Mr_Shank

Well, better late than never right?

Okay so we are finally done with this silly book. First of all, after reading the ending do you change any of the things you said about Dr. Henry and his personality? How do you think Dr. Henry changed towards the end of the book?

Do you guys think its okay for Phoebe to move out on her own and have some more free will?

Finally, a kind of obvious discussion maker, what do you all think the theme of the book was and why?

Sorry this is extra late, I got wrapped up in the Flyers Pens game (Flyers won!). Since my comments are already so late Ill comment later.

Last post =)

Words to Watch -

tarnished – to diminish or destroy the purity of

galvanized – to stimulate or treat with induced direct current (medical def.)

congealed – to make or become fixed; as ideas, sentiments or principles

deft – nimble; skillful; clever

chiffon – a sheer fabric

episiotomy – an incision to allow a clear path for birth (sorry guys, didn’t know what it was.)

jocular – chariterized by joking or jesting

Summary -

1982 -

Paul and Phoebe have turned eighteen. Caroline shows up at David’s art show in Pittsburgh. She brought with pictures of Phoebe. Caroline leaves in digust after he broke off their conversation to talk to an art critic that came to the show. David is deeply devastated, and goes to his abandoned parent’s house. He finds a pregnant sixteen year old girl named Rosemary. David invites her to come and live with them. Paul and Norah are surprised by the way he is acting now, and Paul runs away, but only for a few days. We learn he was accepted to Julliard.

1988 -

Rosemary and her six year old son, Jack, move out to live with their family. Norah and David have been divorced. Norah has moved on to dating again. David dies of an aneurysm, and Norah goes through all his things. She is sorting through his pictures and realizes things about David that she could only understand through his photographs. Paul is in France, studying music and traveling.

Meanwhile, Phoebe is in love with Robert, who has Down Syndrome, who wants to get married and live in a place with more independence. Caroline is worried about this and Phoebe’s future out on her own. When she learns that David is dead, she seeks out Norah on her own and tells her the truth and about Phoebe. Norah and Paul and Phoebe all meet for the first time. Norah is getting married, and the twins attend the wedding. Phoebe ends up going to David’s grave with Paul.

What do you guys think about David’s death? Do you find it ironic that he never really met Phoebe, but Norah and Paul, who knew nothing of her, did?

Do you think Caroline did the right thing by seeking out Norah right after David died? Or should she have just told Phoebe and let her search for her family herself?

Yes, this is very late and I apologize.

IDK where you guys read from so I’m starting at 237.

They are in a lab in Arizona doing tests on Sailor. Oh and btw, I don’t think we should have picked this book because there are a lot of F bombs and dirty jokes in it. Mr. Shank would not approve. Then, the book goes into another one of it’s infamous flashbacks to Gamini and the first time he Cardiac Surgery on a little boy. Gamini then finds out that he is sitting at the same table as one of the nurses or poeple that operated on that little boy. She said she has visited him and the parents renamed the boy Gamini because he saved the boy’s life.

We find out that Gamini was married. At least I think he was. He was married to someone who was already married but her and Gamini had a wedding day and dance? He loved her and was there for her more than her real husband was. But, it didn’t seem like she loved him when she was dying. She swallowed lye and she died the next morning while Gamini was working in the hospital. We never find out her name, even though Anil asked about 3 times.

Next, Anil gets to talking about Leaf and how they met up in Mew Mexico. Anil finds out that Leaf has Alzheimer’s. She keeps forgetting things. Then Anil writes a letter to John Boorman asking if he remembers where the bullet entered and exited on Lee Marvin in the movie Point Blank. Mr. Marvin had gotten shot in Alcatraz and he escaped and swam across some straits in San Francisco.

Then there is more crap about Cullis that isn’t important so I’m not including it. Anil has to give her speech about Sailor. Sarath goes off for a few days to find out more about Sailor’s background. He doesn’t return and Anil gets pissed. She goes to Dr. Perera for help. She is talking to him in the cafeteria and Sailor’s skelton gets stolen by someone in a van. The day comes when Anil has to convince people that Sailor was killed by the government and Sarath shows up. He took all of her evidence and he told her to get away. She did not catch the bad guys and she did not convince anyone that Sailor was killed by the government.

