GGRW Blog

One example of popular culture used in the book is Hosanna da. Hosanna da is a song used in the book supposed to be a play on the song Oh Canada, the Canadian national anthem. This is used as another piece of witty comedy by Thomas King that adds comic relief to the story.

John Wayne. He was always the hero in old western movies. King plays on this because in the movies John Wayne always defeating the Indians. Thomas King uses this to remark on the fact that its always the Indians who are the “Bad Guys” and how they are always defeated by the “White Man”

The Star of Bethlehem is used in the book as a biblical illusion. In the biblical story, the star was made to represent the birth of Christ but in the book “ a star settled on the horizon and waited” (235), as if to say that the star was waiting for Christ to be born, and I think this was used to add comic relief because it says “waiting” as if the birth of Christ was late or delayed.

Queen Elizabeth II is used in the book as a piece of pop-culture. Usually a woman of great significance and royalty but in the book marginalized as a “woman in a formal with a tiara”. King uses this to poke fun at the anarchy that controls, pretty much, everything in Canada.

Macbeth is used in the book as another pop-culture reference. Thomas King uses this and basically says that Shakespeare was an idiot and none of his stories made any sense.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Creeps on this petty pace from day to day

….

A tale told by an idiot

Full of sound a fury

Signifying nothing

“Eli held the coffee cup in his hands and watched the sun appear. He was sorry he was not at the camp to see the sun come among the lodges, to be among the people as it came, and he wondered if Lionel and Latisha and Norma and Alberta and Harley and Camelot were awake to see it, for it truly was a thing of Wonder.” (408). This shows the side of Eli that is kind of calm and quiet, and always has something on his mind.

“Lionel felt as though he was anchored in one sport, and that if he didn’t do something soon, he was going to have to stand there all day and listen to Eli and Bursum and the old Indians exchange greetings…” (298). This shows the side of Lionel that is kind of submissive and lets things happen which sometimes ends up putting him in a position that he would rather not be in.

‘ “Somebody ask me how I am,” says Coyote. “Go ahead, ask me.”’ (298). This shows the side of Coyote that is impatient, and rather cocky and quite an annoyance. Coyote kind of reminds me of a little bratty kid that always needs to get his way or else he will not be happy.

Three day road blog

The book Three Day Road is a story about two Native Soldiers in WWI and their journey through the war, learning tactics for survival and killing. The two main characters are named Xavier Bird, and Elijah Whiskyjack. These two characters start off best of friends but the longer they go, fighting in the war, the more they grow apart.

“Grey Eyes,” Elijah calls out. “Wake up.” He opens his eyes and looks up at Elijah. Elijah raises the wood in both hands and swings it down hard as he can onto Grey Eyes’ forehead. “Mo-na!” I shout. “We have no other choice,” Elijah answers. “I do not want to spend the rest of my life in one of their prisons.” He swings the wood again and again, battering the little man’s head until the life has left him. “We’ve got to get the lieutenant to a medic,” I say. “Are you kidding?” Elijah answers. “The little prick knows everything.” He crawls over and finds Breech, turns his head to just the right angle and begins smashing it with the wood.

The key scene I chose was where their group is being attacked by the German Soldiers and Elijah kills his own men simply because he disagreed with them. This scene was especially key because just before this he had done another soldier a huge favour by mercy killing him. This scene added to the story because it was the first time Xavier had really looked at Elijah in a different way. Now he not only disagreed with what Elijah thought but he also was now scared of him because of who he was becoming; a Windigo killer.

This scene connects with the rest of the book because it is a pivotal point where the relationship between Elijah and Xavier really starts to go downhill. After this Xavier is no longer curious about Elijah, but just plain scared of what he might do if Xavier were to cross his path.

This book is a well-written story and touches on a lot of the aspects of WWI while maintaining a good plot with excellent characters. I liked how the story started off near the end of Xavier’s life and then flashes back and tells you his story. I would recommend this book to anyone middle to high school and older that has an interest in the history of WWI.

The Boy in the Moon is a non-fiction Novel written by Ian Brown, Father of a profoundly disabled child named Walker. This book outlines the struggles that Walker goes through, being disabled, and the struggles that Ian himself has to go through, having to see his son constantly in pain.

When Ian Brown first hears about L’Arche he thinks its not a possibility because they are looking for adults and the waiting list is 20 years long but after Jean-Louis Munn had read the story that Ian Brown had published about Walker, Ian and Walker had gotten Invited to Montreal to come visit Munn at L’Arche, which was an offer Brown could not refuse. When Ian and Walker got there, he said it was the place he had been looking for.

“But in the spring of 2008…I saw for the first time the outline of the unthinkable community I was looking for. In that community, I was the stranger.” (p 186-187).

L’Arche to me was a great place where people like Walker could come and fit in and feel really welcome. It was clear to me that many people that are a part of the L’Arche community feel comfortable in what some of them would consider their “home”.

I have learned that it can be very difficult, physically, mentally, and emotionally, with a profoundly disabled child. There are a lot of things physically that can be challenging when dealing with a disabled child like Walker, for example, since Walker was two, Brown would have to get up in the middle of the night and stop Walker from hitting himself and moaning. Not only that, but, He could never figure out what is wrong, and since Walker can’t speak, he will never be able to find out. Because of this event occurring every night, Brown has not gotten a full night sleep in over 6 years. When your child needs that much attention you do not have much time to do other things like socialize and work etc.. Another thing that could be challenging is thinking about what it would have been like if Walker wasn’t disabled, and how much easier life would be.

