The Country Girls, by Edna O'Brien

Obituary

BIOGRAPHY & SUMMARY, by Glòria Torner

Josephine Edna O’Brien was born in 1930, in Tuamgraney, County Clare, a small rural village in the west of Ireland. The youngest of four children, she grew up in the atmosphere of Irish National Catholicism of the 1940s, marked by an alcoholic father, who was a farmer, and a strict mother in religious practice who considered writing “a path of perdition”.

After finishing primary school in her village, she was educated at the Convent of Sisters of Mercy, a boarding school in Galway.  In her 20s, she went to university in Dublin where she graduated in Pharmacy in 1950 and where she worked briefly as an apothecary. In 1952, against her parents’ wishes, she married the writer Ernest Gebler, with whom she had two children. They settled in London, where O’Brien turned to writing as a full-time occupation. Ten years later, in 1962, she escaped from a loveless marriage and moved to the desolate suburban London where, at least, she felt free to write.

Her life has been divided between England, where she has lived for more than 50 years and where she writes, and Ireland, where her writing comes from and where it endlessly returns, exploring her home country from a more detached perspective.

Edna O’Brien has publicly acknowledged that James Joyce’s works, especially A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, were her main inspiration and led her to devote to literature for the rest of her life.

Her first novel, The Country Girls, written when she was 30, was published in 1961.  It is the history of two girls who live in a backward and repressive country, especially in rural areas of Ireland. They grow up in their strict homes, attend a convent school from which they are expelled and travel to Dublin and London in search of imaginary opportunities, love and sex. This book was considered a scandal in her country and she was labelled an enemy of Ireland. Her family felt humiliated by this book. It was the first instalment of a trilogy, written in autobiographical style, completed with The Lonely Girl, later published as Girl with Green Eyes, and Girls in the Married Bliss. Now, these two books are set in London, and there the protagonists become disillusioned with marriage and men in general.

She has written more than twenty works of fiction where the main themes are Ireland and women. Some of them are: The High Road, Down by the River, In the Forest, The Light of Evening, The Little Red Chairs, and the last one, written in 2019, Girl, which was inspired by the Nigerian schoolgirls who were kidnapped by members of Boko Haram.

Other notable works include a dramatic work about Virginia Woolf, two important biographies, of James Joyce and Lord Byron, and an autobiographical essay called Mother Ireland.

She also has published nine short story collections where their setting varies, although Ireland appears in several of them. One of them is From Mrs Reinhard and Other Stories, where In the Hours of Darkness is included.

She has died recently, in London, on July 27th, 2024, at the age of 93.

THE COUNTRY GIRLS

Following the plot of the book, it’s easy to divide this novel in three parts.

First part and first chapter. Last day of the school.

Edna O’Brien writes in first person, remembering her real life when she was fourteen years old, the story of Cait and Baba, two young Irish country girls. They live in a rural area of Ireland, (County Clare), a backward and repressive country. They grow up in their strict homes and they spend their childhood together, going to the same school.

Edna O’Brien presents the following characters:

Cathleen, “Kate” or “Cait” (in Irish) Brady, the protagonist. She is a charming and naïve narrator girl who describes only one day of her life in this first chapter.

And the other ones in order of appearance:

The father’s absence. Cait begins to talk about the figure of her father with coldness, with some insinuations: “The old reason”, “He had not come here”. We will understand later her father drinks too much, has a terrible temper, and a tendency to go on benders and then returning home to beat his wife.

Deep love for her mother, called Mama in the story. Cait says, “She was the best mama in the world”. What happens to her mother along the story? There is a premonition when Cait pronounces these sentences: “She straightened the cap on my head and kissed me three or four times”.

They are the poor Brady family.

 

Bridge, “Baba” Brennan, Cait’s best friend, is the novel’s deuteragonist. Despite being opposites in most respects, because Cait is dreamy and kindly romantic, and Baba is a lying and jealous girl who wants to dominate many times Cait’s behaviour, they are sometimes allies, and sometimes enemies. She is the daughter of the rich couple Brennan.

