Английский язык. Практикум по домашнему чтению (к рассказам Дж. Арчера и Р. Даля)

11)Parson walked past the Commode showing little interest.

12)Mr Boggis threw the paper carelessly on to the table.

13)Boggis emphasized that the commode was a worthless copy of a genuine antique.

14)Parson told them about various tricks these dishonest people used to fake ancient things.

15)Mr.Boggis said that he would fetch the car in a moment.

16)Claud supposed that Parson had got crazy and Bert made a wide smile.

Style

13.Pick out all the epithets referring to a) Mr Boggis, b) the countrymen. Which of them have a positive/negative evaluation? What shade does each of them add to the character? What attitude of the author is conveyed through these epithets?

14.What do the following similes add to the meaning of the utterances?

1)“…the countryside was spread out before him like a huge green carpet” (p.13)

2)“ …two odd eyes for Bert, … one of them very queer and boiled and misty pale, with a little black dot in the centre, like a fish eye on a plate.” (p.31)

3)“It was beautiful – a warm little patch of mahogany, glowing like a topaz, rich and dark with the true colour of its two hundred years.” (p.34)

4)“…and there was a feeling inside him as though hundreds and hundreds of tiny bubbles were rising up from his stomach and bursting merrily in the top of his head, like sparkling water” (p.40)

15.Bring out the effect of the metaphors:

1)“Excitement that was spinning around inside him and making him dizzy” (p.33),

2)“…and allowed his practiced eye to travel slowly over the landscape (p.13)

16.What do you think is the stylistic aim of hyperbole in the following epithets :

1)“…there stood before him, or rather above him, a gigantic woman dressed in riding-breeches” (p.20).

2)“The woman was grinning now, showing to Mr Boggis a set of enormous, slightly yellow teeth” (p.21).

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17.Comment on the effect of oxymoron:

1)“It had looked nicely dilapidated through the binoculars” (p.14).

2)“…he managed to make quite a tidy little income every year” (p.15).

18.What do you think the following lexical repetitions add to the

text?

1)“…he always bought cheap, very, very cheap,and sold very very dear…” (p.15),

2)“But the habit of buying cheap, as cheap as it was humanly possible to buy…” (p.39),

3)“I couldn’t sir, I couldn’t” (p.39)

4)“…and you’ll be driving back to London and singing all the way! Mr Boggis driving the Boggis Commode home in the Boggis car” (p.40)

Find more examples of lexical repetitions and comment on their function.

19.What meaning is repeated in the italicised words? What is the aim of the semantic repetition?

1)“Oh glorious day! Oh, lovely sunny summer day! Oh glory be!”

2)“…each of them had the same peculiar expression on his face, something between a jeer and a challenge, with a contemptuous curl to the mouth and a sneer around the nose” (24).

3)Pick out of the text more examples of semantic repetitions and comment on their stylistic effect.

20.Comment on the sentence length in the first paragraph (p.13).

Pay attention to the sentence structure. Pick out the examples of ellip-

sis (leaving out of a word or words from a sentence) and comment on its effect.

Think over the effect created by the repetition of “and”.

Point out the sentences partly similar (parallel) in their structure (such as “How beautiful…, how pleasant…).

What is the joint effect of all these syntactical devices?

21.There is a lot of Interior Speech of Mr Boggis in the story. Pick out of it short exclamatory or imperative sentences, rhetoric questions and repetitions (for example, “It could not be true, not possibly!” or “But good God! Just look at it!). How do they characterize Parson’s state of mind and reveal his emotions at different moments?

22.The talk between Parson and the old woman is given through the author’s lips, without the formal signs of Direct Speech (Repre-

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sented Speech). Pick out of it all the phrases bearing the structure of the actual speech of the characters. How does their speech characterize them?

Discussion

23.What would have happened …

1)If Mr Boggis’s car hadn’t been broken on his way back to London, …

2)If Boggis hadn’t noticed an old armchair in one of the farm-houses, …

3)If the old woman hadn’t agreed to sell the armchair, …

4)If Mr Boggis hadn’t been disguised as a clergyman, …

5)If the gigantic woman hadn’t opened the door, …

6)If the three countrymen hadn’t let Parson in, …

7)If they hadn’t noticed that Parson was shocked, …

8)If Mr Boggis had agreed that the commode was genuine antique, …

9)If he had left his screwdriver at home, …

10)If one of the men had noticed Parson substituting the screw, …

11)If Parson hadn’t told them that he needed only the legs, …

12)If his car had been parked near the house, …

13)If Claud hadn’t visited Rummins that day, …

24.Express your opinion.

1)What is your opinion of the way Mr Boggis treated people?

2)Was he ambitious? Prove your point.

3)What do you think of Mr Boggis’s professional qualities? What was his talent?

