TRIAGE CHAPTER BY CHAPTER SYNOPSIS.
Triage: The process of prioritising medical patients.
Three - Patterns.
Scott Anderson - War correspondent
Kurdistan - Middle east, history of tension with neighbours surrounded by war torn countries.
SYNOPSIS POINTS:
*BRIEF SUMMARY
*SIGNIFICANT MOMENTS
*MAJOR THEMES
*PERSONAL RELFECTIONS
CHAPTER ONE:
Brief summary:
Mark Walsh was hiking, explosion, lying on a rock, got up, walked to a river, fell in, nearly died, found + taken to harir cave, given yellow tag, spoke to talzani, 8 o'clock jeep to air port.
What was around his neck?
Significant moments: Waking up on the rock and deciding to live, falling in the river, confusion, yellow tags gives him hope (mean nothing to talzani), discussion with talzani, trying to tell him something.
Themes: life + death.
Chapter 2:
Brief Summary:
Mark gets home to new york, where his wife lives with him, small amounts of marriage tension, much character development. Elena goes to work at the U.N
Significant moments:
Elena bathes him, sees his wounds and bruises, subtly confronts him, mark says only that he fell in a river. Elena worries for Mark much in his profession, is no longer excited by his abscences, Mark is struggling to tell Elena about what happened. Mark starts to wongly recount the length of living room. Elena starts to wonder about Colin's whereabouts.
Major themes:
Love, Worry, Romance, Altruism, Emotional Protection.
Personal Reflection:
Not doing it because by now it is too retrospective.
Chapter 3:
Brief Summary:
Mark's condition deteriorates both mentally and physically, he continues to keep the truth from Elena, Elena and Diane worry about colin at a lunch, Mark's photos are successful with his manager, she offers for him to go to burma with The Times, he accepts (but later decides against it and tells Elena so, because he wants to have a baby with her), they go to a museum, and a party, Mark is increasingly emotionally erratic, a strange man appears outside Elena's office and talks with her about contacting her grandfather in relation to the whereabouts of his dad, much backstory about Elena's grandpa and their relationship. Elena talks to her mother about her worry that mark is losing it, Elena tells mark to see a doctor, he doesn't, then it becomes apparent that Elena's mother has rung up her grandpa and he is flying to new york from spain, against Elena's wishes. Mark begins looking to plan a vacation or even relocation, and then goes home and collapses, his legs stop working, rushed to hospital.
Significant Moments:
Mark's counting of the paces across his room, when they have sex, Mark experiencing pure joy outside the museum, then telling Elena that he wants a baby, Elena leaving a message on Jaoquin's answering machine, Mark's behaviour at a celebratory dinner, and at a party, Elena finding mark on the bathroom floor and calling the ambulance, Mark's mental and to a lesser extent physical experience as this is happening.
Major Themes: Family (or detatchment from), War's atrocities, Insanity.
Personal reflection: N/A, too retrospective.
Chapter 4:
Brief Summary:
Mark awakes in hospital, agrees to let doctors tell Elena about the truth of what happened in Kurdistan, Jaoquin arrives in New York City, back story about him, including his work for fascists in the spanish civil war and the requisition of the mansion that would later become his psych ward for "mental purification" of traumatised soldiers. Elena begins to feel remorse for her harsh actions in regards to her Grandpa. Against Elena's wishes he goes to the hospital and speaks with Mark, convinces him that he can help him more than other doctors, Mark and Elena have words about it, she disagrees that this is the case, Elena find out about her Grandfather's visit to Mark. Mark comes home.
Significant Moments: Jaoquin and Elena's meeting at the airport and the taxi ride back, Jaoquin's extortion of the landowner back in civil war spain, his discussion with Mark, Mark telling Elena that she needs to forgive her Grandpa, Elena telling her Grandpa that his efforts to win her love back will be in vain, Jaoquin asserting that he is a doctor to Elena, Mark, and the hospital receptionist. Jaoquin's speech about never eliminating suffering, simply carrying it with you, and him telling Elena that she is all he has left. Mark's story about the Shiite boy who was shot before him.
Major themes: Regret, Suffering, patriotism, fascism, heritage.
Personal reflection: Will Elena tell the man who came to her office at the U.N that her grandpa is in town? What will be the contrast between the views of Mark's REAL shrink, and Jaoquin?
Chapter 5:
Brief Summary:
Therapy Continues. The truth about Colin emerges and Diane is told what had happened. Diane's baby is born and the decision is taken to go to Spain.
Significant moments: Mark lying to his family about his injuries, mark's father speaking to him about war, elena confronting jaquin about carlos perez and jaquin lying, mark's story about the skulls, mark and jaquin making the map on the wall and mark's flashback about colin' death, jaquin's plea for elena to bring mark for a visit to spain.
Major themes:
Family, life, death
Chapter 6:
Brief Summary:
Settling into Spain and Mark continues to recover. Elena is visiting her mother in madrid. Jaoquin takes mark to the Alpujarra and tells of his past. Mark discovers Olia and he and Elena decide to visit there.
Significant Moments:
Elena's discovery of the storage room and the information and revelations (or lack thereof) contained within, Jaoquin's speech to mark about the moors and the Alpujarra and spain, his tale of fleeing for there, Mark talking to imaginary Colin on his photography trip, when Elena breaks down about Mark around her family.
Major themes: Culture(s), Family, Mourning
Chapter 7:
Brief Summary:
The history of Carlos Perez is learned when Mark and Elenda visit Olia. Jaoquin is anxious about the search.
Significant Moments:
Story of how Jaoquin lost and then found his faith in god again, Elena calling Jaoquin a fruad yet again but this time in a friendly joking manner, Reference to the true reason for the placing of Jaoquin's studio (saying goodbye to his son), the casual way in which Antonio, the villager in Olia, talks of the people Perez had killed, the way he explains that it is just what happens, the phrase he says: "But, Don Mark, it wasn't a question of right, good or bad. We were having a war then. Those of us here, we were like lambs between the wolves.", his statement about Perez's "mistake", Jaoquin insisting that Mark could never possibly find Carlos Perez.
Major Themes: Spirituality, Fate, War, Home
Chapter 8:
Brief Summary:
While Mark continues to look for Carlos Perez, Jaoquin and Elena picnic and are fully reconciled. Mark returns and Jaoquin tells them he will take them to Perez.
Significant Moments:
Mark talking to an invisible Colin in the passenger seat of his car while looking through small spanish towns for leads on Perez, Jaoquin's speech to Elena about the concept of history, and the suffering it inflicts upon the human condition, Jaoquin's pondering over the mental process franco went through in order to decide who to kill, Elena's proper apology to Jaoquin for shunning him.
Major Themes: Regret, Redepmtion, History, Humanity, Unity
Chapter 9:
Brief Summary:
Jaoquin tells Mark and Elena how he had discharged Carlos and then taken him to a deserted place and killed him. Mark says goodbye to Colin by releasing flowers into the Guadalfeo.
Significant Moments: Recount of Perez's killing, recount of how Mark let the blood flow out of Colin's legs so that he could finally die, Mark saying goodbye to Colin at the Guadalfeo.
Themes: Friends, Family, Death, Departure, Life, The ending of one life so that greater life may continue, the ending of isolated suffering so that no more suffer needlessly.
