🧑🏿Incident👱🏻♂️
✍️Countee Cullen✍️
Once riding in old Baltimore, Heart-filled, head-filled with glee; I saw a Baltimorean Keep looking straight at me. Now I was eight and very small, And he was no whit bigger, And so I smiled, but he poked out His tongue, and called me, "Nigger." I saw the whole of Baltimore From May until December; Of all the things that happened there That's all that I remember.
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🙍🏻♀️It alludes to the fact that nature, from birds to trees, don’t know and don’t care about human conflict. In fact, if humanity destroys itself, “Not one” kind of non-human life would care that it had occurred. While this is, in part, a depressing message, Teasdale concludes the poem in such a way that the speaker can’t help but feel at peace with this image of nature, ever-lasting and independent. Spring will come whether humans are there or not.🙍🏻♀️
Читать полностью…🥀There Will Come Soft Rains🌄
✍️Sara Teasdale✍️
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
🌘🌘🌘🌘🌘🌘🌘🌘🌘🌘🌘🌘
🐚People who always fail are the ones who appreciate success the most. To truly value something sweet like success, you have to really, really need it. Not a single soldier in the army that won the battle today has as clear an understanding of the meaning of victory as does a dying soldier from the opposing army. To this dying soldier's ears, the distant sounds of celebration ring out painfully clear.🐚
Читать полностью…🧎♂Success is Counted Sweetest🏆
✍Emily Dickinson✍
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag to-day
Can tell the definition
So clear, of Victory
As he, defeated -dying -
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear!
🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
At the end of the meeting, the Council creates a group to help Frodo in his quest. In addition to Frodo, the Fellowship of the Ring includes Sam, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn, Gandalf, an Elf named Legolas, a Dwarf named Gimli, and a Man from the south named Boromir.
The Fellowship heads south and attempts to pass over the Misty Mountains via the pass of Caradhras. Their way is blocked by snow and rock slides, and they are forced to divert their path through the Mines of Moria—the ancient, underground realm of the Dwarves. During the journey through Moria, Gandalf falls into the chasm of Khazad-dûm while protecting the Company from a Balrog, a terrible demon.
The rest of the party continues on to Lórien, the forest of the Galadrim Elves, where the Lady Galadriel tests their hearts and gives them gifts to help them on the quest. Frodo, spellbound by Galadriel’s power and wisdom, offers her the Ring. She refuses, however, saying that, despite her intentions, the Ring would corrupt her; ultimately, she would only replace Sauron.
Leaving Lórien, the Fellowship travels by boat down the Great River, Anduin. At night, they spot Gollum—a deformed creature that had once owned the Ring but then lost it to Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit—following them. When they reach the Falls of Rauros, the Fellowship must decide whether to head toward Mordor on the east or toward the safety of the city of Minas Tirith to the west.
Boromir, overcome by the Ring’s power and desiring the Ring for himself, confronts Frodo. Frodo fends off Boromir and decides that he must go on to Mordor rather than to the safety of Minas Tirith. However, Frodo cannot bear the thought of imperiling his friends on the dangerous journey or allowing the Ring to corrupt them, so he attempts to leave secretly and continue the quest alone. Frodo does not, however, manage to elude Sam, so the two of them set out together for Mordor.
👩🏻🦰The poem is commonly interpreted as an expression of Plath's suicidal attempts and impulses. Its tone veers between menacing and scathing, and it has drawn attention for its use of Holocaust imagery, similar to "Daddy." The title is an allusion to the Biblical character, Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead👩🏻🦰
Читать полностью…⚰Lady Lazarus🦇
✍Sylvia Plath✍
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?——
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart——
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash —-
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
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She identifies with Septimus, admiring him for having taken the plunge and for not compromising his soul. She feels, with her comfortable position as a society hostess, responsible for his death. The party nears its close as guests begin to leave. Clarissa enters the room, and her presence fills Peter with a great excitement.
Читать полностью…💦The poem was originally published in One Hundred Poems from the Chinese, translated by Kenneth Roxroth.It is concisely descriptive, vividly evoking an unusually lucid image of the scene. The reality depicted is almost magical.The American translation is influenced by Imagism, codified in the early 20th century by Ezra Pound.💦
Читать полностью…🌛Brimming Water🐟
✍Tu Fu ✍
Under my feet the moon
Glides along the river.
