The Surrogate, by Tessa Hadley

The Surrogate

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS, by Nora Carranza

Carla is twenty years old and studies at a college. Patrick is a Shakespeare and XVII century poetry lecturer. He is seven or eight years older than his students.

He is tall and thin, has a small beer belly and wears glasses. Maybe he isn’t particularly good-looking, but Clara, in the circle of chairs of the lecture room, loves all his gestures and body details.

Despite her feelings, the girl is aware that she is only an average student, although sometimes the professor remarks some of her sharp views. She has no expectations; she believes she is not beautiful: at school, the kids called her “frog face”.

Clara, after the reading of an old moving poem, understands that she is shut out the professor’s life.

Anyway, Clara dreams about Patrick permanently, she spends hours imagining varied situations that would allow them both to meet, and that eventually he would fall in love with her. In her favourite scene, they walk through a green meadow and reach a gate that opens to a wood. The scene has a romantic atmosphere, and crossing the gate represents the passage from their single life to their life together. However, when the fantasy reaches the moment of kissing, Clara gets lost, confused, and she cannot go ahead. This is not the real thing.

At the second year at college, Clara was short of money and got a job in a pub, not at all a fashionable place like the old traditional pubs. No students or lecturers go there for a beer, but groups of men to watch sports in the TV screens.

One evening, while attending normal duties, Clara for a moment believed that Patrick was there, and she panicked. But the man there only looked like Patrick, in many aspects. Nonetheless, he didn’t have the educated accent of the professor and seemed very shy.

Yet the man came back with his friends again and again. She knew that he (whose name is not mentioned) wanted to see her, and his friends made fun of it.

The differences between the pub visitor and Patrick were evident for Clara, but all the same, she initiated their singular relationship.

For a couple of months, they didn’t really go out together, they did only one thing together, until she went on holidays. She pretended that it was Patrick who made love to her, but eventually admitted he wasn’t. In fact, the lover was Dave, here is the name he had.

Surprisingly, the story changes a lot because, after some time, Patrick and Clara got married! He had always loved his student, and one day he went for her. The dream came true.

With the time and life together, love changes, ideals disappear and everybody has to deal with real persons. Clara accepts that, and thinks she loves her husband, and they make a good couple.

She never met Dave again, she doesn’t even know his surname. When she remembers that time, Clara feels quite embarrassed, thinking how she treated him, wondering why he accepted that, what feelings he had.

A new surprise arrives with the end of the story: Clara is having fantasies again; this time Dave goes to her house, as the gas engineer he was, and, instead of repairing the boiler, audaciously starts kissing Clara.

Is this another dream to come true?

Does Clara need to escape her everyday life changing protagonists in her fantasy? Does Clara want to compensate her previous behaviour with fantasies?

Do we need fantasy to cope with real life? Do we always have fantasies about hidden desires and keep them secret?

QUESTIONS

-Does being in love with one’s teacher improve one’s learning? Why so? Why not?

-Why do you think we move our hands when we speak?

-What details that aren’t particularly attractive did the narrator like in her teacher?

-What do you know about Much Ado About Nothing? What “freedom of choice” is there in the play?

-Do teachers prefer getting in love with clever students or with attractive ones?

-What do you know about the Henry King and his poem mentioned in the story?

-Do you like reading poetry? Do you have a favourite poem / poet?

-What was the meaning of the image of the field with “bullocks jostling and clambering on to one another’s back”?

-What could be a difference between infatuation and real love? Was Carla only infatuated, or was she in love? How do you know?

-Tell us about Patrick and Carla’s personality and physical appearance.

-Why wasn’t any sex in her dreams?

-What do you know about Coleridge and The Ancient Mariner?

-Have you ever been to an English pub?

-What kind of job is a waiter / waitress? Is it well paid? Is it a qualified job?

-The surrogate was shy and so perhaps not very clever, according to the narrator. Do you think there is a relation between character and talent?

