Blogger’s Book Club Discussion: 1984


Right now, I am at page 150. So far, I have to say that I am quite impressed by the writer's forecast of the future. For a book that's written in 1949, you can tell that the writer was really influenced by the after-math of the 2nd World War that ended in 1945. The story is set in 1984 in Oceania (previously called "London") where there are 3 major superpower empires who are in continuous war against each other. Does it ring any bell? In the 90s there were 2 to 3 major superpower countries in the world in form of SOVIET union, USA and UK. Whereas the writer have been right in predicting the existence of superpowers, he was wrong when he was referring to military war rather than the actual cold war going on.


Discussion 1:

One of the most brilliant things about the novel is the creation of a whole new language called "NEWSPEAK". More information can be read about the structure of this new-generation much simpler English language in the Appendix found in page 309. I was impressed by its simplicity and it made me wonder whether it would be feasible in our day-to-day or not. Frankly, I'd be the first one who'll endorse it..What do you think?

Examples of Newspeak language: all the antonyms of positive words are replaced with un+word. E.g. "bad" will be come "ungood".."expensive" will become "uncheap". Another example is where all variation in degree of words would be replaced with "er" and "est". E.g. more, most could all be replaced with "gooder", 'goodest'.

Discussion 2:

Ministry of Truth..thought police..doublethink...Big Brother...telescreens...Many ideas & original concepts who have one shared theme...Media Propaganda. It shows you how much the authorities want to dictate your life and constantly monitor its "comrades" and ensure that they behave accordingly. They do this by alienating them, stripping them of all the emotional ties they had with parents, wives, loved ones, and even ensuring that they won't develop future intimacies with any of their fellow co-workers. All the energy and tought of those comrades should be towards one goal---serving Big Brother.

Discussion 3 (mini-spoiler):

Internal struggle within self that Winston is going through. Being already a victim of the system, he starts questioning the whole system and whether life has always been like this; full of lies, no privacy, governing by fear, being always dictated what to read, what to eat, and what to know..not allowing them to ever think of something that might be against the slogan of "War is Peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is Strength".

Winston is trying to find answers. He is slowly rebelling against the system. He started writing in his secret diary the only things he owns..his thoughts. Things get interesting in Winston's life when he meets the "dark-haired" girl who shares his enthusiasm in their hatred for the Party. Without ruining it for anyone who didn't reach as far as I do, I can't wait to see what the future hides for those two and how long can they survive in their hideout and fight.

I was a little bit touched by the dilemma that Winston is going through. It partly resembles my experience especially in the sense of being lost, going through the routine life and the nostalgic memories of the past that keeps haunting us.

Discussion 4:

O'Brien? A big question mark...I am totally clueless on his role and how it'll develop.


Of course, there is room for alot of discussions. Let me hear your thoughts.. J

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Egypt Day Trip III

Egypt Day Trip I , Egypt Day Trip II

And that’s why I decided to become a vegetarian” were my last words after seeing that bull being slaughtered.

But only for 12 hours. When it was lunch time, I couldn’t resist the temptation to eat from its meat. Everybody kept complimenting how good the meat was and that it was almost fat-free. Considering the hyper activitiy of the bull after that chase, I won’t be surprised by the high metabolism it has for burning fats.

We spent the next 3 days of Eid in Ain El-Sokhna; A small village with a great potential to become one of the greatest touristic sites in Egypt. You can tell by the amount of real-estate construction going on there. We stayed in different resorts owned by our family friends. “Venezia Resort” was the one where we spent most of our time in. We call it the adults resort because it was too quiet and peaceful. It is one of those resorts where you’d go to relax and stay away from people; or at least hang out with people who are coming here to relax. The other resort that we guys used to go to at night was called “STELLA” resort. It was mostly occupied by Christians and especially the youth generation. And by youth, I am referring to university students who spend their weekends or their mid-semester vacations there. Our timing was good as there were alot of partying going on. Most of them were Christmas-spirited parties.

In general, we enjoyed our time in Ain El-Sokhna. BBQ, soccer games, racket games and one hell of a boat trip under mild weather conditions. The chilling wind and the violent tides that were rocking our boat rendered half of us to sea sickness. We couldn’t cope up with the frequency of people who were puking all over the place.