Baba’s parents would appear frequently throughout the story.

Hickey, he is the underpaid farm labourer who preserves the family’s fields and animals, and keeps the place going. Cait says “I love him”, but later she changes the word “love” saying “what I really meant was that I was fond of him”.

Jack Holland, owner of the local grocery store who claims loving Cait and says that he wants to marry her. We know he has always been attracted to Cathleen’s mother, but now he is showing his love to Cathleen.

Miss Moriarty, the teacher. As it is the last day of school, Cait and Baba are going to say goodbye to her, and Cait brings her a bunch of lilacs.

The only one character that doesn’t appear in this first chapter is Mr Gentleman, (her real name is de Maurier), a rich French lawyer, much older than Cait. He lives in a nearby manor house with his wife and several children. He has a very important role in the novel. Cait feels attracted to Mr Gentleman, and she imagines her future life with him. Mr Gentleman will be her protector and...

If you read the book, you will know about the relationship between Cait and Mr Gentleman.

Edna O’Brien also describes the rural landscapes of green meadows and wild flowers of Ireland. We are in the poor Brady’s farm, near County Limerick, where fields must be ploughed with effort, and we’re going to discover the daily habits and the atmosphere of Cait’s home when she gets up in the morning and has her breakfast. She describes an Irish village with many small details as the names of trees, flowers, birds…

At the end of this first part, Cait, rushing home to tell her mama she’s won a scholarship to go to a convent school, something very significative happens...

Second part. The oppressive forces of the religious education.

Cait and Baba attend a convent school. They discover that life in the convent is terrible: only prayers, hours of study, and punishments. Cait feels very sorry and sad, but she shines academically. Baba gets into trouble because she hates this school so much, that on several occasions she considers running away. And according to a plan that the manipulator Baba develops, they are both expelled. Their life will change.

Third part. From repression to freedom.

After their expulsion, they move together to Dublin. Baba is sent to a secretarial college and will follow her studies, but Cait will work in a grocery store. They will go to London in search of imaginary opportunities, love and sex in the big city. They struggle to maintain their somewhat tumultuous relationship. At the end of this part, the two girls are 18 years old. And someone who appears along the story clams to find “his country girl” but…

Do you imagine how the book could finish? A happy new life in Dublin, London or another place? Or a sad ending?

SOME REMARKS

I hope to encourage you reading this sensitive book because I think:

Events, people, feelings, emotions and landscape are very well described.

It’s a realistic portrait of Irish people.

The book talks about the discovering of sex without any taboo. This frank treatment of sex and the sharp critique of Irish society in the post-World War II period was considered scandalous at the time in Ireland. But I have not found the obscenities they cite in some references.

Tender and sad book!

QUESTIONS

-What are the meaning of these expressions (page 6, lines 22), “A nun you are in my eye”, “the Kerry Order”, “two heads in one pillow”?

-In your view, using an alarm clock, is it a natural way of waking up? Timetables, are they a better way of organizing our lives, or they're only another way to control us?

-People usually reserve the best plates, tablecloth, cutlery... for visitors. What do you think it's the reason for this? Is it also your habit?

-Aren't you angry when you see an oppressed person happy with their way of life? What would you say to this person?

-In the story there's no much hygiene. In your opinion, does our society exaggerate with cleanness?

-Do you have a kind of talisman you put under your pillow (to sleep better, to have sweet dreams, to not snore...)?

-In your opinion, what is the best way to become your teacher's favourite?

-What is your point of view about religious education? Is it necessary to teach religion in the schools?

-What is the meaning of the last sentence, the maxim "Weep and you weep alone"? Is it true, or it's only an old wives' saying?

