Читаем современную британскую литературу. Четыре романа и одна пьеса = Reading contemporary british literature. Four novels and a play. Учебно-методич
.pdfAssignment 2
Chapters 3–9
P.20–112
1.Comment on: “Lance thought how unfair it was…” (57)
2.Comment on the sentence “it was the story of his life…” (106)
3.Can you find anything in common between Lance and Eugene?
4.Why do you think Joel chose Ella to be his private doctor?
5.Why do you think the author often compares Joel with a child?
6.What is special about Joel’s flat? What images does the description evoke in the readers’ mind? Why does the author pay attention to the bronze heads?
7.How does the author show that Eugene connects Ella and his addiction?
8.What possibilities did Lance find to get into Gene’s house?
9.Why does Lance hit Gemma?
10.What is the author’s attitude to Gib and his religion?
11.How would you characterize Eugene’s attitude to security?
12.Find the episodes where the author presents the irony of the situation.
13.Find the vocabulary dealing with a house structure, desire, hearing and
seeing.
14.Find more vocabulary dealing with crime, medicine, addiction.
15.Put down your ideas in the diary.
16.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
Assignment 3
Chapters 10–13
P.113–158
1.What is emotionally more important to Eugene, the wedding or his addiction? How does the author show it? (121)
2.Why does Joel compare his parents’ house and the hell? (125–128)
3.Make the stylistic analysis of the description of the Portobello Road. What effect is achieved by the description? (See the Commentary)
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4.Neither Joel nor Lance work. Why? Compare them.
5.How does Joel describe the place he went to when he had a near-death experience? (143)
6.Why does Lance feel aggrieved? (151)
7.What kind of relationship does Gemma offer to Lance? What is the irony of the situation? (158)
8.Find the vocabulary dealing with a wedding, addiction (120–121).
9.Put down your ideas in the diary.
10.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
Assignment 4
Chapters 14–17
P.159–204
1.How did Ella happen to find the Chocorange in Eugene’s house? How does the author show the absurdity of Eugene’s behavior concerning his addiction? How does the author describe Eugene’s getting deeper into his addiction? What is your opinion about Eugene’s dilemma between his addiction and gaining weight?
2.What is comic in the episode in which Lance gets into the old lady’s house?
3.What made Uncle Gib ensure his house?
4.Why do you think Joel laughed while speaking about schizophrenic mice?
5.Comment on “To coin a doubly appropriate phrase…” (185)
6.How do Joel’s mother’s clothes characterize her? (190)
7.In what vein does the author describe Uncle Gib’s meeting Feisal Smith?
8.Pick out the vocabulary dealing with agreement/ disagreement. Enlarge the vocabulary dealing with the discussed topics (medicine, desire, etc.)
9.Put down your ideas in the diary.
10.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
Assignment 5
Chapters 17–20
P.205–256
1.Comment on “Nor do I, Ella thought”. (208)
2.What do you think made Fize and Ian put Uncle Gib’s house on fire?
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3. Compare how the author describes Uncle Gib’s and Lance’s reactions to the
fire.
4.What do you know about Notting Hill Carnival?
5.Comment on “making his preparations for the end…” (246). How did Mithras change?
6.In what vein is Lupescu’s funeral described? (253–254)
7.Enlarge the vocabulary dealing with crime and law, house structure. Make up cards for translation from Russian into English (10 sentences).
8.Put down your ideas in the diary.
9.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
Assignment 6
Chapters 21–24
P.257–307
1.Comment on Joel’s “Should be all right”. (257)
2.How has Eugene change? How does he call his state now? (262–264)
3.What is common between Lance’s and Joel’s parents?
4.What do you think is the author’s attitude to Lance? Prove your point of
view.
5.What is the role of weather descriptions in the book? How would you interpret the weather description on p.278?
6.How did Lance react to getting his money from his nan’s boyfriend Dave?
7.Comment on “As for freedom…” (299)
8.What does the change of Chocorange suggest? (300)
9.What kind of reaction did Eugene have when he saw Ella with the Chocorange packs? (305)
10.Put down your ideas in the diary.
11.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
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Assignment 7
Chapters 25–31
P.308–376
1.The previous chapters are about a loss everybody experiences. What are
they?
