Reading modern British literature. Part 2. Учебное пособие

Part 6

Pp.319-384

Pre-reading tasks

1. Follow the link http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fc3wg to listen to an interview with David Lodge given to James Naughtie (you may download it). What have you learnt about the book we are reading? Make a script of the interview.

Focus on the contents

1.Answer the following questions.

1)Why does Robyn prefer to be referred to as “a person” but not as “a woman” or “a lady”?

2)How did Robyn react to the news that Vic was going to shadow her at the university?

3)Has the goal of the Shadow Scheme been finally achieved? In what

way?

4)What is Vic’s impression of the university?

5)Compare the ways universities and businesses are organized.

6)Has the Shadow Scheme benefited any of the main characters? In

what way?

7)What are the changes the main characters face in their lives? How do they and their close people react to them?

8)Justify Robyn’s decision to give her money to Vic and to stay in

Britain.

Focus on vocabulary

1. Glossary. Note down the words and word combinations, memorize

them.

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Nouns: a threshold (321), a reprieve (321), a porch (323), seersucker (323), a throng (323), a tumbler (323), inebriation (326), fatigue (326), a vocation (327), a dressing-gown (327), a hotshot (329), a rogue (329), misgivings (330), babble (331), a folder (333), a bait (333), a shot putter (334), nail varnish (335), a felt tip (338), a contradiction (338), a forefinger (340), a benediction (341), selfabasement (343), an agenda (343), efficiency (344), a syllabus (344), overmanning (344), a petal (346), a choir (346), soot (347), a successor (349), a smirk (350), a palm (351), a hearing aid (352), an incentive (354), a drone (354), an interlocutor (355), CV (358), special delivery (358), an innuendo (358), a bump (360), a toecap (361), a speck of mud (361), impedimenta (363), a memo (363), a qualm (364), guts (364), a thunderbolt (366), whiskers (368), an apron (370), new potatoes (370), a dole (372), a recluse (374), a homily (377), smithereens (378), legacy (378), reconciliation (380), scrutiny (384).

Verbs: to pester (322), to swap (322), to crouch (327), to hover (327), to bulge (328), to hoick (333), to sneer (348), to entail (348), to preen (350), to exacerbate (351), to recruit (352), to capsize (352), to bridle (362), to crop up (366), to rip off (372), to tease (372), to exhale (381), to curtail (383).

Adjectives: overdue (321), hectic (321), grueling (322), flustered (323), bigoted (324), worthwhile (327), zestful (327), deserted (327), obsessive (329), compulsory (329), complacent (331), indispensable (332), prejudiced (333), longwinded (333), deliberate (333), audible (334), inconspicuous (334), wispy (335), baffled (338), duff (338), devious (340), prudish (341), reminiscent (341), scruffy (343), distinguished (343), lax (344), exquisite (346), intolerable (349), notorious (349), surefire (350), disingenuous (351), frantic (352), top-heavy (352), lousy (354), sodden (355), soppy (361), inseparable (364), poignant (366), shortsighted (369), crippled (374), putative (375), pristine (377), swish (377), superstitious (378), devastated (379), dwarf (380), overt (384).

Adverbs: tartly (321), rashly (321), perversely (322), briskly (325), anxiously (327), merely (328), astray (331), smoothly (332), appealingly (332),

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genuinely (332), faintly (334), encouragingly (334), randomly (336), necessarily (337), continually (338), restlessly (339), overwhelmingly (341), breathlessly (341), intermittently (346), equitably (347), sparsely (362), virtuously (363), wistfully (374), solemnly (380).

Phrases: a sliver of a chance (321), a guest of honour (323), let alone (324), to put smb to shame (324), to stand a chance (325), flat out (330), in reverse (331), bloodshot eyes (332), an underhand trick (332), to see the point (333), to take one’s time (344), a rung of the ladder (345), in due course (348), to thank a lucky star (356), to have the nerve to do smth (367), stricken with guilt (359), to make amends (359), to scout for talents (360), to seize an opportunity (361), to run a company (365), to leak the information (367), to keep an eye on … (368), on the cards (370), to break the news to…(371), to tighten belts (371), up to the hilt (372), next of kin (377), in revenge (379), wait and see (382), on the brink of …(383).

