get Ned arrested for possession of marijuana, and when he is arrested he has in his pocket an envelope which had been given to him by a school teacher and this envelope has in it a top secret message from the Irish Republican Army. When Ned is interrogated by Oliver Delft, a member of the secret services, Ted tells him that the address where he has to deliver the envelope is in Delft’s mother house. Delft’s darkest secret could be revealed. Then he decides that Maddstone must disappear.

He beats him, gives him drugs and takes him to a hospital on a remote Island off the coast of Sweden. A doctor called Mallo tries to brain-wash him by telling him that Ned Maddstone doesn’t exist. But one day he meets another prisoner called Babe and he starts to believe again that he is Ned Maddstone. Before Babe dies, he tells Ned the way to escape from the Island. Ned escapes from the hospital in Babe’s coffin and goes to Switzerland, where he goes to a bank and asks for a bank account that Babe had given to him. Then he discovers that he has a vast fortune.

Changing his identity, he returns to England and then he starts his revenge.
This is a very interesting novel in which we can see aspects of the real life, jealousy, envy, people who hate other people because they want to have the same things but they can’t. In conclusion, a fiction novel that could be a real story nowadays.

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

Angels and Demons

Dan Brown has become famous after the Da Vinci Code as his previous novels were only moderately successful having sold less than 10,000 copies. Angels and Demons is the first adventure of a hero of a new generation: Robert Langdon.

The book starts when Harvard specialist in religious symbols, Robert Langdon, receives a strange phone call asking him about the Illuminati. The Illuminati were a group of Renaissance scientists, including Galileo and other famous men, who met secretly in Rome to discuss new ideas in safety from papal threat. At that time the church was against science in general and scientists were executed or prosecuted as enemies of the church. However, the group was supposedly gone long ago. They were a secret group, kind of Masonic in style, with a secret symbology. The symbols were ambigrams - words that look the same written upside down or the right side up. Langdon had made a study of the supposedly extinct group and their symbols. But the phone call brought proof that the group is still alive.

A famous scientist, Dr. Vetra, is murdered leaving behind a beautiful daughter to help Langdon discover the meaning behind his death and the ambigram - Illuminati - that is tattooed on his dead body. His daughter, Vittoria, reveals that they had both been working on a secret project - anti-matter. A sample of this anti-matter is missing. It must be found within 6 hours or the explosion could destroy an entire city, a city such as Vatican City. It is also revealed that with the death of the current Pope, all the Cardinals of the Catholic Church will be gathered in the Vatican to decide who the next Pope will be. This is where the anti-matter is supposed to be. Along with the fact that the head of the Vatican’s security finds it hard to believe it exists at all and so is reluctant to help to locate it. He is more concerned with the fact that the four men who are being considered for Pope are missing. This complicates things a bit since the Cardinals who are gathered in the meeting cannot leave until the new Pope is chosen. Never in the history of the Catholic Church have the doors been opened before a Pope is selected.
So, you’ve got four missing men, missing anti-matter, a scientific anti-religious group who are suppose d to be long gone and only 6 hours to solve everything. It is the job of Robert Langdon and Vittoria to follow the path of illumination by solving old clues left for secret scientists long ago to discover who is behind all this and try to save the lives of the Cardinals before it is too late. But if that isn’t enough to keep them busy, there are also many people who want them to fail and so are trying to kill them as they follow the path. Along with those in the Vatican who don’t believe any of it. Unbeatable odds? Maybe. You should read the book to find out.

For a long time I refused to read a book by Dan Brown. When I finally succumbed to the Da Vinci Code, I found that there was much to be said for the book. Controversy always sells, and using Mary Magdalene, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Vatican as your main reference points, it was clear that the book was a wonderful bomb.

The Man from St Petersburg by Ken Follet

The Man from St Petersburg

Stephen Walden, Earl of Walden, is a conservative, lord with a spade-shaped beard. At the age of fifty, he can admit to himself that he has inherited some of his father’s values: love of knowledge, a belief in nationalism and a commitment to hard work.

Lydia Walden is a Russian count’s daughter who loves reading Anna Karenina. She decided to marry Stephen, to leave Russia and live in England so that her father stopped torturing her and to get Felix out of jail. The countess of Walden overprotects her daughter to prevent her from making the same mistakes she made.

Lady Charlotte Walden. An eighteen year-old overprotected girl, who has come of age without learning that some people are so poor they sleep in the street, that maids who are expecting babies get dismissed and women aren’t allowed to vote. She discovers she has a lot to learn, so she’ll take her own decisions despite the ideas she has been brought up in.

