conversations.from: human
conversations.value: a description for a book titled Things Fall Apart about Maryland, Rhineland, Texas with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The author spawned in the mottled depths of DC a slanderous night and was before his crawling days whisked from urban blight to glorious Rhineland where in a rudimentary habitation he pupated some years in a cedar closet before being deemed hazardous by the authorities and shipped to Texas. There he proceeded to waste his elementary years in the local taverns, being banished from several and oft suspended from school and once for his writings. At the end of a haphazard interim he eventuated in Maryland where he graduated college via expulsion and alternated between unloading trucks and hawking mattresses to the unwary and unrefined whichever was at hand and preferring neither. Succumbing to an aneurism induced altruism he volunteered as an EMT before regaining his senses to become a fulltime process server. His writing has been called verbose though admittedly it was better this than loquacious. He can be found still in Maryland atimes and occasionally haunting the hostels of the Balkans or Ukraine.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: a plot for a book titled Things Fall Apart. Start with the sentence 'Things Fall Apart (Ugly Betty): Daniel is sick and checks into a luxury hotel where he can be babied'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Things Fall Apart (Ugly Betty): Daniel is sick and checks into a luxury hotel where he can be babied.\nMolly brings him soup and he complains that he\'s dying.\nShe has something serious to tell him about but changes her mind, saying it can wait.\nWilhelmina wakes to find Connor holding baby William.\nShe wishes that they could just "live in this moment" and laments that they both have to go to work.\nBetty and Marc\'s YETI assignment for next week: Do a presentation on their magazine\'s budget.\nMatt volunteers his help because he\'s got an MBA but Betty turns him down.\nMarc points out to a clueless Betty that Matt was asking for a date.\nHe also teases her about what it will be like to return to the accounting department, since it will remind her of Henry.\nSure enough, the new accountant gives them an update: Henry\'s just posted pictures on Facebook of him and his new girlfriend in Peru.\nJustin advises Betty to channel her frustration over Henry into a project, so she buries herself in Mode\'s budget numbers.\nWhen the budget comes up short by several millions, she asks Daniel, who tells her to take it up with Connor or Wilhelmina.\nConnor explains that corporations often move money from one account to another and that it\'s nothing unusual.\nOut of earshot, Connor, makes a call to his banker saying, "Looks like I might have to make my next transfer ahead of schedule".\nConnor suggests that he and Wilhelmina get away, and she thinks he\'s talking about a long weekend, but he\'s got something more long-term in mind.\nBetty tells Marc about the budget discrepancy and he\'s skeptical that she caught something that all the real accountants didn\'t.\nMarc thinks it\'s all about her being jealous over Henry having a new girlfriend, and advises her to find a new guy.\nBetty decides to give Matt a call, but Connor interrupts, telling her he appreciates her "moxie".\nAfter multiple interruptions, she blurts out over the phone to Matt, "Do you want to go get a drink.\n" Matt backs up Betty\'s suspicions about the budget as they chit-chat over drinks.\nWhen she gets a text message from Henry, requesting to be her friend on Facebook, she spills the whole story to Matt, who listens patiently.\nShe decides to get going and he tries to stop her, so she tells him that she\'s not ready to see anyone right now.\nBut he was simply going to tell her that he forgot his wallet.\nShe offers to get some money from an ATM, but forgets all about Matt when she sees that she has an extra $100,000 in her account.\nShe goes to ask her family\'s advice, and then finally remembers Matt, but only gets his voicemail.\nHe shows up at Mode to tell her it\'s fine since the bar started a tab for him.\nHe knows she\'s not over Henry and she insists she is, but believes that dating a colleague is a bad idea.\nBetty asks the Meade accountant to check on her account and it says that a "B.\nSuarez" authorized the transfer.\nShe asks Connor if he knows what\'s going on.\nIn the elevator, Connor implies that any one investigating the money transfer will believe that Betty did it herself.\nShe asks if he\'s responsible.\nConnor stops the elevator and looms over her threateningly.\n"I don\'t know why anyone has to know about stealing from the company.\nThe way I see it, if you keep quiet about this, there\'s no reason that anyone needs to know about the money in your account," he says, adding that papers he had her sign implicate not just her, but Daniel as well.\nHe warns her not to tell anyone else, and threatens he\'ll "ruin their life with a couple of keystrokes".\nConnor goes to tell Wilhelmina everything.\n"I\'m stealing from the company.\nI\'m taking the money and I\'m leaving the country and I want you and the baby to come with me".\nHe confesses that he hates Daniel for taking Molly from him, but that he loves Willy now, not Molly.\n"When I found out about them, I came up with a plan to steal everything.\nI found a way to take all of their money and I want to give it to you.\nWe could work for these people for the rest of our lives or we could be happy together".\nHe\'s chartered a private jet that\'s leaving tonight and he wants her to be on it.\nWilhelmina confides to Marc that she\'s considering leaving the country with Connor.\n"Mode is your life," he tells her, and she insists it\'s her one chance at love.\n"If you had a chance to have all the money you ever needed and be with the person you loved for the rest of your life, would you do it.\n" Marc doesn\'t know what to tell her.\nBetty informs Daniel of Connor\'s scheme and Daniel isn\'t sure whether to go to the police, so they call Claire.\nNo one\'s seen Connor in hours, or Wilhelmina either, but Claire has more bad news, "As of noon, all of the Meade accounts have been cleared out.