This is an epic novel published in 1949 by George Orwell (real name, Eric Arthur Blair). The book is seen as a landmark work, used extensively for teaching, and also as an example of a Government and society heading on the totalitarian path. The book has had a tremendous effect on the mass culture dealing with the rights of individuals versus the tyranny of a Government that believes in keeping an eye on all its citizens, governing their thoughts and actions. The novel led to the popularity of many terms such as ‘Big Brother’, and ‘Orwellian’. It depicted the horror of a society where the Government controlled all aspects of life, and knew everything about every citizen. Soon after, a state came into being where this concept was very close to being achieved. It was in East Germany, a state that had an extensive network of internal spies, and for whom it was claimed that fully a third of the population informed on other people.

The year is 1984, the place is called “chief city of Airstrip One”, a part of the large region known as ‘Oceania’ (the place where the protagonist works is actually London, but a London that has been wracked by civil war after World War 2 and was eventually made a part of Oceania). Oceania is one of the 3 totalitarian states, the other 2 being that which was formed by the USSR, and the third from East Asia. Oceania is a territory or a country that runs through terror and a deep desire to control every citizen. Photos of the leader called ‘Big Brother’ are everwhere with the caption ‘BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU’. Every place has a two-way television (the telescreen) in order to make suer that nothing is secret, and there can be no voices raised against the state (people believed to be working against the state are first re-educated so that they start to love the Big Brother, and then they are executed). In addition, society is divided into 3 separate classes: (i) the Inner Party, (ii) the Outer Party, and (iii) the Proles (upper, middle and lower classes, respectively).
The members of the Inner Party and Outer Party were subjected to a thorough control (with the Proles being deemed to be the worker class, with not much worry being given to whether they needed to be indoctrinated). In the midst of all this, you had the protagonist, Winston Smith. Winston works in the aptly named Ministry of Truth where his job is to modify all records such that the Government is always shown to be true (and this includes removing people from photos once a person is deemed to be a unperson). Winston had lost his parents in the civil war, and the English Socialism Movement (”Ingsoc”) had raised him up. However, he was beginning to have his doubts about the system (even while knowing that if these thoughts ever got out, he would be re-educated and then executed).
He meets Julie, a mechanic in the Ministry of Truth. He feels in her a partner in his feelings, and they start having a secret affair (hopefully away from the watchings of the Ministry, which would have believed this affair to be a betrayal and akin to treason). However, they are soon caught, and sent off to re-education in the dreaded Ministry of Love. There, Winston is subject to monologues from O’Brien, a functionary of the Ministry. There you come face to face with the true horror - the Party has only one aim; it has to keep itself in power, and the only way it can do that is by breaking the traditional friend and family bonds a person has. The person can only have a bond with the party and with Big Brother.
In the despairing end, both Winston and Julia are re-educated. You get to feel the absolute sense of despair when you read about when they meet again, with no feelings for each other (not even anger at each other’s betrayal). They are well and truly successful citizens of Oceania now.

‘How Green Was My Valley’ was a movie directed by John Ford and released in 1941. The movie was based on a novel of the same name (written by Richard Llewellyn), and was written by Philip Dunne (the movie was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck). The movie is a moving portrayal of the disintegration of a close knit family when faced with the pressures of a changing socio-economic way of life, the changes these bring upon both the family unit and on the youngest boy of the family, all the while as he is maturing into adulthood. The movie was released in the same year that Citizen Kane was released, and ‘How Green Was my Valley’ managed to get a number of the higher profile Academy Awards. The movie was set in the location of South Wales coalfield at the heart of the South Wales Valleys, but due to the Second World War ongoing at the time, the movie had to be shot in the United States rather than in Wales as the Director had desired.

The movie starred Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O’Hara, Anna Lee, Donald Crisp, and Roddy McDowall in the main roles. The movie takes the story of the Morgans, a family of miners in the late nineteenth century; they are based in the South Wales coalfield. The movie is told from the perspective of the youngest of the clan, Huw Morgan, when he is reminiscing about the story of his life (he is now 60 years old, the movie is is a flashback). Tension the family begins to increase dramatically when his father refuses to join the miners strike, and his elder brothers disagree; in this rift, 3 of his elder brothers move out of the house.
The family has to ensure hardship, alongside, their entire town and the culture of the whole place is now in slow decline; the movie is also a depiction of how earlier movies would take the impact of technology on human life, especially as modern technology replaces human labor. The movie also focuses on the struggle of human life, and the never give up spirit of humans even in the face of struggles and adversity (especially in how the movie shows the strength of a family).

