Backpack by Tony Earley Revi

The short story "Backpack" by Tony Earley was published in 2018 in the magazine The New Yorker.

The story is about a married man, a teacher, who decided without any reasons to secretly leave his family taking only a backpack with him. It wasn't a spontaneous decision. His life up to that point was written shortly in the story and buying a backpack occurred in the sequence of events which the man witnessed.

The narration puts some actual questions about problems in American society as why individuals feel loneliness, what the sources for depression are and what the outcome may be.


This is a link to the text of the story:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/11/05/backpack

An Official Position by Somerset Maugham -- Review

The author of the story, the classic of British literature William Somerset Maugham, gave a title for the story "An Official Position". It is related to the main character of the story - Louis Remire. He occupied an official position in the prison, he was an executioner, worked with the guillotine. 

Louis Remire was serving a twelve-year sentence at the significant penal settlement of French Guiana, for killing his wife. Despite his past and current harsh job, the author described this person with sympathy.   

During the narration, the author expressed the attitude of the main character toward his life, troubles, and happiness. The story is cruel and at the same time, touching. 

The plot is captivating, and readers don't know the fate of the main character up to the end of the story. The story gave an excellent description of the thin verge between nirvana and disaster, between kindness and evil, between crime, and punishment.

Here is the link to the audio:

https://mixmuz.ru/mp3/w.%20somerset%20maugham/4

Trip to Crete (Greece) in August 2019

The island Crete is usually associated with the warm sea and the sun.

The region Chania represents the greenest part of the island.

We stayed in the hotel Yakinthos. This three-star hotel is located in an excellent place, 30 minutes from the center of the city Chania. There is a nice swimming pool in the hotel. The water is warm and deep enough for a good plunge.



You can see in the picture that there are no people lounging on the sunbeds. Most of the time the swimming pool was empty.

All of the days during our stay at the hotel, we were laying under a shady tree or walking to the sea. It takes only two minutes to walk through a green small road to reach the shore of the sea. The sea was great, clean, warm, and relatively empty. This picture was taken in the morning.



We visited Chania, a beautiful city built in Venetian style, where the harbor and old city are the main tourist attractions.



This region is located in a relatively remote place, three hours by car from the main airport on the island, in Heraklion. Due to the long-distance, we only bought two tickets for the excursion.

The first excursion was to the uninhabited island, Gramvousa, and Bay Balos. There is the old ruined fortress on the hill of the island. Tourists go up to the peak to see the beautiful views from the hill.



The Bay Balos is a very popular place for tourism. It's interesting to see the emerald, crystal-clear water, but swimming there is not convenient because the place is quite crowded.



On the way back there was an incident on the ship. One passenger of our ship had a health issue which was believed to be a heart attack. The ship had to return to the port and it left all passengers in this isolated place. All of us from the ship had to wait for two hours sitting on the stones. Some were in the open sun trying to prevent themselves from getting burnt.



Our next excursion had the title "Unknown Crete". On the way to the final destination, we visited another beautiful city- Rethymno.



We visited a medieval monastery Preveli.



During the last part of this excursion, we visited the south part of the island. This place is quite exotic, it is surrounded by mountains and the sea. The Greek government tries to keep this territory untouched. Only a very few hotels are built there. That is why the excursion bears the name, "Unknown Crete.”



In summary, we can conclude that Crete is an ideal place for a calm, relaxing holiday.

Speed by Sinclair Lewis Review

The short story "Speed" by Sinclair Lewis is written in a style that highlights the high rhythm of life.

This idea implies in many aspects of the story:

• The title (Speed)

The plot (It is about a racer of car's competition who desires about highest speed to won in competition)

• The relationships between two main characters (They have only a few minutes to decide if they’ll marry)

The story has a surprisingly happy end. The narration is dynamic and well written.

Here are the links to the text of the story and audio:

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301161h.html#s09

http://www.morningshort.com/

Clean Sweep by Joan Bauer - Review

The short story "Clean Sweep" by Joan Bauer is written like a diary of a young girl who works in her mother’s business - cleaning houses.

The story starts with a description of dust: what it looks like when we see it under the microscope. Things can be seen differently if we pay enough attention to them - this idea was implemented in the main part of the story.

The central action of the story starts when the family got an order to clean the attic of the house of an old lady. She lived alone. The girl suggested to throw away some stuff from the attic: old newspapers and torn books, toys and so on. The landlady disagreed and even became angry with this suggestion. Along with other things, the old lady saw a ragged book which she thought had been taken by her sister. The sisters hadn’t talked for many years. The girl advised the old lady to call her sister but this suggestion was met with indignation. It was clear that these old things aroused a lot of memories for the mistress of the house. The next day, the old lady eventually called her sister and they planned a meeting after many years of being apart.

At the beginning of the story, the author presented that by paying attention we can have a different view (it was inspired by dust). In the last part of the story this idea was expressed with links to memories and it also applies to relationships between people. It certainly has given "food for thought".

This is the link to the text of the story:

https://drbarrsenglish.weebly.com/uploads/4/8/2/8/48280451/clean_sweep_se_pages.pdf