2.What changes did Ella find when she visited Joel? What was her reaction?
3.Why is there Mrs Khan with kids who interpret?
4.Comment on “But he had started to feel bad about things…” (323)
5.How has Eugene changed since he left home? Why?
6.Comment on ‘the best thing that could happen to him would be…” (329–
330)
7.What is specific about Joel’s father’s appearance?
8.How would you interpret the picture with the mermaid?
9.How would you interpret Eugene’s dreams? (349, 358)
10.How did every character’s story finish?
11.Put down your ideas in the diary.
12.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
Whole text analysis
1.Are there any positive characters?
2.What do we know about Ella as a doctor?
3.Women’s characters vs men’s characters: What is the author’s attitude?
4.Diseases of London society.
5.Portobello Road as a character of the novel.
6.What other topics are raised in the novel?
7.Ask your own questions on the novel.
8.The pluses and minuses of the novel. Prove your point of view.
9.Write a summary of the book and a review (about 250–300 words).
10.Write the analysis of the text on one of the above topics.
11.Use your vocabulary lists to make your own stories or dialogues.
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Sebastian Faulks
A WEEK IN DECEMBER
Assignment 1
P.1–45
1.What do you know about the author?
2.The story is set in London in 2007. What economic events happened in this
period?
3.What atmosphere is created at the beginning of the novel? Comment on the enumeration of nationalities. What is the focus of the description?
4.Discuss the names of the guests on Sophie Topping’s list.
5.What is “a book club” like?
6.Describe John Veals’s attitude to his work. (8–14)*
7.What is John Veals worried about concerning ARB? (32–38)
8.How does the author describe Hassan al-Rashid’s attitude to non-Muslims?
(14–16)
9.How does R. Tranter earn his living?
10.Pick about 10 most frequent financial terms and define/ translate them. Comment on the way the author describes the financial world (38).
11.Comment on the topography of the novel.
12.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
Assignment 2
P.46–86
1.What is meant by Hassan’s ‘new identity’? (47)
2.Comment on “Hassan did believe in purity and truth with all his might; but he had been brought up in a godless country where television and newspapers mocked the social structures night and day.” (50)
3.Can you find any cases of situational irony on p. 51–53?
4.What do we learn about Shahla?
*Здесь и далее по тексту в круглых скобках указаны страницы из [13].
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5.Why did al-Rashid decide to contact Tranter?
6.How would you characterize the method of Veal’s staffing the High Level Capital? (68)
7.Comment on the distinction between ‘legal’ and ‘ethical’. (69)
8.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
9.Put down your ideas in the diary.
10.Make up a list of vocabulary and use it in your own sentences.
Assignment 3
P.86–119
1.What is Finn’s way to escape from the world?
2.How does Vanessa describe the main change in the financial world since 1980? (102) How does she characterize the people who flourished in it?
3.What was meant by the Prime Minister’s phrase ‘What you have done for the city of London, we now intend to do for the entire British economy’? Comment of Veal’s reaction. (104–105)
4.Comment on Vanessa’s words: ‘I could forget everything if I just could once see him laugh’ (101), ‘…because her husband had long migrated to a place where such matters had no meaning’ (105).
5.How does Hassan become aware of faith differences? (107)
6.Comment on the phrase ‘Multiculturalism: the Broken Dream’. (109)
7.What was the theory behind LSG’ activity? (111–112)
8.What do you think of the recurrent image of the bicycle? (39, 114)
9.Do you agree with Hassan’s opinion that’ blogging was the last resort of the loser’? (116)
10.What was so unusual for Hassan about the law: ‘So that was the law…’
(109)
11.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
12.Put down your ideas in the diary.
13.Make up a list of vocabulary and make up sentences with it.
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Assignment 4
P.119–155
1.What does Veals predict for the Third World economies if his Allied Royal Bank uses their quick savings? (125)
2.Comment on Veals’s phrase “This is Fantasy Finance”. (129)
3.How does the author show Jenni Fortune’s escapism? (books, job in the underground, what else?)
4.What is the author’s attitude to the atmosphere at school? (139–142)
5.Why did Veals think that he was trading ‘credulity’, ‘naivety’, ‘stupidity’?