Near midnight, a gusty lantern
Shines in the heart of night.
Along the sandbars flocks
Of white egrets roost,
Each one clenched like a fist.
In the wake of my barge
The fish leap, cut the water,
And dive and splash.
🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊
While in Bombay, Saleem eats some chutney that tastes exactly like the ones his ayah, Mary, used to make. He finds the chutney factory that Mary now owns, at which Padma stands guarding the gate. With this meeting, Saleem’s story comes full circle. His historical account finally complete, Saleem decides to marry Padma, his steadfast lover and listener, on his thirty-first birthday, which falls on the thirty-first anniversary of India’s independence. Saleem prophesies that he will die on that day, disintegrating into millions of specks of dust.
Читать полностью…❤️MAY 2❤️ 2021🤩
🪄MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN👨🦱
🖋Salman Rushdie🖋
Saleem Sinai, the narrator of Midnight’s Children, opens the novel by explaining that he was born on midnight, August 15, 1947, at the exact moment India gained its independence from British rule. Now nearing his thirty-first birthday, Saleem believes that his body is beginning to crack and fall apart. Fearing that his death is imminent, he grows anxious to tell his life story. Padma, his loyal and loving companion, serves as his patient, often skeptical audience.
Saleem’s story begins in Kashmir, thirty-two years before his birth, in 1915. There, Saleem’s grandfather, a doctor named Aadam Aziz, begins treating Naseem, the woman who becomes Saleem’s grandmother. For the first three years Aadam Aziz treats her, Naseem is always covered by a sheet with a small hole in it that is moved to expose the part of her that is sick. Aadam Azis sees his future wife’s face for the first time on the same day World War I ends, in 1918. Aadam Aziz and Naseem marry, and the couple moves to Agra, where Aadam—a doctor whose loss of religious faith has affected him deeply—sees how protests in the name of independence get violently suppressed. Aadam and Naseem have three daughters, Alia, Mumtaz, and Emerald, and two sons, Mustapha and Hanif. Aadam becomes a follower of the optimistic activist Mian Abdullah, whose anti-Partition stance eventually leads to his assassination. Following Abdullah’s death, Aadam hides Abdullah’s frightened assistant, Nadir Khan, despite his wife’s opposition. While living in the basement, Nadir Khan falls in love with Mumtaz, and the two are secretly married. However, after two years of marriage, Aadam finds out that his daughter is still a virgin, as Nadir and Mumtaz have yet to consummate their marriage. Nadir Khan is sent running for his life when Mumtaz’s sister, Emerald, tells Major Zulfikar—an officer in the Pakistani army, soon to be Emerald’s husband—about his hiding place in the house. Abandoned by her husband, Mumtaz agrees to marry Ahmed Sinai, a young merchant who until then had been courting her sister, Alia.
Mumtaz changes her name to Amina and moves to Delhi with her new husband. Pregnant, she goes to a fortune-teller who delivers a cryptic prophecy about her unborn son, declaring that the boy will never be older or younger than his country and claiming that he sees two heads, knees and a nose. After a terrorist organization burns down Ahmed’s factory, Ahmed and Amina move to Bombay. They buy a house from a departing Englishman, William Methwold, who owns an estate at the top of a hill. Wee Willie Winky, a poor man who entertains the families of Methwold’s Estate, says that his wife, Vanita, is also expecting a child soon. Unbeknownst to Wee Willie Winky, Vanita had an affair with William Methwold, and he is the true father of her unborn child. Amina and Vanita both go into labor, and, at exactly midnight, each woman delivers a son. Meanwhile, a midwife at the nursing home, Mary Pereira, is preoccupied with thoughts of her radical socialist lover, Joseph D’Costa. Wanting to make him proud, she switches the nametags of the two newborn babies, thereby giving the poor baby a life of privilege and the rich baby a life of poverty. Driven by a sense of guilt afterward, she becomes an ayah, or nanny, to Saleem.
Because it occurs at the exact moment India gains its independence, the press heralds Saleem’s birth as hugely significant. Young Saleem has an enormous cucumberlike nose and blue eyes like those of his grandfather, Aadam Aziz. His mischievous sister, nicknamed the Brass Monkey, is born a few years later. Overwhelmed by the expectations laid on him by the prophecy, and ridiculed by other children for his huge nose, Saleem takes to hiding in a washing chest. While hiding one day, he sees his mother sitting down on the toilet; when Amina discovers him, she punishes Saleem to one day of silence. Unable to speak, he hears, for the first time, a babble of voices in his head.