After finishing our Eid days there, our next stop was Hurgada. We’d reach there through a 4 hour road trip. Considering the crappy taste of the driver in music, I was thankful for bringing my novel with me (Love in the time of cholera) and my cellphone/mp3 player. However, my familys’ misfortunes were in fact signs of joy in discovering that we were the only arabs in a Russian-populated hotel. Oh how great it was to stay away from an arab-dominating culture for a while.

But as usual, my parents and family friends never fail to exploit the situation, the fact that were were the only arabs there, especially when it came to the food quality. Since most of the cuisine was very Russian-oriented and could not cater the desires of our Arabic taste buds, my dad utilized his talents in demotivating the hotel staff by bashing their biased service. By our last day, the master chef got used to us walking to his kitchen and making special traditional Arabic requests: wara2 dawali (stuffed vine leaves), Fatteh, Kuskusi (traditional morroccoan dish), custom-made grilled dishes.

Although it was sunny, the weather was a bit windy making it extremely challenging to consider the idea of swimming. I overcame the temptation and swam ONCE in the sea. It was the biggest mistake. I managed to survive for only 10 minutes as each stroke I took felt like 1000 knives were cutting me. Even after I left the water, I remained shivering for one hour.

One of the interesting tours we took was the one hour glassboat tour ride that explores the underwater life of fishes and corals. I took over 100 snapshots and video files for this memorable journey.



One of the other secret tips about entertainment life in Egypt in general is to go to the worst chaotic places out there where you can play by no rules. We applied this theory when we went for our carting session. No rules, no flags, not even a safety driving suit. The only thing we wore were the dusty safety helmets that look like they were scavenged from the October war in the 70s. As I was negotiating with the owner of the house, I heard the echo of a barking dog that kept getting louder. The loose dog was running straight for us..straight for me.

20 meters....I am reminding myself to stay calm...15 meters...don’t show any sign of fear....10 meters.....damn he is not slowing down.....5 meters... RUN HAMZA RUUUUUUUUUN. He chased me for merely 10 seconds before his owner called him off. That was a close call

There was so much adrenaline in me that I vowed to myself that I’ll avenge to this incident. I was harmless in my first two laps as I was orienting myself to the arena. By the third lap, my destructive evil side started taking control. On the 4th lap, my brother’s cart was in front of me. He saw me and was stepping aside to give me room to pass...but NOOOO...I wanna crash to him. With a sharp turn to the left I sent his cart skidding off road making two 360 degree turns. Nothing happened to my cart and what a great overwhelming evil feeling it was. I can never do this in real life.

By the time I took two more laps, they finished fixing my brother and his cart. I did 3 more laps utilizing the adrenaline concentrated blood stream running in my veins. Fate brought me one more time with my brother’s cart. This time I fixated my mind on making the damage severe and...BHAAAAAM..I felt my body was about to be launched from the vehicle. This time my brother’s cart flew even further off-track till he was stopped by the walls surrounding the arena. He came out with a bruised leg and swore never to go back again.. By the smoke released from his cart, I concluded that it was damaged beyond redemption. Mine was a bit better. I drove it for a while before I realized that the brakes are no longer functioning and the steering wheel can no longer respond to turning left. When my cart finally stopped, the manager was approaching me and I could already see the flare in his fiery eyes. He scolded me and told me that i was done for the day, that i already damaged 2 of his carts.

“But I still got 2 more minutes”..I dunno how I dared to say that. It was the last thing I said before I got kicked out of there. Its ok. No hard feelings. He deserves it. That’s for setting the loose dog on me you jerk.

If there is something that I’ve learned about this whole trip, then it is the fact that Angels DO exist. There was this gorgeous girl who mesmerizes the eyes with her glowing beauty. If you know me well, you know that I rarely get enthralled unless it was an extremely exceptional situation. She was so stunning that staring at her for more than half a minute would overexpose my mind to incomprehensible level of beauty that might risk damaging it beyond repair. She was like those rare jewels that were existed for the sole purpose of being admired. It would be sinful to touch her, approach her or even communicate with her in fear of disgracing the holy aura circumventing her splendour. In the 3 days I stayed, I would occasionally let my soul be submitted to the enchanting of her prettiness by stealing a glance every once in a while at her; At breakfast, lunch, pool time, BINGO night, Dinner, Christmas night and many more. As I said, I never intended and wanted to talk to her and that’s why I was disappointed in my last day to know that the binding spell was breaking when she approached me holding a ping pong racket in her left hand and a ball in her right arm and in her Swedish accent said:

“you....play?”

