A most wanted man 165-219

Brue has gotten more involved with Issa. After they met, Brue realized that Issa had some serious problems. He was very skinny because he was so stressed, and he thought every man that wore a suit was a secret policeman. He also started liking Annabel. He is becoming an old man, and he is rich so that he decides he will just give Annabel some money to help Issa. He gives her thirty thousand euros, which is equivalent to about fifty thousand dollars, so she can check Issa into a clinic to help him get over his fear. One of Issa's most eerie quotes is when he says to Annabel "If I sleep, I shall return to prison"(132). I am not sure if this means that he thinks he is dreaming, and that if he goes to sleep he will wake up in prison, or maybe he has nightmares about what they did to him in prison. Either one has terrifying possibilities. Issa has been tortured, they know this, and he is very afraid. Brue has been trying to get Annabel to like him, so he decides to get more involved with the Issa situation, even though he knows that if Issa is arrested he will be in much deeper trouble for being an accomplice to whatever it is that Issa is doing. Then, right at the end, Annabel is captured by the secret police. They take over the situation with Issa, forcing her to make phony calls to him telling him everything is OK. After making the call and placing listening devices in the apartment where Issa is staying, she tells the secret policeman "that was the filthiest thing I have done in my life"(197). She is very angry that she had to lie to her client, who she was trying to protect. This shows her noble morals that she has as a lawyer. She could be working with some big, rich firm but instead she works to help out these charity cases and actually do something positive.

A most wanted man 110-164

The mysterious man who showed up at their house is named Issa. He won't tell them his last name, saying it is "immaterial"(147). This word comes up quite often, basically whenever Issa is asked a question he doesn't want to answer, or a question about his past. This deceptiveness leads us to a deeper thought that maybe he is a terrorist. Annabel Richter, a lawyer who works with a company that defends immigrants like Issa, has taken Issa as a client and has hidden him in an apartment where she used to live. She is communicating with Tommy Brue, the banker, to try and figure the problem out with the large amounts of money in the accounts. Issa doesn't want this money, because to him it is tainted by his father. Brue refuses to get involved further than being able to give him the money from the account. SO they are at a standoff, because the only help that Brue is willing to give is the help that Issa doesn't want. The police have become very interested in Issa, because they think he might be a terrorist. Even if he wasn't they would be interested because of they way he came to Hamburg. From what the Police have told us, Issa escaped from a prison in Sweden, rode in a container on a cargo ship with a few other escapees to Copenhagen, where they were captured. Issa escaped again and got on a train to Hamburg. He is an illegal immigrant, so the police are trying to arrest him. Annabel Richter knows that whoever is chasing Issa from Russia will kill him if he is sent back, so she is trying to save him by keeping him in hamburg. This conflict sets the reader up for a number of interesting scenarios in the future. Will Annabel save Issa? Will Issa take the money and do something? Will Brue get more involved? any of these would be interesting, but we have no idea where this story will go.

A Most Wanted Man pages 55-109

In these pages, learn about the methods of the secret police in Hamburg. The chief says " We stay small. We stay on the street. We do detail, not grand vision" (59). This is the method that they are using to try and find terrorists. As we know, Lydia and Melik have allowed the ragged man with the fiery eyes into their house. The man claims to be Muslim, but Melik sees that he doesn't know or follow any of the Muslim customs. For instance, he doesn't treat the Qu'ran with its deserved respect, and he doesn't pray at all. They start to believe that he may be a terrorist. At the same time, these policemen are trying to track down a terrorist that is reportedly in Hamburg. The reader is supposed to get the sense that this isn't a coincidence, and put two and two together that the man in Lydia and Meliks house might be the terrorist. This twist, early in the story, plants a seed of doubt in the readers mind that makes them wonder about who the mysterious man might really be.

A Most Wanted Man, Part I (Pages 1-54)

Le Carre, John. A Most Wanted Man. New York NY: Scribner, 2008.

For my outside reading I am reading A Most wanted man, by John Le Carre. The story begins with a Muslim family living in Hamburg after the bombing of the world trade center. Because the bombers boarded the plane from Hamburg, the secret police there have tightened security around the city. LeCarre writes "Since 9/11, Hamburg's mosques had become a dangerous place. Go to the wrong one, or to the right one and get the wrong [priest], and you could find yourself and your family on the police list for a long time (3)" There is a lot of suspicion directed at Muslims, and the mosques are rumored to be filled with secret policemen looking for terrorists. The son in this family is called Melik, and his mothers name is Leyla. A thin man in a large coat with eyes that burn with emotion shows up at their front door. Melik wants to throw him out, because he could be a terrorist. Leyla, however, takes him in, because she wants Allah to forgive her for not going to the mosque in a while, and because she feels pity for the man. LeCarre write "but when he made to slam the door, he discovered Leyla standing on the stair behind him, looking over his shoulder at the boy and at the cardboard notice shaking uncontrollably in his hand (6)". Leyla convinces him to let the boy stay. We as the reader are supposed to feel the same as Melik in this case, because most of us wouldn't allow a ragged man into our house. The characters have been set up with traits, and we will see if they change further into the book.