Prince Alex Orlow is a shy but determined Russian boy. Orlow is the Czar’s nephew, his father, the late Prince had been the Czar’s brother, and more importantly, he is one of the few people other than Rasputin, whom the Czar likes and trusts. If anyone in the Russian naval establishment can swing the balance in favour of the British, that’s Prince Orlow.

Felix is a forty-year old anarchist revolutionary Russian, whose love is for people, his compassion is for starving peasants, sick children, frightened soldiers and crippled miners in general. He hates nobody in particular: just all princes, all landlords, all capitalists and all generals. Giving himself over to a higher cause, he knows he is like a priest an indeed like a priest in particular: his father. Felix has chosen the right cause; his life would not be wasted

1914. Germany is preparing for war. England and France cannot defeat Germany so they must have another ally, a third country on their side: Russia. The liberals want to do a secret deal with the Czar despite the hatred which the English people feel for the brutal Russian regime. England needs Russia to be freshly and firmly committed to his side, an Anglo-Russian military.

Walden knows the Czar personally, speaks Russian fluently and in addition he’s Orlow’s uncle by marriage. Walden is the best choice to represent Britain at these negotiations.
Felix travels to London to prevent Orlow from leading the Russian peasants into a useless and bloody war over something that doesn’t concern the Russian people at all. If the Czar were to be told that his nephew has been assassinated in London by a revolutionary, especially if it is an expatriate Russian revolutionary, the negotiation would fall through.
The sound of a woman crying hits Felix like a mighty blow. It is as if he had last seen her only yesterday instead of nineteen years ago. It’s Lydia’s voice.
When Lydia sees Felix a cold and heavy thing descends over her heart. She can’t breathe and struggles with a storm of mixed emotions: shock, fear, delight, horror, affection and dread. She doesn’t have the strength to make him leave. She settles leaving one predominant feeling: relief that she has not yielded to the temptation of telling him the last chapter of the story. This is a secret lodged deep within her, a little piece of shrapnel in a healed-over wound that will stay there until the day she dies.

As all the novels by Ken Follet, it is full of suspense and tension. The man from St Petersburg is built with such intensity that your heart races with pounding anticipation and sticks in your throat as the plot reaches its climax.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code has become one of the most widely read books of all times. The conjunction of fascinating descriptions and the rhythm of this thrilling blockbuster is able to make you forget tiredness just to read another chapter.

In the middle of the night Jaqques Sauniere, curator of the Louvre, has been brutally murdered and all the traces lead to Robert Langdon, a skilled Harvard symbologist who is the only person able to solve the series of brain-teasers the curator has designed to disclose the secret he has hidden with his death……Robert gets help from the talented Sophie Neveau cryptologist from the Interpol and niece of the curator’s. Together they start a breathless race trough many historical places related to the Knights Templar, the Holy Grail, The Opus Dei … etc

The main subject of the book is Catholicism, the power they have nowadays and how far dare its representatives go to keep it in their hands and of course the lies it is based on. It also describes members of the Opus Dei as monsters without a conscience, capable of everything just to satisfy their enormous ambition of power. That is the reason why, this bestseller has caused many polemic debates about Catholicism in general.
Even if you find its number of pages discouraging, once you start reading you won’t be able to put it down.

Carrie by Stephen King

carrie

Carrie is the title of the most famous novel written by the well-known American writer Stephen King (it was not his first one, but it was the one that made him famous). This is a very scary story that transmits very different feelings, there are situations of extreme tension and situations that can make you feel very embarrassed.

The story is set in a small town called Chamberlain in Maine, where everybody knows everybody. Carrie White lives with an extremely religious fundamentalist mother who tries to impose her ideas about the world and the sins on her daughter. She loves her mother because she is the only person she knows, all the others simply hate and despise her.
The plot starts with an example of the situations that Carrie has had to put up with all her life which is an incident that occurs when she is at school. She is in the ladies showers with her classmates, and she has her first period, at the age of sixteen. While she thinks that she is bleeding to death, her classmates taunt her instead of helping her and explaining what is happening.

After these situations in which her classmates made fun of her, she gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers, that is, she can move things and pick them up only having their images in her mind and these powers will help her to take revenge.
King uses first and third person narrative with extracts from newspaper reports, journals, and scientific papers. These resources help him to introduce the readers in the atmosphere in which the plot is developed and to make them feel that this story is based on real facts that happened some years ago.