The movie was nominated for 10 Oscars, and managed to win 5 Oscars out of them:

Academy Award wins

* Best Picture - Darryl F. Zanuck.
* Best Director - John Ford
* Best Supporting Actor - Donald Crisp
* Best Black-and-White Cinematography - Arthur C. Miller
* Best Black-and-White Art Direction-Interior Decoration - Richard Day, Nathan H. Juran and Thomas Little

Academy Award nominations

* Best Adapted Screenplay - Philip Dunne
* Best Supporting Actress - Sara Allgood
* Best Film Editing - James B. Clark
* Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture - Alfred Newman
* Best Recording Sound - Edmund H. Hansen

Great Expectations is a great book, an all-time classic. The book is set in a period from 1812 to the winter of 1840, in the England of that time. The book was actually a series in the ‘All the Year Round’. Charles Dickens has always been considered a writer who can write about a whole gamut of human relations, but there has always been a strong element of pathos, of pain, of despair, and totally shies away from portraying life as rosy. Charles Dickens has also been known to write elements from the story of his life in his novels, weaving his life and experiences through the medium of the story. When he wrote this magnificent novel in the form of a series, he had to ensure that each episode was gripping enough that people would wait for the next part of the series to arrive.

The book is divided into 3 stages of the life of the orphan Pip, his young life when she stays with his sister and her husband. He is comfortable with his life, and has no great expectations from it, until the time he meets a very bitter elderly woman Mrs. Havisham (who was jilted on marriage and becomes very bitter towards men) and her adopted daughter Estella. Mrs. Havisham hates men, and has accordingly inculcated a strong feeling of coldness in Estella, something which is to stay with her in life. Pip continues his life, then becomes an apprentice to Joe (his sister’s husband). However, his life is turned upside down when he is informed that he has been bequeathed a large sum of money by an unknown benefactor. Pip’s expectations are now increasing, and his earlier contact with Mrs. Havisham had made him want to be a gentleman when he grows up, and this wealth will help him a lot.
In the second stage, Pip is now living the fine life in London. He is rich, and adopts the customs of the rich and the cultured, very different from his earlier life. In this life, he pursues Estella, who is now a very beautiful, but very cold person (not caring much about his feelings); he has a rival in the form of Bentley Drummle, whom Pip despises and cannot understand why Estella sees him. Pip has assumed that his provider is in fact Mrs. Havisham, and this also creates a lot of jealousy in her other relatives who are looking forward to her property. However, this Pip has now developed a class attitude, and is ashamed of the lower status of Joe, and is embarrassed when Joe visits. And then he learns that his benefactor is in fact a former convict (who Pip had helped many years back), Abel Magwitch.
In the third stage, this is when things start going downhill. Estella does not acknowledge his advances, and Pip is repulsed by the knowledge that his benefactor was a former convict, and he starts to acknowledge that the allowances will now stop coming. He plans a way to get Magwitch to leave the country, since if he is caught, he will be sentenced to a harsh term. He creates a great plan, but the plan eventually fails and Magwitch is caught and sent to jail, where he dies (but not before Pip visits him and has already warmed to him). In the end, all of Pip’s Great Expectations come to naught, and he learns to live a life without such high expectations.

This is another wonderfully narrated novel by Khaled Hosseini. For those, who have read his first one, The Kite Runner, and appreciated it, would not be disappointed with this one. It is a great read. Written in his usual story telling manner - where he tells some unbearable events with so ease that they become readable – he tells a lot about human relations and how the will to survive is much bigger that the destiny to perish. This is a novel where at some point of time, you feel like putting the book down and crying our heart out. And for me, it is just a wonderful feeling – there are very few writings which can do this. He also has a way of making Afghanistan very real and its people come live in front of your eyes while you read his books.

