Cohort. Magazine (Issue 2)

Cohort. issue 2
3
Totto-Chan
by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi
“But Yasuaki-chan trusted Totto-chan completely. And Totto-chan
was risking her life for him. With her tiny hands clutching
his, she pulled with all her might. From time to rime a large
cloud would mercifully protect them from the blistering sun.”
This book is my childhood favorite. Although the story is not explicitly
laid out as to adopt love theme, you will find yourself smiling of happiness
because there’s simplicity of love laid in it. Totto-chan is written
memoir by the author of the name Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. Set before and
during the world war II, the story is about a girl named Totto-chan who is
a highly curious girl and labelled as trouble-maker and said to does not
met the standard to study in common school and was forced to leave
the school. Her mother then brought her to Tomoe Gakuen--a school
which used railroad car as their classes. There she met Sosaku Kobayashi,
a principle and an educator who truly believes in freedom, love
and fun in running the school system. Totto-chan is engaged in memorable
school-ing journey where she is allowed to be herself and doing
the learning in her own way. every students in class are allowed to
learn anything they want even when it means tinkering around with toys!
She also learned to treat everyone with compassion, no matter how
weird one might be. Because no one person is the same with the other.
LITERATURE
4
The Forty Rules of Love
by Elif Shafak
“Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation.
If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means
we haven’t loved enough”
This book is so excessively beautiful, be it from the characters wise, Plot
wise, and the forty-rules of love in it. In my opinion, there are not so many
books these days, as original as this one. Despite integrating history and
religious belief, it is still able to contain both exciting and alluring story
as well as going in depth into concept of love. The Forty Rules of Love
consist of two narratives told alternatingly; one contemporary, about
Ella who reviewed the book title Sweet Blasphemy and the other set in
13th-century about Rumi and his companion Shams on the quest of defining
forty rules of love (which is what Sweet Blasphemy about). Personally,
I found the narrative about ella is empty and only serve as the approach
to introduce Sweet Blasphemy as the main story. Elif Shafak is however
really creative and purely brilliant on writing the second narrative by using
so many perspectives from all the characters in The Sweet Blasphemy.
Shams of Thabriz, is such a strong and vivid character, he is bold,
brilliant and soft but also shown as imperfect at the same time. The core
story is about love, but not like any-other love-themed story. It speaks
in depth about more widened concept of love, asking us to undo everything
we know about love and to redefine it in more wise perspective.
33