I must recognize that it is a strange book, it do not find it surprising that it has been a bestseller because I cannot explain the odd feelings that this book provokes when you end up reading it. Throughout the book, you can feel several contradictory feelings because you can feel sad for Carrie when she was vulnerable and weak, but very scared when she has the power. However, I recommend this book, it is a different experience.

Absolute Friends by John Le Carré

Absolute Friends

Absolute Friends, by John le Carré, tells the life of Ted Mundy, a man who was born in Pakistan. He’s the child of a retired officer and his life changes when he is sent away to school in England.

Teddy is the main character in the book. He moves to England when the British Empire is crumbling, there he’ll miss his childhood in India.
His friend Sasha is another important character. Ted meets Sasha when he arrives in Germany. He is the leader of a group, they live in a commune with people of very different kinds but all sharing the same ideals. Sasha thinks he can change the world. Although he has a father, he doesn’t talk to him because his father is a priest.
Mundy saves Sasha’s life, but he ends up in jail. There, jailers beat him until Sasha intervenes and rescues him. After that, he must leave Germany so he moves from one country to another. During this time he receives letters from his friend, but he doesn’t answer. Sasha only trusts Ted.

Ten years later, Mundy is living in England with his wife who is a teacher and they are going to have a baby. He finds a job for the British Arts Council which involves travelling a lot with students. During his first travel, in East Germany, he meets Sasha (who is now a double agent for London). There, Ted will become a spy.
Another character is Dimitri, a mysterious rich man, who seeks Ted’s help to set up a school to preach ideas against Globalization or Americanization.

More years pass and Ted is working as a guide in one of King Ludwig’s castles. His marriage has failed and he is estranged from his son. But now, he lives with a Turkish woman and her son.

The book shows a different point of view about the Cold War, the building and the fall of the Berlin Wall or even events as recent as the war in Iraq.
It is written from the point of view of Teddy. The writing is deep and very detailed. With all the descriptions we can know all his adventures and experiences.
It gives us a different story about a spy. I recommend reading this book when you have free time. Once you start, you can’t stop reading.

Angels in the Gloom by Anne Perry

Angels in the Gloom

Angels in the Gloom (2005) is the third novel belonging to the World War I series by British author Anne Perry. Besides the other two novels of this series, No Graves As Yet (2003) and Shoulder the Sky (2004), Anne Perry has written other interesting ones, the popular and acclaimed Thomas Pitt’s series or the Williams Monk’s series.

Angels in the Gloom is set in 1916 during the First World War and continues the Reavley family’s search for “the peacemaker”-the responsible for the murder of Reavely’s parents. The action takes place mostly in the Reavely’s hometown of St. Giles but the horror of the war and its consequences are always present through the entire novel. Moreover, the brutal murder of a weapons scientist will alert the Reavley family against the threat from the spies and the traitors.
Angels in the Gloom is simultaneously a thriller, a detective, a conspiracy, a war and a romance novel. In spite of the fact that it is a work of fiction, the author uses some historical facts to catch the reader’s attention. Moreover, the plot is highly believable because of the good author’s research on the First World War history. Although the plot is sometimes a bit complicated, it holds your attention right up to the final page.

From my point of view, Angels in the Gloom is an engrossing and brilliant novel. It is impeccably written and the plot is well developed and well organised. My only reservation about it is that sometimes it is not easy to pick up the thread of the story if you have not read the previous novels. Despite this, it is well worth reading.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the second novel of a series about a child called Harry Potter written by J.K. Rowling. She is one of the most famous writers nowadays and some newspapers compare her to Roald Dahl.

The book is set in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the main characters of the book are Harry Potter, a wizard who is famous because when he was a baby he managed to defeat the most frightening wizard called Lord Voldemort, Ron Weasley a friend of Harry’s that accompanies him in all his adventures and Hermione Granger the cleverest of the three.

The book starts when Harry is at the Dursley’s house, his aunt and uncle, who are going to have a party that night so Harry has to be upstairs making no noise but a little creature called Dobby appeared at his room to warn Harry not to go to Hogwarts because something terrifying was going to happen. Harry says to Dobby, that he is going to Hogwarts anyway because he loves this school so Dobby goes downstairs and ruins the Dursley’s party and they think that it was Harry so they don’t allow him to go to Hogwarts. However, his friend Ron goes and helps him to escape from his room with a flying car and in this car they arrive at the school because the platform where they have to catch the train is closed and they couldn’t pass. When they are flying over the school, they crash into the Whomping Willow, the car is destroyed and they are punished. They get into the Great Hall and they see that they have a new Dark Force Defence Teacher, the famous Gilderoy Lockhart, a very arrogant person.
One night a cat called Mrs Norris is petrified and the sentence “Enemies of the heir beware” appears written on the wall. Most people think Harry Potter has done it, but he can’t have done it because he was in a party with his friends. Several people are petrified after that night and one of them is Hermione. Harry Potter will try to solve this mystery, and prove that he wasn’t the one who petrified the people. Will he be able to do that? Read the book if you want to know.

