Fairy Tales.Sapsorrow.

In our last meeting we decided that we would read fairy tales. Yes, you read that right…. fairy tales.

Fairy tales are used for language learning in many countries and as they say “teaching and learning languages can be easy and fun trough Fairy Tales, whether you are an experienced linguist or have limited language skills”.

So even if we are “experienced linguists” I am sure we will enjoy reading Sapsorrow.

We will also be able to watch the episode Sapsorrow from The Storyteller on YouTube.

The Storyteller is a TV series. It is an American/British production from 1988 and was created by Jim Henson. I was living in Ireland when I first watched The Storyteller, and although I was no little girl by them I loved it.

I am sure you will like it a lot. But if you don´t please let me know, write a comment on our blog…..

The Kite Runner. It made my heart ache

In our last meeting last Thursday we all agreed that The Kite Runner is a heart-wrenching book. This beautiful story of friendship,  betrayal and redemption moved us deeply.

The characters of Hassan and Amir and their relationship are all carefully and convincingly described.

We may not be right- almost for sure we are not- but we thought that it was Baba´s dark secret that started  the  tragedy.

Baba , who is portrayed as strong, brave and honest, could not muster the strength to claim his own  son , Hassan .

Amir could not understand why his father seemed to be more attached to a servant than to him and so he felt jealous and guilty. He wanted Hassan out of their lives because he thought that  his friend was stealing part of his father´s love and admiration.

And in the end it was Amir the one who would atone for his sins and his father´s sins. So sad and so beautiful.

THE FILM

THE KITE RUNNER  

Directed by Marc Forster (director of  Finding Neverland)

 The best-selling novel is one of the most acclaimed movies of the year. As young boys, Amir and Hassan were inseparable friends, until one fateful act tore them apart. Years later, Amir will embark on a dangerous quest to right the wrongs of the past- and redeem himself in ways he neveer expected- by displaying the ultimate in courage and devotion to his friend.                                  "...a FASCINATING                         
                                                                           and GRIPPING tale"


                                                                             Sunday Mirror
                                            
                                                                               

NEXT MEETING

Our next  meeting will be Wednesday, Febuary 17, 2011.

If you want to watch the film , you can borrow the DVD from the CFR library .There are three copies available.

The film was released in 2007,and is quite faithfull to the book .  James Christopher  , a critic who writes for the Sunday Times, thinks that  “it is an exemplary piece of storytelling ripped quite beautifully from Khaled Hosseini’s famous book”

The Kite Runner (official movie trailer)

Next month we will be reading The Kite Runner. I am not sure if has been a good choice because , although the book is a good one indeed, some parts of it can be really disturbing. If you want to learn about the book and the author here are some links.
The Kite Runner is a novel by Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003 by Riverhead Books, it is Hosseini's first novel, and was adapted into a film of the same name in 2007.The Kite Runner tells the story of Amir, a young boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, who befriends Hassan, the son of his father's Hazara servant. The story is set against a backdrop of tumultuous events, from the fall of Afghanistan's monarchy through the Soviet invasion, the mass exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime. Wikipedia

Khaled Hosseini.

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat with the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and History at a large high school in Kabul. In 1976, the Afghan Foreign Ministry relocated the Hosseini family to Paris. They were ready to return to Kabul in 1980, but by then Afghanistan had already witnessed a bloody communist coup and the invasion of the Soviet army. The Hosseinis sought and were granted political asylum in the United States. In September of 1980, Hosseini's family moved to San Jose, California. Hosseini graduated from high school in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University where he earned a bachelor's degree in Biology in 1988. The following year, he entered the University of California-San Diego's School of Medicine, where he earned a Medical Degree in 1993. He completed his residency at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Hosseini was a practicing internist