Atrophy, by Edith Wharton

 

To read her BIOGRAPHY by Nora Carranza, click here.
Notes for Atrophy

SUMMARY, by Josep Guiteras

Nora Frenway was a young, beautiful and elegant woman. She was married to Mr. George Frenway, a semi-invalid man with a bad temper which made him a desolate and pathetic figure.
They had two sons who were Nora’s jewels. George had a possessive and domineering mother, before whom the entire family cowered, lied and flattered.
Nora had once had a lover, Christopher, who lived in Oakfield near Westover. He was currently very ill and his life was in danger, so Nora Frenway secretly decided to take the train and visit him.
Her lover lived with his spinster sister, Jana Aldis, a dishevelled, old and insignificant woman.
Jana Aldis made it as difficult as she could to prevent Nora from seeing her brother Christopher. Nora suspected that Jana knew about her relationship with her brother, and just in case there was any doubt about this, when Nora was about to board the taxi that would take her to Westover station to return home, Jane Aldis called from the threshold “I’ll be sure to write to thank your husband Mr. Frenway for your visit.”

QUESTIONS
-Has been there a moment when you had the feeling of being "flung naked to the public scrutiny"?
-Do you feel you have adopted all the inhibitions of your parents and grandparents? What inhibitions do you regret more?
-In your opinion, does a sister have more power upon her brother than a wife upon her husband?
-According to your view, is the partner the first one to feel being cheated, or the last one, when everybody already knows?
-In the story there is a beautiful love gesture: to stroke the dog on the same place her lover's hand had rested. Do you remember any other tender gesture, in real life or in fiction?
-What would you be your best option when you feel your adversary (in a match, in a debate...) is much weaker than yourself?
-Miss Aldis speaks several times about "tree moving". What is its symbolism, on your view?
-What could be the relation between the title and the story?

VOCABULARY
quailed, humbugged, fibbed, fawned, holds-up, welter, tarred, inferences, dowdy, brim, panelled, brink, prying, cared for a fig, upholsterer, moping, groping, caller, beech, twaddle, platitudes, blighting

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

Keys, by Graham Swift

Summary and analysis, by Elisa Sola Ramos

Briefly, the summary of the story is an incident of everyday life: John, a 47-year-old architect, accompanies his wife to the station to catch the train: she has to go to see his brother who is dying. John doesn’t go with her because he can’t stand his brother, and makes a secondary excuse that he has work. She doesn’t mind that he doesn’t accompany her, either. Just after leaving the woman, he realizes that he has left his keys in his zip-up jacket pocket inside the house and finds himself locked out of the house. Then, he notices that the neighbour’s housekeeper is there, and he knocks on the door for her to help him into his house. They make love.

As in many of Graham Swift’s stories, an incident of everyday life (in this case, forgetting the keys) serves to reflect on one’s own life. In our story, being shut out of the house helps John to see his own life from a distance, as if he was a stranger. And this is what John does: a 47-year-old architect, with a comfortable life and married to Clare, shows us a conventional slice of life of a well-to-do middle-aged couple, and we see the loneliness of the characters at every moment. Clare doesn’t count on him when it comes to her family (“He’d be peripheral. He was just a husband.”) and John had an affair with his colleague - or superior - at work and didn’t tell his wife, even though she knew (“she had her inklings”). The couple leads a conventional life, with jobs that are not perfect, and they are burdened with their loneliness.

The other character is the cleaner, a girl no more than 25 years old, foreign, with little command of the language. There is a great distance between John and the cleaner, to highlight the man’s power over the woman: age, purchasing power, culture... It’s a full-fledged league, but both characters are completely alone, they are strangers to their own life. They meet at a given moment and make love, but they make love to themselves because they never break the distance that separates them, at no time do they communicate.

Weather is an essential element in the story. As in many of the stories we have read, time is another character. In fact, it is the element that creates the right atmosphere. With a short story, this is very useful, because a few words create an atmosphere. In this case, the rain draws a curtain between him and his own life. It begins that four drops fall and ends that it rains in torrents and torrents, and that gives the tone and context of the story.

As always, a good image illustrates the entrance of the blog: an old and unpainted heart as a keyring, like the relationship between the two main characters. What really brings people together? Does John need Claire to appease his predatory instincts, his “stray animal inside him”, to get the stability he wants, against his impulse? Does Claire need John for her strength, as opposed to her brother and family? Why do people stay together if they feel lonely? It is the great question of our story.

QUESTIONS

What kind of goodbye do you prefer? A short one? A long one? When it’s you who goes away? When it’s you who stays?

What do you think of families? What is it better for a person, relatives or friends?

“He was just a husband.” Do you think a husband will always be peripheral? They say the first person old widows forget is their husband. Is it true?

“Weak men got ill and die.” Do you think character and constitution decide over life and death?

