The Solitude of Prime Numbers

“They lived the slow and invisible interpenetration of their universes, like two stars gravitating around a

common axis, in ever tighter orbits, whose clear destiny is to coalesce at some point in space and time.”
― Paolo Giordano, The Solitude of Prime Numbers

Alice and Mattia are two wounded souls. They carry the weight of their past on their shoulders. They both cannot find a place in this world, but both of them find his own comfort in the eyes of the other. Unfortunately Mattia and Alice are two prime numbers, twin prime numbers who are hanging so desperately into each other, and there is always an even number between them, preventing them from touching.

I've read The solitude of Prime Numbers so rapidly I think I've dreamed the story whole. So I read it again but yet it feels like an outer space experience, as if I've lived it in another life. Alice and Mattia, are characters in which the reader sees his own reflection. I think that's why this book manages to penetrate your heart and soul.
You fall in love with them from the first page and you feel your heart wrench while their story reaches its peeks. You cannot let go of the book from the moment you turn the first page. Whether you're in class, on the buss, or simply walking back home the book is in
front of you, inside of you and all around.

Mattia and Alice are engraved in your own soul, in the eyes of whom you love, in the atoms of the universe. In the whisper of the wind, in every rain drop and every sound you hear.

Absolutely amazing, so delicate in his words, Paolo Giordano has written a book so gentle yet so sharp, so fragile yet extremely powerful.
Love, love, love

It has been such a long time.
I'm an architecture student at the moment, in my second year.
And I'm reading The Da Vince Code :)
Have a nice weekend!
Khulood

Dear John - a waste of time!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: A book review!
I've been feeling a little guilty for not posting a book review for so many weeks, and so while I'm fully immersed in rereading The Summer Garden, I decided to devote a couple of hours to write a book review about what book other than: Dear John by Nicholas Sparks.

I started reading the first page, I read the few lines in it, and to say I moved to the next page extremely reluctantly, would be an understatement. Something of a male first person book just didn't do it to me. Fortunately, things did get better a few pages later.

John is a soldier in furlough when he meets the beautiful too idyllic Savannah. Within two weeks they fall in love and promise to write letters to each other while John is sent back to Germany.
At the beginning it was still bearable. They had a sweet love, heartwarming moments, it was really all right. And although I wasn't on the floor weeping while reading their love letters, It didn't occur to me to stop reading.
But not John nor Savannah had anticipated 9/11 and it's consequences. Their worlds are turned upside down when John reenlists to the army, extending his service because of his patriotic side. I thought that was very noble and gallant. Apparently Savannah didn't quite agree with me.
That's when things became more strange, more abrupt and I was reading with a doubting raised eyebrow.

There are few masochists out there that do enjoy an extremely tragic ending, I am a masochist myself. I personally live to cry and cry and cry over a tragic book. Somehow, these are the books that penetrate my heart and become part of me. I love tragic endings! Here, I said it.
But I am picky, and I do have some criteria.
A heart breaks when you're reading about something that is so personal and emotional. When you pray for the characters and ask God to give them the happy ending they deserve, although you know in your heart they can't have this ending. Because their problems are just too complicated to be miraculously solved.
And that's when you cry over a tragic ending.
Honestly, I got the impression while reading the ending of Dear John, that Nicholas Sparks, with all due respect I have for him, was laughing viciously while he wrote this unbelievably pointless ending.
Yes. The ending was simply pointless and cruel! How could he write something like that?
Love reaches and ending and people move on?! Are you serious? What the hell am I suppose to do with this message? I want to read about people who fight for their love! People who don't surrender to the cruelty of fate, the heartlessness of life! People larger than life. People you identify with and want to live their story!
*Breath*

Few things that could have made the book a little more delicious:

• 
  
  Passion. Is it a love story or what? Isn't John a soldier?! I was expecting a little more love, honestly. Yes they said they love each other, blah, blah, blah. I didn't get their passion and love. Sorry. NEXT!


• 
  
  Savannah's point of view. I seriously need to know what's wrong with her that made her do what she did. I ended up hating her very very much.


• 
  
  Not such a heartless twist. Yeah, Nicholas Sparks is FAMOUS with his heart wrenching twists. But it really came across as if he wanted a tragic story so desperately he pulled a very random ending.

I'm aware that I'm too judgmental, especially because this book dealt with a love story of a girl and a soldier. God knows I'm very picky when it comes to a love story of that kind (TBH. ehem)

The only thing I was left with after I closed the book for the final time is that I should have brought The Reader instead.
I rest my case.
Have a blossoming day, a good read and a beautiful time,
Khulood.

Alexander Belov/Barrington: 91 winters and summers

“Soldier! Let me cradle your head and caress your face, let me kiss your dear sweet lips and cry across the seas and whisper through the icy Russian grass how I feel for you… Luga, Ladoga, Leningrad, Lazarevo… Alexander, once you carried me and now I carry you, into my eternity, now I carry you.
Through Finland, through Sweden, to America, hand outstretched, I stand and limp forward, the galloping steed black and riderless in my wake. Your heart, your rifle, they will comfort me, they’ll be my cradle and my grave.”

***

“Tatiasha-remember Orbeli.”

***

“”Do you hear the stellar winds, carrying from the heavens a whisper, straight from antiquity… into eternity…”
“What are they whispering?”
“Tatiana… Tatiana… Ta… tiana…”
“Please stop.”
“Will you remember that? Anywhere you are, if you can look up and find Persus in the sky, find that smile, and hear the galactic wind whisper your name, you’ll know it’s me, calling for you… calling you back to Lazarevo.”
Tatiana wiped her face on Alexander’s arm and said, “You won’t have to call me back, soldier. I’m not ever leaving here.””

***

Alexander,
The brave soldier, the tender lover, the father, the friend, the best among men.
The king and the Hero.
You’re father and mother’s only child.
Tania’s husband.
Anthony, Pasha, Harry and Jane’s only father.

We loved you through America, back in Barrington with Teddy and Belinda.
We loved you through Russia, through Red Army and Winter War. Through Yuri Stepanov whom you gave up your America for.
We loved you through your wandering days.

And we loved you on June 22, 1941. When you made your way to Ulitsa Saltykov-Schedrin, all tired after only one hour of sleep. And on that day, you heard her delicate sweet voice carried by the wind; carried only for you. “We’ll Meet Again In Lvov, My Love And I.” She sang and you became paralyzed by her. And on that day you crossed the street for Tatiana Metanova, and we loved you for that.

“Love is to be loved, in return.” You said, as she couldn’t take her eyes off Peterhof, as Dasha and Dimitri were there. You said so once, when everything was still ahead of you. When war, famine, passion, love, Lazarevo, separation, Orbeli, they all were ahead of you.

We loved you through World War II, through the blockade and starvation, through raveling passion and impossible choices, through Dasha and Dimitri and your Tania.
We loved you even more through Lazarevo, through the magical days on the banks of the mighty Kama and on the foot of the magnificent Urals. The Kama and the Urals saw it all, smelled it all, and so did we.

We loved you for scarifying your own life just to give her hope, and loved you for leaving her with the one right word: Orbeli.
We loved you through Slonko and the NKVD, through interrogations and through the too small cell.
We loved you through separation. Through penal battalion and Ouspensky. Through Pasha and his death, through Russia, Poland, Germany and finally, America.

And we continued to love you through your America life, with your beloved wife and your sweet boy.

And every year we will remember our most loved hero, our brave brash knight, who once, many years ago crossed the street for a young girl on a bench, in a white dress adorned with the most beautiful blood-red roses and smiling green leaves, and made us believe in eternal love and destiny.


Happy May 29th.
Khulood.