VOCABULARY

ankle socks, dew, hedge, canned sweets, turf house, beamed up, pullet, chicken run, he did his water, flag, flush, clippers, range, sharp, stingy, bog, simmering, paling, boulders, meal, moping, pick your steps, blackbird, fudge, sprees, bout

Why Be Happy, When You Can Be Normal, by Jeanette Winterson

The writer presents her book in a video

Mercedes Cebrián interviews Jeanette Winterson (video)

Conversation with Bel Olid (video)

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (film)

BIOGRAPHY

Jeanette Winterson was born in Manchester in 1959 and was adopted by a very religious family.

At 16, she discovered she was a lesbian and left home.

Her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a semi-autobiographical novel, tells us her experiences of her childhood and adolescence in this family. (There’s an adaptation of this book for the television.)

She got a job as an assistant editor for a feminist publisher.

Besides writing and editing, she refurbished a house in Spitalfields, and there she opened an organic food shop.

Other books of hers are The Passion, set in the Napoleonic period, and The Daylight Gate, based on the 1612 witch trials in Lancashire.

She had a relation with Pat Kavanagh, Julian Barnes’s wife, but it didn’t last, and Pat went back to her husband.

 

INTRODUCTION. The Wrong Crib.

This first chapter of Why Be Happy... is a sort of introduction to the book and presents some questions that are going to appear along the narrative: her adoption, religion, lesbianism, literature, feminism, parental and filial love. But sometimes you think it’s a kind of revenge against her foster parents, especially her foster mother, an authoritarian person obsessed with the biblical religion.

But all in all, the story is about the research of the protagonist’s biological parents and her own identity. And also trying to discover why she was an adopted girl: was she a desired child, was she given in adoption because her mother didn’t have any money? Because she was very young? Because was the fruit of a non-consented relation? But it seems there was another child to be adopted: why was she the chosen one?

She starts telling us she wrote Oranges and that when Mrs Winterson (her foster mother) finds out she got very angry. Jeanette now describes her appearance and personality: a tall, big woman with a paranoic obsession with religion and strict morality. But she has other peculiarities apart from going to church almost every day: she never sleeps with her husband, she keeps a pistol in a drawer, she believes in spirits…

And Jeanette herself is a very singular creature: she can be violent, she deceives her friends, she keeps a part from the rest of schoolmates, she likes reading…

 

And in the next chapters she is going to tell us how she learnt English Literature reading all the books of the library in alphabetical order, how she bought second hand books, and she had to hide them, how Mrs Winterson found them and burned them, and thus she decided to write her own, why she left her home at sixteen, how she earned some money working in a market, how she lived in a Mini, how she felt in love with a she-schoolmate, what were the working-class lives like under Margaret Thatcher, what were her opinions about her, how her Literature teacher took in her house, how she could go to Oxford to study Literature…

What kind of people were Mr and Mrs Winterson, what kind of relationship they had, why they didn’t sleep together, what kind of religion was the Pentecostal church, what kind of books she read…

There are also very interesting remarks about literature: i.e., people who read King James’s Bible could understand more easily Shakespeare because they were written in the same 17^th century English.

But the big part of the story is the research and finally, after a long process and innumerable bureaucratic hurdles, finding out who her mother was, meeting her and tying to accommodate herself with her new relatives.

 

 

QUESTIONS

-Do you think there’s always something missing in an adopted child?

-What would you say if a writer used your person as a character for a novel?

-What is for you to be “normal”?

-What can you tell about the story of Philomel?

-The narrator mention “stammering” when you have had a kind of trauma. What do you know about the causes of stammering?

-What can you tell us about these films: Secrets and Lies, by Mike Leigh, and Rosemary’s Baby, by Roman Polanski?