Sure why not..I joined her and the kids she hang out with. The two hyper South African 9 year old boys and 2 korean/Chinese twin sisters that were almost 6 years old.

Meanwhile, my brother and his friend befriended one of the Egyptian ushers who help in organising events around the hotel. The Egyptian usher was delighted to finally see an arab group and hang out with them. As part of his job in guiding, he even befriended the Angel Girl and her accompanied kids.

So, all of us joined for quick ping pong matches. We played till the 5th point. I demanded that my turn be the last. When it was finally my turn, I aroused my dormant ping-pong skills that I’ve picked back 7 years ago in my first university year when we used to play tournaments in the dormitories. I took the Egyptian usher down. I won the two boys with a merciless 5-0 score. I slacked a bit against the Korean girls and won them 5-2. Then it was the turn of my Angel Girl against me. As we played, the Egyptian usher was teasing me in Arabic on how I will slack out and let her win. When I was up 3-0, he remarked in Arabic sarcastically:
allah yekhrebetek..kol dee bzaz wi 3andek 14 sanah...7ate3meli feena eih amma teb2ee 18?” (“oh boy..if this is the size of your boobs at the age of 14, then what’s its gonna be at the age of 18?”)

My world was shattering. 3-1...the beautiful image I preserved of her in my mind was slowly losing its glow. 3-2.. this was soo funny..but why did he have to mention her lustfully? 3-3

Wait a second....did he mention that......3-4...she is just FOURTEEEEEEEEEEN? FOURTEEEEEEEEEEEEEN? Damn..what was I thinking... 3-5

woohoo” she was celebrating her achievement and clapping vigorously for beating the master that has eliminated her team-mates, the same master that felt the impact of the news like a meteor that cratered his fragile heart.

“bos 3aleihom benatnatoo il zay.. wana mosh batkalem 3al 3eyal...rakez ma3aya” (look at how they are bouncing...and I am not talking about the kids) winked the Egyptian usher..

“SHUT UP..ENOUGH”

and enough of this memorable vacation. Roadtrip back to Cairo, stayed one more day there before we headed home back to Jeddah after spending more than 16 hours in the airport for an unforeseen delay in the departure of the flights.


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Me & the Three Scrooges

There are things in life that you should not consult people with, like shopping. Nevertheless, I occasionally take a couple of friends when I go look for something. Here is a sample of what went with me the other day:

"Dude, you should get this suit. Go wear it....oh it looks good on you..perfect fit. Get it man. Its only 10 days of work for a suit that will last you for years" – clothes fanatic

Hmm..I like the way he thinks. To measure the price of an item by the amount of time I spend at work

"You crazy. You wanna spend that amount of money on a suit? With this amount, you can get a PS3 and a game on top of that. You are talking about endless hours of videogaming kupo. Get the ps3. Get the PS3" – videogame fanatic


Oh who am I lying to? Of course a ps3 is more valuable to me than a new suite.


"What kind of a boring idiot are you? With this amount, you can go to venice for a 3 day trip and come back. VENICE man. VENICE. They will be the most memorable day in your life." – travel fanatic


STOP it.

They don't know that I'll listen to none of them. In the end, I am going to invest my money on an illegal MK 48 so that I empty my ammunition on the sorry corpses of those fanatics. They are definitely on my hit list.


Oh my...Oh my..what did I just say? I guess I am giving the authorities enough reason to start tapping my phone line.

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Pimping my friend out

I finally feel liberated. I managed to end the relationship that was bothering me lately..or at least assume I did so.

It happened all on Friday. It didn't go out very well as I felt like I have screwed things up. I didn't manage to say the speech that I've prepared in advance. I ended up saying my true gut feelings in a very frank way. I blurted out statements like "this relationship is so stressful", "I am not gonna answer unknown numbers for a while just in case it turns out to be you" etc. I was involuntarily very harsh on him. He kept on listening before at last I gave him a ride back home.

On the way back home, he was silent all the time. It kind of pissed me off coz I was hoping he'd retaliate, attack me back, or at least defend himself. I mean the whole point of this was that to listen to any final words he got.

