Entry Four - Why Revolver?

I decided to read Revolver, by Marcus Sedgwick, because the title seemed very interesting. I sensed that it would be a book that had a lot of action and was interesting to read. It seemed like a book that would hold my attention, and had several interesting themes and scenes.

I could connect with Sig and Anna after reading this book, because I know throughout the whole novel they were trying to do everything with the lessons and skills that they had been taught by their parents. It was obvious to me that they were trying to make the right choices. Another connection I made with this book after reading it is that I was able to feel much sympathy for Sig and Anna. After all the losses that they went through, and struggle they went through financially and physically, they wind up having to deal with Wolff. This shows that they are very motivated and brave people and they will never give up on a challenge.

I also can admire Maria and Einar. Maria was just a good person who was making her children good people, too, by making them true followers of God and reading passages from the Bible regularly. She gave them an important base for their lives and decisions. Einar was doing everything he could, no matter how risky or dangerous it was, to provide the best for his family. I admired how much he gave, and did, with one goal – to make life better for his family. He showed his love for his family through his actions. My admiration of those characters gave me another connection to this book.

 

         This Bible represents the goal that Maria had which is to make her children better people, as explained above.

I would recommend this book to somebody who likes action, but can also handle sad turns of events. This book is very interesting. Not only because of the action, but also because of the cliffhangers provided by Sedgwick. I think several of my friends would enjoy this book as much as I did, and I plan to recommend it to them.

Entry Three - Interesting Part of the Story

An important part of the novel that I found very interesting, and got me intrigued by the book even more, is the part of the story where Sig remembers when he walked out to the frozen lake to see his dad's dead body there. At that moment, he remembered that he saw papers lying around the body. This was news that Wolff found interesting, because it could've had some information about the location of the gold Wolff was trying to find. Unfortunately for Wolff, Sig remembered these papers when it was dark outside, so they had to wait until morning to go get the papers. That night, Sig thought of going up to get his dad's gun that was in storage. He thought that this could have been a great time to get rid of Wolff. When Sig tried to stand up from his chair though, he was surprised to see that Wolff was awake the whole time, as he was a crossed the hall. As soon as Sig got up from his chair, Wolff pointed his gun at Sig as a warning to sit down. 

      As the morning appeared, Wolff was ready to go fetch those papers, but he didn't know what to do with Anna. As he didn't want to take both Sig and Anna out with him, Wolff asked Sig if they had any rope. Sig recalled that he did have some up in storage. Sig went up to the storage room to get rope and then, again, he thought it would have been a great time to grab the gun and shoot Wolff. As Sig thought about it longer and longer, and wrestled with the decision, Wolff came and told Sig to hurry up and get the rope. So, Sig ended up pushing the gun aside and getting the rope for Wolff. Wolff tied up Anna to a chair with the rope. After that, he and Sig went out to go get those papers that Sig said he'd remembered seeing. Sure enough, there were papers sitting right next to where the body was. When Wolff and Sig returned, they saw that Anna was no longer tied onto the chair, and that she had escaped. Nobody knew where Anna went, or what she was planning to do.

      I found this part of the book to be very "hooking." The tone was very suspenseful, and there were many cliffhangers presented. You really did not know what was going to happen next. We didn't know if Sig was going to try to do something in the middle of the night. We didn't know if he was going to grab the gun while he was in the storage room. We didn’t know if Wolff would shoot Sig, or harm Anna. We didn't know if the papers were even there where Sig had said they were. We didn't know if Anna was going to be in that chair, or what she was going to do. That made the book so much more intriguing to me, and there was no way that I could ever have stopped reading Revolver during this portion of the story.

      This weapon - a Colt handgun – represents the struggle Sig faced of deciding whether killing Wolff was the right choice, or not, in this section of the book. This could have changed the whole story immensely.

Entry Two - Important Things to Understand About the Novel

In the novel I am reading, Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick, there are five major characters. I will be discussing each of their individual complexities.

Sig wants to represent his family in a positive way. He learned a lot of valuable lessons from his mother and father, and he carries them out to the real world. His parents, in their separate ways, taught Sig and his siblings to know as much as they could of how the world works, and how other people will treat you. Sig is really good at working through things when he is in a tough spot and not disappointing anybody. An example of this approach is that he chooses to shoot Wolff in the hand, rather than kill him, when he had the choice to do either one. He wants his loved ones and himself to be safe and happy.

