Listening

Understanding Spoken English 2004 (p. 19) Radio Programme “Desert Island Books”

Reading

1. Read the essay by Lin Carter. Say which of the following phrases refer to “The Three Impostors”.

• an almost inexhaustible source of excitement and pleasure

• a modernist epic

• a bestseller-type historical novel

• quite forgettable

• I find myself returning to it again and again

• a masterpiece, one of the most superb examples of sheer style

• largely incomprehensible to most readers

• a work of Gothic horror

• a pulp adventure novel

• a picturesque and widely comic satire

ABOUT “THE THREE IMPOSTORS” BY ARTHUR MACHEN

An extract from the Preface by Lin Carter, Editorial Consultant: Balantine Adult

Fantasy Series

Like everyone else who loves the kingdom of books, and whose life has been devoted to adventuring within the all-but-limitless borders of that kingdom, I have found my way to certain books which seem to have been written for my pleasure alone.

It is a common experience. I read about four hundred books every year; most of them are quite forgettable, but a few stay with me; and each year I discover a book or two, or maybe three, to which I find myself returning, year after year.

But then there is that rare, precious book that becomes a lifelong companion, a book to which I am constantly referring, a book which I will reread perhaps twenty times in my life, each time with the fresh feeling of discovery, and with new excitement, finding therein some sparkling new marvel I had never noticed before.

You do not find many such books, even in a lifetime devoted to reading – perhaps twenty, or, if you are very lucky, twenty-five. But they remain in your mind and supply you with a host of names and scenes and characters and symbols which form a sort of private mythology, а реrsonal iconography wherewith to interpret the people and events in your life.

Every booklover will have a different, very personal list. My own list includes Т.Н. White’s The Sword in the Stone, Gustave Flaubert’s Salambo, James Branch Cabell’s The Cream of the Jest, William Beckford’s Vathek, Milton’s Paradise Lost, the Romances of Voltaire, Thomas B. Costain’s The Black Rose, A. Merritt’s The Face in the Abyss, John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, The Cantos of Ezra Pond, Thackeray’s The Rose and the Ring and a few others.

The list, you will notice, is heterogeneous in the extreme. It includes a bestseller-type historical novel very popular in my teens and Flaubert’s masterpiece, one of the most superb examples of sheer style ever crafted. The range extends from the noblest epic poem in the English language written a decade after the death of Oliver Cromwell to a modernist epic, quirky, elitist, dissociative and largely incomprehensible to most readers. The list includes the work of a pulp magazine adventure story writer, and one of the lesser novels of a modern Pulitzer Prize winner. The list is hardly to be construed as my personal choice of the “best” novels ever written; it is, simply, those novels I have encountered along the way which speak to my own character and personality with an intimate voice.

Somewhere on that list belongs The Three Impostors. I can neither justify its position on my shelf of lifelong favourites, nor explain why the book appeals to me so powerfully. Indeed, I find myself floundering helplessly at the task of simply describing it.

The Three Impostors is a novel; then again, it is not a novel, but a string of episodes and short stories tied together by a very thin narrative thread. It is a work of fantasy; then again, it is a work of Gothic horror. Lastly, it is a picturesque and widely comic satire of London Life.

Of all the books that come to my mind, The Three Impostors most completely defies description. Like Don Quixote or Lolita, it has almost everything in it: adventure, comedy, romance, horror, satire, dream, nightmare, and idyll. The book is an almost inexhaustible source of excitement and pleasure; perhaps that is why I find myself returning to it again and again, finding therein each time some new delight I had never before noticed.

2. Now look at these back cover blurbs and match them with the following book titles.

1. Brave New World (Auldous Huxley)

2. A Passage to India (E.M. Forster)

3. Crime Never Pays

4. Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)

5. Pygmalion (Bernard Shaw)

1. MURDER: the unlawful, intentional killing of a human being.

A terrible crime.

But murder stories are always fascinating. Who did it? And how? Or why? Was it murder at all, or just an unfortunate accident? Who will triumph, the murderer or the detective? This collection contains a wide range of murder stories, from the astute detections of the famous Sherlock Holmes, to the chilling psychology of Ruth Randell.

B. After the death of his beautiful wife, Rebecca, Maxim de Winter goes to Monte Carlo to recover. There he marries a quiet and ordinary young woman who is very different from his first wife. Maxim takes her back to England – to Manderley, his lovely country house.

The new Mrs de Winter finds that at Manderley Rebecca is still in everyone’s thoughts – including Maxim’s – and she begins to feel that she’ll never be able to equal Rebecca as a wife or as mistress of Manderley.

Then one day a discovery is made – and the young Mrs de Winter begins to understand why Rebecca is still so important to all those at Manderley.

C. “You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party.”

Can Professor Henry Higgins REALLY turn flower-girl Eliza Doolittle into a lady?

D. EAST MEETS WEST in this intriguing story. Or does it? Why should Miss Quested accuse Dr Aziz of assaulting her on an outing to the Marabar Caves? How can Dr Aziz defend himself against such an unfair charge?

Will the trial cause a bloody battle between the Indians lined up behind Dr Aziz and the British community solidly behind Miss Quested?

E. ALL human values have changed. What in the past were seen as virtues have been wiped out. Family life has disappeared, human beings are produced in bottles instead of being born in the natural manner. People do not suffer.; but they have no ideas of their own, their lives are planned for them from start to finish and they know nothing of the passions, the joys and sorrows, the triumphs or the defeats of the great figures of the past. In spite of the light and often amusing way this book is written, here is a warning to us all to think carefully about the way the world is developing before it is too late.

3. Put the books in order according to which ones you would be most/least interested in reading. Compare your order with other students. Is it the same or different? Explain the reasons for your order.