A Cold Autumn, by Ivan Bunin

Ivan Bunin on the Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Bunin

Recent book in Spanish: http://www.acantilado.es/catalogo/dias-malditos/

Some good writers, even writers with a Nobel Prize, are sometimes out of fashion. It all depens on the market, and not on the quality of their texts. All of a sudden you discover an author and you want to read some books by them, but, what happens? It happens that is very difficult to find their books, or their books are old books and their editions not updated any more. I think Ivan Bunin is a typical case of this situation.

His short story is a very odd story: it doesn't have a regular chronological rhythm: at the beginning all it's very slow; then, at the middle of it, thirty years pass by in a single paragraph, and, after all the adventures, only a single afternoon remains. 

At the end of our lives, what is going to remain? What is the thing, the deed, that would make us able to say about life: "it's worth it"?

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE READING

What happened on the 15th of June? What year was it?
Who is the person who tells the story?
What is the meaning of "her son to be" in the context of the story?
In all the story you can breath sadness. Say some sentence, phrase, word, image that makes you feel that sadness. For example: "an early and cold autumn".
Why do you think that the boy prefers going in the morning?
The girl is frightened at her own thought "Suppose he realy is killed..." Why?
What was in the little bag her mum has been sewing for him? Why fateful?
What do you think this sentence mean: "not knowing what to do with myself, wether I should sob or sing at the top of my voice"?
What was the protagonist doing 30 years after her boyfriend's death?
Who did she get married to?
Then it happened a lot of things to her in quick succession: what things?
At the end, only a memory remains with all its strength inside her: what was it?

VOCABULARY

estate ≠ state
gather = meet
innermost = deep inside
gaze = look at
set off = leave, go away
game of patience = game of cards where you play alone
linger = wander waiting for nothing
Fet = Afanassin Fet (1820-1872), Russian poet.
    stand out = be more visible that the rest
<<< Swiss cloak
    jerky = nervous
    hoarfrost = ice on objects after a night of freezing weather
    Galicia = Galitzia = a region between Poland and Ukraine
    moth = little insect that eats clothes
    Arbat, Smolensk = markets in Moscow

GENERAL QUESTION:

Name-day: do you celebrate it? Why (yes/no)?

The Fall of Edward Barnard

Topics:

-Living in a paradise.

-Country versus city.

-Tourism: what do we do with it?

-Is eco-friendliness a kind of romanticism?

-What would you take with you to a desert island?

Articles about the text:

https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/fall-edward-barnard

http://item1000.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-fall-of-edward-barnard-by-william.html

Louise

Louise was originally published as “The Most Selfish Woman I Knew”, in Cosmopolitan Magazine (September 1925).

Louise review 

Another review

Text and activities (I)

Text and activities (II)

Illness as Metaphor, by Susan Sontag.

Film made by students. Enjoy it!😉

The Ant and the Grasshopper

Our next story is a fable. A fable is usually a very short story with animals as characters and a moral at the end. An apologue is a short story with a moral. Legends are short stories about fantastic characters. The Greek word for legend is "myth". Sure you know some apologues or legends or myths.

This kind of stories are typical at school because they suppose you learn something from them.

But the question is this: Is the moral from fables and apologues useful, or correct, all the times? You have an answer in the story by Maugham.

More themes you can meditate related to this story are for exemple: Is doing the right think always rewarded? Does doing the right think make you happy?

THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANT.

A Grasshopper gay

Sang the summer away,

And found herself poor

By the winter's first roar.

Of meat or of bread,

Not a morsel she had!

So a begging she went,

To her neighbour the ant,

For the loan of some wheat,

Which would serve her to eat,

Till the season came round.

'I will pay you,' she saith,

'On an animal's faith,

Double weight in the pound

Ere the harvest be bound.'

The ant is a friend

(And here she might mend)

Little given to lend.

'How spent you the summer?'

Quoth she, looking shame

At the borrowing dame.

'Night and day to each comer

I sang, if you please.'

'You sang! I'm at ease;

For 'tis plain at a glance,

Now, ma'am, you must dance.'

                                                                                  Jean de la Fontaine

Text and activities:

https://sites.google.com/site/homereadinglessons/the-ant-and-the-grasshopper

***

Another fable is this one:

THE FOX AND THE CROW

One morning a Fox was in search of a bite to eat and he saw a Crow on a branch of a tree overhead with a bit of cheese in her beak.

Up he trotted to the foot of the tree in which the Crow was sitting, and looking up admiringly, he cried, "Good-morning, beautiful creature!"

The Crow watched the Fox suspiciously. But she kept her beak tightly closed on the cheese and did not return his greeting.

"What a charming creature you are!" said the Fox. "How your feathers shine! What a beautiful form and what splendid wings you have! Such a wonderful bird should have a very lovely voice, since everything else about her is so perfect. Could you sing just one song, I'm sure you'll be the Queen of Birds."

Listening to these flattering words, the Crow forgot all her suspicion, and also her breakfast. She wanted very much to be called Queen of Birds.

So she opened her beak wide to utter her loudest caw, and down fell the cheese straight into the Fox's open mouth.

"Thank you," said Master Fox sweetly, as he walked off. "Though it is cracked, you have a voice sure enough. But what about your wits?"

Flatterers live at the expense of those who listen to them.

***

I think you can find another more positive lesson for this fable. What is it?

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