Pleasure reading. "The casual vacancy" Part 6

Sukhvinder is taken to the hospital. The police go to Terri Weedon's house to tell her that Robbie has drowned, Krystal is with them. When Terri finally comes out, Krystal runs in the house, grabs her mother's tin of drugs and locks herself in the upstairs bathroom. Though she has never shot up before she has seen her mother  and others do it many times before. She shoots up enough, she knows, to kill herself. The police find her dead on the bathroom floor.

Howard is still in the hospital recovering from another surgery.

 Initially a funeral was not going to be held for Robbie or Krystal because Terri Weedon could not afford it. Sukhvinder Jawanda organizes donations so that the funeral can be held at St. Michael's. She picks out their caskets and the closing song. During the funeral she recalls that Krystal was misunderstood and that she had always admired her brazenness, that Krystal wasn't afraid of others judgement.

Many of the characters go to the funeral, except Colin and Fats Wall, and the Mollisons. Shirley still believes that Howard would not still be in the hospital if the ambulance hadn't been diverted because of the drowning.

Pleasure reading. "The casual vacancy" Part 5

Krystal and Fats continue to have sex. She lies and tells Fats that she is on the pill. She wants to get pregnant because she thinks that it will be a way out of the life that she is destined. Fats does not fully believe that she is on the pill, but also fantasizes about the possibility of her getting pregnant and how it would hurt and shock his parents.

The Parish Council has a meeting and votes to have the Fields removed from Pagford. Parminder defends the Fields but loses to the other parish councillors. She also defends the addiction clinic and loses her temper when people begin complaining about the cost of the clinic. She screams atHowars Mollison about his weight and what it has cost the state. She flees the meeting knowing that she has made a terrible mistake.

Gavin tells Kay that he is in love with Marry Fairbrother and that he must break up with her.

The following day, the council seat vote is held. Many of the characters are so disgusted with what the election has done that they don't even vote. Miles Mollison beats Colin Wall and wins the new seat. That evening is Howard's 65th birthday party. Samantha gets really drunk and snogs Andrew Price. Miles catches her and pulls her off of him. Patricia, Miles's sister comes, but leaves early because she is angry that Shirley didn't include her lesbian partner on the invitation.

Sunday morning everyone is home in the aftermath of Howard's party. It is a beautiful sunny Sunday. Gavin is going to Mary's house to tell her how he feels. Samantha and Miles are fighting and send Lexie to Howard and Shirley's. Krystal and Fats have agreed to meet downtown. Howard is hungover and sleeping it off. Shirley opens the parish website and somewone has posted about Howard and Maureen — that they are having an affair. It must be Andrew, Fats, or Gaia because Patricia told them of the affair.

Krysyal and Fats meet again in downtown Pagford. Krystal leaves her mother's house and takes Robbie with her since her mom was using smack again. Krystal intends to get pregnant by Fats Wall. She has Robbie with her and has him wait on the bench. Fats is very uncomfortable with Robbie being able to see what is going on, but Krystal reassures him that she'll find someplace secluded and finds a private spot under the bushes. While they are down in the bushes, Robbie gets up and begins looking for water because he is thirsty.

Sukvinder is out walking around town, skipping work at the Copper Kettle. She sees Robbie in the river and jumps in after him. She cuts her leg open on a broken computer monitor. She finds Robbie and is taken downstream by the current. When she is rescued, Robbie is in her arms, but it is too late and he has drowned.

Meanwhile, Shirley makes her way home. Disgusted and full of vile and hatred for Howard from his affair with Maureen, she has taken Andrew Price's Epipen from the cafe with the intention of injecting it into Howard. This will cause him a heart attack. When she gets home, she walks around the house looking for him, Epipen poised. Already he is face down on the floor from a massive heart attack. She calls an ambulance and Howard is taken to the emergency room.

Pleasure reading. "The casual vacancy" Part 4

Simon Price finds out about the post on the council website. He attacks and beats Ruth, Andrew, and Paul. He finally comes to the conclusion than it must have been somebody at work, rather than a family member. He makes Andrew help him get rid of the stolen computer.

The following day Simon Price withdraws his name from the election. Andrew is relieved that his father steps down from the election. The entire reason that he broke into the council website was to do just that, embarrass his father enough to get him to step down.

Krysyal Weedon and her gang threaten Sukhvinder because her mother Parminder, a physician, is being accused of giving Krystal's Nana Cath the incorrect medication. Sukhvinder contemplates suicide and decides to skip class. Tessa Wall finds her as she's leaving school. She brings her back to the guidance office and Sukhvinder tells Tessa about what has happened.