When we were at the door steps of his home, he started speaking. At first, he scolded me for the way I decided on ending this friendship, saying that we are guys and we shouldn't have this kind of conversation, because this is the conversation that guys use when breaking up with girls. Fine..he was right. I shouldn't have been over-dramatic.

At the same time, he believes it would be inappropriate if I decide to suddenly ignore him and stop answering his calls. He was even frustrated when I said: "I think this is the best way forward as I have consulted many people and this is what they say". He didn't like the fact that I consulted others. God only knows how he would react if he knew I wrote 2 whole posts about this subject.

Later, he kept on defending me and saying how great I am and how he considers me his best friend and more like a brother. I felt kind of ashamed that he stressed all the good things in me while I stressed his bad traits. He also believes that I kind of misjudged the situation as he was depressed only lately and how he regrets opening his heart to me and being very honest with me.

I tried to close the topic and use reverse psychology in the form that he deserves better friends than me and just wish him luck for the rest of his life. He replied that one day all my questions would be answered and that this moment will be a dramatic turning point in his life. Initially, I thought it would be a step forward for him to realize that life is not all rosy and that he'll wake up and take steps to improve his situation. However, he didn't mean that at all. On the contrary, what he really meant is that he shouldn't be blamed if he ever commits suicide. It kind of sent chills down my spine and I almost panicked as I know I'll never forgive myself if he ever commits suicide.

At the end, he tried rationalizing and bargaining for a middle solution where we kind of "phase-out" the friendship slowly by less phone calls like a call a month and after 3 months, I do a re-evaluation. I refused and I remained firm on my position as I felt that this was kind of faking an existing friendship and delaying the fate that we both know will eventually happen.

I dropped him and as I was driving back, I kept on thinking on all the mistakes I've did, and how I might have misjudged him and that I know that I couldn't completely cut him off. While we never agreed on it, I know that if he ever attempts to contact me, I might (and I hope not) respond back. The only thought that keeps reminding me of him was the idea of "what would happen if I dropped him at tahliya venue at around 4 a.m?"

Last Wednesday, (2 days before the whole break-up situation), I was extremely busy and I only managed to see him after 1 a.m. We cruised in the car till it was almost dawn. By the time it was 4 a.m. I was tired and wanted to go home. For him, he'd refuse to go back. He pulled one of his stupid moves where he lied to his family and that he was going for UMRA with me and that him coming home after only 3 hours would be unrealistic. He needed to stay in a place, a coffee shop or somewhere for at least another 2 hours before he can go back. This is a sample of the kind of many moves he pulls that make me build up the rage inside me. How am I supposed to find an open place at around 4 a.m.?

My last hope was in checking the Tahliya Avenue. We parked my car and went for a walk around the area. The situation was not promising at all. It was not deserted. On the contrary, it had many people. People who were organised in groups...groups that looked like gangs...Gangs that kept staring at us and specifically at him. I kept teasing him and threatening that I'd leave him to entertain those ass-rapists. Minutes later, the joke no longer became funny as 3 of the 5 gangs started closing on us. What was even worse is that he was not co-operative at all. He kept on giggling like he was some whore waiting for a customer to pick him up. His giggling attracted two cars that started roaming around us like a pair of predators waiting to feast on their prey; being him of course.

Thankfully, we managed to escape the place safely but I always wished I had left him there for the night. The guys would have avenged for all the rage I have built up and...

I could have sought an alternative career in pimping...pimping guys out.

Wow, what a unique profession to be proud of.

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Cleansing Negative Energy

With the exception of the nights that Acmilan win their games, I rarely manage to end my day in a positive mood. Despite the fact that I start my day energetic and happy (especially this last month), I usually find myself going to sleep feeling miserable, sad or depressed.

I have come to realize that this drainage is due to the negative energy orbiting me. I concluded that there were 2 sources of negative energy in my life. 2 sources in the form of two people, in the form of two friends.

The first is one of my close friends who I'll never abandon because of the great memories we share and the strong bonding we have. However, the only thing that bothers me about him is that he is becoming more and more passive. He is not ambitious at all. He never talks about it as if he is satisfied by the way his life is going. It really annoys me that I care about him more than he cares about himself. Since I'd never consider abandoning this friendship, I feel I am restricted by one option; which is to take a break from him every once in a while. E.g. taking a break of two weeks or less where I seize all forms of communication with him which unfortunately means I'd have to lie and give lame excuses about how busy I am. On many occasions, this break proved to be fruitful in recharging me to handle the negative vibes caused by him.

