Wonders Will Never Cease, by Graham Swift

WONDERS WILL NEVER CEASE,
by Begoña Devis 

The story is about the friendship between two men, who both did the same PE course at college. This is a metaphor about seeing life as a race, like athletes or behind women. In both cases, the trophy is the goal.
The narrator is fascinated by his friend Aaron, who according to him gets the best women, while he must conform to those he rejects. In fact, he ends up marrying one he rejected, Patti.
But after the years his friend calls to ask him, along with his partner, to witness his wedding. Then he sees that his friend isn’t so attractive as he expected, and that his future wife isn’t either. In fact, he now believes that his wife is more beautiful than Aaron’s.
In addition, he also likes the relationship he has with his wife more than the one his friend has with his, which seems much more childish to him.
Is it possible that he has done things better than his admired friend? It could be: Wonders will never cease.
 In my opinion, it means that sometimes we believe ourselves inferior to other people, just because they seem to have chosen a more interesting path, while we have chosen a more ordinary accommodating one. But then it turns out that everything is deceiving, and that we have been wasting our time ascribing virtues to other people that they did not have.
On the other hand, the story is terribly sexist, although it must be understood according to the way of thinking of the other times, hopefully forgotten by now (I hope).

QUESTIONS

-Talk about the characters

The narrator

Aaron

Patti

-The narrator says about himself: “I’m the type who sees the life like a book, with chapters.” How do you see life? Like a novel, like a river, like a circle? Why?

-The protagonist has to content himself with the girls Aaron rejected. There are big novels about being the “second one”. Do you remember any?

-The wedding in the story is a very simple ceremony, with only the narrator and his wife invited. Why didn’t he invite more people?

-Talking about weddings: have you ever had to make a speech in one? What do you have to say in a like speech? Do you remember famous speeches in films? Prepare a speech for a friend/son/daughter wedding and tell us in our meeting.

-What is the pun with “Wanda will never cease”? Do you know other puns in English?

-In the story there are two different kinds of love: Aaron and his wife, Patti and her husband. Can you describe them?

-What do you think it’s the morality of the story? Who are the happiest? Why?

VOCABULARY

hurdles, hang out, letting the side down, count me out, hankering, out of the blue, cagey, wound up, arm-twisted, spell it out, shacked, pared-down, locked up, twigged, glint, going places, kid myself, goosing, sorting ourselves out, head start, crashing, peep, upended, mucking around, stopwatch, handicap, real deal, missis, chuckling, yanked