THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for
devotion, asters for patience and red rose for love but for Victoria Jones it’s been useful in
communicating mistrust and solitude. After childhood spent in foster care system she is unable
to get close to anybody and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their
meanings. New eighteen and emancipated from the system with nowhere to go she realized she
has the gift for helping others through flowers she chooses for them. An unexpected encounter
with mysterious stranger has her questioning what’s been missing in her life when she is forced
to confront painful secret from her past and she must decide whether it’s worth risking
everything for a second chance at happiness.
PLAYER PIANO by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
This story is based on the concerns and needs of today. It is the story of life in Ilium NY where
people have been replaced by machines. The computer revolution has conquered man, granting
him dreariness and boredom. Dr. Paul Proteus revolts against the new electronic age, and the
novel takes a strange, hilarious turn toward an incredible climate. This is a funny, savage
appraisal of a totally automated American society of the future. It is loosely related to George
Orwell’ “Animal Farm
THE ASSISTANT by Bernard Malamud
Morris Bober tells the story of a neighborhood grocer who “wants better” for himself and his
family, but his fate is his luck not good. Instead of a prospective buyer to take the store off his
hands, two robbers appear and hold him up. As if to compensate for his unhappy experience,
things take a turn for the better when broken-nosed Frank Alpine becomes his assistant. But then
there are complications. Frank, who is uncertain in his reactions to Jews, falls in love with Helen
Bober; at the same time he begins to steal from the store. The strange things that may happen
people struggling to make their lives better is one of the themes of the novel; another is a man’s
growing awareness of the beauty of morality
THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE by Thomas Hardy
From the spectacular opening – the astonishing scene in which drunken Michael Henchard sells
his wife and daughter to a passing sailor at a country fair –to the breathtaking series of
discoveries of its conclusion the book claims a unique place among Thomas Hardy’s finest and
most powerful novels. Rooted in an actual case of wife-selling in early nineteenth-century
England, the story builds into a awesome Sophoclean drama of guilt and revenge, in which the
strong, willful Henchard rises to a position of wealth and power – only a achieve most biller
downfall, proud, obsessed ultimately commited to his own destruction, Henchard as Albert
Guerard has said, Hardy’s LORD JIM his only tragic hero and one the greatest tragic heroes in
all fiction.
CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY by Alan Paton
This is a story about a black man’s country under white man’s law. A deeply moving story of the
Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalu and his son Absalom set against the background of a land and a
people riven by racial injustice, It is a classic work of love, hope courage and endurance, born of
the dignity of man. One of the important characters in the book was the land of South Africa
itself. It is about Kumalu coming from small village who undertakes his first journey to
Johannesburg to search for his only son This is the story of James Jarvis (white English-
speaking farmer) and the pastor’s relationship to him because of the things Kumulu’s son has
done to his family.
Msimangu is another important person in this novel. He is a warm, generous and humble
young minister in Sophiatown explaining the political and socioeconomic difficulties that the
black population faces and providing shrewd commentary on both blacks and whites.Of all the
charactes in the novel he has the clearest understanding of South Africa’s injustices, and he
serves as Paton’s mouthpiece in suggesting a solution: Christian love.
Absolom Kumalu Stephen’s son leaves home for Johannesburg for work, loses touch
with his family and falls into a life of crime He carries gun for protection and fires the weapon in
fear killing James Jarvis son Arthur. Even though friend is suspected of crime Absolum is
sentenced to be executed.
Arthur Jarvis is solution S Africa needs and even though he is murdered some hope lives on his
young son. He is a staunch opponent of S Africa’s racial injustices. He spends his life at the
center of the debates on racism and poverty, and his essays and articles provide answers to many
of the novels questions. His motives are selfless and he works for change not because he seeks
personal glory but because he is war
y of t
he
system’
s contradictions and oppressions