Krystal is raped by Obbo so she makes a plan to escape this life.

Sukhvinder Jawanda in spite of her mother, posts another post in the name of the Ghost of Barry Fairbrother on the council website. The post claims that Parminder was in love with Barry Fairbrother.

Parminder is devastated and distracted. She attends a case review meeting with the Weedon's social workers. She attends it because she is the family's general physician. Throughout the meeting her thoughts are constantly on the new ghost post on the council website.

The following day another post by the the Ghost of Barry Fairbrother goes up on the council website. Fats has done it about his father Colin who is still running for the open council seat. The new post suggests that Colin Wall is a pedophile and has groped first year students. Tessa suspects that it is their son. Shirely is excited and happy that someone else has been written maliciously about this. She does not remove the post right away. Colin Wall considers committingn suicide.

Pleasure reading. "The casual vacancy" Part 3

Ten requests have been received asking for a vote to fill Barry's vacancy. So now, much to Howard Mollison's chagring, an election must happen. Howard is sorting the letters, the applications and complaints.

Samantha refuses to go to dinner at the Sweetlove house. She stays home drinks a bottle of wine and thinks about some of the things that she and Miles had talked about doing before they got married. They were going to travel around the world and live in London. In her drunkenness, she decides that she's not going to live like this anymore.

Later in the week, Gavin and Kay go to Miles and Samantha's for diner. Early in the afternoon, Samantha sees Mary and also invites her over for dinner but Samantha says it as a gesture of goodwill and does not really expect that Mary will come. Samantha burns the dinner, yet still serves it and Mary arrives. There are the five of them. Gavin finds Samantha intolerable and is duly uncomfortable by the fact that Kay is being paraded around as his girlfriend. Gavin turns his attention, nearly exclusively, to Mary, his best friend's widow. Kay is unnerved and Samantha becomes vitriolic as she continues to drink.

Meanwhile, Andrew Price goes to an Internet cafe and hacks into the parish council website and posts a post about how unfit Simon Price is to win an election seat. The post refers to purchasing stolen home goods and how he steals supplies at work. Andrew is careful to cover his tracks so that his father will not catch him. He does not want Simon to run for election as he knows it will embarrass and humiliate all of them.

Gavin goes to Mary Fairbrother's to sort out the death benefit insurance payments. Mary breaks down and tells Gavin about how Barry gave everything to everyone but her.

Miles and Samantha go to Howard and Shirley's house for dinner. Shirley discovers that someone has written about Simon Price. Shirley decides to leave it on the parish website until Ruth asks her to take it down. At dinner, Samantha drinks a lot of wine and fantasizes about a different life, specifically Jake, the lead singer from her daughter's favorite boy band. More than anything, Samantha wants away from the Mollisons and away from Pagford.

Pleasure reading. "The casual vacancy" Part 2

The Sweetlove mansion was bought by Aubrey Fawley years ago. Initially Pagford was delighted that a man of such wealth and reputation takes up residence there, but then he sold the fields to Yarvil. This began a 60-year feud between pagford Parrish and Yarvil. 

Howard and Shirley hate Yarvil and all it represents, namely the poor and needy. With Barry's vacancy on the parish council, there is an opportunity for Pagford to purge the Fields once and for all.

Meanwhile, Mary Fairbrother breaks down into hysterics a few days after Barry's death. She is in fury. She is sick of hearing about Barry's vacant seat on the council and is resentful that he spent the last hours of their time together working on the article about the Fields and Krystal Weedon.

Kay Bawden, Gavin's girlfriend, who is also the Weedon's social worker, visits the house. The Weedon household is in the Fields. It is small and dirty, hardly a place to raise children. Terri Weedon is a heroine addict who is supposed to be clean in order to keep her son, Robbie. After the Weedon visit, Kay Bawden returns to the office. She suspects that the case has not been given the proper attention and sets up a case review.

Samantha and Miles go to Shirley and Howard's for dinner, Miles's parents. By the end of the dinner, they are discussing the casual vacancy on the council that has opened because of Barry Fairbrother's death. Samantha is drunk and disgusted by the joviality of the conversation that was initially masked as concern.

Kay goes to visit the Weedon household again. Krystal has come home and has done her best to clean the house up and she's taken Robbie to preschool. Kay agrees to helpTerri get one more chance at Bellchapel Addiction Clinic.

Ruth Price and Shirely have lunch at the hospital. Ruth confesses to Shirley that her husband Simon, is considering running for Parish Council. Then Simon Price buys a stolen computer. His family awaits anxiously as he works himself into a rage putting it together. Andrew resents his father deeply and is embarrassed by his father's lack of social activity.

