Detailed Comprehension

1. Answer the questions:

1. What was the relationship between the main characters? What did each of them think of the other? Prove your answer by using the text.

2. How did Knipe manage to convince Mr Bohlen? Make a list of his arguments. Which ones do you think were the most persuasive?

3. To what conclusions did Knipe come after his careful study of the literary market?

4. Do you think Knipe was right to say that all writers were interested only in financial success?

5. Why did Knipe make sure his own literary fame was greater than that of his chief?

6. Whose idea was it to absorb all the other writers in the country? How did he plan to realize it? Was the plan an immediate success? Why?

7. Whom did Knipe find easier to persuade to sign up the contract? Why?

8. Do you think the narrator is fascinated by the idea of such a computer or appalled at it?

9. Was the computer capable of creating a novel all on its own without the human’s interference in the process? Can you call this machine an example of artificial intelligence? Why has the issue of artificial intelligence been stirring people’s imagination for a long time? Is it still relevant?

10. Do you believe that it’s possible to create a computer that will write literary works/ make paintings/ compose music etc all on its own? Do you think it will be an advantage or a disadvantage?

2. Describe the grammatizator and the way it worked:

1) before the adjustment for writing novels;

2) after the adjustment for writing novels.

2. Speak about:

1) Adolph Knipe (his appearance, manners, character, prove that Knipe was not only a creative but a cunning person as well)

2) Mr. John Bohlen (his appearance, manners, character, prove that though Mr. Bohlen was a businesslike man, literary fame appealed to him).

2. Develop the situations checking your knowledge of the context:

   1. From then on, Adolph Knipe began to think about nothing else. The idea fascinated him enormously, at first because it gave him a promise--however remote--of revenging himself in a most devilish manner upon his greatest enemies.

   2. Then suddenly, he was struck by a powerful but simple little truth, and it was this: that English grammar is governed by rules that are almost mathematical in their strictness!

   3. It was an exciting moment when the two men--the one, short, plump, breviped--the other tall, thin and toothy--stood in the corridor before the control panel and got ready to run off the first story.

   4. Well, it wasn't quite as easy as that, but after many hours of practice, Mr Bohlen began to get the hang of it, and finally, late one evening, he told Knipe to make ready for running off the first novel.

3. Comment on the following quotations:

1. Whenever a young man gets depressed, everybody thinks it’s a woman.

2. You mean to sit there and tell me that these magazines pay out money like that to a man for... just for scribbling off a story!

3. The quality may be inferior, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the cost of production that counts.

4. Thereafter, Knipe wisely decided to concentrate only upon mediocrity. Anything better than that--and there were so few it didn't matter much--was apparently not quite so easy to seduce.

5. Give us strength, Oh Lord, to let our children starve.

2. Act out the conversation between Mr Bohlen and Adolph Knipe about the project of creating a literary computer.

3. Speak your mind on:

a) John Bohlen as if you were Adolph Knipe;

b) the grammatizator as if you were the female writer who was so enthusiastic to sign up;

c) Adolph Knipe and his offer as if you were the writer at the top of Knipe’s list.

2. Make up a dialogue between the author and Adolph Knipe who tries to convince him to sign up the contract.