The Garden Party, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Begoña Devis

At the beginning of this story, Katherine Mansfield tells us how the Sheridan family is preparing a party in the garden of their mansion. The opulent family is made up of the parents and four siblings: one boy, Laurie, and three girls, Meg, Jose and the youngest one, Laura. The latter is the true protagonist, and the narrator will make us see the events through her eyes.

During the preparations, Laura receives news of the death of a neighbour, a carter named Scott, who lives in a neighbourhood next to the Sheridans’, but completely different, indeed. It is a poor, working-class neighbourhood, where people live overcrowded and in poor situation. In fact, Mrs Sheridan cannot explain herself how anyone can live in such terrible conditions, although that doesn’t really seem to worry her at all.

For Laura, it is evident that the party must be suspended; it seems indecent to her that the widow and her five small children, who have lost their father, have to hear the music and merriment of the party. But for both her mother and her brothers, especially for Jose (who enjoys giving orders to the servants, as it is said in the story, and who sings about the hardness of life only to delight herself in her own voice) it is a crazy idea. Just because the neighbours suffer (the death of a man), doesn’t mean that they have to suffer too (cancelling a party). For them, there was no difference between these situations.

Laura sees things differently, she does not believe in absurd class distinctions (she thought that), although the education she has received and her age make her manipulable and naive. At the beginning of the story, when she goes out to talk to those who are going to put up the marquee (this time the mother wants to be another guest, and Laura is delighted to be outside socializing with people of different class), she thinks that the fact of eating carelessly a piece of bread with butter in front of the workers will already convert her in one of them, and now, in the case at hand, just her vision in the mirror wearing a beautiful hat that flatters her a lot is enough to make her believe that her mother must be right. For her, in short, the working class is a blurry vision, something she only knows through newspapers.

This vision will change dramatically when Laura is forced by her mother to bring the Scotts a basket with sandwiches, cakes, and other food left over from the party (which has been a success).

When she enters the poor neighbourhood and sees what state these people really live in, she is ashamed of her luxurious dress, and especially her hat. She wants to leave quickly, but Mrs Scott’s sister politely invites her to go in, and even to look at Mr Scott’s corpse.

And it is this vision that will upset Laura the most. She sees a calm, relaxed man who no longer cares about parties or jobs. She feels deeply disturbed, and leaves there saying only “Forgive my hat.”

On her way home, she meets her brother Laurie, who has gone to look for her, and can’t find words to express what she feels and can only say “Isn’t life…”, to which her brother replies “Isn’t it, darling?”

 

PERSONAL OPINION

This is a story that tells us about the difference between classes, about the futility of a luxurious and easy life compared to a miserable and poor working life, especially at the beginning of the 20th century. The narrator uses Laura as a catalyst for those differences. She thinks with more freedom than the rest of her family, but she is too young and naive to fully understand the problem. But when she visits the poor neighbourhood, and especially when she sees the peace in the face of the carter’s corpse, she has a kind of revelation. Can her high class feel that peace with the meaningless life they lead? Can it be felt by someone who wonders how the poor can live this way without doing nothing to change it, someone who subtly blames them for their situation, as if they had chosen it voluntarily?

I think that when Laura asks for forgiveness for her hat, she is actually asking for forgiveness from her neighbours for belonging to a class that humiliates them and that gives them the leftovers of their food just to make them feel their superiority.

The fact that Katherine Mansfield has once again chosen a woman as the protagonist of a story against the established norms of her time tells us once again about her revolutionary character and her recognized feminism. Laura (a woman) has had a revelation. Laurie (a man) seems to understand his sister when she can’t find words to describe her feelings, but is that true? Can he, who has not entered the house or seen the body, understand Laura’s confusion? We will never know.

QUESTIONS

-They say the girls’ names are after the protagonists’ names in Little Women. What do you know about Little Women? Can you consider it a feminist story?
-Working people and well-to-do people use different levels of language. Is it possible to break the barriers between these two kinds of people? How?
-According to you, who has righter feelings for the dead man’s family, Laura or the rest of the family? Are Laura’s condolences an intrusion in the family’s pain? Do every social class have to limit their sympathy to their own class?

 

VOCABULARY

mowing, marquee, staves, lanky, haggard, looped up, pressing, meringue-shells, castors, playing chase, print skirt, cream puffs, icing sugar, carry one back, yer, shied, relish, prowls, sympathetic, cooed, poky, fray, becoming, frock, palings, crutch

MOVIE

Film (from minute 27:45 on)

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

CLIFF NOTES

MORE ANALYSIS

The Son, by Graham Swift

SUMMARY, by Nora Carranza

Kosta Alexopoulos is a Greek, born in Smyrna, in Asia Minor, he lives in Camden, England, with his wife Anna and their son Adoni.