Watch "Blow, Bugle, Blow. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, text; Ruth Elaine Shram, music" on YouTube
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🌵Unlike Cullen's other works, which often explore themes of love, beauty, and the African American experience, "Incident" is a raw and painful reflection on the racial realities of his time. It serves as a stark reminder of the enduring legacy of racism and its ability to shape the memories and identities of those it targets.🌵
Читать полностью…❤️JUNE 25❤️2024🥶
🩸IN COLD BLOOD🥷🏻
🖋️Truman Capote🖋️
The book tells the story of the murder of the Clutter family, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Clutter and their two teenage children, Kenyon and Nancy (two older daughters were grown and out of the house), and the events that lead the killers to murder. The family was living in Holcomb, Kansas, and in November 1959, they were brutally killed, with no apparent motive, by Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. The family was discovered bound and shot to death, with only small items missing from the home. Capote read about the crime in The New York Times soon after it happened, and before the killers were caught, he began his work in Kansas, interviewing the people of Holcomb and doing extensive research with the help of his friend Harper Lee, who would go on to write the classic To Kill a Mockingbird.
Perry and Dick initially get away with the murder, leaving behind scant clues and having no personal connection with the murdered family. Capote explores the motive again and again within his text, eventually concluding that any real motive for the crime lays within Perry — his feelings of inadequacy, his ambiguous sexuality, and his anger at the world and at his family because of his bad childhood. Dick plays the role of true outlaw, but the impact of the killings weighs heavily on him, and his own role in the murders remains unexplained and unclear.
The townspeople of Holcomb and other friends of the Clutters are deeply affected by the murders. This includes Nancy's best friend, Sue, and Nancy's boyfriend, Bobby. The townspeople perceived the Clutters as the family "least likely" in the world to be murdered. Unable to conceive that the killers were strangers, many of them become suspicious of everyone and anxious about their own safety in the company of their neighbors. The man who heads the murder investigation, Al Dewey, becomes obsessed with both the murderers and the Clutter family. His need to find the killers becomes his driving force in life.
While the anxiety in Holcomb grows, the killers move on with their lives. The book follows Perry and Dick to Mexico and back, and incredibly, it seems that they might never be found out and brought to justice. Ultimately, a living witness who can tie the two men to the Clutters, footprints at the crime scene, and the possession of a pair of binoculars and a radio from the Clutter home become the pair's undoing. They are arrested and both confess to their part in the crime. They are tried for murder and convicted; after many years on death row, both men are hanged. During their time on death row, Perry slowly reveals his personal thoughts, his ambitions, and the motives that contributed to his life choices, including the fateful night he and Dick entered the Clutter home.
❤️JUNE 24❤️2024😌
👩🏻🦱DANGEROUS LIAISONS🦹🏻♀️
🖋️Pierre Choderlos de Laclos🖋️
In a pair of sumptuous drawingrooms, one in a Parisian mansion, the other in a chateau on a luxurious estate in the countryside surrounding Paris, two aristocrats are very bored. The Marquise de Merteuil decides, therefore, to construct a little intrigue for her own amusement and the amusement of her former lover, the Vicomte de Valmont. The Marquise is aware that a young girl of good family, Cécile Volanges, has only just left the convent so that she can be married to the Comte de Gercourt. Now, the Marquise has a bone to pick with this particular Comte, and so she suggests to the Vicomte that he seduce and debauch Cécile to create a scandal and humiliate Gercourt. Valmont accepts the Marquise's proposal somewhat coolly, since he already has his eyes on another prey, the highly religious Présidente de Tourvel, the chaste wife of a member of Parliament. But, never one to refuse a challenge, Valmont suggests that he and the Marquise enter into a slightly different bet: if he can obtain written proof that he has slept with the Présidente, the Marquise must yield herself to him.
