Book Review: Early One Morning by Robert Ryan

Early One Morning by Robert Ryan is based on a true story. The timeline of the story goes back to the French Resistance, with the Second World War on. It is a wartime story. William Grover-Williams is a rich Englishman who sets himself free from the clutches of his parents and is next seen as chauffeuring William Orpen, a famous portrait artist. Here, he likes and falls for Eve Aubicq – the charming but little immature mistress of William Orpen.

Being a motor racer, William Grover-Williams gets the acquaintanceship of Eve Aubicq and a story of clandestine romance gears up. Robert Benoist, who hails from France, is a competitive rival to William Grover in the European race circuits and also has crush on Eve Aubicq. But still, they both share a sense of admiration for each other and subtly reckon each other in the band of friendship.

When Paris unwittingly falls in the grip of Germans, William Grover-Williams joins Special Operations Executive to work as an undercover agent in the French resistance. Upon reaching Paris, he asks Robert Benoist to join him in the services; their main task is to snitch on Nazis, and they with great bravery sabotage various set-ups of Nazis. However as the story moves forth, they are taken prisoners by Nazis and subsequently tortured to death.

The book is worth reading as it invariably throws light on friendship, love, betrayal and hope. It has a tragic end, as not all war stories are happily settled in the end. The writer has effectively used flashback technique to make things look clear and going, including their deaths. It is an extraordinary story of sacrifice of sporting people who while fighting against the devilish Nazism go through the test of time to leave a legacy of their friendship in the face of adversity.

Comments

Poem Summary: Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Rabindranath Tagore

Poem by Rabindranath Tagore: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. Short Summary: This poem is written by Rabindranath Tagore during pre-independence days, when India was a colony of the British. The underlying theme of the poem is absolute freedom; the poet wants the citizens of his country to be living in a free state. According to the poem, we see that the poet is expressing his views there should be a country, like where people live without any sort of fear and with pure dignity…they should

Book Review: The Blue Umbrella by Ruskin Bond

Among all Ruskin Bond books, The Blue Umbrella has, so far, gathered immense applaud from readers and critics alike. This is a short novel, but the kind of moral lessons it teaches to us are simply overwhelming. This is a story of Binya, a poor little girl living with her mother and an elder brother, Bijju, in a small hilly village of Garhwal. One day while herding her two cows back home, she stumbles upon some city people enjoying the picnic in the valley. She is enthralled to see them well-groomed and rich. She craves to be one like them and among many other things of their, a blue frilly umbrella catches her attention. She begins craving for it. On the other hand, the city people get attracted by her innocent beauty and the pendant in her neck. The pendant consists of leopard’s claw – which is considered a mascot widely in the hills. Binya trades her pendant off with the blue umbrella. The blue umbrella is so much beautiful that soon it becomes a topic of conversation fo

Poem Summary: Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias is a short poem of fourteen lines written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The concurrent theme of the poem is that nothing remains intact and same forever in this world. Even the brightest of metal, one day decays with passage of time. The throne name of Egyptian King Ramesses is Ozymandias. It was his dearest desire to preserve himself forever by building a huge statue that he thought would never tumble down. Stanza 1: I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; Summary: The poet narrates the poem through the eyes of a traveler who seems to have come back from a remote and far-away land, referring to Egypt. The traveler r

Kevein Books and Reviews

Search This Blog