 

 

VOCABULARY

crib, McCarthyism, flare, Pentecostal, bare-knuckle fighter, copperplate, be borne up on the shoulders, duffel-coat. Shift, cover story, flash-dash, terraced house, tick-box, catapult, misfit, forensically, shot, Philomel, blotted, vale, thug, seances, poodle, larder, cap-gun

The Doll's House, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Dora Sarrión

The story began when Mrs Hay brought the Burnell children a doll’s house as a gift. The house smelled of new paint, which the adults disliked, but it was so marvellous for the three daughters of the Burnell’s family, Isabel, Lottie and Kezia, that they didn’t mind the smell. It was very well decorated with little furniture and dolls inside. Although everything was perfect in the house, Kezia, the youngest sister, paid attention to a small lamp, which she thought it was the best part of the house.
They were eager to go to school and tell their classmates about their new gift.
But Isabel told her sisters that, because she was the oldest, she was going to explain to their classmates about the doll’s house, and to decide which classmates were going to see the house in person.
The next morning, during the playtime at school, Isabel was surrounded by her classmates waiting for her explanation about the details of the house. But not every girl could approach her. Lil and Else Kelvey couldn’t.
The school was not as sophisticated as Burnell parents would like. Because they lived in a remote area, the school contained students from several demographic and economic backgrounds. The children of wealthy parents separate themselves from their socio-economically disadvantaged classmates on the playground. The Kelvey sisters were the poorest students at school. Their mother was the village washerwoman, and everyone in the city said that their father was in prison.
Like their classmates, Else and Lil were fascinated by the explanations about the doll’s house, but they couldn’t participate in the conversation, they could only overhear how Isabel was proudly describing it. When Isabel finished, Kezia reminded her to mention her lamp, even though no one else seemed to care about it.
Isabel chose the first two girls who were to come back with them that afternoon to see the house, and said that everyone was going to have a chance in the future to see it. Only the Kelveys knew they will never be chosen.
One day Kezia asked her mother if she could invite the Kelveys to see the doll’s house, but Mrs Burnell refused it, and at Kezia’s insistence, she answered “Run away, Kezia, you know quite well why not”. But she didn’t understand.
As the days passed, almost all the children were amazed at how wonderful the doll’s house was. But there was a moment when everyone had seen the house except the Kelveys, and, as it seemed that the subject was beginning to languish, the girls decided to make fun of the Kelveys sisters; but their reaction was only silence, so this new adventure of making fun of them did not seem to have much success.
Later that afternoon, when Kezia was at home swinging in the courtyard, she saw the Kelveys coming in the road towards her. She invited them in to see her doll’s house. But Lil shook her head quickly and reminded her that they weren’t supposed to talk to each other.  Kezia assured that it didn’t matter what her mother said, that they could come in and see her doll’s house because nobody was looking. Lil still didn’t want to go in, but Else, standing behind her, tugged at her dress and looked at her pleadingly.
Kezia leaded the girls inside the courtyard, but while she was showing the house, Aunt Beryl arrived and shouted furiously at her. She shooed the Kelveys out as if they were chickens, and she slammed the doll’s house to.
Lil and Else ran away scared by Aunt Beryl, and when they could no longer see the Burnell’s house, they stopped to take a break. They didn’t say anything to each other; in silence they looked at the landscape; Else approached her sister, caressed her, smiled, and said softly:
“I saw the little lamp.”

I think in this story there are several interesting topics to discuss, but in my opinion, the relationship that the writer establishes between Else and Kezia through a lamp is fascinating. Both characters are different from the rest of the members of their families: Else is quiet, but she is clear about what she wants to achieve, she is not afraid, and Kezia does not understand the reasons why she cannot talk to the Kelvey sisters, and she is breaking the rules.
And they are both united by a lamp, which, in my opinion, would be the symbol of hope for change.

QUESTIONS

-What do you know about A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen?

-Is there any solution to avoid giving sexist toys to the children?

-What was your favourite toy when you were a child?

-In the story, there seems to be a bullying problem against the Kelveys. Did you feel this problem when you were at school?

-Are you in favour of mixing children of all condition in the same school? In your opinion, do the parents have to have the right of choosing the school for their children?

-“Even the teacher had a special voice for them [the Kelveys]”. When we talk about bullying, we usually think it is something between students. But what happens when the teacher is involved in the situation?

-Why do you think the narrator says “our Else” instead of only “Else”?

-According to your point of view, why Kezia decides to show the house to the Kelveys?