Pleasure reading. "The casual vacancy" Part 1

The novel " The casual vacancy" is divided into 7 parts. Each part of the novel is called due to the the days of a week.This novel begins with the death of Barry Fairbrother. Walking into the restaurant with his wife, he falls to the ground and has a fatal aneurysm.

       The novel takes place in a small English town called Pagford. After the scene of Barry's death, the first chapter flits around briefly introducing characters and their reaction to the news of his death.

      Miles calls his dad Howard to tell him about Barry dying from something to do within brain. Simon and Ruth are talking about Barry's death Sunday morning. Simon is mean to Otis his son calling him pizza face due to his acne. Their other son Andrew is caught smoking in the shed. Ruth is a nurse at the hospital where Barry was taken. Andrew is in high school and loves watching a new girl named Gaia get on the school bus. He's waiting for her to get on the bus but she does not come.

     Gavin is dating Kay, whom he does not like very much. Kay and her daughter Gaia moved to Pagfrod at no promoting of Gavin. Gavin gets a phone call and finds out that Barry has died and is devastated, realizing it was his best friend.

     Fats and Andrew are at school at assembly on Monday morning. Cubby, Fat's dads, is a principal and he announces that Barry Fairbrother has died. A girl laughs and is sent to the office.Gaia walks in late and takes a seat next to Andrew. He gets the courage up to turn and smile at her. She smiles back.

    Howard opens his deli and tells his business partner, Maureen, about Barry's death. He explains that his death has caused a casual vacany in the local Pagfrod government.

    Krystal is sent to Tessa Wall, the guidance counselor or Fat's mother and Cubby's wife. Krystal insists that she had not been laughing at assembly but was genuinely upset and distraught. Krystal is a trouble teenager who acts as if she has nothing to lose. Her only adult connection is to Tessa and Barry Fairbrother, who was her rowing coach.

Film review (4)

THE GREAT GATSBY

Details:

Country: Australia | USA

Language: English

Release Date: 16 May 2013 (Russia)

Genres: Drama | Romance

Plot Keywords: tragedy | auto accident | 1920s | mansion | bond broker 

Budget: $105 000 000 (estimated)

Runtime: 142 min

Director: Baz Luhrmann

Writers: Baz Luhrmann (screenplay), Craig Pearce(screenplay).

Stars:Leonardo Di Caprio, Joel Edgerton, Tobey Maguire.

 REVIEW

The novel “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a favourite book of many people. There are enough film versions of the novel. So nobody expect anything extraordinary from “Gatsby” except variegated decorations and splendid special effects. But these are not the main things, what is more important is the script and the work of actors. I think the film is succeeded in both aspects.

Literary adaptations are always difficult to execute perfectly, partially due to the variety of interpretations that  readers have on a particular text, partly because not all screen viewers have even read the literature. The film contradicts itself in its collision between incessant noises, artsy visuals and disloyalty, and then eventual credibility through dramatic action and characterization.

The film throws such a variety of information at us that we cannot appreciate or take notice of anything in particular. The Great Gatsby becomes a more endurable, peaceful and in fact quite magnificent drama film. You finally, although it is behind schedule, are introduced to these wonderfully broken souls. These lost, tragic, misunderstood souls are portrayed quite phenomenally by an exceptionally talented cast.

 Leonardo DiCaprio is Jay Gatsby (With Leonardo DiCaprio's talent and persona, I could think of no one else who could have played Gatsby's role better; he sustains the shades and elements of the character quite naturally.); Carey Mulligan is Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan plays the attractive, but self-centered and shallow, character of Daisy with such beauty and grace.); Tobey Maguire is Nick Carraway ( Tobey Maguire is excellent as Carraway, and his brilliant narration helps in bringing the feel of Fitzgerald's lyrical prose.); Joel Edgerton is Tom Buchanan; and that's not just because the credits tell us so, it is due to their ownership over their respective roles and fulfilment of our expectations of their literary description.

The movie enthralled me with its spectacularly breathtaking visuals and strong soundtrack. Lana Del Rey's 'Young and Beautiful' is powerfully beautiful, and certainly deserves some awards. Coming back to the visuals, Luhrmann pays so much attention to the details from a character's dress to the carpets to the chandeliers - everything is colourful and extravagant. But this same attention to detail becomes a drawback as the emotional and intimate scenes lose some of their intensity behind these picturesque details. But other than that, the story is told quite well keeping with the pace and suspense of the piece; the mystery is maintained quite well.

Like Gatsby himself, the film is introduced as a perplexing mystery, and much like the film itself, you contemplate on how much you think, you know and  understand. So enjoy this great film, thank heavens for Baz Luhrmann..