They are all expatriated, the family had to abandon their country, and, after thirty-five years, Kosta remembers the facts that obliged them to move out from Greece and reflects about their life, and he mostly concentrates in his relationship with Adoni.

When Kosta was a baby, his parents had to go with him to a French refugee ship: the Turks were burning Smyrna, killing as many persons as they could.

Later on, there was another war in Athens, the Germans killed Kosta’s mother, and he decided to chop off his mother fingers in order to exchange the big rings she had on her hand. Not the moment for feelings, there was hunger time.

The Germans also killed Kosta’s father.

With the country destroyed and no nice future to come, Greek men looked for wives and set out to New York or England, hoping they would open a restaurant, make money and eventually go back to Greece.

Therefore, after many years working, Kosta opened his own restaurant in Caledonian Road, a place totally different from the sunny and noisy places he loved, where he would never go back: he thinks “you are made for one soil, but life send you to another, and then you can’t budge”.

The three members of the family work at the restaurant: Anna, Kosta and Adoni.

Adoni doesn’t meet at all the connotation of his name. As a matter of fact, Adoni was born in Athens, in 1944, in Melianos' family, neighbours of Anna’s family. The real boy’s father died in Poland; the mother died giving him birth.

The baby was taken in by Anna’s family, and she proposed Kosta adopting him when they married. Kosta accepted, imagining that later the true son he desired would arrive, but he didn’t know Anna was not fertile.

The years passed by, and the couple never find the moment to explain Adoni his origins. There was always an excuse to postpone that essential explanation. They even began to cheat themselves that the boy was their real son.  

Kosta considers that Adoni didn’t grow in a satisfactory way, because he wasn’t good at school, reserved, he didn’t look for girls, didn’t go out at night, didn’t have his own wishes or opinions.

When Adoni was eighteen, he started working at the restaurant. He was efficient in that job, he worked hard, although he moved like a great bear between the tables and didn’t show any charm. When Kosta introduced Adoni to the customers, they look surprised at that absurd name.

Kosta always plays the role of a proud Greek restaurant owner; always pretends he was Zorba the Greek. 

They have a life of routine and permanent work, they live on top of the restaurant, no entertainments, holidays or comfort, their only dedication was their business, each one their duties.

Anna wasn’t a beautiful woman either, she put on weight and seemed a huge milk pastry when lying on bed. But she does properly all what’s needed for the work, a “great work horse” in Kosta’s opinion.

Kosta expected one day Adoni will be like the son he would have liked, and he moved between deception and acceptance, between hope and guilt. Sometimes he wept.

Moreover, Kosta started to be paranoid, imagining Adoni could discover by himself he had no real parents.

Surprisingly, when Adoni was already thirty-three, he started to go out at night, awakening happy expectations on his father that he would finally meet girls! But what he really did was going to the library and visiting a group of old expatriate Greeks, facts that make grow the fear of his father that he was playing the detective.

When summer arrived, Adoni asked, for the first time in his life, to go on holidays. He was thirty-five….

And he had decided to visit Greece, a very terrifying idea for Kosta, who had to accept to let him go and find out where he came from. Anna felt less worried, considering they would go through it all, that life and routine would continue as always.

The fortnight finished, Kosta went to the airport, and when he met Adoni, tried to find out every evidence that he already knew, he waited his son to say it, to let it out. Instead, Adoni commented about Athens, full of tourists and no decent meal to be found in the city centre.

Arrived at the restaurant, the family work the whole day as every day until the night, when the frightening moment arrived. Adoni explained, his face hardened to stone, that he found an old man, Elias, who knew the past of the families. That man revealed Adoni his true surname was Melianos, not Alexopoulos, his real father died in the war and his real mother died when Adoni was born.

Elias told another unexpected news: Kosta’s parents were killed by the Turks, and their neighbours, the Alexopoulos, were the ones that took Kosta to the refugee ship.

As Kosta had once said: We are born in confusion, and that’s how we live.

I think this story is an example of some damages of wars, not always considered.
We always think about the destruction, the dead people, the hunger, and other terrible sufferings. But we don’t frequently think about the orphan little babies, or children, deprived of their parents, who grow with other families or in public institutions. Besides, wars produce expats who must abandon their countries, to live abroad feeling the loss of their homeland.

QUESTIONS

-What do you think of anthropophagy? Would you do /accept it in case of extreme necessity? Do you know cases about it?

-Who was Adonis in the Greek Mythology?

-After a war between two countries, according to your opinion, when or how can them stop their mutual rancour?

-When, or why, would emigrants go back to their native country? Do you know people who have gone back?