\nWe\'re going to have to find that money, or this company is dead".\nMarc\'s loyalties are conflicted, but he hands Betty the address where Wilhelmina is meeting Connor.\n"You didn\'t get this from me.\nIf you hurry you can still stop her".\nDaniel, Claire and Betty arrive at the airport to stop Wilhelmina.\nShe tells them that if they thought she was running way with Connor, "You don\'t know me at all," just as the police, whom she called, arrive.\nBut Connor\'s already gone.\nHe calls to tell her he took an earlier flight and that he still loves her.\n"He asked me to choose, him or my career," Wilhelmina sadly tells Betty.\n"You have to make choices.\nYou can\'t have it all.\nYou are a career girl just like me.\nYou\'ll see".\nBetty returns home to find Elena handing out presents from her trip to LA.\nAlone with her in the kitchen, Betty confides she might have just lost her job.\nShe asks Elena if she ever had to make a choice between work and a personal life.\n"If I felt like that, I never would have met your father," she answers.\nBetty wistfully watches her father and Elena cuddling on the couch.\nShe decides to accept Henry\'s friend request.\nThen she goes to find Matt at his usual bar, where she\'s just in time to bail him out from another cashless situation.\nMolly is waiting at Daniel\'s office.\nHe suspects she saw him looking at engagement rings, but she replies, "We don\'t have a future, because I don\'t have one.\nI\'m sick.\nIt\'s cancer.\nI beat it before and it\'s back".\nShe insists she can\'t put him through what she put Connor through a few years ago, so she\'s going to go stay with her family.\nHe begs her not to go, but she walks out.\nClaire, who witnessed the whole thing, comes to comfort him.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the first five paragraphs for this book. End with the sentence ' Unoka went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden disc containing a kola nut, some alligator pepper and a lump of white chalk.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Things Fall Apart
  The drums beat and the flutes sang and the spectators held their breath. Amalinze was a wily craftsman, but Okonkwo was as slippery as a fish in water. Every nerve and every muscle stood out on their arms, on their backs and their thighs, and one almost heard them stretching to breaking point. In the end Okonkwo threw the Cat.
  That was many years ago, twenty years or more, and during this time Okonkwo's fame had grown like a bush-fire in the harmattan. He was tall and huge, and his bushy eyebrows and wide nose gave him a very severe look. He breathed heavily, and it was said that, when he slept, his wives and children in their houses could hear him breathe. When he walked, his heels hardly touched the ground and he seemed to walk on springs, as if he was going to pounce on somebody. And he did pounce on people quite often. He had a slight stammer and whenever he was angry and could not get his words out quickly enough, he would use his fists. He had no patience with unsuccessful men. He had had no patience with his father.
  Unoka, for that was his father's name, had died ten years ago. In his day he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow. If any money came his way, and it seldom did, he immediately bought gourds of palm-wine, called round his neighbors and made merry. He always said that whenever he saw a dead man's mouth he saw the folly of not eating what one had in one's lifetime. Unoka was, of course, a debtor, and he owed every neighbor some money, from a few cowries to quite substantial amounts.
  That was years ago, when he was young. Unoka, the grown-up, was a failure. He was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat. People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back. But Unoka was such a man that he always succeeded in borrowing more, and piling up his debts.
  One day a neighbor called Okoye came in to see him. He was reclining on a mud bed in his hut playing on the flute. He immediately rose and shook hands with Okoye, who then unrolled the goatskin which he carried under his arm, and sat down. Unoka went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden disc containing a kola nut, some alligator pepper and a lump of white chalk.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: four more paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Ekwefi could already see the hills looming in the moonlight. They formed a circular ring with a break at one point through which the foot-track led to the center of the circle.
  As soon as the priestess stepped into this ring of hills her voice was not only doubled in strength but was thrown back on all sides. It was indeed the shrine of a great god. Ekwefi picked her way carefully and quietly. She was already beginning to doubt the wisdom of her coming. Nothing would happen to Ezinma, she thought. And if anything happened to her could she stop it? She would not dare to enter the underground caves. Her coming was quite useless, she thought.
  As these things went through her mind she did not realize how close they were to the cave mouth. And so when the priestess with Ezinma on her back disappeared through a hole hardly big enough to pass a hen, Ekwefi broke into a run as though to stop them. As she stood gazing at the circular darkness which had swallowed them, tears gushed from her eyes, and she swore within her that if she heard Ezinma cry she would rush into the cave to defend her against all the gods in the world. She would die with her.
  Having sworn that oath, she sat down on a stony ledge and waited. Her fear had vanished. She could hear the priestess' voice, all its metal taken out of it by the vast emptiness of the cave. She buried her face in her lap and waited.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the last five paragraphs
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Obierika, who had been gazing steadily at his friend's dangling body, turned suddenly to the District Commissioner and said ferociously: "That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be buried like a dog...." He could not say any more. His voice trembled and choked his words.