Then Sarath took all of the research that Anil had gathered over the entire course of the book and he didn’t give it back to her. It was just to protect her but that was very harsh. She got in a van and he told her not to contact him. She got on the ship where the lab was. She got the skeleton that Sarath had given her after he made a fool out of her at the conference. She immediately recognized it as Sailor and there was a tape to listen to. It was Sarath. He told her that she had to finish her report on Sailor that night and there would be a plane for her to catch at 7 the next morning. She needed to erase the tape and not call him, because she is in great danger. The government knows that she is onto their killings and may be after her now.

Sarath dies and Gamini sees him dead in the hospital. I didn’t really get the last chapter of the book. I didn’t think it had anything to do with anything. Who’s Ananda?

toddy tapper-(n.) a person who makes an alcoholic beverage from that sap of various species of plam trees.

pneumonic-(adj.) of, pertaining to, or affecting the lungs

pieta-(n.) the ancient Roman personification of familial affection, patriotism, and piety.

paraphernalia-(n.) equipment, apparatus, or furnishing used in or necessary for a particular activity (I have heard of this word but didn’t really know what it meant)

corrugate-(v.) to draw or bend into folds or alternate furrows and ridges

I picked these words because I didn’t know what they meant.

Mallloryyyyyyyyyyyyy (will be in 90 degree weather tomorrow until fridayyy!) not bragging.

I’m going to focus mainly on Gatsby’s funeral and how it relates to some other scenarios.  In the movie, The Ultimate Gift, a young man is in the prime time of his life and is really rich and has a “great” girlfriend and a lot of “friends.”  Then something happens to him and all of his money is taken away from him: credit cards, debit cards, paper money, everything.  When he goes to ask his friends for money or help they all leave him out on the street.  When he realizes one night that he has no money on him {and his credit cards have been canceled} to pay for dinner and asks his very wealthy girlfriend to pay she dumps him.  This goes to show how people are treated when they have money and then when they are “worthless” to people.  This happens in the Great Gatsby when Nick is asked to organize the funeral for Gatsby.  Nick can’t find anyone to come to the funeral, though it seemed that when Nick was alive he had a lot of friends, but it was only because he was rich.

Who do you think Gatsby’s real friends were and why do you think that Nick was asked to organize the funeral for Gatsby?

-Maddie Zinn

This book had me going.  I could not stop reading, until I got to the part where it does not explain if he wins.  Every player has their tales, was this one of Pete’s?  Does he always end his books like this?  We will have to read more to find out.  Anyways I would like to discuss themes, what you think happened with the rest of the tournament, and going all-in.

This part of the book takes place at Kings Crossing, in Las Vegas.  It is holding 120 people for a winner takes all tournament.  There has never really been a tournament of such, and it is attracting players from all over.  The odds are slim, but those odds are good enough for any of them.   Denn makes it to the final 2 players on at least 40 hours of no sleep.  This is truly amazing, and I think that it is dealing with the theme.  I think that Pete is trying to say that no matter what the odds are, there is always that possibility to win.  Never give up, give it your all until you are all out!  Also I think he is trying to prove the point that there are some people that live this lifestyle.  As we see it today with the World Series of Poker.  All of these points are proven as Denn still has one chip and he is not negative on his chances.  He says “all-in” with some confidence, which really makes me happy.  It proves he is not giving up.  Do you guys think he won?  Write you own ending to the story and include the tournament, plans with Cattie, and what he did in the future.   I personally think that he won, and in doing so he took over the casino.  He lived the high life and dated Cattie soon afterwards.  He grew up to be a successful gambler in Vegas, where he owned some of his own casinos.  I do realize as my thoughts on the ending were way off.  I think Pete did this to make the reader finish the ending to what they think should happen.  Denn in my mind was a kid who found a passion and a skill in a game and ran with it.