“A Thousand Splendid Suns” is a female centric novel. It makes the reader feel the plight of women in the conservative societies. It also highlights the impact of civil unrest on women specially. The story begins in 1964, ends in 2003, spanning over the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the defeat and withdrawal of the Russians that led to the warlords in-fighting, followed by the rise of the Taliban, and ending with the beginning of democratic rule in which the warlords are given legitimate posts in the government. It is primarily set in Kabul with some early incidents in Herat and later ones in Pakistan. It traces the life of two women, alternating between their points of views. First one, Mariam is from Herat, born as an illegitimate country girl to a wealthy businessman, married to a 30 years older Pashtun man in Kabul, and unable to conceive a child (victim of domestic violence due to that). Second one, Laila is a Tajik from Kabul itself, born to a literate family, looses her family in a rocket attack & brothers fighting for freedom over Soviets, and agrees to become second wife of Mariam’s husband due to his extremely calculated manipulations. The two of them, are initially repulsive to each other. But in due time, they gain each other’s sympathy and trust, and become inseparable. After living their lives like rats, as an act of desperation, Mariam kills her husband, allows Laila to run away to Pakistan with her true teenage love along with her kids, and goes to hell as per Taliban’s law. After Taliban’s fall, Laila comes back to Herat & Kabul to pay visit to Mariam’s place and starts a new life in Kabul working among kids affected due to civil war & Taliban rule.

It is an extremely moving piece of writing – well narrated. It is surely worth a read.

Based on a famous book by John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath was an incredible movie. The novel was published in 1939, and was made into the movie in 1940 by the famous director John Ford (who was the only Director to win 4 best Director Oscars, including one for The Grapes of Wrath). John Ford also made a number of westerns, many of them starring John Wayne, but is also very famous for movie such as The Grapes of Wrath and How Green is my Valley). Interestingly, the USA is a land very much against Communist ideologies, so The Grapes of Wrath could have faced trouble due to its leftist ideology; it however did not because of the power of the story.
The movie is now counted as a classic, seen as among the 25 best films ever made. The images portrayed by the ex-preacher and by Connie bring out the desperation of the times. The acting of Henry Fonda, portraying the lead role of Tom Joad is seen as embodying the resilience of the human spirit, the way that he keeps on going inspite of the problems and struggles that he has to go through. Further, the movie provides a strong canvas on which the struggles of people in the dust bowl is painted with broad strokes. These people were poor and not owning the land on which they till, and facing increasing mechanization; with the dual effect forcing them off their land.

The Grapes of Wrath was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, and won 2 of them.
Academy Awards nominations (1941)
* Best Actor in a Leading Role, Henry Fonda
* Best Film Editing, Robert L. Simpson.
* Best Picture, Darryl F. Zanuck and Nunnally Johnson.
* Best Sound Recording, Edmund H. Hansen.
* Best Writing Adapted Screenplay, Nunnally Johnson.
Academy Awards wins (1941)
* Best Supporting Actress, Jane Darwell.
* Academy Award for Directing, John Ford.