-What do you know about the Greco-Turkish war (1919-1922)? And about the great fire of Smyrna?

-For adopted children, what is the best moment to tell them they are adopted?

-If you were an adopted child, would you like to know who were your biological parents and why you were given to adoption?

-Why do you think the narrator has made Adoni bashful, silent, secretive and “chaste and sober as a monk”?

-“We Greek are like that”: do you have an adjective to define different nations?

-From your point of view, is it a good idea to encourage your children to look for a partner? What is the best way to encourage them?

-What kind of club do you imagine “Neo Elleniko” can be?

-What is the reference to “King Oedipus asking fool questions”?

-Have you read Zorba the Greek or seen the film?

-Hasn’t Kosta to be happy because he didn’t chop off his mother’s fingers? Why do you imagine he’s angry?

 

VOCABULARY

barter, snap-shots, pile, beads, budge, lopping off, (was) none the wiser, kid, stunted, swop, podgy, snigger, drooping, blancmange, winds, dolt, skewering, qualms, gave her notice, mousy, worked it out, forestalled, nightingale, fogies, lollop, Customs, spit it out, nudging at his lips, cue, tilting 

Cecilia Awakened, by Tessa Hadley

San Miniato al Monte

SUMMARY AND IDEAS

This is another story about a singular girl: the intellectual, clever, plain, rejected by her schoolmates, shy girl, and her getting free of this secluded scholar life.

Cecilia, a 15-year-old girl, is the only daughter of an elderly couple, a librarian (Ken, the husband) and a historical novels' writer (Angela, the wife). This couple brought up their daughter in their likes, habits and culture, rather apart from ordinary or not so cultivated people. But while a child, Cecilia has liked this kind of life (reading thick books, going to the museums…), although for her mates and even for her teachers she has been a bit of a smart-arse or too goody-goody.

The story is situated mostly in the family stay in Italy, where they spend a week holiday, although it goes backwards, and forwards again. In this trip, Cecilia awakens to her adolescence when he sees how absurd it’s that she’s still sleeping in the same room as her parents, she doesn’t dress as a teenager and she does cultural tourism. Now she’s abroad, she feels deep inside her that she’s a kind of weirdo, she sees that they are a nuisance for the local people and notices the contrast between herself and the local girls.

She spends all the week in Florence sulking, although she doesn’t oppose openly to her parents’ opinions and proposals. But the last day of her stay, she has an epiphany, a moment of revelation when they go and see a church away from the most touristic and crowded places. There she likes the building and its pictures, and she sees clearly what a pest is the tourism. After the moment of calm bliss, a monk chides them for being there when local people are meeting to say a prayer, and she doesn’t want to be there any more because she thinks the monk is right; so she asks her parents to go back to the hotel alone. She has awakened, she wants to break free from her family and from her childhood.

The ending is very peculiar because the narrator doesn’t tell us what she’s doing, but what her mother imagines she’s doing.

 

I think there are some interesting topics in this story. One of them it’s the beginning: as we can see, it isn’t unusual for Tessa Hadley to start the story in medias res; it’s a classical way (e.g. Odyssey) and it’s useful to attract the reader’s attention.

A resource we don’t find in this story is the weather to create some mood in the atmosphere: sadness, melancholy, action… Perhaps in Italy, the weather doesn’t change so often to give us a variety of moods.

We can see the story has some similarities with “A Card Trick”, because the star is also a weirdo shy intellectual girl that wants to get out of her cocoon. But in the present case, the girl is not the absolute protagonist: she shares this role with her mother. Angela had to fight her own mother, because she didn’t want to be a traditional woman, and now she feels that her daughter also wants to fight her because maybe she wants to be more like the other normal girls, so maybe every generation has to reject the previous one.

Another interesting question is the reason or the meaning of the characters’ names. Does Angela want to be a guardian of her daughter, as an angel? Saint Cecilia, besides being the musicians’ patroness, is (according to some sources) also the patron saint of blind people: was Cecilia blind (or voluntarily blind) to other girls, to the world, and now she can see it because of a miracle / epiphany?

And we have also some mysteries: why does the narrator focus our attention in Angela’s mother’s lipstick? What is the meaning of San Miniato martyrdom (he was beheaded, but then he carries his head on his trunk)? And what about St. Placidus being rescued from the water?

QUESTIONS

-What do you think are the features of rearing a child when he or she is the only child and with their parents a bit old?
-Did / do you do any collection? What do you collect? What for?
-Have you read Middlemarch? And what about Dickens novels? What can you tell us about them?

-Why do you think the writer had chosen such big physical changes in Cecilia’s puberty?

-Cecilia’s family liked the past and didn’t like the present. What do you prefer, and why, past, present of future? Is there an age for each preference?