Outside Reading Q3: A Most Wanted Man

John LeCarre is known for his Cold War stories, but because the Cold War and WWII in general may have become a tired subject by now he wrote a new book. A Most Wanted Man incorporates LeCarre's action packed yet still mysterious style of writing into a new time. The book takes place in modern days, in Hamburg, Germany. A mysterious man turns up in Hamburg and begs a family for a place to stay. The man claims to be named Issa, and says he is from Russia, where he escaped from prison and traveled to Hamburg in a container on a cargo ship. His only dream is to become a medical student to help save lives. The family doesn't believe this story, but they take him in because they believe it is the right thing to do. They learn more about the man during his stay.
Meanwhile, a wealthy banker named Brue who has inherited the bank from his father learns of a deal his father made with a crooked Russian Colonel. A lawyer contacts Brue about a client that believes they have the right to this dirty money. Brue decides to meet with the client to discuss the money, and guess who it is.
It's Issa! Apparently the Russian Colonel was Issa's father, and Brue's father was friend with the Colonel in the past. Brue's father allowed the Colonel to store dirty money in his bank in what they call the Lipizzaner account. Why it is named after the dancing horses is not apparent yet.
Issa still keeps secrets though, because he doesn't trust anybody. We discover he was tortured in prison, and this causes his fear. Issa is so nervous that he gets scared when a person in a suit is near him, because he thinks they are secret policemen. This habit leads to suspicion about his background. Suspicion that is shared between the reader and Brue.

Dreams From My Father: Part V (pages 307 to 383)

In this section of the book, Barack Obama learns a few more lessons in human nature when he returns to Kenya with his half-sister Auma to visit his family, most of whom he never knew existed. He learns that in Kenya, your education and status don't mean a thing to most people. Obama is attempting to locate some baggage that was lost on the way to Kenya, but he isn't making any progress talking to people. Then, a person who knew his father and recognizes Auma and also happens to be friends with the manager offers his help, and the baggage is located in the span of about five minutes. Auma tells him "It's the same whether you want a phone, or a visa, or a job. Who are your relatives? who do you know?" (322). Obama was a nobody, and the people weren't willing to help him because they didn't owe him anything. He also learns about the police brutality in kenya. He and his brother Roy are sitting outside a bar when they hear sounds of a struggle outside. They see "two men at the far side of the courtyard pushing another, smaller, man down onto the ground. With one hand, the man on the ground appeared to be covering a cut on his head; with his free arm he was trying to shield himself from the swings of a billy club" (365). Obama gets up to help the man, but his brother holds him back, saying "Mind your buisness, brother... They may be police. I tell you, Barack, you don't know what its like to spend a night in a Nairobi jail" (365). This act of violence is completely illegal, obciously, but if indeed the men were police a bystander trying to help the poor man would've been arrested. Obama writes about Kenya as an almost lawless place, where rules mean little and the only thing that is real is what one person owes to another. This helps us realize how lucky we are to live in a place like America, where we can count on out government to look out for us.

Dreams From My Father- Part IV (pages 230-306)

Obama is trying to get the black community in south Chicago organized for most of this section. It is not easy work, because most of the black churches and such are very independent, and don't want (or are too proud) to join the organization. He says "a handful i met with confirmed to the prototypes found in Richard Wright novels or Malcolm X speeches: sanctimonious graybeards preaching pie-in-the-sky, or slick holy rollers with flashy cars and a constant eye on the collection plate" (Dreams from My Father 279). The men were not willing to coordinate with Obama and his organization because they thought they were doing fine without it, and that it might mess up everything they had going, whether it be religion or money from the offering plate. That's not to say Obama didn't like these men. He was impressed by them. He describes them "As a group, they turned out to be thoughtful, hardworking men, with a confidence, a certainty of purpose, that made them, by far the best organizers in the neighborhood (Dreams from my Father 279). He was impressed with their ability to command respect and inspire a sense of duty into things like the offering plate and other church donations. The only problem he had with them was their unwillingness to work together.
The section I read also deals more with the issues of racism. The area where Obama is working is highly segregated. He notes that "there was no denying that the church had a disproportionate number of black professionals in its ranks: engineers, doctors, accountants and cooperate managers (Dreams from my Father 285). The church he was working with didn't have many blacks in professional workers. Also, he meets Reverend Wright in this section. At first, I expected Reverend Wright to be a bad guy type figure, due to his little input into Ba rack's campaign, but it seems that at first Barack and Reverend Wright were pretty good friends. At least definitely not enemies. When speaking about Reverend Wright, Obama speaks with admiration. For example, Obama says "If men like Reverend Wright failed to take a stand, if churches like holy trininty refused to engage with eral power and risk genuine conflict, then [there would be no] chance of holding the larger community intact? (Dreams from my Father 286)