The movie, set in the Depression era, takes the plight of farmers in the Dust Bowl who are forcibly dispossessed from their land and left destitute. They did not own the land, and when crops failed, banks took over the land and started bringing in the age of mechanization by bringing in huge machines to work the land. These farmers, then, left with no option, get attracted by the promise of a much better life in California, working in farms and fruit orchards, with good pay. However, the trip there is painful across the desert, and when they eventually reach, they find that they have been brought to California on a dream which is false. Farmers are out to exploit them and pay them rock-bottom wages, betting on so many families arriving there that people are desperate for work.
This is captured in the story of one family, the Joad family. Tom Joad (Henry Fonda), released early (4 years out of a 7 year sentence) makes it to his family farm to find it empty (in between meeting an old and crusty ex-preacher Casy). He soon learns that his family farm had been repossessed by the bank, and after a bit of discussion with a neighbor Muley Graves (who is deranged after his own farm has been foreclosed), he learns that his family is now at this Uncle John’s farm (which will also be foreclosed the next day). The family decides to make a move to California with the promise of getting into better times.
After making the difficult decision of deciding what to take and what to leave, the family sets off, packing the family jalopy full. Along the way, the trip starts taking its toll, with both Grampa an Grandma dying. The family also struggles past suspicious state troops across each state border that they cross. During the course of the journey, they struggle to maintain their pride, and yet they are getting into worse things. Then starts the struggle with the migrant camps (taking up half of the movie).
In the camps, they get into more trouble. Tom is on parole, so he has to avoid trouble, and yet he is not one to take bad behaviour from others lightly, fighting back when he can. Once Casy takes the rap for one such fight and gets run out of town. They finally find work at a ranch, but soon Tom realizes (after a discussion with Casy) that there is a strike ongoing against bad conditions and low pay, and once the strike is broken, the wages will get much lower, and that is eventually what happens. In another fight, Casy is killed, and Tom fights back, killing the attacker (but gets wounded in the face).
This mark on the face is enough to identify him as the person who fought back, and Tom realizes that he will have to leave his family. They manage to leave the camp and for the first time, move into a decent camp run by the Department of Agriculture; which is in much better condition and not subject to intimidation by Sheriff’s deputies. However, Tom soon realizes that even this place is not safe for him and he has to move on, and he finally leaves, after a great scene between him and Ma. Tom wants to continue doing what Casy was doing, but is not clear as to what that will mean; he then makes his final departure, leaving Ma. And Ma makes her own statements, show-casing the power of the human will, no matter what the struggles that they go through, she will not be afraid, and will continue to hold the family together. The movie ends on an optimistic note, as opposed to the book that ended on a far more negative note.

What can you say about a movie that is deemed to be among the greatest movies ever made, and that is one of the few movies to win the top 5 Oscars (more on that later). It is also another of the movies where the original author, on whose novel the movie is based, finally has a dispute with the released movie. In this case, the movie was based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey. Ken was so incensed over a dispute over financial rights that he promised to never see the movie, and so it happened.
The final actors and actresses who played key roles in the movie were not the final choices either. Both Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher were not the first choices for their roles, with more leading stars being proposed, but eventually these two were the final choices, and both went onto win Oscars for their portrayals. The movie itself got great critical acclaim, with most reviewers at the time of release giving a fair amount of praise. And over a period of time, the movie got rated upwards, being deemed among the greatest movies of all times.

The movie was the first movie after It Happened one Night (1934) to win the 5 leading Oscars, and the same feat was only managed after 16 years by Silence of the Lambs. The Oscars won:
* Best Actor for Jack Nicholson
* Best Actress for Louise Fletcher
* Best Direction for Miloš Forman
* Best Picture
* Best Adapted Screenplay for Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman
The movie was also very successful in terms of earning money, far more than expected out of a movie shot in a hospital (and starring the leading man as a person trying to over-turn the dictatorial head of a mental institution who eventually dies). Shot on a budget of approx $ 4 million, the movie earned more than $ 300 million worldwide.
The movie centers on the conflict between a patient at a mental hospital McMurphy (Jack Nocholson), and the element of authority, the supervisory nurse Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). McMurphy is the anti-authoritarian fighter, unwilling to accept authority and repression while the nurse represents the worst of state authority; ultimately the conflict is settled in the nurse’s favor when McMurphy goes down fighting. The movie, by Czech Director Milos Forman, could also be seen as a representation of the ongoing conflict between Soviet repression and the urge of the people under their yoke to be free, or die fighting.
McMurphy is a 38 year person having seen frequent conflict with the law, and sentenced to a prison sentence for statutory rape. He is sent to a mental hospital for evaluation due to his frequent defiance of authority; he sees the mental hospital as a place that will be much lighter for serving the sentence, rather than in the labour work farm where he was imprisoned. In the prison, he comes against the rule and process oriented Nurse Mildred Ratched. She is bureaucratic and authoritarian, and various patients in the hospital all suffer under her repression. Some of the main other characters are:
* The silent, huge and towering Indian giant “Chief” Bromden, aka “Broom” (Creek Indian Will Sampson in his film debut) (who pretends to be dumb as his way of dealing with the repression of the nurse)
* The pathetic, incessantly stuttering, paranoid boychild, thirty-year old Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif in his film debut)
* The short, smiling Martini (Danny De Vito in one of his earliest roles) with an immature personality
* An ineffectual, rationalizing intellectual Dale Harding (William Redfield) - suffering from his wife’s betrayal
McMurphy starts trying to bring some change in to the lives of the inmates, starting them to play basketball, card games, and many mind games over trying to get permission to watch the opener of the 1963 World Series baseball game (including getting the patients to vote on a change of their schedule so that the game can be watched). He keeps on trying to enthuse the patients, to get them to rise against the repressive authority with which their lives are being run, and constantly tries to be one-up against the nurse.
He starts getting traction, with the patients starting to respond back, to question things more, and use their own independent will. In a breakout, they manage to commander the bus and go for a fishing trip after McMurphy manages to convince the charter boat manager that they are all doctors of the mental hospital, but when they get back, the police are waiting for them. Nurse Ratched is even more determined to keep McMurphy and break him.
She gets a chance when disobedience breaks out, and McMurphy and others assault a guard. They are shackled and then taken for electro-shock treatment, but soon comes back to his normal state and starts planning an escape; this is going to be final chapter of his story in the mental hospital. He plans a party in the hospital (against all rules), and gets his 2 girl-friends Candy and Rose to enter the hospital as part of a wild drinking party. After Billy expresses a desire, McMurphy gets Candy to sleep with Billy so that he can finally get rid of his virginity.
The next morning, all hell breaks lose. In the wild drinking party, McMurphy could have escaped, but choose not to. Nurse Ratched, desiring to re-establish authority, starts with Billy and gets him severely guilt-stricken over his conduct (after using his feelings regarding his authoritarian mother), enough that he starts stammering again, and then cuts his throat. McMurphy then loses control, and tries to throttle Nurse Ratched, at which point he is led away and then, it happens. In order to cut his anti-authority tendencies, he is lobotomized, and returns to the ward as a shell of his former self. His friend, the gentle giant, Bromden realizes what has happened, and liberates McMurphy by smothering him to death with his pillow. He finally realizes McMurphy’s dream by escaping from the hospital, but not the other inmates.