Anna wants to help her family anyway that she can. For example, the first thing she did when she walked into the cabin with Sig lying there hurt and Wolff standing in the room was to rush to her brother to help him get better. She, too, learned those same valuable lessons as Sig did from their parents. She recognizes that life is hard and people need to take care of themselves as their father taught them, but also tries to live a life of love and peace, like her mother did.

Einar always puts family first. He wants the best for his family, even if it is not what is best for him personally. An example of this is that Einar had been stealing gold from his job the whole time and taking it home for his family. I'm sure he knew that, by doing that, he could've gotten hurt or even killed, but he wanted the best for his family. He was doing what he felt he needed to do, to take care of his family in desperate circumstances.

Gunther Wolff is a character that just wants what he wants, no matter how selfish or mean it is. He will do anything to get what he wants. As an example, Wolff traveled for ten years to get to Einar's cabin so he could get the gold that Einar had been stealing. Wolff was driven to get that gold back from Einar and his family. I think that Wolff could relate to President Snow, from the Hunger Games, because President Snow does a lot of selfish things just to get what he wants. Snow puts a lot of other people in bad situations, only to make things better for him. To learn more about President Snow, click here. 

Maria wanted for her family to be great followers of God. She would always tell her children Bible verses that would serve as a life lesson and would stick with them forever. She always talked about God and the Bible. Maria was trying to make her children better people, and teaching them to face challenges with love and faith.  

      I think that the main theme of this novel is to respect and honor your family, and all the characteristics about them, because you never know when or how they could be beneficial to you. I think that another theme in this book is to work together when you are in a hard situation with somebody, because they could always be a big help to you and help you to achieve something that you couldn't do by yourself. We saw this happen with Sig and Anna during the novel. Anna, for example, reminds Sig that “There’s always a third choice in life. Even if you think you’re stuck between two impossible choices, there’s always a third way. You just have to look for it” (Sedgwick, 116).

      The structure of this novel is very unique and interesting because it is not an ordinary structure of a book. What Sedgwick does, throughout the book, is that he alternates between the past and the present during the book. One chapter could be about the past, or the present, or both. That is a very unique structure, in my opinion. This approach helps the reader understand why some of the things that are happening in the present are taking place. Also, there are a lot more chapters than there is in an ordinary book, so that is different as well.

Entry One - Major Aspects of the Novel

I am reading the book Revolver, by Marcus Sedgwick. In this novel, there are five major characters. Their names are the Einar, Sig, Anna, Maria, and Gunther Wolff. This story takes place during the time frame that runs from the Alaskan gold rush to the Vietnam War. This story mostly takes place in a cabin in the Arctic Circle. The conflict for the audience is the circumstances that surround the family, and the challenges that they face in those conditions and within the family, when bad things continue to happen to good people.

There is a loving family, the Andersson's, who are living in a small cabin in the Arctic Circle with very little food and money. Sickness and crime surrounds them. There is no law enforcement where they live. Sig has to see his whole family drift away from him, through death or from people just leaving, except his sister, Anna. Sig and Anna have to eventually live on their own in this cabin. The character of Gunther Wolff presents a major conflict for Sig. Wolff threatens to kill Sig and Anna if they don't tell Wolff where the gold that Einar, Sig and Anna's dad, supposedly stole from him. Sig and Anna honestly have no idea where the gold is. They didn't even know that their dad stole any gold because their family was so poor, and they get injured physically and emotionally. They had no idea what to do about Wolff, because he was not going to leave without either killing both Anna and Sig or getting his gold.

I predict that Anna and Sig get rid of Wolff, but not by giving him his gold. I also predict that the gold will be founded by Sig and Anna, but Wolff will not know. I predict that Anna and Sig will be alive at the end of this novel.

Some questions that I have are 'Why include Nadya in the novel – she doesn’t seem to be a major character, or add much?' Another question that I have is ‘Why did Marcus Sedgwick write this book? Is it based on a true story?'

This novel could connect to the movie 'Hercules.' The connection that I see between the two is that Hercules and his team go out to complete a mission and are paid a lot of gold in return. Hercules must, in completing his mission, kill other people in the armies he and his team fight while on their mission. The difference between the book and the movie, however, is that Hercules is the good person – a positive character – in his story.  Gunther is the enemy – a negative character – in the novel.

To read a summary of the movie 'Hercules' click here.