OIB exam - revisions and analysis
Mapuche
Or how to fall in love with Caryl Ferey’s writing
by Nephelie
Searching for a novel that will take your breath away? You like reading, but what you find is always “too much action”, too “ lovey-dovey” or just banal? Or, maybe, you can’t find a book that attracts you more than your Netflix show? Well, here you’ll find the answer. First, dramatic action, the one that prevents you from ever putting your book down, where every step of the unraveling of events is unpredictable and even shocking. Then, an unconventional romance, that touches your soul in its deepest place and transmits you that thirst for life. Don’t forget crime noir, where right and wrong are intertwined and the characters are tragically flawed. All of the above, on a font of social, political and historical elements to offer a blueprint of a broken world, in its most significant details.
The answer: Mapuche by Cary Ferey. Set in contemporary Buenos Aires, but with recurrent allusions to Videla’s dictatorship the late ‘70s, it offers a painting of the society’s current state. “I choose countries on which their History weighs”, affirms the French writer. His previous novels included New Zealand, Chile, South Africa. Now, Argentina, in the ruins of colonization, dictatorship, economic crisis. A bloody conscience and a society still unable to stand, where the wealthy are still in power and the minorities left aside.
The two main characters embody the country’s wounds: first comes Jana, a twenty-eight-year-old Mapuche, an indigenous tribe living in the Andes, one of the peoples that has been persecuted from the Spanish’ arrival until today. “People of the Earth”, they call themselves. A way of life the others can never understand, because the choice is between harmony and money and power, and people never hesitate. They call her an Indian, which means maintaining her under the dogma of colonization. This is the young Indian, artist, sculptor, and prostitute. This is the young woman, beautiful but with small breasts… breasts which stopped growing after a violent attack by Argentinean officers. In her veins still runs the force, that thirst for justice.
The other is Ruben Calderon, private investigator, forty year old, experienced. But he only takes cases of desaparecidos, the “disappeared” during the dictatorship, and helping the Madres and Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo. Why? Because he wants justice, a compensation, and for the regime’s supporters and former torturers to lose the privileges they still have today. Because he is broken inside too, from a wound that cannot be closed. He was imprisoned and tortured as a kid during the Dirty War, as his father was a poet, and poets with ideas were dangerous. And he kept his memories hidden inside himself: him hearing his father knocking his head on the wall to kill himself, the torturers holding his sister’s head without its body. “To die or to get mad”. He kept his secret hidden, because he had been spared to tell the story, so he didn’t; and it was still rotting inside him.
Their paths crossed, in a way as original as life’s swings. The plot begins in the docks of Buenos Aires, passes from Uruguay and ends up in the Andes. There’s a mystery to uncover: a murdered travestite, a daughter of an influential businessman missing, apropiadores uncovered in a a story of power, of corruption, of violence. At the same time, this novel gives you an idea of what love is - not destiny, nor perfection, but that emotional force between the two, powerful enough to heal eternal wounds, and to survive in a investigation where threats appear out of nowhere. Jana did what no one could do until now: she restored in him the life and the duende, the mysterious and deep power that a work of art can have on him.
Caryl Ferey does not hesitate to vividly depict discrimination, hunger, sex, violence, torture, rape, death, and so many other things many wish to erase. Every line leaves you in shock, disgust or in awe. Every tiny detail is portrayed in the most concrete and astonishing way, from a cracked bone to a breeze of air. Beautiful and awful are merged, “the dawn was torn into two”. His words are poetry.
Warning: do not stop reading once you have started. The suspense will kill you…
The Great Debaters
by Damini
The Great Debaters, a drama based on a true story set in 1935 tell us the story of Melvin B Tolson, a professor at Wiley College Texas inspiring students to form the School's first debate team which goes on to debate US white and African-American colleges, and later received an invitation for the Harvard University's national championship.
The film takes place at a time with white and African-American or "negro" schools were segregated and lynching was still practiced and condoned.
I personally found the film engrossing and well written. We get to know the four students from the team and their relations but also that passion for debate and the pride during the competition. Tolson drills them, disciplines them, and counsels them, leading the team to a string of Victories. Tolson's passion and tenacity gave his students the rage and Pride to succeed. He brought the very best in them but the film is more about the belief that education is the best way out the racism and discrimination. The members not only represent themselves but the whole African American Community leading to a political and cultural evolution of the oppressed community. The most difficult part of the film was the way the African Americans were treated, for example the pig scene in the beginning where a respectable father is crudely humiliated in front of his son, the off-campus debate site (as the white schools didn't want Negroes there)and worst of all, the scene of a man being lynched, burned, hanging off a tree. A national sharecroppers Union led by Tolson (who is said to be a communist) wanting to unite the poor whites with the African-Americans as they are said to be on the same level, was quickly interrupted by a Vigilant mob with the participation of the local sheriff showing the lack of support from the authorities and the law.
I highly recommend watching The Great Debaters as it is both touching and inspiring.
The picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
by Rozet
"Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry is what the world thinks me: Dorian is what I would like to be – in other ages, perhaps" - Oscar Wilde.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel published in 1890, describing the life of a young, rich and beautiful man falling deeper and deeper in a hedonistic lifestyle. After seeing an exquisite portrait of himself, Gray struck a deal which allowed him to remain eternally youthful as his portrait wrinkles and ages instead of him. Slowly, his moral compass wavers until he does not care anymore for right or wrong, leading him to his destruction.
This novel covers many themes, namely art and its purpose. Basil Hallward sees art as a pure form of expression; he paints Dorian's portrait only to express his undying admiration. However, his creation is anything but pure. To Dorian, this will be the beginning of his undoing, expressing the impact art has on the viewer, as well as the interpretations each one may have of it. Basil's reticence to exhibit the portrait is linked to this idea, as he wished to keep the beauty of the results only to himself, to his interpretation of it.
Another central theme is the superficiality of society and the particular attention given to appearances rather than character. A stinking quote which expresses this is one by Lady Narborough to Dorian: "you are made to be good – you look so good". This highlights how appearances seem to replace ethics. Dorian is always praised for his looks, which got so intimately linked with his idea of self-worth that he was prepared to sell his soul to maintain them.
Other themes that appear are the power of temptation, bad influences and the search for eternal youth and beauty, which has transcended men's mind for many centuries.
What struck me the most about this book was how fast Dorian's transition took place under Lord Henry's influence. In the first few pages, Dorian seemed like a virtuous man, albeit a little bit narcissistic but mostly good. He seemed close to Basil in terms of personality. Nevertheless, soon after reading the small yellow book and guided by Lord Henry, he spirals down a path of cruelty, so unlike the image I had of him in the beginning. The contrast between Lord Henry and Basil highlights the two sides of Dorian's personality and how they conflict. It makes one wonder on the true nature of good and bad, and if people are born on either side of the spectrum and stay there or if a change is possible.
The complex characters, the philosophical study of society, the dialogues pacing the description and the dark yet appealing storyline made me love reading this novel. The questionings on the deeper meaning of beauty, its contrast with intellectual expression, the subtility with which Lord Henry touched Dorian's soul and changed him, the idea of reflection of oneself in a portrait and the fall of a man at the hands of sin made me read this book over and over again, as almost every single line can be quoted and analysed. A book I first picked up just because it was a classic became, over the course of just one summer, one of my favourite reads.
The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
by Thalia
The song of Achilles by Madelaine Miller was published in 2011 and it also happens so be the woman’s first novel. Her study and passion for the Greek mythology are what made her write this exciting, violent, romantic version of the Iliad, by Homer.
It tells the beautiful story of one of the greatest Greek heroes ever appeared in Greek mythology, the mighty Achilles. This tale is however told through the eyes of his lover, the awkward young prince of Opus, Patroclus. From the beginning of their innocent childhood to their bloody participation in the conquest of Troy, follow the path of two young men who learn what it is to be a man and a hero, while their friendship blossoms into a true love story. However, they will be tested by the Gods, by Greek kings and the war.
This novel was quite popular amongst young adults and mythology lovers. All agreed on the fact that the characters were truly special, and everyone fell in love with the relationship between the two men. What is interesting is how Miller made those characters. For being the son of a man and a sea goddess, Achilles is far from being a perfect man, even though Patroclus constantly mentions how perfect his lover is. Achilles is still prideful, arrogant and violent, but those flaws are what make him so human and so lovable.
Overall, the novel got many good reviews and it even won the Orange Prize for Fiction. It even pushed Madelaine Miller to write two other novels based on Greek myths, Circe and Galatea, worth reading.
L.A. Confidential
by Caroline
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997) is an American neo-noir film directed, co-written and produced by Curtis Hanson and based on the eponymous novel by James Ellroy, published in 1990. The film focuses on the 1950s Los Angeles police department, whose homicide investigations become intertwined throughout the story and reveal an astonishing level of corruption within the force.
The ambitious Sergeant Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) wants to rise - while respecting the rules - up to the reputation of his legendary detective father, murdered by an unknown assailant, to whom he gave an unusual nickname so as not to forget his burning desire of revenge. The impulsive officer Wendell "Bud" White (Russell Crowe) has an obsessive need to violently punish anyone who abuses women, and falls in love with Lynn Bracken (Kim Basinger), a Veronica Lake lookalike prostitute offering her services to a luxury brothel who modifies girls with plastic surgery to make them look like Hollywood stars. The worldly and disillusioned sergeant Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) is bribed by the “Hush-Hush” tabloid magazine editor Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) for information leading to celebrity arrests, which look good in his gossip column.
The entanglement of the multitude of characters and plots can give the impression that it would be impossible for the story to make sense, but the clear and believable twists of the scenario as well as the fabulous performance of each actor and actress make the ride as captivating as the final twist.
The opening sequence, a series of sunny archival footage mixed with sweet crooner melodies, sets the tone for the rest of the film. The layer of glamour and vice that covers the famous "city of angels", whose myth was shaped during this post-war era, attracts the viewer in an atmosphere of the same cynicism present in Roman Polanski CHINATOWN or in the Eagles' song Hotel California: to see this exquisite decadence almost demanded by human nature can only provoke in us a necessary catharsis.