  In the fictional West African nation Kangan, newly independent of British rule, the hopes and dreams of democracy have been quashed by a fierce military dictatorship. Chris Oriko is a member of the cabinet of the president for life, one of his oldest friends. When the president is charged with censoring the oppositionist editor of the state-run newspaper—another childhood friend—Chris's loyalty and ideology are put to the test. The fate of Kangan hangs in the balance as tensions rise and a devious plot is set in motion to silence the firebrand critic.
  Ezeulu, the chief priest of several Nigerian villages, is a prominent member of the Igbo people. So prominent, in fact, that he is invited to join the British colonial administration. But when he refuses to be a "white man's chief" and is thrown in jail, Ezeulu's influence begins to wane, as the resentful decisions he makes from prison have adverse effects on his people. As Christian missionaries flood Ezeulu's villages, Western culture may very well unravel the traditions he has spent his life protecting.
  Chinua Achebe's characteristically eloquent and nuanced voice is everywhere present in these seventeen beautifully written pieces. From a vivid portrait of growing up in colonial Nigeria to considerations on the African-American diaspora, from a glimpse into his extraordinary family life and his thoughts on the potent symbolism of President Obama's election—this charmingly personal, intellectually disciplined, and steadfastly wise collection is an indispensable addition to the remarkable Achebe oeuvre.
  Here we read of an ambitious farmer who is suddenly shunned by his village when a madman exacts his humiliating revenge; a young nanny who is promised an education by her well-to-do employers, only to be cruelly cheated out of it; and in three fiercely observed stories about the Nigerian civil war, we are confronted with the economic, ethnic, cultural, and religious tensions that continue to rack modern Africa.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the first five paragraphs for this book
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Things Fall Apart
  Arrow of God has ardent admirers as well as ardent detractors. To the latter nothing more need be said. To the others I can only express the hope that the changes I have made will meet with their approval. But in the nature of things there may well be some so steadfast in their original affection that they will see these changes as uncalled for or even unjustified. Perhaps changes are rarely called for or justified, and yet we keep making them. We should be ready at the very least to salute those who stand fast, the spiritual descendants of that magnificent man, Ezeulu, in the hope that they will forgive us. For had he been spared Ezeulu might have come to see his fate as perfectly consistent with his high historic destiny as victim, consecrating by his agony—thus raising to the stature of a ritual passage—the defection of his people. And he would gladly have forgiven them.
  This was the third nightfall since he began to look for signs of the new moon. He knew it would come today but he always began his watch three days early because he must not take a risk. In this season of the year his task was not too difficult; he did not have to peer and search the sky as he might do when the rains came. Then the new moon sometimes hid itself for days behind rain clouds so that when it finally came out it was already halfgrown. And while it played its game the Chief Priest sat up every evening waiting.
  His obi was built differently from other men's huts. There was the usual, long threshold in front but also a shorter one on the right as you entered. The eaves on this additional entrance were cut back so that sitting on the floor Ezeulu could watch that part of the sky where the moon had its door. It was getting darker and he constantly blinked to clear his eyes of the water that formed from gazing so intently.
  Ezeulu did not like to think that his sight was no longer as good as it used to be and that some day he would have to rely on someone else's eyes as his grandfather had done when his sight failed. Of course he had lived to such a great age that his blindness became like an ornament on him. If Ezeulu lived to be so old he too would accept such a loss. But for the present he was as good as any young man, or better because young men were no longer what they used to be. There was one game Ezeulu never tired of playing on them. Whenever they shook hands with him he tensed his arm and put all his power into the grip, and being unprepared for it they winced and recoiled with pain.
  The moon he saw that day was as thin as an orphan fed grudgingly by a cruel foster-mother. He peered more closely to make sure he was not deceived by a feather of cloud. At the same time he reached nervously for his ogene. It was the same at every new moon. He was now an old man but the fear of the new moon which he felt as a little boy still hovered round him. It was true that when he became Chief Priest of Ulu the fear was often overpowered by the joy of his high office; but it was not killed. It lay on the ground in the grip of the joy.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: another paragraph
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The conflict in his mind was finally resolved for him on the third day from a very unexpected quarter. His last visitor that day had been Ogbuefi Ofoka, one of the worthiest men in Umuaro but not a frequent visitor to Ezeulu's house. Ofoka was well known for speaking his mind. He was not one of those who would praise a man because he had offered him palm wine. Rather than let palm wine blind him Ofoka would throw it away, put his horn back in his goatskin bag and speak his mind.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: His last visitor that day had been Ogbuefi Ofoka, one of the worthiest men in Umuaro but not a frequent visitor to Ezeulu's house. Ofoka was well known for speaking his mind. He was not one of those who would praise a man because he had offered him palm wine. Rather than let palm wine blind him Ofoka would throw it away, put his horn back in his goatskin bag and speak his mind.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: the last paragraph
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Everybody wondered why. The learned judge, as we have seen, could not comprehend how an educated young man and so on and so forth. The British Council man, even the men of Umuofia, did not know. And we must presume that, in spite of his certitude, Mr. Green did not know either.