-Why was Aunt Beryl so angry when Kezia showed the house to the Kelveys? Were her reasons the same as Kezia’s mother’s?

-Were the Kelveys happy in the end? What is a “rare smile”?

 

VOCABULARY

feed-room, slab, toffee, papered, traipsing, bossy, tarred, palings, roll (was called), Nudging, shunned, spry, freckles, quill, cropped (hair), made eyes, snapped, sell, titter, buggy, thieved out, buttercups, shooed ... out

AUDIOBOOK BBC

AUDIOBOOK THE GUARDIAN

The Eggy Stone, by Tessa Hadley

 

SUMMARY, by Begoña Devis

This is a story about two girls who are spending a week in a camp school. The first afternoon, boys and girls go to the beach looking for treasures, like old shells or curious stones. At a certain moment, one of them pick up an eggy stone, just at the same moment that another girl, Madeleine, does too. This fortuitous fact creates a special relationship with them. During the week, they invented different games and challengers to possess the stone, and they took turns to hold it at night in their sleeping bags (they slept in different tends), because whoever possessed the stone felt privileged and safe.

The narrator feels happy, because she thinks that she doesn’t deserve a friend like Madeleine, a girl who, the very first day, has been directed to sit on the table where the charming girls sat. In addition, Madeleine’s usual friends included her tolerantly in her circle.

When the week is over, the narrator wonders what they will do with the stone from that moment: keep the stone for a week each other, and dividing up the holidays, perhaps?  But before she could speak, Madeleine turned and threw the Eggy Stone hard and far. The sound of the stone falling among the pebbles made our protagonist feel that she will never be able to find a stone like that again.

PERSONAL OPINION

I think the author uses the stone as a symbol of the feelings that the protagonist has when, through it, she makes friends with Madeleine.
She is surely a girl who goes unnoticed, she is not in the popular group of girls, and that is why she admires Madeleine. «I’m smart but she’s blonde», she says at one point, feeling adoration for her.
She admires too how Madeleine dances, sings, and even how she cheats her, stealing the Eggy Stone from her pocket. Surely he also admires her courage when she goes out at night to the boys’ tents to kiss them, when she is incapable of doing such a thing. Being friends with Madeleine makes her feel special, deserving of being in the group of the lovely girls.
That is why, when he sees Madeleine throwing the Eggy Stone, his plans to keep their friendship go up in smoke. When she says she’ll never be able to find a stone like that, what she really means is that she’ll never feel again like the special girl that she has been for that one week.

TESSA HADLEY

She was born in 1956 in Bristol, on the East Coast of England.

Her father was a teacher and an amateur jazz trumpeter, and her mother, an amateur artist.

She studied to be a teacher and worked as a teacher until she decided to form a family. Then she had three children.

When she was 37 she decided to study for a Master of Arts at the Bath Spa University, where she dedicated her time specially to the works of Katherine Mansfield, Elisabeth Bowen and Jean Rhys. Then, at 41, she started to teach creative writing at the same university.

Her first novel, Accidents in the Home, written while she was bringing up a family, was published when she was 46.

As a part of her studies, he wrote a book about Henry James. So, James, together with the authoress mentioned above, are her principal influences.

From the issue of her first novel, she has gone on publishing novels and short stories collections. Her last novel is Free Love.

Her stories are usually realistic, situated away from London, and her characters belong to the middle classes. She tends to focus the plots on the family relationships and on women. It’s remarkable her psychological insight.

She has won several awards and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

QUESTIONS

What do you remember of your camps / holiday homes?

The boys began throwing pebbles in the sea; the girls looked for treasures. Is there something biological in our constitutions that make boys to do different things from girls? Or is it sociological?

They touched fingers: Is physical contact always a prelude of something?

Situations can change friendships: do you have a literary or personal example?

When you were at school, where did you use to sit down? Were the ranks in alphabetical order or the teacher gave you your places, or you could choose your desk?

When can an object be a special thing (souvenir, memory, idol, talisman…)?

Do you remember any curious / invented rhyme from your childhood?