4)What do you think of Parson’s “ idea of heaven”? Was he fooling the woman? Did she believe him?

5)What is meant by “magic” in the following: “Watching her as she spoke, he could see the magic beginning to do its work.”

6)Explain the following: “He was at last beginning to sense what the trouble might be” (p.25)

7)What is your attitude to the three countrymen?

8)Who of the countrymen was especially keen to sever the legs? Why?

9)Identify the culmination of the story.

10)What were your feelings when you finished reading? What end did you expect?

11)What is the point of such a twist-in-the-end?

12)What was Mr Boggis punished for? Would it serve him right?

13)How would you act in the same situation?

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14)What do you think is the author’s attitude to Mr.Boggis? Prove your point.

15)What human vices does the author mock in this story?

Writing

25.Write a possible ending to the story.

26.Write your version of an imaginary dialogue that might follow when Mr Boggis returned. Act it out.

27.Write a script of Parson’s inner monologue:

a)on the way to his car;

b)on his way back to London.

28.Rewrite the episode in Rummins’s living-room as a script. Act

it out.

29.Translate the following text into English.

1)Он вынул карандаш, блокнот и, прислонившись к машине, стал наметанным взглядом не спеша рассматривать пейзаж.

2)Дом опрятный, ухоженный, денег на него не жалеют. Нет смысла заходить в дома, на которые не жалеют денег.

3)Он был прирожденным коммерсантом и, когда заходил деловой разговор, то легко и естественно находил верный тон, который больше всего устраивал клиента. С пожилыми он бывал обходитель- ным и степенным, с верующими – благочестивым. Со слабыми – властным, с вдовой он бывал проказлив, со старухой и девой – игрив

идерзок.

Он отлично сознавал, каким даром обладает, и при каждом удоб- ном случае беззастенчиво пользовался им. Он имел на редкость хо- роший вкус и разбирался во французской, английской и итальянской старинной мебели. Он прославился среди своих собратьев тем, что с завидной регулярностью доставал редкие образцы столярного искус- ства.

4)По воскресным дням он был славным пожилым пастором, ко- торый досуг свой посвящает трудам праведным во имя Общества охраны редкой мебели, объезжая окрестности и составляя опись со- кровищ, скрытых в глухих сельских уголках.

5)Вещь была тяжеловата, но общий рисунок обладал таким изяществом и грацией, что некоторая неуклюжесть ничуть ее не портила.

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Маленькое освободившееся от белил пятно двухсотлетнего крас- ного дерева засияло своим исконным теплым светом, подобно топа- зу, – густо и загадочно.

6) Старинная бронза имеет свой особый цвет и оттенок. Беда в том, что бронзу научились искусно подделывать. Вообще говоря, почти невозможно бывает определить, где поддельная старина, а где настоящая.

Трепет восторга иголочками пробежал вниз по икрам и сладостно заколол ступни. Готово дело. Заполучил. Никаких сомнений. Но он не мог одолеть привычку сбивать цену насколько можно, с годами и опытом она вошла ему в кровь и плоть. Он так легко не уступит.

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GENESIS AND CATASTROPHE (BY R. DAHL)

Comprehension

1 Put the following statements in correct order:

1)Klara lost her two sons.

2)Klara said that she had prayed hard that the new baby would live.

3)A new baby was born to her.

4)The husband entered the room.

5)He came up to the bed.

6)He kissed his wife.

7)The innkeeper’s wife brought the baby.

8)The husband looked at the baby.

9)He wondered why all his children had to be so small and weak.

10)Klara’s daughter died.

11)The doctor squeezed the husband’s shoulder.

2.“True” or “False”?

1)It was raining outside

2)A baby was born to the woman

3)The woman was tired up after the delivery

4)Klara had lost all the three of her children

5)It was very warm in the room

6)Gustav was a strong boy

7)Ida died after Easter.

8)At the funeral the husband and wife were in deep mourning

9)Klara’s husband had always been drinking beer

10)The doctor pitied Klara as her son was too small

11)Something was wrong with the baby’s lings

12)The doctor was curious about the baby’s name.

13)The innkeeper’s wife came up to the bed and whispered that the baby was a beauty.

14)The baby’s face was surprisingly peaceful.

15)The husband was not very tall and he had enormous whiskers

16)He admired the baby

17)The doctor told the husband to come up to the bed and kiss his wife

18)He kissed Klara eagerly

19)The innkeeper’s wife got angry with Klara’s husband

20)The doctor squeezed the husband’s shoulder and was going to beat him

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3.Finish the following statements.

