Going Up in the World, by Graham Swift

Going Up in the World

The story tells us about the lives of two friends, Charles Yates and Don Abbot, about their friendship, their partnership in business of cleaning windows in skyscrapers and how do they improve their status and their lifestyles. Now that they are nearly sixty, are they happy with their lives. The path they have followed, is it worthy of their effort? 

QUESTIONS

-According to the narrator, Charles Yates is a toff’s name. What do you know about names? Did you find anything curious about your name? Do you have prejudices about names? How did you choose your children’s name? Would you like to change your name? Do you celebrate your name’s day?

-What do you know about these places: Wapping, Blackheath…? In the story, they mention “cross the river”. What is the meaning of this phrase for the Londoners? They say it’s a “good move”.

-They play nine holes: Do you play any sport? Do you think that a sport defines the character of a person, that is, according to one’s personality there is a different sport for them?

-There was a time when everybody wore a chain round their neck, and now we consider it out of fashion. How does fashion change our minds?

-There are three generations of jobs in the story: docker, window cleaner (self-employed), liberal profession. What is it different between our jobs and our parents’ jobs? And what about next generation?

-What do you think about boxing? Do you think it should be banned, or banned in the Olympic Games, at least?

-Describe Charles Yates (appearance and personality)

-Describe Don’s character.

-Talk about Charles’s jobs.

-In the story, they say he can climb like a monkey. Do you have vertigo? What do you know about people who don’t feel vertigo?

-They mention something about “smiling differently”. What can be its meaning? Sometimes you cry when you are very happy. Is it possible to laugh when you are very sad?

-What is the double meaning of the title?

-At the end of the story, there’s a mysterious phrase: “whole fucking world”. What is the meaning of this in relation with the story? What is for you the final idea of the story?

 

VOCABULARY

toff, crisp bright, heath, brow, nine holes, sloppy, docker, chunky, nipper, bantamweight, oil rig, roofer, steeplejack, girders, giddiness, birdman, clincher, sprees, cuddling up, stashed, twigged, hunch, wheeler-dealer, muck about, contraptions, gentry, take your pick, barrow boys, whoosh, ref, cumbersome, lumbering, easy-peasy, tingle      

Fireworks, by Graham Swift

Fireworks

This story deals with the feelings of a father when his only daughter is about getting married. Bur two weeks before the appointed wedding, there is the famous missile crisis. Are they going to celebrate the wedding, or they prefer waiting for the end of the world? A few days after, it’s the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes Day, but now the celebration will be a bit different and perhaps not so happy as in previous years.

QUESTIONS

-What do you know of the crisis of the missiles in Cuba?

-How do you think the world will end? Do you think it’s going to be and end for the humanity? What is, according to your opinion, the best literary end of the world?

-Is Monday the worst day of the week, or it is a cliché? Do you have a favourite day? And a day you hate? Do you know the origin of the prejudice against Fridays (in Anglo-Saxon countries) or Tuesdays (as for example in Spain)?

-About news: Why are they all the time negative? Is there a secret objective? Or is it simply because people don’t like good news?

-Can you see an analogy between the pair of presidents and the pair of fathers-in-law?

-Do you keep old clothes or do you prefer donating them? Is there any piece that you love specially and want to keep it forever?

-What do you know about Guy Fawkes Day? And about Guy Fawkes?

-Is there an analogy between Guy Fawkes Day and a wedding?

-There had been a worldly alarm of a nuclear explosion, and at the end there were only fireworks. Do you think the author wanted to mean something with this?

-What was your experience with weddings? Have you been in a very unusual wedding?

 

VOCABULARY

flippant, distraught, forked out, crackling, tantrum, chucking it down, glued, aimer, get into flaps, grizzling, fixture, thrill, regalia, give it a miss, foible, slouching, juddering, rant, plonked, Bovril, debriefings, swig

Mrs Kaminski, by Graham Swift

Mrs Kaminski

This is a very short story about a woman who went dizzy in the street, fell over and was taken to a hospital. There’s a sad/funny dialogue between the woman and the doctor because the woman is very old, and also a bit confused, and the doctor very young.

 

 

QUESTIONS

Tell us the story of Mrs Kaminsky.

What can you say about Tooting?

And about Lodz?

What do you know about Polish pilots in the RAF?

What do you know about Polish people migrating to the UK? Have you seen the film Moonlighting, starring Jeremy Irons?

Is the woman senile? Can you tell some anecdotes about senile people?

Is it easy for a young person to understand a very old person? What do you think they are the points where it’s easy to have misunderstandings or difficulties in understanding between them?

 

VOCABULARY

(funny/nasty) turn

boilerman

dab

 

England and Other Stories, by Graham Swift

Graham Swift FRSL (Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature) was born in 1949 in London, England. He was educated at Cambridge, and later the University of York.

One of his most important works is Waterland (1992), which was adapted as a film, starring Jeremy Irons and Ethan Hawke, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal (father of the actor Jake Gyllenhaal and of the actress Maggie Gyllenhaal).  It’s the story about a teacher in a secondary school, and it’s situated in the Fens, a marshy region in the east of England. The teacher, a tormented person because he feels guilty of a sad incident, teaches history and mixes his lessons with the history of his family.

Another novel that has also adapted as a film is Last Orders (1996), starring Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins and Hellen Mirren. It’s about a group of friends who have to scatter the ashes of a deceased friend in the sea. The story goes backwards and forwards, this way remembering the old days of their dead friend. The novel got the Booker Prize in 1996 and this was a cause of controversy because of its similarities with the novel As I lay Dying, by Faulkner. The title of Swift novel alludes to the will of a defunct and also to the phrase said by the bartenders at 22:55 to prompt the patrons to order one last drink, because at 23:00 the pub will be closed.

He wrote several novels more, and also two collections of short stories: Learning to Swim and England and Other Stories.

Swift is more an English than a world writer, because he writes mostly about English subjects and situates his stories in British soil. The events (murder, adultery…) of his novels are treated with decorum, in an almost puritanic fashion. We can use the saying “Still waters run deep” for his narratives: at first sight all is calm, but the tragedy is underneath. His characters are “typical British”, phlegmatic people.

Technically, Swift does not innovate. His novels are mostly conventional. And that means he is understandable to everyone. But his novels are full of mystery: you don’t know the reasons why the people act and react, and these reasons will be revealed only gradually. In this case, sometimes you think that the author is playing with you: if he knows the solution, why doesn’t he tell us about it from the beginning?

 

About him:

He went to live in Greece for a year with the purpose of becoming a writer, and he went back to England with a horrid (according to him) manuscript.

He was influenced by Isaac Babel when he was younger, and kept a photograph of the Russian writer on his desk.

 

About himself:

“I believe it would be a bad day for a writer if he could say, “I know exactly what I'm doing”.”

“I hope my imagination will always surprise and stretch me and take me along unsuspected paths.”

“When you're reading a book, you're on a little island.”

 

About England and Other Stories

“All these stories are bits of England, but they are bits of different Englands.”

His short stories are an affectionate chronicle of everyday lives.

A calculated ordinariness unites the protagonists in Graham Swift’s new collection of short stories.

In most of the stories, ‘Englishness’ has a less concrete nature, a bittersweet quality.

This is a sharp, beautiful collection: every story quick and readable but leaving in the memory a core, a residue, of thoughtfulness. Some are wicked, some are funny.