This is one of the most exciting books I have read because it is a mixture of mystery, magic and adventure. In my opinion this is a book that you can’t put down; I definitely recommend it.

Education in Finland

Education in Finland

In unit five, we were talking about the education systems in other countries and we compared them with the education system in our country. This week I have read something about it that I have found very interesting. It is about education in Finland. So I will try to expound the most characteristic aspects of its education.
In Finland, the State finances families so that they can educate their children at home or in a nursery as they prefer.

The Infant Schools take children aged 1 to 7 and are taught by teachers who have a of three-year degree. Their methodology is based on games and its aim is to help parents with their children’s education.

The Primary Education takes children aged 7 to. The subjects are concentrated on learning languages and arts. This stage is taught by teachers with higher qualifications and they have to pass a series of exams. The Finnish teaching methodology is characterized, at this stage, by an individualized and flexible teaching method wich looks for the development of self-confidence.

Finnish people start their Secondary Education when they are 14 and they finish when they are 16. The subjects that stand out at this stage are languages and the subject of home economy. The teachers are specialized in this Secondary Education.
The Graduate starts when students are 16 and finishes when they are 19. In Finland there are no modalities of election in the graduate. At this stage, the teachers try to teach the students how to learn ‘.

The Occupational training starts when people are 16 or 17. Teachers have a two-year degree and pedagogical studies. They use a methodology similar to that of Secondary Education. They seek to develop a personalized syllabus. There is a higher level in the Occupational Education that starts when people are 19 and finishes when they are about 24. The subjects in Finland are divided in common and optional subjects. To teach in this educational level, it is necessary to have three years’ experience. They use a methodology based on the use of technological resources.

In Finland, people access University when they are 19, and they finish their degrees when they are 24. The Finnish University Curriculum distinguishes between obligatory, free election and optional subjects. Teachers are instructed in specific institutions which are called ‘Vocational Teacher Education College’.

As for the attention to diversity, in Finland students who have special needs are moved to special centres where they will be taught following specific syllabi.
After all these explanations, I must say that is the most successful country in Education policies because they invest more money and education is a priority in the State, and it is not a political question, because no matter which political party governs, the educational law does not change.

Home Truths by David Lodge

Home Truths

Home Truths, by David Lodge, is an excellent story that takes place in a cottage near London when Diana’s holiday with Dodi Al Fayed.

This fascinating novel is about the tensions between private life and public interest in contemporary culture, being the main characters three old university friends (two of them, a couple) and the journalist from the media circus Fanny Tarrant.

Adrian Ludlow, a novelist with a distinguished although slightly faded reputation, is living in semi-retirement with his wife, Eleanor, in an isolated cottage beneath the flight path of London’s Gatwick airport. Adrian had become a celebrity with his book “The Hideaway” (an A level text) some years ago, but now, he only publishes anthologies, having given up writing novels because he can’t bear criticism. His wife Eleanor scans the pages of the sensational newspapers every day, and usually reads Fanny Tarrant’s interviews in the Sunday Sentinel.
One day, their old friend from college days, Sam Sharp, who has became a successful screenplay writer, drops in unexpectedly on the way to Los Angeles. Sam is furious as well as worried because of a profile of himself, by Fanny Tarrant, in that day’s newspaper.
Fanny Tarrant is a heart-less journalist who writes devastating reviews in the Sunday Sentinel. She attended a convent boarding school, at a time when Adrian Ludlow was her teenage idol and “The Hideaway” remained her personal bible at university. Now, Sam Sharp is her latest victim. As a result, Sam and Adrian, plan together to take revenge on the journalist, although Adrian is risking what he values most, his privacy. Adrian must interview her when she thinks she’s interviewing him, in order win the game.

This book is beautifully written and full of vivid descriptions. The plot, although a bit slow and boring at the beginning, then changes, giving an unexpected twist almost at the end.
I thoroughly recommend this book because it’s a highly entertaining novel which also gives us a message to reflect on.

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