My second source is another close friend who lately became more of a blackhole of all the joy I retain in my day. He is by far the most miserable person I've ever met in my life. He rarely opens a joyous discussion. For months, I've tolerated his endless daily complaints and utterly depressing suicidal attitude towards life in the hope that it's an unlucky phase he is going through. But this phase has prolonged for over 15 months is extremely illogical. As a friend, I tried extending all form of support that I can but I couldn't see the will inside him to help himself. Slowly, I started to lose all hope in him. It reached the tipping point around a week ago when we were discussing him. We concluded its either he is extremely unlucky that he might be cursed (I don't believe in curses but I tried to play along) or he is a loser beyond redemption. I questioned him, what if he was really a loser?. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown when he shocked me by saying that he thought about it but concluded that if he was really a loser, then I wouldn't be still talking to him.

I was like OH MY GOD. What have I done? And that's why I decided to put an end to this friendship.

Things are easier said than done. Usually, if I want to avoid someone, I just ignore them, never pick up their calls and stop seeing them. However, this is the first time I feel that I can't do the same here. I tried ignoring but it didn't work out. For the sake of all the things we shared together, I believe that this guy deserves a closure.

The thought of finding the best way to deliver my feeling has been stressing me alot lately especially since he arrived to Jeddah last week and he'll stay for a couple of days. I decided to use this time to play along and give him the best week he'll ever have. And on the last day, we'll have a face-to-face confrontation with no limits where I admit to him how I feel and why our friendship shouldn't continue.

Efffff. I can't believe that I've reached a stage where I had to write this. I feel like a drama queen. In fact, I think this is worse than breaking up with a girlfriend.

48 hours to go. I hope that they'll pass in peace.

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Knowledge Based Economy

That was the theme of the conference I attended from 12 January to 13 January named "Arabian Knowledge & Economy Association". It was the first of its type in the region and it was so advanced that I felt I was in Finland or Sweden or any one of those very developed countries.

The Conference hosted several world class speakers from all over the world. The agenda of the first day was about presentations explaining the theory behind "knowledge-based" economies and that it is the next big thing after Agricultural Era (19th Century), Industrial Era(Early 20th Century) and Information Technology Era (21st Century). It introduced new buzz words like "KIZ" (Key Innovation Zones), BenchLearning rather than Benchmarking, intellectual capital and its relation to structural capital and human capital, 7P Blueprint (P7), transforming competition to collaboration, and replace Business Planning with Innovation Strategy.

Alot of successful stories were shared such as Malaysia's Experience in building the World's Intelligence City of CyberJaya, Australia's Desert knowledge Experience, Microsoft's efforts in driving innovation through its own innovation centers & research labs spread all over the world, and SAP's experience in corporate innovation where they discuss their funnelling ideas and an example of how they are thinking of having decentralized electrical transmission system by installing smart grids in place of the existing ancient ones, and 2 more presentations that I can't recall coz I snoozed in them (HEY, I blame it on the lunch). So overall, my mind was blown with the rich density of information absorbed during those 2 days.

Other than the rich density of information that blew my mind over the 2 days, we had fun for a while in one of the workshops called "youth of the future". The point of this workshop is to assume you sit with 3 other individuals and try to come up with an innovative idea that could capitalize on the knowledge of the resources available at hand. Money is not an issue as they would provide you with at least $ 500,000. Unlike the rest of my colleagues, I decided to participate in a new group. It is a chance of meeting new people and a rare opportunity where I hoped to be proven wrong that the mentality of the new generation of Saudi youth is not as silly as I've always seen it.

Case 1: a group of young high school students demonstrated their creation of building a small robot hand whose sole task is to open and close a pipe valve. Sounds simple? Think again. The valve is at a depth of 1500 meters. Not a single human being can dive that deep because of the pressure. Diving in would take 8 hours and getting out is another 8 hours. Apparently, something malfunctioned and they needed to close that valve. ARAMCO's best solution was bringing a German Consulting company who'd do a feasibility study and had to import their machinery from Germany so they could do the simple process of closing the valve, for an amount around 60 000 dollars. The whole process would take around 7 to 8 months. So this group demonstrated a prototype of their creation and it showed us the process of how it hugs to the pipe and align itself with the valve and open it and close it. I was amazed. Its a greaaaaaaaaaat idea.

