Some Day The Stars Will Fall by Mark Hoffman

Some Day the Stars Will Fall: Is evil born or is it made? by Mark Hoffmann
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A narration of the emotions of an imaginary living great grandson of Adolf Hitler, under the name of Adam Holloway. A very plain and simple
book which portrays the emotions of a young confused boy, who cannot disclose his real identity to the world in fear of being he and his family being hated for being the great grandson of Adolf Hitler, for the rest of his life

Storyline:

Adolf Hitler, during his final days before his death, is said to have a mistress called Eva Braun, through whom he has a son, smuggled out of Germany to Australia secretly through the hospital nurse. While doing so he hands over a small bracelet as a sovereign to be passed on to his future generations, commemorating the legacy of the most hated man in the world’s history, directly responsible for more than 6 million deaths. The family name was changed to Holloway from Hitler to conceal the identity of the living descendants. The present story is of Adam Holloway, the third generation direct descendant of Adolf Hitler, who move on to his grandmother’s home in Sydney, after the death of his father Robert Holloway. Adam was never comfortable in his new home due to the racial discrimination being a major problem in his locality due to some Middle Eastern immigrant settlers. He loses his grandmother Margaret, in one of such attacks on his house by the immigrants, when his blood boils to show his real Hitlerian traits in taking revenge. But he refrains himself from any violent acts, just to hide his real identity, which might torture him even more later. His only friend is his Muslim neighbor, Aymen, from Afghanistan, who later becomes a family friend and loses his life to protect Adam, in a major inter-racial tussle between Australian youth and Middle Eastern youth. Adam, at this juncture is put to lot of mental pressure when he starts wondering how his blood, laden with aggressiveness, violent temper, rebellious nature and cruelty, will be able to cope up with the present day situations, without anyone knowing about his noble genealogy, linked to Adolf Hitler. The best part is that this secret is kept and passed on to the male progeny, without the spouses ever come to know about it. The book ends with Adam left wondering whether evil is really born or made. He also keeps wondering as to who he is, either Adam Holloway or the son of the son of the son of the legendary Adolf Hilter !

Pros: Surprised to read that even such a cruel man like Adolf Hitler, wanted to have his own family and progeny to carry on his legacy. The inter racial disturbances of Australia have been well brought out through this book. The author very carefully valued the ideas and emotions of both the locals and settlers without hurting the sentiments of any religion. He could well relate this problem to Hitler’s reason to drive away Jews from Germany, for the same reasons Australians now want Middle Eastern and Asian immigrants out of Australia. He placed Hitler’s progeny in that place to understand as to how Hitler could have acted in the same situation decades ago, in his country. Makes the reader feel that If Hitler was wrong then, then even Australia is wrong now. Superb !

Cons: The author sometimes hinted that the Australian government supports their countrymen and not very liberal in its policies when it comes to mitigating the racial disturbances of the country. The story seemed to have ended suddenly without much of a reasonable climax and how Adam could have tackled his problem.

My rating is 3 out of 5

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The Night Queen by Birister Sharma

The Night Queen: She starts hunting when her preys are in deep slumber...... by Birister Sharma
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The author, a graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication is also a freelance writer.





Storyline:

A happy peasant family of two adults and 5 children, in a remote village of India, who lived life to its fullest. As the children grew, it became increasingly difficult to maintain the ends meet. Owing to severe pressure from the banks and local money lenders, the breadwinner father commits suicide. This event changes the scenario of this happy family. The uncle of the children, Raghu sees an opportunity here to sell off the beautiful eldest and youngest daughters to whorehouses in New Delhi for a huge ransom. This story is narrated by the youngest, named Rani, later renamed as Dolly, as to how she is raped by a client when she first loses her virginity. Later she becomes the Night Queen of sex and power in the dirty world of prostitution. She gains the contacts of best males in the country and abroad for almost ten years only to fall in love with a rich love starved business tycoon, owning a telecom company. Just at the time she was about to surrender to his love, she comes across the brutal murder of her elder sister, Radhima, who was also sold by Raghu, for which she turns violent and absolutely aggressive to kill all those responsible for her and her sister’s fates, including her uncle Raghu. Finally, she discovers that she is infected with AIDS and kills herself under complete satisfaction and peace for she could efface at least some of the agents and touts that are in the business of forcing young innocent girls into the dirty business of prostitution.