1)The doctor wanted the wife to relax because…

2)The woman kept asking if …

3)The woman looked …

4)The innkeeper’s wife had told the doctor that …

5)The woman’s husband was a …

6)Klara asked the doctor not to blame her for …

7)Klara’s husband looked into Otto’s cradle and said that…

8)Klara had lived in terror of…

9)At nights she used to creep to …

10)When Klara was pregnant …

11)The doctor assured Klara saying that …

12)Klara’s husband wanted to call the boy Adolf because …

13)She suddenly started up because it was the same…

14)The innkeeper’s wife placed the baby on …

15)The doctor looked out into the corridor to …

16)The husband was bewildered and stricken with …

17)The doctor squeezed the husband’s shoulder to …

18)The husband came up to Klara and …

19)Klara had preyed for months that …

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5.Express the given notions using the words from the text.

1)A small rocking bed for a baby is called a …

2)A … is a person who is often drunk.

3)The term denoting a thin object used for covering floors, walls or roofs is …

4)A person doing everything extremely carefully and paying great attention to details is considered …

5)Morally unacceptable things are called …

6)“To …” means to ask for something with great eagerness or anxiety.

7)People call the ceremony of burying the dead “a …”.

8)If you cover a baby in a material folded around it, you …it, and if you wrap a baby tightly in many coverings, you … it.

9)A … is a single typical thing or example of something.

10)A person frequently trying to tell other people what to do without regard to their ideas or feelings are called …

11)A … is a slight degree of colour.

12)If a person receives some qualities of mind or body from his parents, we say the he…. them.

13)An … is a small creature creeping along the ground.

14)People … their babies by touching or covering them with water and this ceremony shows that he or she has been accepted as a member of the Church.

15)”To …” means to find out if something is certainly true.

16)The hair growing on the sides of a man’s face is called “…”

17)If you … something, you state it in a loud voice.

6.Replace the italicised words and expressions with their synonyms from the text.

1)The woman was tired out after the delivery.

2)Klara’s husband was a haughty man, and the wife was kind and tender.

3)People gossiped about the husband’s third marriage.

4)Outside the rain was falling noisily on the tiles.

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5)The woman lived in extreme fear of something happening to her child.

6)The husband wondered why all his children had to be so very small.

7)The doctor said that small children were often stronger than big ones.

8)Klara’s husband was a small man with extremely large whiskers.

9)The husband liked the name Adolf because it resembled the name Alois.

10)The innkeeper’s wife brought in the baby and she was smiling brightly and happily.

11)The baby’s face was very calm.

12)Moving with sudden starts and stops the husband bent down to look at the baby.

13)Three dead children was all that the woman could bear.

14)Klara’s husband kissed her unwillingly.

15)When the husband straightened up he seemed confused and shocked.

16)The doctor pressed the husband’s shoulder and pushed him forward secretly to the bed.

17)The doctor squeezed him harder, signalling him persistently through fingers and the thumb.

7.Fill the blanks with prepositions where necessary.

1)The doctor turned … … the bed, walked … … the window and stood there looking …

2)Sometimes Klara used to get … … the night, creep … to the cradle and put her ear close … the child’s mouth.

3)…. The funeral the husband was strolling … the guests … a big glass

…beer … his hand.

4)The doctor said that two years … that day the boy will be talking his head … and driving Klara crazy … his chatter.

5)The husband straightened …, turned … … the bed and looked … the doctor.

6)The doctor walked … … the husband and put a hand … his shoulder.

7)He squeezed … the husband’s shoulder hard and began pushing him

…the edge … Klara’s bed.

8)…last the husband bent down and kissed his wife … the cheek.

9)For months Klara had gone …the church and begged … her knees that the child would be allowed to live.

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Style

8.Pick out all epithets used by the author to describe a) Klara, b) her husband, c) the baby. What attitude of the author do they express?

9.What form of speech (indirect or direct) is dominant in the story? What do you think is the aim of such a structure?

10.What peculiarities of the woman’s speech reveal her emotions?

11.Comment on the interplay of lexical meanings in the title.

Speaking

12.Give an account of the events.

13.Give in detail a) the story of the innkeeper’s wife, b) Klara’s story about the death of her children.

14.On behalf of the doctor speak about Klara and her baby.

15.Speak about Klara’s husband on the woman’s behalf.

Discussion

16.Give character sketches of Klara, her husband, the doctor.

17.What is your attitude to Klara? Did it change when you learned her name?

18.Do you believe that it is a true story? Why? Why not?

19.What is the general atmosphere of the story? Comment on the description of the weather. In what way is it connected with the feelings of the characters?

20.What associations does the word “specimen” bring to mind? What did the Nazi party struggle for?

21.The author describes vividly the woman’s grief about the loss of her children and her feeling of terror. In what way is the idea of death and grief connected with the name of Adolf Hitler?

22.What do you think is the implication of the story?

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