Skip to main content

438 Days (continued.)

Ch. 7 A Fight for Life:  Cordoba gives up.  Asks A. not to eat him when he dies.  After he dies, Alvarenga talks to him for a while.  Finally Cordoba, essentially a mummy, is gently buried at sea. Depression for A.
Ch. 8 Swimming with Sharks:  A. hones his hunting skills; flock of birds on board.  Cruelty of boats.  He sees them repeatedly, but they don't see him.  No flares, no matches. Risky, stupid swim to Styrofoam.
Styrofoam's whiteness lures more birds to his boat and to his stomach. Swimming strategy to avoid sharks:  when the smaller fish are relaxed, he is relaxed.  When they panicked, he got back on board.
Ch. 9  Encounters with a Whale--huge creature, several times longer than his boat; eye as large as A.'s head;  whale shark--30,000 pounds; talks to the gentle giant; carries whole ecosystem with him.
Whale Shark leaves, baby takes it's place.; rowdy, smashes boat.  3mph drift is faster!  Moonless nights hardest, can't judge the next wave; 90 in the day; 85 at night; turtle blood his greatest source of nutrients and energy.
Ch. 10  Road to Nowhere; soccer games played by birds; scratched his name on metal bands of birds; one bird as pet--"I would spend hours speaking to a person and would talk with him for hours.
Resourcefulness:  Turtle shell as sombrero; talks to himself of beautiful women; pretend long walks or drives or bike rides.  "I could induce my mind that I was actually doing something. Not just sitting there, thinking about dying.
Ch. 11 & 12  Boat escapes its circular flow (doldrums) and heads west--great--but his food source dries up again. Rain stops. Must eat his pet bird . . . eats fingernails . . . barnacles from boat . ..  another close call with large ship that just sails by, not seeing . . . physical failure.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin . . . finished

 Follows Sadie and Sam (Mazer) from childhood to mid-thirties when both are feeling old and a bit out of it in the gaming world.  Characters are well-rounded, develop throughout the novel in interesting way.  Plot is involved but sensible.  Not a single, "Oh, come on!" moment.  The book could have been faster paced. Odd, since the main topic is video games which are not for their speed of engagement and Gabrielle Zevin clearly knows her video games. Recommended by Michael Connelly in an interview.  He also has Bosch pick up the book in his novel, Resurrection Walk, as Bosch tails a possible witness to a crime as she moves through a bookstore. Sadie and Sam do not get together at the end, which is good.   Marx killed by homophobic nutcase who really wants to kill Sam, but Sam isn't there. Marx is father of Sadie's child. 

The Franchise Affair, Josephine Tey--opening pages

Blair, a lawyer in Milford, gets a strange call.  His practice is wills and similar--nothing criminal.  A woman tells him that Scotland Yard is accusing her of abduction and implores him to come out to help her, even if later on he passes the case to someone else.  The woman says she has called him because he is "her type," meaning respectable and conservative.  He agrees.