2.Transcribe the following words: fatigue, a rogue, efficiency, a choir, a successor, a palm, innuendo, a qualm, smithereens, to exacerbate, to exhale, to recruit, bigoted, deserted, inconspicuous, exquisite, disingenuous, poignant, anxiously, necessarily, overwhelmingly, solemnly, virtuously.

3.Guess the word by its definition:

1)full of busy activity;

2)the floor at the entrance to a room or building;

3)to be angry or offended, and show this in your movements or expression;

4)thin cotton or rayon cloth with a pattern of raised lines on its surface;

5)a list of the main subjects in a course of study;

6)a dirty black powder that is produced when you burn something such as coal or wood;

7)to keep annoying someone, especially by asking them for something or asking them to do something;

8)big or heavy things that someone is carrying with difficulty;

9)not able to see things clearly if they are far away from you;

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10)money that people who do not have a job get from the government;

11)certain to be successful;

12)one of the coloured parts around the centre of a flower;

13)to reduce or limit something, especially something good;

14)believing in the power of magic or luck.

4.Define the following words: a bait, obsessive, wistfully, to capsize, a hotshot, overmanning, to tease, a drone, zestful, an interlocutor, notorious, a recluse, to rip off, crippled, intermittently.

5.Provide the context for the adverbs from the glossary list.

6.Use the phrases from the glossary list in the sentences of your own.

7.Study the context and extra sources to explain the meaning of the following expressions:

1) to cut to the bone (p.324);

2) hush puppies (p.330);

3) to be a fly on the wall (p.332);

4) clock in\out (p.334);

5) to watch smb as rabbits watch a stoat (p.335); 6) to strike a chord (p.340);

7) to control the purse-strings (p.345);

8) the truth lies between the two extremes (pp.351-352); 9) a money spinner (p.354);

10) spirits lift like an untethered balloon (p.357);

11) fat cats (p.359);

12) red in tooth and claw (p.360);

13) to stab in the back (p.360);

14) a born-again Christian (p.365);

15) to drum up trade (p.368);

16) wear and tear (p.369);

17) to have a soft spot for … (p.374);

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18)give or take (p.376);

19)rat race (p.380);

20)a sleeping partner (p.380);

21)to sleep on a question (p.381);

Focus on culture

1.What does the term “ageism” (p.329) inform you about?

2.What is “Mastermind” (p.333)?

3.What kind of procedure is called “a flag day” (p.353)?

4.What service is indicated in the “rates bill” (p.374)? Is it still used

nowadays?

5.What is special about the area The Isle of Dogs (p.375)? What sort of people live there?

6.Explain the situation from the point of view of national characters and manners: “Students, drawn out of doors by the sunshine, are already beginning to

congregate in pairs and small groups, spreading their coats and plastic bags so that they can sit or lie on the damp grass. On one of the lawns a gardener, a young black in olive dungarees, is pushing a motor mower up and down, steering carefully around the margins of the flower beds, and between the reclining students. When they see that they will be in his way, the students get up and move themselves and their belongings, settling like a flock of birds on another patch of grass. The gardener is of about the same age as the students, but no communication takes place between them - no nods, or smiles, or spoken words, not even a glance. There is no overt arrogance on the students' part, or evident resentment on the young gardener's, just a kind of mutual, instinctive avoidance of contact. Physically contiguous, they inhabit separate worlds. It seems a very British way of handling differences of class and race” (p.384).

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Focus on style

1.Identify the stylistic means employed in the following passages:

“Students disported themselves on the lawns of the campus, the young girls in their bright summer dresses sprouting like crocuses in the warm sunshine <…> Some tutors elected to hold their classes outdoors, and sat cross-legged on the grass, discoursing on philosophy or physics to little groups of reclining ephebes, as they did in the Golden Age” (p.321), “as she wormed her way through the crowded hall” (p.326), “He had blown into the jaded, demoralized atmosphere of Rummidge University like an invigorating breeze” (p.327), “Philip, carrying

Morris Zapp's suitcase, hovered anxiously halfway down the garden path, like a complaisant cuckold seeing off the lover of the night before” (p.327), “The grey, rain-wet roofs of factories, warehouses and terraces stretched to the horizon like the waves and troughs of a sullen, oily sea” (p.363), “his wife vainly beautifying herself at home, unaware of the thunderbolt that had already struck her life”

(p.366).

2.Comment upon the social status of Morris Zapp judging by his outfit:

“He was wearing a seersucker jacket in canary yellow with a bold blue check”

(p.323).

