The Toymaker and his Wife, by Joanne Harris

Joanne Harris on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanne_Harris

Joanne Harris on Twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=joanne%20harris&src=typed_query
    Short texts by Joanne, some of them interesting as proverbs or aphorisms.

Ten Things about Writing on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyE5Hk611jk
    Play one of her videos with subtitles. I think it's an easy English to practise the "listening".

Chocolat, trailer in English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=692hOJq1KJE
    Play it with subtitles.

To help you to read The Toymaker and his Wife:

    Why did the man get married?
    What did he do? (What was his occupation?)
    Why was his work famous?
    List examples of his works.
    His life was perfect but for one thing: what?
    What was his wife like? (personality)
    What changes did he make to her?
    What was the matter with her heart?
    For her to be perfect, what was unnecessary?
    What is the meaning of "perfect" in this story?

Some vocabulary

    stack = chimney
    stoker = a person in charge of the fire in a locomotive
    shovel = spade
    gilt = golden
    to be a credit of = to give fame to
    slovenly = dirty
    skein = thread ("fil")
    out of turn = stupidly
    silverfish = "peixet" (insect)
    tears = drops form eyes
    clumsy = inept
    flawed = imperfect

A Little Ramble, by Robert Walser

Robert Walser from Wikipedia:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Walser_(writer)

Robert Walser is the writer of the ethereal. You read a paragraph of his and you float because what he says is completely evanescent, it disappears into the thin air like water between your fingers. In Walser you aren't going to find deep, solid thoughts; you're going to find feelings so light as the thread of an ant on the palm of your hand, sensations so frail as gossamer. Every character of his is tender, delicate; there aren't any villains, any bad people, only misunderstandings, venial mistakes and involuntary errors.

    You know what a feelgood film it is: watching it you smile, you laugh, you even cry your eyes out, but at the end, after the catharsis, you feel happy and relaxed. When you're reading Walser, a smile is all the time outlined on your mouth; you'll never cry, or perhaps you'll cry because what you're reading is so lovely that your heart will ache.

    It's a bit difficult to tell what happen in his novels: the plot isn't important at all, you only have to pay attention to the characters, and, it doesn't matter what they do, you fall in love with them.

    Quotes by Sebald:

    "His prose has the tendency to dissolve upon reading."

    "The point of everyone of Walser's sentences is to make the reader forget the previous one." 

    "In all his prose works he always seeks to rise above the heaviness of earthily existence, wanting to float away softly and silently into a higher, freer realm."

The Fall of Edward Barnard

Topics:

-Living in a paradise.

-Country versus city.

-Tourism: what do we do with it?

-Is eco-friendliness a kind of romanticism?

-What would you take with you to a desert island?

Articles about the text:

https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/fall-edward-barnard

http://item1000.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-fall-of-edward-barnard-by-william.html

Louise

Louise was originally published as “The Most Selfish Woman I Knew”, in Cosmopolitan Magazine (September 1925).

Louise review 

Another review

Text and activities (I)

Text and activities (II)

Illness as Metaphor, by Susan Sontag.

Film made by students. Enjoy it!😉

The Ant and the Grasshopper

Our next story is a fable. A fable is usually a very short story with animals as characters and a moral at the end. An apologue is a short story with a moral. Legends are short stories about fantastic characters. The Greek word for legend is "myth". Sure you know some apologues or legends or myths.

This kind of stories are typical at school because they suppose you learn something from them.

But the question is this: Is the moral from fables and apologues useful, or correct, all the times? You have an answer in the story by Maugham.

More themes you can meditate related to this story are for exemple: Is doing the right think always rewarded? Does doing the right think make you happy?

THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT.

A Grasshopper gay

Sang the summer away,

And found herself poor

By the winter's first roar.

Of meat or of bread,

Not a morsel she had!

So a begging she went,

To her neighbour the ant,

For the loan of some wheat,

Which would serve her to eat,

Till the season came round.

'I will pay you,' she saith,

'On an animal's faith,

Double weight in the pound

Ere the harvest be bound.'

The ant is a friend

(And here she might mend)

Little given to lend.

'How spent you the summer?'

Quoth she, looking shame

At the borrowing dame.

'Night and day to each comer

I sang, if you please.'

'You sang! I'm at ease;

For 'tis plain at a glance,

Now, ma'am, you must dance.'

                                                                                  Jean de la Fontaine

Text and activities:

https://sites.google.com/site/homereadinglessons/the-ant-and-the-grasshopper

***

Another fable is this one:

THE FOX AND THE CROW

One morning a Fox was in search of a bite to eat and he saw a Crow on a branch of a tree overhead with a bit of cheese in her beak.

Up he trotted to the foot of the tree in which the Crow was sitting, and looking up admiringly, he cried, "Good-morning, beautiful creature!"

The Crow watched the Fox suspiciously. But she kept her beak tightly closed on the cheese and did not return his greeting.

"What a charming creature you are!" said the Fox. "How your feathers shine! What a beautiful form and what splendid wings you have! Such a wonderful bird should have a very lovely voice, since everything else about her is so perfect. Could you sing just one song, I'm sure you'll be the Queen of Birds."

Listening to these flattering words, the Crow forgot all her suspicion, and also her breakfast. She wanted very much to be called Queen of Birds.

So she opened her beak wide to utter her loudest caw, and down fell the cheese straight into the Fox's open mouth.

"Thank you," said Master Fox sweetly, as he walked off. "Though it is cracked, you have a voice sure enough. But what about your wits?"

Flatterers live at the expense of those who listen to them.

***

I think you can find another more positive lesson for this fable. What is it?

***********************************************************************

The Escape

This is a short story about a man who doesn't want to marry a woman, but without hurting her. Is his tactic a good one?

Summary

Analysis

Text and activities

W. Somerset Maugham: The Escape and Other Stories

First of all, we're going to read the four stories of this book. At the end of the book you'll find some questions that are going to help you to understand the text.

The stories are:

The Escape

Louise

The Ant and the Grasshopper

The Fall of Edward Barnard

These four stories belong to The Collected Short Stories (I). You can find the full text here.

And here you have some information about the writer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_Maugham

Welcome to the Blanes English Book Club

 Hello dear members,

I hope you like reading! And reading in English. And talking about what you've read... in English. And I hope you have time to read.

We're going to have a weekly meeting and in these meetings we're going to talk about the short story you've read the previous week.

We're going to try to read a short story every week. I think you'll be able to manage and understand the text because short stories are usually short and in a few pages you have it all (characters, plot, style, topics to talk about). And also you'll have a different author, a different era and sometimes a different country for each story. So you can make quests. 

We're going to begin with graded readings (so easier) and then we're going on with original texts, first shorter and simpler and then longer or more difficult.