For you, what is a feeling? Are feelings logical? Can you control your feelings?

What is your opinion about saying always the raw truth?

Did you lose your keys any time? Do you have a story about this?

What will happen to the residents of Neale Road?

Ugly names: can a name be ugly? Can a name decide if a person is attractive or plain?

What do you know about Moldova?

Do you think we have an “animal inside us”?

Is a paraphilia to need to make love in any other’s house?

What is your opinion about the famous sentence: “No news, good news”?

What do you imagine it is going to happen then? Is Clare going to know about it? If yes, is she going to pardon him? Is their marriage going to last long?

 

VOCABULARY

spared, forecourt, got on with, spared, stifling, spot, inklings, riddle, terraced, manhandling, squirmed, tackle, put up with, unremitting, none-the-wiser, feral, bucketing, proneness, have that one there, sanctuary, knuckle down

A Painful Case, by James Joyce

James Joyce at the Wikipedia
A Painful Case at the Wikipedia

Audiobook

Analysis and summaries:

ginevra lee

Complutense

Knapp

Cliffsnotes

 

JAMES JOYCE, by Glòria Torner

James Joyce is one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. He is known for his experimental use of language and exploration of new literary methods, including interior monologue, use of complex network of symbolic parallels and invented words and allusions in his novels, especially in his main novel Ulysses.

 

BIOGRAPHY

James Joyce, James Augustine Aloysius Joyce, was born in 1882, in Dublin (Ireland) into a middle-class family.

He was the eldest of ten children. At the age of six he went to a Jesuit boarding school called Clongowes Wood College. But, as his father was not the man to be affluent for long; he drank, neglected his affairs and borrowed money from his office, and his family sank deeper and deeper into poverty, Joyce didn't return to Clongowes College in 1891; instead, he stayed at home for the next two years and tried to educate himself. In 1893 he and his brother Stanislaus were admitted to Belvedere College, a Jesuit grammar school in Dublin. Joyce was a brilliant student and there did well academically.

He entered the Trinity College Dublin in 1898. There he studied modern languages, English, French and Italian, and read widely, particularly in books not recommended by the Jesuits. He began to write verses and experimented with short prose passages that he called Epiphanies. To support himself while writing, after graduation in 1902, he went to Paris to become a doctor, but he soon abandoned this idea.

He went back home in April 1903 because his mother was dying. He tried several occupations including teaching; he also began to write his first novel, Stephen Hero, based on the events of his own life, and he also began to write the short stories published as Dubliners in 1914.

Joyce had met Nora Barnacle in June 1904, and they began a relationship until his death; they probably had their first date, and their first sexual encounter, the day that is now known as “Bloomsday”, the day of his novel Ulysses. The couple left Dublin and emigrated together to continental Europe where he taught languages in Pola (Croatia) and Trieste (Italy), where their son Giorgio was born. He also lived for a year in Rome, where he worked in a bank and where their daughter Lucia was born.

Joyce visited Ireland in 1909 and again in 1912, this time with his family. In 1914 he rewrote and completed the novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, published in 1916, and he began to write Ulysses.

In 1915 the Joyce’s couple moved to Zürich and in 1916 he published his play Exiles. It was also the year that chapters from Ulysses, his novel in progress, began to appear in the American journal, “The Little Review”. The completed book would not appear until 1922. Ernest Hemingway and Winston Churchill were two of the first to buy the ready famous new book.

Ulysses, the most notable novel of the twentieth century, his main novel, is a gigantic work. All the action takes place in and around Dublin in a single day. The novel is the chronicle of the Dublin journey of the main character, Leopold Bloom, on an ordinary day. The three central characters: Stephen Dedalus, (Telemachus) the same hero of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Leopold Bloom (Ulysses) a Jewish advertising canvasser, and his wife Molly (Penelope), the unfaithful woman. The events of the novel loosely parallel the events in Odysseus’s journey home after the Trojan War. Joyce employs interior monologue, stream of consciousness, parody and almost every other literary technique to present his characters.

Finding out that he was gradually gaining fame as an avant-garde writer, Joyce set himself in Paris to finish his Ulysses. His last book was Finnegan's Wake, published in 1939. Joyce's eyes began to give him more and more problems, and he travelled to Switzerland for eyes surgery.

Joyce died at the age of 59 in January 1941, in Zurich for a perforated duodenal ulcer.

SOME FACTS ABOUT JOYCE

He was the eldest of ten brothers and sisters.

His family were very poor, but his father had some airs. He didn’t belong to the working classes, he had “business”, and in all of them he failed. He was not a hard-working man, but he wanted some education for James: after a lot of pleading, he got a seat for him in a well-known and high reputation Jesuit School.

Joyce studied languages at the University and, after that, he went to Paris to try to study medicine, but he spent his days there reading in libraries.