-What could be the difference between sexual harassment and seduction?

-“People come in physical types.” How true is this sentence?

-According to the narrator, flirting with the surrogate wasn’t dangerous because she wasn’t in love with him. Why love could be dangerous?

-What do you think about cleaning your car / flat in expectation of a flirt?

-She was bored when the gas engineer told her about his job. What is the kind of conversation that bores / bothers you most?

-“He was a man: he didn’t turn me down.” Is it always true? Is it a cliché? Have a look at this: No means no in older times: scene of Love for Love, by Congreve (Act II, Scene XI)

-What is your opinion about the theory that says love only lasts three years?

-Would it be a good idea to tell Patrick about Dave? Why?

-Why, in your opinion, does she dream now about Dave?

-Why was there in her dreams a transition from romanticism to pseudo pornography?

 

VOCABULARY

lectures, smitten, moonly, picked --- out, average, quirky, insight, delude, singled --- out, strip lights, bullocks, exacting, investment, stranded, calling, muggers, aftermath, Dispiriting, gloomy, atmosphere, quaint, local, old-timers, optics, besotted, cap sleeves, demeaning, heated-up, seeped --- in, lurches, hurtling, infatuated, hoarded up, pliably, contrive, hover, serve up to, reckless

Fusilli, by Graham Swift

FUSILLI, by Aurora Ledesma

SUMMARY

The story begins with an unnamed man shopping in a British supermarket called Waitrose, two weeks before Christmas. While he is in the supermarket, he thinks about how he and his wife Jenny, had decided not to celebrate Christmas that year. They had also ignored Remembrance Day because of superstition. As he walks through the aisles, he remembers a call a month ago, from his son Doug, who was a soldier deployed to Afghanistan. The man was anxious to talk to his son. Doug advised his father to try the “fusilli” variety: “You should stick with dried” “Fresh is a scam”.

Now the man thinks that he and his wife will never eat fusilli again. It is revealed that Doug has died, and the call was the last time his father had heard his voice. Doug was in a mortuary in Swindon, waiting for the coroner’s decision. It was pretty clear now that they couldn’t have Doug before Christmas.

In the pasta aisle, while he is remembering the call, he sees a woman with two children. The woman is a bit stressed because her noisy children were screaming and out-of-control. He looks at the mother and thinks, “She doesn’t know how lucky she is”.

In the end of the story, he decides to buy the fusilli and puts it close to his chest. The pasta isn’t to eat, but it is some sort of memory for Doug.

 

ANALYSIS

In this story, the narrator goes between the present time and the past. The short narration is structured around the feelings and thoughts of a father who has just lost his son. Therefore, loss and grief are the most important themes. It shows us the difficult life of a father who is trying to accept the death of his son, who has been killed in the Afghanistan war. The man is also shown to suffer from multiple emotional conflicts. He wants to remember his son, but, at the same time, he is terrified of thinking about him. He also remembered when his son was a kid in the days when Christmas was coming, looking for a gift to give him. He also wondered if the toy gun he once gave Doug, as a Christmas gift, indicated that Doug would end up going to war. He constantly reconsiders his past actions and thinks he could have prevented his son becoming a soldier or even prevented his son’s death.

This story tells us what happens to the one left behind and how they deal with grief. His grief makes him question everything. Maybe, if he hadn’t been angry when his son called, his son wouldn’t have died.

 

The story deals with several themes, such as:

-The loss of a loved one and grief. Is it possible to become happy again after having lost a person you love as dearly as parents love their children?

-The meaning of wars in a distant country for families, no parents should live to see their son or daughter die. However, in times of war, young men and women, sometimes have to pay the heaviest price and sacrifice their lives to protect others.

-How superstitions influence us.

-The consumerism and all the products for sale a long time before the main holidays (Christmas, Halloween…)

QUESTIONS

What do you think about Christmas? Do you understand people who doesn’t celebrate it? What is your opinion about Bank holidays or days’ celebrations?