What do you know about Gargantua and Pantagruel?

Why do you thing Madeline wouldn’t go on with the narrator’s friendship?

 

VOCABULARY

rim, seaweed, sealed, daintily, felts, plantains, by rote, skipping rhymes, yearned, filching, bond, trailing, tepid, foam, publicity, constipation, netball

The Fall of the Idol, by Richmal Crompton

 

Richmal Crompton at the Wikipedia

Audiobook

Videos

RICHMAL CROMPTON, by Josep Guiteres

BIOGRAPHY

She was born in Bury, Lancashire in 1890, and died in 1969. She was an English writer, specialized in children’s books and horror stories.

She was the second child of Edward John Sewell, a protestant pastor and parochial school teacher, and his wife Clara; her older brother John Battersby was also a writer under the pseudonym John Lambourne.

Richmal Crompton attended St Elphin’s school and won a scholarship to classical studies at Royal Holloway College London, where she graduated Bachelor of Arts, and, in 1914, returned to teach classical authors at St. Elphin’s until 1917. Then, when she was 27 years old, went to Bromley High School in South London, teaching the same subject until 1923. Having contracted polio, she lost the use of her right leg. In 1923 and from then on, she spent her free time to write.

In 1924, she created her famous character William Brown, the protagonist of thirty-eight books of children’s stories in the naughty William saga that she wrote until her death.

She is also the author of a collection of stories about ghosts, the horror novel Dread Dwelling, in 1926, and Bruma, in 1928. As a writer of horror stories, she is eminent.

She never married and had no children; she was an aunt and a great-aunt.

 

THE FALL OF THE IDOL

The Fall of the Idol corresponds to chapter 4 of Just William with her famous eleven-years-old character William Brown.

In this chapter the writer tells us the adventures of William narrating his falling in love with his teacher, Miss Drew.

William, as a good student, sat in the back row. Being in love, he changed his seat to one in the front row. While the teacher explains the lesson, William has his fantasies with the teacher, but she constantly asks him questions about what she explains, and so he is forced to study.

Every day the teacher arrived at class, she used to find some small detail on the table of some admirer, but that morning the table and the chair were full of greenhouse flowers, evidently left by the lover. When William got home, he found his sister and two policemen who were looking for the flower thief.

The next day, Miss Drew was talking to another teacher. William, who was nearby, understood that Miss Drew liked lilacs; so, William got lilacs by stealing them from the window of a house with the subsequent uproar of the owner.

When Miss Drew entered the classroom, she said: “William, I hate lilacs”. Disappointed, his love vanished, and, as a good student, he sat again in the background.

My opinion: I liked this story because it is simple, short, entertaining and written with the fabulous typical English humour.

QUESTIONS 

Talk about your school days: were they happy or boring?

What is your opinion of this saying: “Teach anything at school and, funny it may be, at once it becomes boring”? (Remember the example of sexual education in the film by Monty Phyton “The Meaning of Life”.)

William caught a lizard and kept it in his pocket during the class. Do you have an anecdote to explain about your school days?

What happened to William’s lizard?

Who is the “malicious blind god”?

William starts giving presents to his teacher. What is your opinion about giving presents to your teacher… or to anybody?

What things you don’t do by halves? Do you always finish the book you are reading or the film you are watching?

Could William be married by the Pope? Why?

What do you think of helping your children with their homework?

“He hugged his chains”: what does it mean? Can you give more examples?

What do you imagine William wanted to do with the pipe in the garden?

Can you describe a “guelder rose” and a syringe”?

Explain the adventure of the syringe.

What is the meaning of “the idol has feet of clay”?

What do you think William felt like at the end: angry, happy, or disappointed?