Meanwhile, Cécile has been presented to society, and in society she meets the charming and gentle Chevalier Danceny. Danceny becomes Cécile's music teacher and slowly, with a little coaxing from the Marquise de Merteuil, the two young people fall in love. During this time, Valmont is out in the country on his aunt's estate, trying to turn the Présidente de Tourvel's head. He has very little luck in this department despite his use of every known trick in the book. Then, as coincidence would have, Cécile's mother, Madame Volanges, who corresponds regularly with the Présidente de Tourvel, happens to say some rather unflattering things about Valmont in a letter which Valmont just happens to steal and read. And thus it is that Valmont resolves to seduce the little Volanges as revenge for her mother's only too accurate trash-talk.
Cécile's "seduction" would be more accurately termed "rape," but the girl is persuaded to enter into a bizarre student-teacher relationship with Valmont, so that for a while she is being courted by Danceny and "loved" nightly by Valmont. During his time as Cécile's teacher, Valmont is also able to win the heart of the Présidente de Tourvel.
However, the Marquise de Merteuil is not so easily pleased. Rather than encourage the Vicomte de Valmont to meet the conditions of their original agreement, she mocks him for having fallen in love with the Présidente de Tourvel. Valmont's pride does not withstand these attacks very well, and to avoid compromising his reputation as a good-for-nothing gigolo, he leaves the Présidente cold, with no explanation. Cécile fares no better, after a particularly rough night in Valmont's room, she miscarries his child.
Now things are really looking bad for everyone involved.
Watch ""Success Is Counted Sweetest" Emily Dickinson poem POWERFUL VOICES" on YouTube
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Watch "The Lord of the Rings to go (Tolkien in 13,5 Minutes)" on YouTube
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❤️MAY 4❤️2021🤗
🧙♂THE LORD OF THE RINGS💍
🖋J. R. R Tolkien🖋
The Fellowship of the Ring is the first of three volumes in The Lord of the Rings, an epic set in the fictional world of Middle-earth. The Lord of the Rings is an entity named Sauron, the Dark Lord, who long ago lost the One Ring that contains much of his power. His overriding desire is to reclaim the Ring and use it to enslave all of Middle-earth.
The story of The Lord of the Rings begins with several events that take place in The Hobbit. While wandering lost in a deep cave, Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit—one of a small, kindly race about half the size of Men—stumbles upon a ring and takes it back with him to the Shire, the part of Middle-earth that is the Hobbits’ home. All Bilbo knows of his ring is that wearing it causes him to become invisible. He is unaware that it is the One Ring, and is therefore oblivious to its significance and to the fact that Sauron has been searching for it.
The Fellowship of the Ring opens with a party for Bilbo’s 111th birthday. Bilbo gives his ring to his heir, his cousin Frodo Baggins. When the time comes to part with the ring, however, Bilbo becomes strangely reluctant to do so. He gives up the ring only at the determined urging of his friend, Gandalf the Grey, a great Wizard. Gandalf suspects that the ring is indeed the One Ring of legend. After confirming his suspicions, he tells Frodo that the Ring must be taken away from the Shire, as Sauron’s power is growing once again.
Frodo sets out from the Shire with three of his Hobbit friends—Sam, Merry, and Pippin. Along the way, they are pursued by the nine Ringwraiths, servants of Sauron who take the form of terrifying Black Riders. The hobbits spend a night in the company of wandering Elves, who promise to send word ahead to friends who will protect the hobbits. Barely out of the Shire, the hobbits get lost in the Old Forest, where they have to be rescued from a malevolent willow tree, which swallows up Merry and Pippin, and then from an evil tomb ghost. The hobbits’ rescuer is Tom Bombadil, a strange, jovial entity with great powers who is the oldest creature in Middle-earth.
The hobbits make it to the town of Bree, where they meet Aragorn, a Ranger who roams the wilderness and who is the heir of the Kings of the ancient Men of Westernesse. Those who do not know Aragorn’s true name call him Strider. Frodo tries to keep a low profile at the inn in Bree, but he ends up causing a scene when while taking part in a rollicking rendition of a song he falls, accidentally slips the Ring onto his finger, and vanishes.
That night, Aragorn advises the hobbits not to sleep in their rooms at the inn. In doing so, he saves their lives—for the first of many times. A letter Gandalf left at the inn months before advises the group to head for Rivendell, a realm of the Elves. Aragorn sets out with the hobbits the next day, and with his help they avoid the Black Riders for some time. However, at the top of the hill Weathertop, the Company is forced to defend itself against the attacking Riders. Frodo is wounded during the skirmish.