When he was 22, he met Nora Barnacle, and, in the second date, she masturbated him, and they started being together for the rest of their lives.

The next year, they ran away from Dublin and went to live abroad forever. They lived in Trieste, Rome, Zurich and Paris. At the beginning he worked as an English teacher, and in a bank translating letters from Italian to English. But then he asked money to institutions to write his masterpiece, Ulysses. He got it from sponsors and from the British government. He didn’t earn anything from his books.

Although we can imagine him as a bohemian artist, he was not any of it because he was essentially a family man. He worked doing English classes (for instance, he taught English to Italo Svevo) to provide for his family, and, apart from this, he wrote following his artistic call.

He had a lot of health problems with his eyes, and there were some periods when he was almost blind. But he continued writing all his life. His wife was a bit illiterate and she only read one of his books, the collection of poems Chamber Music. She asked him to write more commercial books.

He died at the age of 59 of a sudden illness.

WORKS

James Joyce is known for his experimental novel Ulysses. In this novel, Joyce tells us about one day in the life of a very ordinary man. It’s a thick book and hard to read, but it has a lot of radical fans. Before this, he wrote some poetry (but he wasn’t very happy with it), some short stories under the title of Dubliners (following Ibsenian ideas and style), a novel, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man (a Bildungsroman), and another experimental novel, more extreme than Ulysses, under the title of Finnegan's Wake.

In Dubliners, Joyce tried to make a portrait of Dublin’s moral personality, and he arranged its stories according to the ages of a person (childhood, youth, maturity, old age). He had a lot of difficulties to publish it because a lot of real people and real places appeared in the book, and he didn’t want to change anything to hide real names under fictious names. They are “classical” texts, very different from his most famous works. The last story, “The Dead”, has been made in a film directed by John Huston.

A PAINFUL CASE

According to one letter to his brother, this story was one of the worst of the collection, but then it’s a story with two books studying only it.

It is a short story belonging to the group of “maturity”. It narrates the voluntary loneliness of a self-made single man and the involuntary one of a married woman. The man is very proud of being alone, because this way he can spend his free time on his intellectual and lofty hobbies. He meets a married woman, but he doesn’t want an affair, he only wants a listener. When the woman tries to make some advances, he breaks up the relationship because he thinks that between a man and a woman friendship is impossible. Afterwards, the woman has a depression and dies in an accident in a railway station, and he feels (and not only knows) his loneliness.

The form of the story is a classical one: first introduces the characters, then there is a conflict and a solution for this conflict, and last of all, a moral reflexion.

 

 

QUESTIONS

Can you describe in your own words Mr Duffy (that in Gaelic means “black” or “dark”)? Age, personality, physical appearance, job, interests…

From the description of his lodgings, what can deduce about Mr Duffy’s personality?

Why do you think that the Maynooth Catechism is “sewn into the cloth cover of a notebook?

What do you know about Hauptmann’s Michael Krammer?

And about Nietzsche?

Mr Duffy eats arrowroot cookies because they are healthy. Do you think eating healthily can make a person better? What is your opinion about “you are what you eat”?

Mr Duffy thought that he could be a rebel sometimes and rob a bank. Was this only a bluff, or was it for real?

Describe Mrs Sinico in your words

Mrs Sinico is pictured as having an intelligent face. Do you think that the face can be the mirror of a person’s personality or qualities?

What do you know about astrakhan?

How did Mr Duffy and Mrs Sinico come to know each other?

What kind of friendship did they have? What did they usually do in their dates? Was there any love between them?

What was Mrs Sinico’s role for her husband? And for Mr Duffy?

What city is Leghorn? Do you know other cities with names very different from the native language?

Can you explain why he liked Mozart, according to your opinion?

What do you know about the Irish Socialist Party? What were Mr Duffy political ideals?

Talk about Mrs Sinico’s family.

“Every bond is a bond of sorrow”. What does it mean? Do you think it’s true?

“Friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse”: what is your opinion about this?

How did Mrs Sinico die?

How did the breaking up of her relationship with Mr Duffy affect her?

How did Mrs Sinico’s death affect Mr Duffy? Did he hate her, or did he pity her?

Can you explain the metaphor of the “worm with a fiery head” and the end of the story? (page 9 line 1)

Is it possible to compare this story with Madame Bovary, or Anna Karenina, or The Lady with the Dog? What do they have in common? What differences are there between them?

 VOCABULARY

mean, shallow, double desk, alcove, Bile Beans, saturnine, tawny, hazel, arrowroot, bill of fare, roaming, thinly (peopled), house, plying, garret, timorous, wages, phrasemonger, impresario, propped, haze, buff, reefer overcoat, inquest, league, threadbare, hobbling, shop, gaunt, withheld, gnawed