I have always thought that because these books are so popular, there would be a large number of reviews, and I am sure that there; but these first 6 books have been out for quite some time and I have enjoyed reading them, so thought about writing this review for the first 6, available in a boxed set for all the 6 books available in paperback (the last one, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is only available in hard cover).
Most people know the story of the author, JK Rowling, when she was a single mother in hard times and wrote these books when she would be sitting in a coffee house. It makes these books all the more special because of these circumstances. Most kids I know, and a lot of adults (including me), really like these books and the way that the story pans out. It gets progressively darker with each book, but I would still recommend this for children to read.

The collection contains the following books with their release dates:
1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (26 June 1997) (titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the United States)
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2 July 1998)
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (8 July 1999)
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (8 July 2000)
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (21 June 2003)
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (16 July 2005)
The books have been evenly spaced in their release, keeping most fans waiting with nervous excitement, only to be replaced by a buying frenzy when the book (after the first one) was finally released. I was initially skeptical, but then I read the first book around the year 2000, and then bought the others as they were released, being a firm fan after that.
For me, even when you describe the events as happening in a magical world, with dragons, wizards, witches, etc., overall the concept of emotions in the life of Harry Potter and his close friends Hermione Ganger and Ron Weasley seem to ring true and lifelike. You find yourself engrossed in the book, and actually involved in their life in terms of wishing for good things to happen to them.
The concept of camadrie and friendship described in the book are worthy to be emulated, also the parts of how the close-knit Weasley family (with the exception of Percy) stick together supporting each other. Even the attitude of Harry in terms of dealing with various types of animals in terms of caring for them is a positive attitude for growing up children. And his feelings for the opposite sex and how he lives with these feelings as he slowly matures was pretty tender reading.