(148)
6.Why does the author describe the programme It’s Madness in detail? (152–
155)
7.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
8.Put down your ideas in the diary.
9.Make up a list of vocabulary and make up sentences with it.
Assignment 5
P.156–186
1.Why do you think Hassan expected Shahla to laugh in case she knew about his activity? (159)
2.What was the reason for Hassan to choose his path? What was his difficulty?
(160)What proofs for his chosen path does he find? (169)
3.What is the task of a true believer of Islam according to the book by Sarwar? Why? What is Hassan’s attitude to it? (165)
4.Comment on the multi-cultural aspect of sport. (170–172)
5.Why is it important for Tom to see Spike? (175–176)
6.Comment on the phrase “Some big coffin, thought Finn”. (183)
7.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
8.Put down your ideas in the diary.
9.Pick about 10 lexical units and define/ translate them.
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Assignment 6
P.186–219
1.Comment on the change of accent in al-Rashid and Nasim’s pronunciation. (200–201)
2.Comment on the relationships between the Veals father and son. (212–213)
3.How is the dilemma between reality and fantasy solved for Finn? (216)
4.What do we learn about Hassan’s character from Nasim’s speculation? (216–219)
5.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
6.Put down your ideas in the diary.
7.Make up a list of vocabulary and make up sentences with it.
Assignment 7
P.219–275
1.Why do Hassan’s doubts disappear after the Vanguard’s meeting? Pick put the manipulative strategies in Ali’s speech. (241–243)
2.How does the author characterize Tranter’s study at college and his experience as a novelist? (223)
3.Comment on Vanessa’s maiden name. (234)
4.Comment on Veals’s attitude to women. (234–235)
5.What is common between Vanessa and John Veals? (266–268)
6.Comment on the tragedy that happened in “It’s Madness”.
7.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
8.Put down your ideas in the diary.
Assignment 8
P.275–313
1.What was Knocker’s disappointment during the investiture? In what vein does the author describe the situation?
2.Comment on Finn’s “Mummy!” (288)
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3.What were Hassan’s feelings during the meeting of the terrorist group? (288–292)
4.What did Vanessa understand about her son? (293)
5.Did Jenni’s visit visit to Gabriel meet her expectations? (303)
6.How did Gabriel explain his broad knowledge to Jenni (305–307)
7.How did Gabriel and Jenni decide to get rid of their illusions? (307)
8.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
9.Put down your ideas in the diary.
10.Make up a list of vocabulary and make up sentences with it.
Assignment 9
P.313–353
1.How did Hassan feel on “the last day of his life”? (318–319)
2.What’s Gabriel’ theory of schizophrenia? What can “push” it? (326–327)
3.What was most important in the happy moments for Gabriel? (328)
4.What were the social rules in North Park? (333–334)
5.What did Vanessa learn about her son’s diagnosis? How did John Veals react to it? (336–338)
6.Did Hassan really believe in the eternal truth? (351)
7.How does the author show the connections between the characters?
8.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
9.Put down your ideas in the diary.
10.Make up a list of vocabulary and make up sentences with it.
Assignment 10
P.353–392
1.What made Hassan feel stronger about his mission? (352)
2.What opposing ideas did Hassan have in his mind when he was going on a train? (368) How does the author describe a Londoner? (368–369)
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3.What was surprising for Sophie Topping when she was thinking about her guests’ wealth? (371–372)
4.How did it happen that Hassan lost his way? Comment on the turning in his views. (379–381)
5.Why was Amanda proud of her husband? (377, 382)
6.What idea does the image of the bicycle with no light convey?
7.Comment on the image of the voices the characters hear or want to hear.
8.What impression do you get from the end of the book? How were the characters’ lives changing? Is it the happy end? Did every character return from their illusions to reality?
9.Ask your own questions on the part you’ve read.
10.Put down your ideas in the diary.
11.Make up a list of vocabulary and make up sentences/ situations with it.
Assignment 11
Discussion of the novel
1.Why did critics call the book ‘the state of the nation” novel?
2.Discuss the paradoxes and absurdities as a literary device in the novel.
3.Describe the main characters of the book.
4.What are your impressions about the composition of the book?
5.Discuss the following themes of the book:
times of crisis
religion
money
terrorism
books
education
multicultural London
fathers and sons
competition
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