3.Analyze the speech of Morris Zapp. Comment on his tone and choice

of words.

4.Reread the argument between Vic and Robyn in class on the point of metaphor and metonymy (pp.336-338). Express your opinion on the issue.

5.Define the term “aporia”. Provide examples of this figure of speech.

6.Analyze the following passage from the stylistic point of view: “Vic

lapsed into a hurt silence. He stirred restlessly in his seat, he sighed impatiently to himself from time to time in a way that made the students stall nervously in the middle of what they were saying, he licked his fingers to turn the pages of his book, and flexed it so violently in his hands that the spine cracked noisily, but he didn't actually interrupt again” (p.339).

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7.Comment upon the stylistic value of the following expression: “I

recognize that universities don't grow on trees” (p.357). What is the device

employed here? Reconstruct the original phrase.

8.Read Vic’s speech, explain what he wants to say and what effect it produces: “I thought it was impossible to mean what we say or say what we mean <…> I thought there was always a slippage between the I that speaks and the I that is spoken of” (p.362).

9.Comment upon the stylistic value of the expression: “She’s quite a dish” (p.364).

10.What does the phrase “ONLY CONNECT” (p.381) allude to?

11.Study the epigraph to the part (p.319), identify its source and report how it reflects the contents of the book.

12.“Nice Work” is considered to be a comic novel; search the text to prove

this point; read out your favourite funny episodes and passages.

Post-reading activities

5.Comment on the following words:

1)“In the modern world good news comes by telephone and bad news by

mail”.

2)“Guys that can cure cancer, or blow up the world, deserve a little more

than us literary critics”.

3)“Difficulty generates meaning”.

4)“Reading is production. And what we produce is meaning”.

5)“There are no right answers to questions like that. There are only

interpretations”.

6)“What you learn is that language is an infinitely more devious and slippery medium than you had supposed”.

7)“But repetition is death! Difference is life. Difference is the condition of meaning”.

8)“Win some, lose some. Misfortune draws a family together”.

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6. Explain the meaning of the novel’s title. Is the collocation used here in its direct or figurative meaning? Give your own definition of the term “nice work”, find proofs in the text and real life.

7.Can the novel under study be considered modern? Justify your

opinion.

8.Can the novel be considered realist? Prove your point.

9.Study Robyn’s lecture (p.72) and draw conclusions on how the works

she speaks about correlate with her own life events.

10. Read the blurbs on the book cover. Comment upon those you most agree and disagree with.

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Literature

1. Загриева, О.Е. Читаем и обсуждаем современный английский роман на языке оригинала (D.Lodge. Nice Work, H.Mantel. An Experiment in Love) : методические рекомендации для студентов V курса специальности

050301.65 Русский язык и литература с дополнительной специальностью

050303.65 Иностранный язык / О.Е. Загриева. – Киров: Изд-во ВятГГУ, 2011.

–34 с.

2.Роман Джулии Дарлинг «Дочь таксиста»: комментарии /

науч.ред. К. Хьюитт при участии И. Берхатовой, Е. Вашуриной, Е. Доценко и др. ; Перм. гос. ун-т. – Пермь, 2010. – 47 с.

3.Роман Дэвида Лоджа «Хорошая работа»: комментарии / науч.ред.

К.Хьюитт при участии К.Блэр, М.Егоровой, А.Звегинцовой; Перм.ун-т. –

Пермь, 2006. – 53 с.

4.David Lodge [Electronic resource]: BBC Radio 4 Bookclub. – May 2, 2004. – Режим доступа: URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fc3wg.

5.Julia Darling [Electronic resource]: официальный сайт Джулии Дарлинг. – Режим доступа: http://juliadarling.co.uk/

6.Lodge, D. Nice Work / D. Lodge. – London: Penguin Books, 1989. –

384 p.

7.Macmillan Dictionary Online [Electronic resource]. – Режим доступа: URL: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/.

8.Nice Work. The Complete Series [Electronic resource]: Reader’s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BOPlRAQj9U.

9. Rummaging around the career of David Lodge [Electronic resource]: BBC Midlands Today. – August 11, 2008. – Режим доступа: URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnqFbqhlSSw-interview.

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УЧЕБНОЕ ПОСОБИЕ

Любовь Александровна Ласица Оксана Александровна Хрущева Ольга Вячеславовна Евстафиади Наталия Владимировна Лаштабова

READING MODERN BRITISH LITERATURE

PART 2

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