For people in this age, this book, published in 1960 (written by William L Shirer) may seem totally out of date, and something that is of a different age. Further, the end of Nazi Germany and World War 2 in Europe happened in 1945 (more than 60 years ago), so why bother. Read this book, and you will know why this book is still relevant today. That’s also the reason why this book, though 47 years old now, is still being published and sold in fairly high volumes.
There are a lot of people nowadays who don’t know what the period of World War II, and Germany before that, were like. My understanding of that stage got clear after reading this book, and once you read such a book, the most common reaction is ‘Never Again’. The book is a fairly big book, over 11oo pages, so may slightly over-whelming initially, but the book is written in a fairly engaging manner, and does not seem like a historical work. It focuses on the personalities involved.
The book is based on the massive amount of captured documents that detailed the work of the Third Reich, details from the Nuremberg trials, and the experience of the author in Germany till 1940. The book details the rise of the Third Reich from the time after the defeat in the first world war, and the efforts by Hitler to build up a platform, the way he starts to build his platform of hate, and attracts a lot of people disillusioned by the current goings on. In addition, there are a number of people who blamed the jewish community, and communism for the current state of Germany and he starts to become their natural leader. There is a lot of detail in these sections, explaining how Hitler managed to plot his way to the leader of Germany and then dispense with democracy.
The growth of the Nazis pushes a set of leaders such as Goering, Goebbels, Rommel, etc who are powerful, and push aside all other power structures that existed till now, a lot of this having to do with setting up agencies such as the Gestapo that enforced a rule of terror. He systematically kept the army on a short leash, making sure that the army was totally subservient to the Nazi structure. In addition, weak European rulers and an insular US provided Hitler the stage to disregard earlier obligations, enhance military abilities and slowly take over other European countries.
Hitler realized that he had to break the Soviet and British regimes so that he would be the unchallenged autocrat. He almost achieved his goals, trying to bombard Britain into submission and attack the Soviet Union when they were not ready. However, he failed to break Britain, and then after the invasion of the Soviet Union was an initial spectacular success, it ground to a halt. Even though the Soviet Union suffered incredible casualties, they managed to halt the feared panzer divisions and then the course of the war changed. The red army managed to push the German army back from the Soviet Union and ultimately conquered Germany along with the western allies. At the peak of its conquest, Germany ruled over almost all of Europe, and was all powerful, including large sections of Africa along with its ally Italy.
Once the Nazi regime was defeated, Hitler committed suicide, rather than be displayed in a cage in Moscow (as Stalin threatened). The remaining leaders were tried in Nuremberg in the first such trial of people for genocide, and a number of them were sentenced to death.
When the German army was being pushed back, the world was witness to an inhuman spectacle. The Nazi’s had come up with a Final Solution to the jewish problem, and the Final Solution involved the use of concentration camps, gas chambers, gory medical experiments and other such inhumanity. In addition to jews, those butchered included others deemed unsuitable by the Nazis - homosexuals, gypsies, communists. The loss of humanity during the Nazi rule included such thing as killing large numbers of people because a Nazi was killed, treating prisoners of war very inhumanely, and treating captured civilians without any humanity.
Read this book, it will give an idea of what humankind can do to each other, and then you will realize why the motto should be ‘Never again’.

This is a pretty short novel. I have known people to read it one sitting, but nobody who has read it has forgotten this book. Written in 1970, it has been made into a great movie. Even though this book is a tragedy, it is widely acknowledged as a master-piece in romance. 2 famous phrases from the book - The starting “What can you say about a twenty-five year old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. The Beatles. And me.” & the line that stays throughout the movie “Love never means having to say you’re sorry”. The movie got a host of nominations, but won one Oscar only, due to its musical score.
Storyline is simple: Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O’Neil in the movie), studying in Harvard Law, from a wealthy family, meets a girl Jennifer Cavilleri (Ali MacGraw) who taunts him and otherwise does not seem too impressed by his wealth. He in turn is smitten by her and does not treat her like any other conquest. They figure out that they are in love and want to marry each other.
Oliver’s father is not very impressed, and cuts him off. They marry, and struggle through his college, while she pays by teaching at a private school, thus supporting the family. Life is fun, and when he graduates, they are in a better financial position. Planning for a baby, when talking to doctors, Oliver learns that she is ill and will die soon. He struggles to keep the information from her, but she soon discovers the truth.
They are going through cancer therapy, hoping for a cure. Oliver, for paying the medical bills, borrows money from his father by making an excuse, but time is running out. Jennifer is ready to face death, and consoles her father and husband to love her a last time, and then she dies …
By this time, Oliver’s father has learnt the truth, and reaches the hospital after Jennifer has died, trying to console his son.