What do people do on Remembrance Day? When is it? Why there were “little boxes of poppies”?

What is it your method of shopping in a supermarket?

What can you say about Helmand?

What is your opinion about taking part in a foreign war like a soldier or like a Blue Helmet?

What kind of conversation can you have with a person that is in the middle of a war?

What do you think of giving toy weapons as a present for children?

“The kids were doing only what kids do”. How true is this sentence? (Boys will be boys)

When did you know that your children could give advice to you?

Why did the writer choose “Fusilli” for the title?

 

VOCABULARY

aisle, mince pies, poppies, supermarket run, dithering, scam, fads, splashing out, Waitrose, Tesco's, mortuary, traipsing, Mothercare, marauding, goat, brats, knobbly

TWO WORLD WAR I POEMS

In Flanders Fields, by John McCrae

Strange Meeting, by Wilfred Owen

Phosphorescence, by Tessa Hadley

 

SUMMARY, by Josep Guiteres

Graham Cooley is 38 years old, has a degree in physics, is married with children, is a competitive chess player and loves quantum mechanics and quarks.

One Friday, at the university, where he works as a physics professor, a course on food hygiene was held, and he saw a woman with shiny grey hair, a belligerent jaw, a turned-up nose, and a wide mouth. It was Claudia, a woman who he had met one summer at his parents’ house in West Wales, when Graham was 13 years old.

Graham told his wife Carol that in college he saw a woman he hadn’t seen in 25 years. At night, when Graham and his wife were in bed, he told Carol that when Claudia was on holiday at his parents’ house, she had made advances toward him. His wife ended the conversation saying, what would you think if a man did to your daughter what Claudia did to you?

Graham took Claudia’s address and went to her house. He introduced himself saying that he was Graham Cooley and that she and her family had been on holiday at the Cooley’s in West Wales. Claudia remembered, she looked at his face and told him that he was handsome and that she always had good taste in men.

She invited him into her house, they sat down, and he put his hand on Claudia’s knee and reminded her that, on the last night she was at his parents’ house, he took her and her two young daughters by boat. He told her that she had sat in front of him while he rowed; the water that night was full of phosphorescence, tiny sea creatures that glowed in the dark, and that she put her feet on top of his and rubbed them all the time. Once he said this, he kissed her, put his hands under her clothes and she didn’t stop him.

Graham got home very late, his wife was waiting for him, and, for a moment, he thought that Carol might suspect something, but he immediately thought, I am her husband, the physics professor who loves quantum mechanics and a puritan. Nothing happens here.

QUESTIONS

Describe Graham’s family

Talk about Graham.

What can you say about Claudia?

Do / did you play board games? What is your favourite? What kind of player are / were you? Do you have any anecdote?

When do children start dressing as adults?

Do you think our children know better about sex than us?

Do you think that in our time swearing has increased its intensity? Aren’t “shit” and “bloody” a little soft?

In your opinion, why did Claudia choose Graham, and not Tim or Alex?

At first Graham thought Claudia was old, but then, when he saw playing badminton, not so old, even young. How do you calibrate the age of a person? Is there a kind of touchstone?

How does Claudia approach Graham?

Why in a moment wasn’t Graham able to look at his mother?

Do you think our generation have overprotected children?

“He suffered like an adult, secretly.” Do adults suffer in secret? In which cases?

How did Graham / Claudia change over the time?

What do you think about telling your past to anybody (a new friend, a partner, your children)?

Graham’s wife thought that his experience with Claudia was horrible. Does Graham agree? Do you agree?

How was it possible that Claudia didn’t remember him and their story?

Did he have a “trauma” because of Claudia’s seduction?

In your opinion, did Graham cheat on his wife?

How do you think the story would go on?

What do you imagine it’s the relation between the title and the story?