Frodo’s wound, made by a weapon of a servant of Sauron, plagues the hobbit as the Company makes its way eastward. Aragorn is greatly concerned about the power the wound might exert over Frodo. Near Rivendell they meet the Elf-lord Glorfindel, who has been out looking for them. At the last ford before Rivendell, Frodo, riding Glorfindel’s horse, outruns the ambushing Black Riders, who are swept away in a flood created by Elrond, the master of Rivendell.
Elrond heals Frodo and then holds a meeting to discuss what to do about the Ring. During this Council, Frodo learns the full history of the Ring. Frodo accepts the burden of taking the Ring to the only place it can be destroyed—the place where it was forged. It promises to be a long, nearly impossible journey, as the Ring was forged in the Cracks of Doom, part of the fiery mountain Orodruin in the very heart of Sauron’s realm of Mordor.
Watch "Sylvia Plath reading 'Lady Lazarus'" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/Uq2LOhaf97o
Watch "Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf | Summary & Analysis" on YouTube
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❤️MAY 3❤️2021😅
👩🦳Mrs DALLOWAY👵
🖋Viginia Woolf🖋
Mrs. Dalloway covers one day from morning to night in one woman’s life. Clarissa Dalloway, an upper-class housewife, walks through her London neighborhood to prepare for the party she will host that evening. When she returns from flower shopping, an old suitor and friend, Peter Walsh, drops by her house unexpectedly. The two have always judged each other harshly, and their meeting in the present intertwines with their thoughts of the past. Years earlier, Clarissa refused Peter’s marriage proposal, and Peter has never quite gotten over it. Peter asks Clarissa if she is happy with her husband, Richard, but before she can answer, her daughter, Elizabeth, enters the room. Peter leaves and goes to Regent’s Park. He thinks about Clarissa’s refusal, which still obsesses him.
The point of view then shifts to Septimus, a veteran of World War I who was injured in trench warfare and now suffers from shell shock. Septimus and his Italian wife, Lucrezia, pass time in Regent’s Park. They are waiting for Septimus’s appointment with Sir William Bradshaw, a celebrated psychiatrist. Before the war, Septimus was a budding young poet and lover of Shakespeare; when the war broke out, he enlisted immediately for romantic patriotic reasons. He became numb to the horrors of war and its aftermath: when his friend Evans died, he felt little sadness. Now Septimus sees nothing of worth in the England he fought for, and he has lost the desire to preserve either his society or himself. Suicidal, he believes his lack of feeling is a crime. Clearly Septimus’s experiences in the war have permanently scarred him, and he has serious mental problems. However, Sir William does not listen to what Septimus says and diagnoses “a lack of proportion.” Sir William plans to separate Septimus from Lucrezia and send him to a mental institution in the country.
Richard Dalloway eats lunch with Hugh Whitbread and Lady Bruton, members of high society. The men help Lady Bruton write a letter to the Times, London's largest newspaper. After lunch, Richard returns home to Clarissa with a large bunch of roses. He intends to tell her that he loves her but finds that he cannot, because it has been so long since he last said it. Clarissa considers the void that exists between people, even between husband and wife. Even though she values the privacy she is able to maintain in her marriage, considering it vital to the success of the relationship, at the same time she finds slightly disturbing the fact that Richard doesn’t know everything about her. Clarissa sees off Elizabeth and her history teacher, Miss Kilman, who are going shopping. The two older women despise one another passionately, each believing the other to be an oppressive force over Elizabeth. Meanwhile, Septimus and Lucrezia are in their apartment, enjoying a moment of happiness together before the men come to take Septimus to the asylum. One of Septimus’s doctors, Dr. Holmes, arrives, and Septimus fears the doctor will destroy his soul. In order to avoid this fate, he jumps from a window to his death.
Peter hears the ambulance go by to pick up Septimus’s body and marvels ironically at the level of London’s civilization. He goes to Clarissa’s party, where most of the novel’s major characters are assembled. Clarissa works hard to make her party a success but feels dissatisfied by her own role and acutely conscious of Peter’s critical eye. All the partygoers, but especially Peter and Sally Seton, have, to some degree, failed to accomplish the dreams of their youth. Though the social order is undoubtedly changing, Elizabeth and the members of her generation will probably repeat the errors of Clarissa’s generation. Sir William Bradshaw arrives late, and his wife explains that one of his patients, the young veteran (Septimus), has committed suicide. Clarissa retreats to the privacy of a small room to consider Septimus’s death. She understands that he was overwhelmed by life and that men like Sir William make life intolerable.
