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For Two Thousand Years - Mihail Sebastian

  For two thousand years was written and published in 1934, which itself holds a significance because it is an account of a Jewish person in Romania before the second world war. The narrative starts in 1923 when the narrator is in university. We see depictions of bullying and violence against him and his fellow Jews colleagues. He begins to write a diary to cope up with these issues. The first couple of sections can be rightly referred to as an agonizing account of a young kid who is insecure and feeling alone. He prefers solitude and immerses himself in literature and abstractions without actually facing the world. He meets a mentor who revolutionizes the way he thinks and makes him feel more connected with the surroundings. The book spans over 10/12 years into the narrators life where he works as an architect. The unrest in the 1920s become a thing of the past only to be risen again 10 years later. He finds out that his co-workers who were once his friends, people with whom he sh...

Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo

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  Co-winner of the booker prize 2019, this book is written as a compilation of narratives of 12 women in various treads of life of all ages, all societal statuses and all sexual preferences. The characters explored in detail are given separate sections within the chapters of the book and they are: Amma, Yazz, Dominique, Carole, Bummi, La Tisha, Shirley, Winesome, Penelope, Megan/Morgan, Hattie and Grace. This story describes the various lives of British people of color. Numerous issues and political topics are addressed through the eyes of these several generations of people and we can see how the lives have progressed and what else is yet to be acknowledged and brought into light. Issues of feminism, transphobia, gender fluidity are directly addressed in the narrative as well. It is very well written in a way that we were brought into the conversation with our own prejudice, thoughts and opinions. Moving on to the 12 characters I found that even though some characters were richly ...

To the lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

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  'To the lighthouse' is an extraordinary work of literature which dwells into the consciousness of the human mind. The basic plot of novel is around a family 'The Ramsay's and there friends and admirers. The Ramsay's have 8 kids and the other acquaintances are Lily Briscoe, William Banks, Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael, Charles Tansley, Minta Doyle and Paul Rayley. This crowd is vacationing in an island in Scotland one Summer. the story unfolds with the young son of the Ramsay's, James wanting to go to the lighthouse and his father telling him that the weather conditions are not suitable for that. The novel is set during a period of 11 years. The first section 'The window' is set before the World War 1 and the final section 'The Lighthouse' is set 11 years later. However the actual scenes of the novel concentrate on 2 days only. One before the way and the other after.  This is not a plot driven novel. As soon as we get into the novel we get dragged int...

After Midnight - Keun Irmgard

Main characters:   We are introduced to the narrator as Susanne. Also known as Sanna . Her brother : Algin Algin's wife : Liska Liska's friend from handicrafts: Gerti Gerti is in love with : Dieter Aaron (non- Aryan) Liska is in an affair with: Heini Sanna is in love with: Franz Herr Kulmbach Betty Raff: seems to be friendly with both algin and his wife Liska. (in an affair with Algin) Franz's mother: Sanna's Aunt, Adelheid Kurt Pielman: also in love with Gerti   Chapter 1   The opening of the book we seem to be introduced to a bar of some sort. Where we get to know a little bit about the main characters. Sanna's relationship with each person and how she knows them are presented in her point of view.   We are also introduced to a suspense with regard to Franz's letter which apparently had no explanation. We get to know of Aunt Adelheid and her pro-Nazi agendas as well.   The love between Gerti and Dieter is deemed t...