 

VOCABULARY

daps, reslating, chalet, meadow, overspill, Dormobile van, making it all up, toddler, snap, suntan, soothed, scooping, shuttlecock, halter top, gritty, sandpapery, scorch, racing demon, humming, waxed, plug, rewire, flip-flops, hog, six-form college, foyer, pugnacious, brash, dregs, blare, droop, mews, stone-flagged, batik, tans, sag, tinged, GCSE moderation

Ajax, by Graham Swift

AJAX, by Cristina Fernández

SUMMARY

A schoolboy called James lives in the neighbourhood with his mother and father.

A weird man lives in the next house.

Although Mr Wilkinson is educated, respectable, interesting and well-dressed, he is not the “normal family”, he lives alone in his fifties, and he likes to practice sports in his garden in underpants and chanting, in all weathers, therefore he is fit, muscular and well-built.

While the boy feels adoration and beguiling for that man, his mother and the neighbourhood dislike him because he hasn’t a “normal” job: he receives patients at home and practices alternative medicine. Besides, his visitors are young girls too.

One day, while James is playing with flowers in the garden, is asked by Mr. Wilkinson if he’s a vegetarian, and so the boy thinks the adult is.

Another day, the man asks the boy for something to clear drains, and he gives the man Ajax, and it’s explained to be the name of a Greek myth. The boy sees blood in that water and explains everything to their parents. The boy thinks he’s not a vegetarian.

Mr. Wilkinson had to leave, a police man asked questions to the boy and a normal family moved in, what the whole street wanted.

When the boy grew up, he studied to be a Greek teacher in Oxford college, was homosexual and weird and discovered that “Ajax” was a Greek warrior who went mad mistaking sheep for people.

 

PERSONAL OPINION

The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that maybe Mr Wilkinson used to practice abortions to the young girls that visited him.

That the parents of the boy perhaps thought that the man had tried to abuse sexually the boy.

I think that this neighbour was the first platonic love of the boy who influenced him in his future career, not minding being weird.

I am convinced that respectability rejects everything that is new, different and free.

QUESTIONS

-“Weirdo” is a bit offensive. Nowadays, we tend to use euphemisms. Do you think that a change of words can change the reality?

-“I was too young to have opinions of my own.” In older times, you could start giving opinions only when you reached a specific age. Does it seem right for you?

-“I was driven into taking an opposite view.” In which cases new generations do the opposite to old generations?

-Do you remember the film “In and Out”? There is a scene where a student says all the qualities of a gay man. Is it only a cliché?

According to the English novels, you are a gentleman or a gentlewoman if you are rich, you have a title, or you have an education. Is there any other way to be a gentleman or a gentlewoman?

-“Anyone can do what they like in the privacy of their own home.” Is that an absolute right?

-What do you think about name’s shortening or nicknaming (James to Jim or Jimmy)?

-Do you think being a vegetarian is a way to be different? Is there something you can call a “normal diet”?

-Do you remember the famous admonition “Don’t talk to strangers”? Were our parents right?

-What do you know about “alternative medicines”?

-What were your experiences with doctors when you were a child?

-In your opinion, why did Mr Wilkinson show the narrator boy how he cleaned the drains?

-What do you think Mr Wilkinson did to earn his living? How do you know?

-How did you decide to study what you wanted to be?

-The new residents, the Fletchers, in Mr Wilkinson’s house were a couple with their first baby: can you see the irony?

-What do you know about Ajax, from the Greek mythology? Do you remember more literary names used as a brand name?

-“If you’re a professor of Greek, you’re allowed to be that”: Do you think there is a relation between sexual tendency and studies or job?

 

 

VOCABULARY

weirdo, undoing, doff, cut above, educated, look up, medley, chanting, semis, beret, kit bag, tinkered, trellis, stoopingness, pebble-dashing, abiding, clinch, held much water, scotched, pinned him down, gruff, drains, bother, sporting, sly, rush, hazardous, scouring, enthralled, beguiling, tantalizingol, slop, gutter, squeamish, capped, slander, unwitting, bereft, Fellow's gown, smoothed over, tenet