Watch "Why should you read “Midnight’s Children”? - Iseult Gillespie" on YouTube
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He realizes he has the power of telepathy and can enter anyone’s thoughts. Eventually, Saleem begins to hear the thoughts of other children born during the first hour of independence. The 1,001 midnight’s children—a number reduced to 581 by their tenth birthday—all have magical powers, which vary according to how close to midnight they were born. Saleem discovers that Shiva, the boy with whom he was switched at birth, was born with a pair of enormous, powerful knees and a gift for combat.
One day, Saleem loses a portion of his finger in an accident and is rushed to the hospital, where his parents learn that according to Saleem’s blood type, he couldn’t possibly be their biological son. After he leaves the hospital, Saleem is sent to live with his Uncle Hanif and Aunt Pia for a while. Shortly after Saleem returns home to his parents, Hanif commits suicide. While the family mourns Hanif’s death, Mary confesses to having switched Saleem and Shiva at birth. Ahmed—now an alcoholic—grows violent with Amina, prompting her to take Saleem and the Brass Monkey to Pakistan, where she moves in with Emerald. In Pakistan, Saleem watches as Emerald’s husband, General Zulfikar, stages a coup against the Pakistani government and ushers in a period of martial law.
Four years later, after Ahmed suffers a heart failure, Amina and the children move back to Bombay. India goes to war with China, while Saleem’s perpetually congested nose undergoes a medical operation. As a result, he loses his telepathic powers but, in return, gains an incredible sense of smell, with which he can detect emotions.
Saleem’s entire family moves to Pakistan after India’s military loss to China. His younger sister, now known as Jamila Singer, becomes the most famous singer in Pakistan. Already on the brink of ruin, Saleem’s entire family—save Jamila and himself—dies in the span of a single day during the war between India and Pakistan. During the air raids, Saleem gets hit in the head by his grandfather’s silver spittoon, which erases his memory entirely.
Relieved of his memory, Saleem is reduced to an animalistic state. He finds himself conscripted into military service, as his keen sense of smell makes him an excellent tracker. Though he doesn’t know exactly how he came to join the army, he suspects that Jamila sent him there as a punishment for having fallen in love with her. While in the army, Saleem helps quell the independence movement in Bangladesh. After witnessing a number of atrocities, however, he flees into the jungle with three of his fellow soldiers. In the jungle of the Sundarbans, he regains all of his memory except the knowledge of his name. After leaving the jungle, Saleem finds Parvati-the-witch, one of midnight’s children, who reminds him of his name and helps him escape back to India. He lives with her in the magician’s ghetto, along with a snake charmer named Picture Singh.
Disappointed that Saleem will not marry her, Parvati-the-witch has an affair with Shiva, now a famous war hero. Things between Parvati and Shiva quickly sour, and she returns to the magicians’ ghetto, pregnant and still unmarried. There, the ghetto residents shun Parvati until Saleem agrees to marry her. Meanwhile, Indira Gandhi, the prime minister of India, begins a sterilization campaign. Shortly after the birth of Parvati’s son, the government destroys the magician’s ghetto. Parvati dies while Shiva captures Saleem and brings him to a forced sterilization camp. There, Saleem divulges the names of the other midnight’s children. One by one, the midnight’s children are rounded up and sterilized, effectively destroying the powers that so threaten the prime minister. Later, however, Indira Gandhi loses the first election she holds.
The midnight’s children, including Saleem, are all set free. Saleem goes in search of Parvati’s son, Aadam, who has been living with Picture Singh. The three take a trip to Bombay, so Picture Singh can challenge a man who claims to be the world’s greatest snake charmer.
💀The poem tells us about a war that is taking place far far away, in which people are dying and suffering, so they blow bugles in a call for help to their homeland but they don't get any response from the castle and the aristocracy that lives in it.💀
Читать полностью…⚔Blow, Bugle, Blow💂♀
✍Alfred Lord Tennyson ✍
The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.
O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
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