As I said I think that he won the tournament.  But is that what truly happened?  I think that it is amazing as he made it through the whole tournament and with little sleep.  Denn is truly the best of the best.  What do you guys think of the tournament?  My thoughts were that it gave the book more suspense as you wanted to keep reading.  Also do you guys think that it is right to violate the rules that you made everybody else follow?  This is what happened at the end of the tournament as Artie smoke a cigarette at the table.  It is wrong in my mind because it is breaking the rules.  I don’t like to break the rules, and I usually like to follow them.  It just shows how rude and cocky he is.  Another thing we see is that no cheating was seen.  It seemed as Cattie played straight up and so did the other dealers.  Then Ree even told Artie that he never made Denn go all-in.  Was this right to do as it could possibly lose the game for Artie?  I think it was because it is only right not to cheat.  It is kind of like Karma, as Artie wanted to cheat.  Karma says that whatever you do badly always comes around to bit you in the butt later.

Lastly I would like to talk about the title.  We see that the title is “All-in” because everybody was going all-in.  This is very important to notice because you can see what the author was thinking when he picked the title.  Is this the title that you would have chosen?  Pick a title or keep the same one.   My thoughts were that it made sense as we see that the author built the whole story line to show what he meant as all-in.  I could not tell you a better title for this book, and this was a very good book.  I recommend it to all that read this blog.

-Alex

As connector of Anil’s Ghost, I am going to connect this to a movie that I saw before. I don’t really remember what it’s called but it had a lot to do with the same theme of this book. In the movie, there were many suspicious murders taking place and a forensic pathologist along with many archaeologists had to find the missing bodies and then figure out who or what was killing the people. In Anil’s Ghost, Anil is an archaeolgist who has to find the missing people and work with a forensic pathologist to find out just what was happening with all these murders, but most importantly who the murderer was.

Sorry Mr. Shank, I’m camping right now so I don’t really have time to write much more.

My question for you is what do you think of the outcome in the book? Was it what you expected?

That’s all of my blog… I know it’s kind of short…

~Laurisa

In this last post I would like to look at John Grady. In this section John Grady leaves Mexico and is persecuted because of Blevins’ horse. Two men who were trying to make a profit took him to court. He won and kept the horses. Then he went to Rawlins’ home and gave him his horse back. While there Rawlins offers for John Grady to stay with his family. John declines and when Rawlins asked him what he was going to do John Grady said I don’t know. We then see John Grady at a cemetary standing over the grave of an old lady who worked for his family for many years. He always called her his abuela. Then at the end of the novel we see John Grady riding off across the desert past a tribe of Indians.

Why do you think McCarthy ended the novel in this manner? What do you think is the relevance behind having the Indians?

-Kody

I AM EXTREMELY ANGERED! WE DID NOT FIND OUT HOW THE FINAL TOURNAMENT ENDED!

All we found out was that the final two were Artie and Denn. But oh my, I am really angry that we did not find out who won the million dollars.

Anyway, All-In was a great book, and I’m glad Mr. Shank let us read it!

Now for my chapter summaries:

Chapter 32 [Cattie]:

Cattie heard a knocking on her door when she was in her bathtub. When she got out and got dressed (getting ready to go to the big tournament and deal) she found Denn sitting opposite of her apartment door. She was confused and somewhat annoyed to see him. All he stated was that he wanted to make sure she was okay.

Chapter 33 [Denn]:

Denn sat there in the hallway thinking for awhile. When he took a look outside he found Cattie sitting on her car smoking. He went out to her, and restarted regular conversation. Cattie asked him if was playing in the tournament. He responded no, due to the fact he has no money. Then she asked Denn if he would play if he had the money. Then she ran up to her room to get him $10,000.

Questions: Do you think Denn was really looking for Cattie to give him money?

Chapter 34 [Jimbo]:

The chapter is narrated by Jimbo, and he says they are walking around the poker room waiting for the big tournament to begin. Tons of big-time poker players are there. Jimbo spots Denn and goes to wish him good luck, and asks Denn if he plans to win. Of course, Denn says that that is his intension.

Question: At this point, did you think that Jimbo was possibly trying to get money from Denn, too?