Pros: A story right from the heart of a young girl forced into prostitution due to her family’s poverty and helplessness. The reader feels the pain and emotions of a young girl when she is thoroughly raped day and night by strangers and how her mind gets tuned to conquer the dirty sex world owing to her inability to retaliate or escape from the clutches of the dangerous owners of whorehouses. Finally, the author wanted to prove that those who thrive in the crime world would definitely face a similar end and portrayed Dolly’s sudden end in her mid-life. Right ending given to the one who chose the wrong path to gain name and fame within short period.

Cons: The author seems not to have taken much importance to literary grammar, as the narration seems to be like the one from an elementary school. Not very effective when it comes to the story, as it is not very new to a country like India, which is infected with huge population living in utmost poverty and debt, even today, in most of its rural landscape. No mention about the rest of the family after Rani’s entry into whorehouse or what could have happened to them. Felt incomplete.

My rating is 2 out of 5


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The Miracle of Yousef Written by Goncalo Coelho

The author, a Mechanical Engineer by education has chosen writing as a profession through his passion for literature. Basically born in Portugal, in 1978, he lived and travelled across the world to experience the cultural diversity and different facets of the world we live in. This book is his second novel which has been translated from Portuguese to English. The first one is entitled Poker.






Storyline:

Mohammad Yousef, a young boy who is driven by his passion always, from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is identified by Sheikh Omar, a wealthy businessman cum patron of the pro-Islamic extremist group, to carry on the various missions of terrorist attacks on American and other Western civilizations. Yousef is imbibed with hatred against the Americans for having forcefully occupied the Muslim geographical regions just like the Soviets in Afghanistan, resulting in countless innocent deaths of his Muslim fraternity. He becomes a Mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan and later pulled into Al-Qaeda led by Osama Bin Laden against the entire Western civilization. He adopts various identities in different parts of the world to carry out his meticulously planned terrorist attacks under the guidance and help from Omar. Meanwhile, he marries his friend’s fiancée and lives under cover until the dreaded New York Twin Tower attack. She later is killed by Omar as Yousef is too much involved in family life ignoring his mission. Her death results in Yousef’s outrageous behavior in carrying out terror attacks more aggressively. But, one day during his narrow escape from FBI, he gets ship-wrecked in the Mediterranean and slips into amnesia forgetting his past. He lands up in a small island in Turkey where he falls in love with Nefisa, the daughter of the person who saves him. By the time his memory comes back to him, he is captured by the Turkish police and jailed for 6 yrs. He escapes from jail only to be again kidnapped by Omar and his gang along with Nefisa, who is now adamant to accept Yousef as her terrorist lover. Yousef tries to convince Nefisa that he is now a changed man and repents for all that he had done as an Islamic terrorist, pleading innocence due to misguidance and wrong interpretation of Islam by his mentor Omar. Finally at the time when he refuses to blow up the Marmaray tunnel of Turkey, opposing Omar’s orders and just at the time of winning back Nefisa’s love and trust, he loses his life in the hands of a stranger shot dead point blank as a revenge for the death of her loved one in one of the terrorist attacks planned and executed by Yousef, long back.

Pros: An exquisite piece of literature by the author truly portraying the emotions of a young, passionate Muslim lad on one side and a different set of emotions in the second half as a totally changed man in the hands of pure love and total understanding of true Islam. Yousef, a classic example of how one can be mis-guided in the name of religion, only to realize later the countless crimes committed under ignorance and trance. The author successfully elicited the fact that one is brought to justice at the end for all the crimes done knowingly or unknowingly. The sentiments of Muslims have been well protected in this novel, highlighting the life story and best of the teachings of Prophet Mohammad. The Soviet and American dominance in military warfare and political interference in the Muslim countries have been well criticized, tactically.

Cons: I somehow felt that the author portrayed Muslim women as those who want to break away from their orthodox traditional lifestyle and liberate themselves into total freedom like in the West. I don’t think this is true always as the values and traditions of a religion are carried forward more by the acceptance of womenfolk of the community.

My favourite quotes in the book:

“ War feeds war, hatred feeds hatred, violence feeds violence, greed feeds greed. The only way to foster peace is through peace itself. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but rather a greater and more dangerous wrong”

“Passion and Love. The intensity of passion is not linear, but don’t give that too much importance. This vigorous clamor of the flame of passion will not always stay the same, but love will. Love is beyond that flame, it’s what remains after it. It’s what you start to feel once the flame of passion gives way to the soft breeze of love”

My rating is 3.75 out of 5


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BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S ( HOLLYWOOD ROMANTIC COMEDY)

Starring: Audrey Hepburn & George Peppard. Produced by Martin Jurow and Richard Shepherd. Music by Henry Mancini, Screenplay George Axelrod. Directed by Blake Edwards