 

VOCABULARY

figures, mug, 3 ½ d, mouth organ, putty, obliging, blood-curdling, outshine, hothouse, riot, soulfully, nonplussed, hubbub, conservatory, week’s mending, babbling, leading article, beaming, ole, ornery, rent, jarred, literal

Through the Tunnel, by Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing at the Wikipedia

Through the Tunnel at the Wikipedia

Audiobook

Through the Tunnel, summary & analysis

BIOGRAPHY

Doris Lessing was born in Iran in 1919. At that moment, Iran was under the rule of Great Britain. Her father was a bank clerk and her mother a nurse. When she was 5, her family moved to Rhodesia, today Zimbabwe, but then also under the British Empire. There she lived until she was 30. Her family had a farm, but not much money, and she went to a catholic school. At 15, she started working as a nursemaid. At 19, she got married and had two children, but she left her husband and her children. Afterwards, she said, “There’s nothing more boring for an intelligent woman than to spend an endless amount of time with small children.” But she got married again and had one more son, and she divorced again. She left also Rhodesia and went to live in the UK, fed up with the classicism and racism of the African country.

All her life was a committed person with leftist politics, and until the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, she belonged to the Communist Party.

She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007.

When the critics talk about her writings, they usually distinguish three periods:

The Communist period, when she wrote mainly about social issues. Her African Stories, for example, belong to this phase.

The psychological period, when she wrote Children of Violence (a collection of five semi-autobiographical novels),  and The Golden Notebook, that is in fact a revision of these 5 novels.

The Sufi period, when she studied the Muslim mysticism called Sufi and when she wrote science-fiction novels, for example, the series Canopus in Argus.

Out of these periods we found The Good Terrorist, about the squatters in London.

Her work is sometimes wearisomely didactic and focused more about topics than about form.

She is considered a feminist writer, although she doesn’t like being labelled.

She died in 2013 in London, when she was 93.

If you'd like to know more about her life, you can read her autobiography Under my Skin, in two volumes of more of 400 pages each one.

Through the Tunnel This is a story about an eleven-year-old boy on holiday on the coast with his widow mother. Every year they go there, and sunbathe and swim on the same big beach, but now he feels boring spending the time with his mother on this beach, because he thinks he has grown up, and this big and safe beach is for small children and mothers. So he decides to explore a cove near the big beach. There he sees some boys doing feats of old boys or adults; for example, they dive to the sea from a high rock, or swim under a long rock. The boys ignore him, because when he sees that he cannot do the same as them, he behaves like a child. Then, when he’s alone, he studies the passage under the long rock that they have crossed, and tries to cross it too. But it’s very long and dark. He’s going to need some goggles and is going to have to practise his breathing… because he’s decided to go through the tunnel whatever happens. Is he going to get it at the end?

QUESTIONS

Why do you think the author talks about the “woman’s arm” instead of talking simply about the “woman”?

In the lines 20-21 we find the expression “impulse of contrition – a sort of chivalry”. How can you identify contrition with chivalry?

There are two beaches: the big one and the small cove or ravine. It seems that the big beach is for children and the ravine for adults. What characteristics does the author give to each one in order to identify the big one with children and the rocky ravine with adultness?

What kind of relationship is there between the mother and her son?

Jerry tries to talk to the group of boys that are having a swim; but they speak the local language and Jerry doesn’t. How difficult is to make friends with someone who speaks a different language? Do children and young people make friends more easily than mature people?

The gang of local boys have a leader. Do all the gangs have to have a leader? What are the qualities that a leader has to have (according to your opinion)?

There is a moment when Jerry acts out a foolish dog. Why do you think he reacts like this?

Jerry asks (in fact, demands) for some goggles and wants to have them immediately. What is the best way to behave in front of a demanding child?

Do you think that every child needs, in order to grow up, to get through a rite of passage?

The narrator says, “He would do it if it killed him”. Do you think this is a sign of maturity? Was his a sensible decision?

Why, when he could be a member of the gang, “he did not want them”?

It seems that the mother was unconscious of the dangers her child was in. Are we usually aware of the dangers our children are in?

What do you think is the meaning of the blood filling the goggles in relation to coming of age?

Why wasn’t Jerry’s mother impressed when he told her he could stay for more than two minutes under water?

VOCABULARY

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