Chapter 35 [Denn]:

The chapter starts out with Denn realizing his surroundings, he is tired, hungry, and has one of the biggest poker games of his life ahead of him. He wondered if he was being fooled by Artie and Cattie again. He didn’t think so. He wanted to take his chances. He proceeded to ask Cattie why she had given him that $10,000. Did she want him to play?  After their conversation, Denn went to find his seat in the poker room. The chapter ends with Artie announcing talking to the crowd about the tournament, and the tournament beginning.

Do you guys think it is suspicious that Artie is playing in his own tournament?

Chapter 36 [Denn]:

The tournament started, and the blind bets started at $10-$20 and would increase every hour. At the first break, Denn and Jimbo talked some more. Jimbo said some UNLV kid had been tearing up the tournament. The games continued and more and more people began to leave. Denn’s focus came and went. Then Cattie came to deal at his table.

Chapter 37 [Cattie]:

Cattie seemed to deal Artie pocket aces every round to anger Artie. At the break Morty scolded Cattie and told her to not make the cheating so obvious.

Chapter 38 [Jimbo]:

Jimbo tells one of his ‘bad-beat stories’, dealing with the UNLV kid. The story was actually from the very tournament. The UNLV beat Jimbo in a tough round, knocking Jimbo out of the tournament.

Chapter 39 [Denn]:

Denn had been winning some small pots, and the blinds kept increasing. He got into a long battle with the UNLV kid, and at the end Denn one sending the UNLV kid crying out the door.

What do you guys think of this kid? Weird?

Chapter 40 [Cattie]:

There has already been suspense and knowledge in the previous chapters that Cattie will cheat and help Artie win. Also in previous chapters, Artie got unhappy with Cattie because she dealt him 2 aces 5 times in a row, which become somewhat suspicious. So in this chapter the big poker tournament continues, and Cattie, one of the dealers, had rotated to Artie’s table. She hadn’t dealt to Artie’s liking, so he sent Morty over to tell Cattie that she was done dealing for the night. Morty warned her to leave so Artie couldn’t find her.

Questions: Why do you think Artie wanted to get rid of Cattie if she was his only chance at cheating to win? Did he figure that he would just wing it, or were there other dealers cheating for him too?

Chapter 41 [Denn]:

It was about 2 a.m. and the tournament was down to two tables. The UNLV kid that had been a hit and was crushing in the tournament had gotten knocked out by Artie. A break in the playing was called, and Denn walked over to Cattie who was sitting in a chair in the distance where she was watching the action.

When the action continued, it was down to the final ten (one table). They had a new dealer, Ree, whom which Denn determined wasn’t cheating for Artie. A bunch of people were knocked out within not much time. It was soon the final three, Artie, Sammy Gold, and Denn. Artie still played trickily, without cheating. Finally, a hand was dealt where Denn had beaten and knocked out Sammy Gold. The game was then left to Artie and Denn.

Chapter 42 [Denn]:

Denn noticed that Cattie had left the room and was no longer watching. Denn took a break, and when he reentered the room it was time to play again, just Denn and Artie. Ree was dealing. Denn and Artie had gone back and forth, until Artie had gotten a really good hand and made Denn go all-in. Unfortunately, Denn lost, leaving him with one measly $1000 chip. Neither of the players realized that it was still there. They both thought that Artie had won after the last play. This was a shock, but then later everyone encouraged Denn to play. To do this with the extremely high blind bet, Denn would have to go all-in for a couple of rounds until he got more chips. The book ended with the dealer dealing the two their cards, and Denn betting with the quotation, “All-in,” and a smile.

AND NOT TELLING US WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE REST OF THE TOURNAMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Questions: Do you guys think that Denn would have won the tournament? Why so, or how so?

Did you guys like the story? I think it was the best book that we have blogged about so far!