Genre : Romantic Comedy

Storyline: Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) was a aspiring and hyperactive social escort girl who left her husband ending her child marriage in search of wealth and fame to support herself and her brother Fred, working in Army. Her long cherished wish was to buy something at Tiffany’s, an up-market jewellery store in New York. She tries to get into relationship with rich men of USA always and in the meanwhile be-friends her neighbor, Paul Vajrack (George Peppard) a small time writer. Paul falls in love with Holly but Holly never accepts the same due to her long cherished wish of becoming rich. She fails in all her attempts to hotfoot rich men and finally gets into a drug racket unknowingly due to which her sure shot marriage with a rich Brazilian falls apart. Just then even her brother Fred dies in an accident. The movie ends with a happy note when Paul explains her that the path she chose to become rich was wrong and would finally end up nowhere. She then realizes her mistake and accepts Paul’s love after she was left with no-one in the world.

Pros:  One of the best Classics of the 1960’s which brought name and fame to this Hollywood actress from Belgium. The shy and introvert actress in real life shows her real talent with her eccentric performance that can be remembered for a long time. The Director was quite successful in portraying the truth of anyone not being successful through short cut methods, through this beautiful story. I liked the way the actress’s emotions were shown in the climax rain scene in the car when Paul reads out the letter from her Brazilian fiancée and he makes her understand everyone belong to each other and no matter wherever she runs, she would finally end up in her own cage and that’s ‘nowhere’. That’s how she rediscovers herself and runs back to Paul. Loved the way Holy’s life was compared to that of her cat in the end, both having no meaning to their lives, without belonging to someone who love them. Music and Screenplay were one of the best anyone could experience, in this movie.

Cons: There were many speculations about Holly’s role as a Call Girl or Social Woman. Her choice of path after breaking her marriage in this film was not accepted by many of her fans worldwide. Though there were many instances where her role was portrayed as a ‘call girl’, it was always shown as narrow escapes from such highly objectionable sexual encounters, in those days.  But I would like to ask the author as to what’s the real character of Holly? Was it a ‘sense of insecurity’ or ‘inferiority complex’ that drove her behavior?

My rating is 4.25 out of 5

Love, Fate and Afghanistan by Tony Thomson

“Afghanistan is not a country in our sense : It is an attitude, a collection of ethnic groups with powerful shared customs and a feeling of being Afghan in some general way but with no willingness to sacrifice local or ethnic interests to higher national goals”

This is the best quote from the book written by Tony Thomson, majorly a travelogue than a book by itself. His passion in 1971 to travel from London to India and re-discover himself from an aimless life and career, made him journey through Austria, Yugoslavia, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and finally India. And this entire journey in a pre-used Volkswagon alongwith a couple of female counterparts who share the same passion, though for a different reason. During the journey he experienced different lands with equally different people, cultures, historic monuments, landscapes, food habits, dressing, climatic conditions and ofcourse living patterns. Primarily, the author seemed to have taken more interest and love towards Afghanistan more than any other country he visited. Reason behind which he visited the country again in 2009 nearly after 38 years of his first visit. He seems to have been spell bound by the way this country, popularly known as ‘Graveyard of Empires’  withstood the onslaught of many invasions and widespread looting but never succumbed to any of the World’s greatest invaders, even Alexander the Great. I loved the way the transformation of Afghanistan from way back in 1971 to 2009 was clearly elicited explaining each and every aspect about the country’s culture, politics and economy.

Pros : A fine travelogue for a passionate traveler who loves to travel long distances, enduring the hardships of tiresome journey by road. One can find some astonishing facts recorded from ground zero about the historical aspects across Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan. Getting to know the minutest details about every place one visits in his/her journey and recording them for future generations is one of the best and most important quality of a good travel writer. Loved the way some humor was included inbetween to lighten the mood of the reader. The author could also sync his love story and marriage inbetween this travelogue which added flavor to the reading. The title well suits the book wherein Love and Afghanistan is the main course and rest are starters with desserts !

Cons: The hard facts of criticism when it came to India and its lifestyle was a little objectionable as I don’t think India was so bad as it was described here. The author’s knowledge about the Indian subcontinent and its rich heritage dating back to Indus Valley Civilization seems to be limited and it reflects only on the few places he visited in a hurry. The author’s sudden return back to Cleveland for his cousin’s marriage during his first visit could have blocked his further insights into the better parts of the sub-continent’s historic glory.

My rating is 2.5 out of 5