The Soccer War (pg. 121-145)

After reading the first chapter, one begins to feel that the book is note advancing and that there is no activity which makes the reader interested to keep on reading. When one starts the next chapter, the enthusiasm which made you read in The Stranger does not exist for The Soccer war. As you keep on reading, you notice that all hope is not lost and see various occasions were there is a great deal of action involved and you watch as the narrator experiences adventures, fear and even escapes from death. At one point, you even start to believe that Kapuscinski is going to die along the road. "I was in the hands of UPGA activists. They must have been smoking hashish because their eyes were mad and they did not look fully conscious. They were soaked in sweat, seemed possessed, frenzied. They descended on me and pulled me out of the car. I could hear them shouting 'UPGA! UPGA!' On this road, UPGA ruled. UPGA held me in its sway. I could feel three knife-points against my back and I saw several machetes (these are the Africans' scythes) aimed at my head. Two activists stood a few steps away, pointing their guns at me in case I tried to get away. I was surrounded. Around me I could see sweaty faces with jumpy glances; I could see knives and gun barrels ( The Soccer War, Chapter 2, pg. 131)." After you read this paragraph, a chill comes up your spine because the description makes one believe that something horrible will happen to Ryszard. As one keeps reading, the book starts to save itself with all the terrifying moments that the author/narrator lived, because he makes you feel what he felt at the time

Looking for a connection was hard because the movies that came to me as I was reading, have already been used, so it was really complicated to look for a new and fresh connection. This time there will be no connection to a movie, but instead to a book called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In this book, Tom doesn't experience a revolution, a war or any kind of armed conflict, but he does take on adventures head on like the narrator of The Soccer War. Sawyer, like Kapuscinski have this adrenaline rush for adventures that most people never feel and don't wish ever to do so. We notice along both books, that there main characters/narrators are always looking for an adventure, because they can't live without it. We notice in The Soccer War when it says; "My boss treated me with patience and understanding. He tolerated my adventures and my pathological lack of discipline. At my most irresponsible I would suddenly break contact with the Warsaw without having told them my plans and would disappear without a trace: throw myself into the jungle, float down the Niger in a dugout, wander through the Sahara with nomads. The main office, not knowing what had happened or how to look for me,would, as a last resort, send telegrams to various embassies. Once, when I showed up in Bamako, our embassy there showed me a telegramme: 'Should Kapuscinski happen to show up in your territory, please inform PAP through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' (The Soccer War, Chapter 2, pg. 141)."

Up until now, no questions can be answered, we only get know that Algeria is still in a civil war, but nothing about Ben Bella and Boumedienne.

- Will Ryszard get captured by some sort of guerrilla?

- How will Kapuscinski get out of the town with the revolution his going to?

- Where is Ben Bella?

- Somewhere along the story will Ryszard get shot or wounded?

- In what kind of trouble is Ryszard Kapuscinski going to get into?