Also there were still no words that really stood out to me. Tell me if you need anything clarified!

blind = blind bet, short term

-Leah Sevco

Colin Easter

H.G. Wells leaves off the story of the Morlocks as soon as the Time Traveller gets his Time Machine back.  ”But at last the lever was fitted and pulled over.  The clinging hands slipped from me.  The darkness presently fell from my eyes.  I found myself in the same grey light and tumult I have already described.”  From here, the Time Traveller discusses the twilight world of the future.  The only time the world of the Morlocks and Eloi is mentioned afterword is about the flower in the Time Traveller pocket (offering proof of his travel).  The story of that world is abruptly stopped and no more commentary is provided about it.  This is interesting because the author spent a lot of time establishing the subplot, setting, commentary, and details about that world.  However, by leaving the story off like that the author allows the reader to draw their own conclusions.  It also allows the author to not have to write a conclusion or disappoint readers. The escape itself was not exciting.  This makes me think that it is a combination of the two reasons.  The author also uses this same tactic at the end of the story.  The Time Traveller says that he’ll be back in half an hour, but he still hasn’t returned three years later.  All we know is that he went somewhere with the Time Machine and a camera.  Do you think that the author does this to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions so they that are not disappointed?  Is he just lazy or uncreative enough to write his own endings?  Does it fit with a science fiction theme to have a clear cut ending?  Finally, do you prefer conclusions that are clear cut or ones that allow you to draw your own conclusions?

Being the last section of the book, this is the most exciting and revealing one.  Like i predicted, it does not end happily for John Grady.  He leaves us as a man who truly has nothing.  He has lost his home, his love, his friends; he is completely alone as he rides off into the west.  I would like to specifically talk about a couple of the incidences and decisions that led to this sad conclusion.

When Grady was reunited with Alejandra, she revealed to him that it was her who confessed to their affair.  She was forced to by her aunt who threatened to tell her father if she did not.

“She shook her head. I destroyed everything. I only wanted to die.

Don’t cry.  I’ll make it right.

You can’t, she said.  She raised her eyes and looked at him.  He’d never seen despair before.  He thought he had, but he had not.”

I like this part of Grady’s and Alejandra’s conversation because it made me think about my own life.  I asked myself if i had ever felt despair like this, or if i think i will.  It takes a lot to as depressed as she was.  Consider both of their situations.  Johm Grady was put in jail where he went through torture, killed a man, and lost his friends in.  Alejandra, on the other hand, has lost her father’s love.  The two things don’t seem very comparable, but i think that they have both lost very much for each other.  The only difference is that John Grady has nothing more to lose, so he would be unfazed to elope with his lover, but Alejandra has her family to think about.  Which of the two do you think has it worse in this situation; the one who has lost everything, or the one who has everything to lose?

“The captain either did not know what he was going to do or knowing did not believe.  John Grady had begun to shout even before the gunmetal hissed in the meat.  His shout clapped shut the calls of lesser creatures everywhere about them in the night and the horses all stood swimming up into the darkness beyond the fire and squatting in terror on their great thighs screaming and pawing the stars as he drew breath and howled again and jammed the gun barrel into the second would and held it the longer in deference to the cooling of the metal and then he fell over on his side and dropped the revolver on the rocks where it clattered and turned and slid down the basin and vanished hissing into the pool.”

This is how McCarthy described what i think is the bravest and toughest thing we have seen Grady do.  As he was escaping with his and Blevins horse, he took the captain with him as a hostage.  However, he was shot in the thigh on his escapade.  Knowing that he could not continue travelling with his leg the way it was, he stopped to take care of it.  His way of taking care of it was by closing the wounds with red hot metal.  Being a runner, i know what it is like to have to put up with great amounts of pain.  It takes a very strong person mentally just as much as it does physically to be able to endure that amount of pain.  That is why I feel so impressed with what John Grady did.  Not only that, however, I am also perplexed by his motivation for doing this.  He no longer has Aleajandra to fight for, he already lost her to her own family.  He has no friends left because Rawlins left him.  And perhaps worst of all, he has no home.  i believe that this was an act of desperation on his end, or perhaps he was trying to redeem Blevins.  Whatever it was, John Grady is one heck of a man for it.

If you found yourself in a situation where your life depended upon causing yourself this amount of pain, would you do it?  Would self preservation overcome the fear of pain?  And more importantly, would you be able to do it alone, like John, or would you need someone or something worth fighting for to be able to mutilate yourself like that?

-Ditz