Some questions that I would ask Ian Brown if I had the chance would be one, if you had the choice, would you go back and not have kids if you had known that they would be as disabled? Two would be what is the hardest part about having a disabled child? My third question would be why did you choose the name Boy in the Moon?

Dead Cold Blog

The book Dead Cold is about a small town called Three Pines, that was having a their annual curling tournament until something horrific was discovered. There had been a murder! Throughout the book you meet the different characters that are connected to the murder and follow along with Inspector Gamache on his journey to solving the murder.

Throughout this book, you meet many different characters that have very different personalities and help add to the plot. CC is the mother of Crie. CC is a mean, self-centred, person who does anything and everything possible to make her daughter feel bad about herself. A perfect example would be,

“Of course not. Some pathetic little person… and hating himself even more for wanting to destroy it” (p. 17-18).

Ruth is an old, irascible poet that is in her 70’s. The following quote is an example of one time when her irascibility got the best of her. “ ‘It’s about f***in’ time.’ Ruth Zardo limped over to Clara. You look like a bag lady.’ She gave and received a kiss on the cheek. ‘And you stink.’ ” (p. 29).

Clara is a struggling poet that is passionate and dedicated to what she does. Here is a quote showing how dedicated she is to what she does.

“The truth is, by Boxing Day morning… to help but now she finds something she can do sitting down” (p. 90-91).

Beauvoir is a detective that has a very vain personality. This quote shows how he has a very strong opinion on what is a good goal to aim for and what isn’t. “Here we go, thought Beauvoir, ‘Not doing badly isn’t good enough,’ he said… The elite division in the Sûeté.’” (p. 84)

Crie, the daughter of CC, is an over-weight, unattractive girl in her early teens that wants nothing more than to impress her mother, and have her mother be proud of her. “She got into her costume… She’d told herself, trying to drown out the other voices.” (p. 8).

Her mother treated her terribly and made Crie really depressed. She was willing to do anything to make her mother, and even just believe herself, that her mother thinks she is beautiful.

“She’d applied glue and glitter and now… in just a few short minutes, and her mother would too. “ (p. 9).

In the novel, there are moments when there are a lot of tensions. A good technique used is humour. One example is

“ ‘we’re always happy here,’ said Clara… ‘Slut,’ said Gabri.” (p. 53).

This is when Clara senses that Gabri was upset the night before so she cracks a joke about her facial hair, which then leads to them calling each other different derogatory words for a woman. Another example is

“ ‘There’s been a murder.’… ‘I find long underwear protection enough.’ ”

Right after the inspector is informed that there has been a murder he immediately starts talking about underwear with his wife. After she questioned why he didn’t have a gun in his top drawer, he jokingly remarks,

“I find long underwear protection enough.”

Both of these examples are humourous and relieve the tension really well.

So those are some of the characters that help enhance the plot throughout the book and some of the examples of humour used to relieve the tension in stressful situations during the crime novel Dead Cold.

Dead Cold is a book of many genres. I particularly like detective stories because I have to think, and that is what kept me interested in the story. I find that the use of humour really helped the plot of the book substantially, and was another factor that kept me engaged in the book. Overall I would recommend this book to anyone over the age of 13 (because of the explicit content) that has a good sense of humour and is interested in crime investigation type scenarios.

Crime Fiction Novel

The book Dressed for Death by Donna Leon is a book about the murder of a transvestite prostitute. It Starts off when a man named Bettino Cola is walking outside the factory that he works out; taking a break, and he notices a red shoe. It’s in pretty good condition so he decides to take it. He spots the other one and decides that they might his wife well but upon trying to obtain the second she he finds that the shoe is attached to a foot that is attached to a leg that is attached to a body; a dead body. When the police arrive he get interrogated about the victim but he had no answers for them. Eventually they go over to the victim and investigate only to find out that it wasn’t a woman.
Brunetti is a very smart detective that uses clever tactics to pick up on clues, time and time again, to solve all kinds of different mysteries in the series. This book is another adventure of Guido Brunetti. He is hoping to get away from his busy job and have a relaxing family vacation in the mountains when he is forced to solve the mystery of the gruesome murder of a transvestite prostitute. The body had been beaten to a pulp, to the point where they were not able to identify the person by their face. Because of this he must go around all of Venice for someone that knows who the dead person is but has no luck in finding so, until he gets a phone call from someone who can give him some juicy information about the murder.
There were not many clues in this book because he was searching and couldn’t find anything. The biggest help to him by far in the book was when he got the call. That was a real turning point in the book. It gave him information that tied all the other clues together and made it possible to solve the case.
“If Italy was nothing else, it was a place where documented evidence always existed, and that in abundance; what was often illusory was the reality it was meant to reflect.” (p. 251). I like this passage because it shows that italy has a lot of documented evidence and this is essentially how Brunetti gets the information to solve the case. “she put one knuckle in her mouth, hoping, perhaps, to keep the words from coming out, but she had seen the body in the morgue, and so there was no use in that.” (p. 122). This is when Brunetti is trying to get evidence from Signora, a potential witness. “Though chill of the early autumn remained in the city, that night Brunetti needed no blanket.” (p.343). This passage appeals to me because it is a way of saying that Brunetti can sleep well tonight no matter the circumstances because he has solved the case.