POSTIVE KUDO POINTS...:)

Case 2:

In an attempt to be a little friendly to those who were with me in the table (actually, I have some business cards that I wanna distribute :P), I introduce myself to and I ask him..."so, what encouraged you to come to this conference..?"

And what an answer I get: "7areem 7areeem 7areeem" (Women, women, Women).

My God, those Bedouin animals never cease to exist.

NEGATIVE KUDO Points :S

Case 3:

Part of our exercise was to deduce the capabilities & aspiration of your fellow colleagues where each one of them would discuss a unique project that each one of them participated in. I met this elegant, ambitious, extremely professional gentleman who is launching a new website, unique in its service of building local social networks all over Saudi Arabia through Event Management. It is like building facebook with the events application tailored to each individual's interests. E.g. you'd be notified about car or art-related events if your area of interest were in the following areas. I believe that this service would be cruicial since the country lacks in the service of promoting its events. You only know about events, or conferences through word of mouth or from fortunately being in one of those few random active communities. I was impressed by the idea and the presentation. His website is supposed to be launched in 2 weeks. It's called www.feinak.com. I'll definitely be the first one to use it.

POSITIVE KUDO POINT ...:)

Case 4:

So a coffee break. I wanted to know more about the identity of the other, shy member of our group. He was not very talkative. So I tried getting something out of him.

"so, where you from?"

"Khobar"

"aha...mashalla, you travelled all the way from there to attend this conference. I really applaud you for your ambition"

"Actually, I just came coz my father SENT me. I am not really interested."

WHAT THE...? :S. COZ HIS FATHER SENT HIM? :S :S. What a shame. I hold my rage and try to move on...

"so where do you wanna study?"

"ah here in khobar. I don't wanna go outside KSA. I hate travelling. I feel homesick. In fact, I am feeling homesick right now"

:S :S...HOME SICK? ITS JUST 2 DAYS and Jeddah is only 600 kms away. Its not like he went to Canada or something.

I concluded that there is no point to further proceed in this silly discussion

NEGATIVE KUDO POINTS ....:S

Case 5

Part of our exercise is to pass by other tables and explore other teams' projects and attempt to contribute and add ways to develop their ideas. While there are some good ideas, you'd be astonished by the amount of ridiculous ideas out there such as this guy.

"well, unlike the rest of the businesses, our business would be unique in its service. It will help in serving the shareholders..."

A moment of silence as we were still anticipating more from him.

"yep, that's my idea"

"that's your idea? Fine... what's the name of the project?"

"no name"

*sighs* "so give me an example of one of the services you'll provide to the so-called 'shareholders' "

"well, we could use the money to fund our university education & use the rest for our wedding"

Good God. Is this what they call business these days..

I wish I was in Texas. At least guns are legal there

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"Love in the time of cholera" (Review)

Overall, I think that this book should be taught in schools & universities under the literature course. There are endless metaphors and character development possibilities that can be discussed or analysed.

+ things -

1- one of the best coherent books I read. The flow of the ideas in the book as it goes from an event to another or from a character to another is amazing. The novel never stops at an idea till the chapter ends. E.g. It'll be talking about the character after they got married and how they are settling in the house..describing the house..the garden around it..then describing the neighborhood around it then describing the history around neighborhood till it connects to a story involving Person A & his history in neighborhood..then they discuss Person A etc etc.

2- A very good story that will be memorable for years. It could be classified as a classic in Romance & Drama genre especially when talking about hte love of Florentino Ariza

-ve things:
1- Despite its coherence, the book was sometimes tough to read. I don't know whether it was the language, the lack of action, the lack of conversations, or even monotone in the way it described things.
2- Sometimes more descriptive than informative. I was disappointed that the author didn't tell us about the actual content of each letter which I think is vitally important since the only action in the whole novel is involved around exchanging letters.

Opinion about Conclusion: when I reached half the book, I knew that i shouldn't expect surprises in the conclusion. I figured it out 10 pages before reaching the end. The best thing about it is that the final 10 pages justify the actual title of the book. Overall, I guess it was a happy & a classic ending.

Character I loved: Its not Fermina or Florentina or Juvenal Urbino. I really loved the character of Leona Cassini. I liked her ambition towards success and her obsession about finding the man of her dreams who she only met at her teenage years.

Rating: 3.5/5

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