J california cooper biography summary of thomas
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An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl.
One interesting consideration might be why Clora blatantly prefers her daughter, "Always," to her son, "Sun."
First, the names should be treated for their mythic properties.
Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
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CALIFORNIA COOPER is the author of the novels Family and In Search of Satisfaction, and of several short-story collections: Homemade Love, the winner of the 1989 American Book Award; A Piece of Mine; The Future Has a Past; Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime; The Matter Is Life; and Some Soul to Keep. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids.
The sun, which rises and sets each day, to rise again reborn from the horizon, symbolizes masculine energy, and the daughter's timeless, eternal quality is symbolized in her name, "Always." For the mother to prefer the daughter to the son is a way of saying that she prefers the eternal quality of life to the physical reality of her situation.
Each child represents a cosmic point of view.
Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man").
Although the mythic implication of this verges on philosophy, the literal implication is clear; through the improved fates of her children throughout time, Clora's life and suffering are redeemed as she watches over them from death.
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California Cooper, Joan California Cooper, is an African-American playwright and author. The son, with his daily illumination, represents the waking consciousness that we might call "real life." The claim of the novel is clearly that, even through Clora's suicide, she is able to transcend that life to belong in the realm of "Always." The promise is a kind of eternal life.
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Ask Your Own QuestionEssays for Family (Cooper Novel)
Family essays are academic essays for citation. She is the writer of 17 plays and the winner of BlackPlaywright of the Year in 1978.
Alice Walker has said of Cooper: "Her style is deceptivelysimple and direct and the vale of tears in which her charactersreside is never so deep that a rich chuckle at a foolish person's foolishnesscannot be heard." It was at the encouragement of Walker that Cooperturned from her claim to fame in the theater and startedwritingshort stories.
California Cooper
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J. Americans should flock to it like gulls. She lives in northern California.
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Series
Books:
Homemade Love, September 2024Trade Paperback
Some Soul to Keep, June 2024
Trade Paperback
Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns, April 2006
Hardcover
Some People, Some Other Place, April 2006
Paperback
Who is J.
California Cooper?
J. The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
This means that perhaps the story should be seen as a systemic depiction of life for a slave in American slavery, instead of being seen as a particular story alone. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Family by J. California Cooper.
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With her children's blatantly archetypal names, Clora's story is one that should be treated on different levels, including at least the mythic level.