-Is there a cliché in the story about what men and women see in museums?

-“Angela wasn’t a feminist, grateful to be liberated from the tyranny of pleasing.” What does it mean for you?

-The father is “getting early English books online.” Do you know what is Project Gutenberg?

-Do you think that some people are more attractive with a cup / cigarette in their hands?

-As you see it, is Signora Petricci correct in her opinion about Cecilia’s father? Or was it only a teenager’s imagination?

-Cecilia has a trick to get rid of a fear. Do you have one? Can you tell us?

-May you say that the writer has chosen the character’s names for any reason?

-What message could the sound of Petricci’s bracelet have sent to Cecilia?

-“She wasn’t beautiful.” When and why do we decide that a person is beautiful?

-According to your point of view, intellectual people are always shut out of the world?

-When you travel as a tourist, do you feel rejected? How much tourism is too much tourism?

-What do Abraham and Isaac symbolize in the story?

-What do you know about Caravaggio? And about San Miniato al Monte?

-What is for you the best way to learn to appreciate art, books and music?

-What are the meanings of these revelations for Cecilia: 1-San Miniato, 2-Vespers song, 3-the monk?

-Why does Angela remember her mother’s lipstick when Cecilia has gone to the hotel?

-Does San Placidus rescue have any meaning for the end of the story?

VOCABULARY

dummies, squalling, stinks, showed her off, finicky, wizened, fey, sprite, Poundworlds, identikit, dozed, jazzed it up, plotters, reëntering, harbouring, static, slacks, hooking, pull-out bed, swarthy, truckle, checked, derided, crop, scowling, swooning, unassailable, printouts, sweltering, reprieve, thawing, skeins, Verpers, doom, quailed, scourging, puny, foreboding, snooping, nub, stamped-out

A Card Trick, by Tessa Hadley

 SUMMARY

This is a capital story of the collection; with it, Tessa Hadley won the 2005 O. Henry award.

Gina, a 47-year-old scholar and writer, is revisiting Wing Lodge, the house where John Morrison, her favourite novelist, whose works she has deeply studied and about whom she has written a book, lived during the last and most productive years of his life.

There she remembers her holiday at her mother’s friend (or client), Mamie. Mamie has a glamorous family of three boys and a daughter. Although Mamie belongs to the high class, she and her children are natural, free and easy, frank, kind and welcoming; but they aren’t much into culture, literature and art, and haven’t gone to university, so their academic education is a bit limited; however, they aren’t silly and can have interesting conversations. In the other hand, Gina is very clever about these subjects, and she’s a very good student, but she’s socially clumsy and shy; moreover, she feels awkward in her body, because she’s tall and a bit plump.

There, in their house near the beach, she spent two weeks, but she didn’t go much to the beach, neither did she take part in their open-air entertainments; instead, she pretended to study to prepare her exams and spent most of the time alone in her room; but, when the family is away, she roams the house searching and prying and making herself comfortable with food, drink, cigarettes and lying on the sofa.

One day, believing she was alone at home, she discovers that Josh, the less glamorous of the brothers is at home. She had some feelings for him. Gina doesn’t know what to do and spends a lot of time shut in her room.

But the last day of her holiday there, she feels a lot more confident. One of the sons is in London, Mamie and two other children have gone to see some friends, and Tom is staying at home building houses of cards; as he cannot finish a difficult one, Gina offers to show him a card trick. The boy is astonished and enraptured at the trick. For Gina, this meeting is a kind of symbolic sexual encounter.

The next day, she went back home and never again met anybody of Mamie’s family. Afterward she will know that Mamie got divorced and, after some time, she died, and one of her sons also died drowned; so perhaps a glamorous family has also their misfortunes.

But now, as she remembers this fortnight in a coastal village, she isn’t that awkward 18-year-old girl any more: she’s a tall woman, perhaps not beautiful, but “statuesque”, who has had some success in her field and feels confident with her life and her body. In John Morrison’s house she gets emotional when she sees a manuscript with a scene that has been erased in the published book: a middle-aged woman, daughter of the man just dead in bed, declares her love to the doctor who has taken care of him until the last moment; the doctor, who is married, feels disgusted and, amazed, rejects her.

The end of the story is a bit mysterious. Something (and insect, the lady guide) calls her attention, and the memories of that holiday come back to her, and she regrets that isolate life of hers when she could cheat someone to be her friend. Maybe, as she’s now a public person, she can play tricks no more to anyone.

QUESTIONS

-Why Gina’s appearance is important for the plot?

-What is Wing Lodge? (Compare to Lamb House). Have you ever visited a house of a famous person? Do you like visiting museums? Somebody said museums were like churches: do you agree?

-What can you say about Mamie and her family?

-Is a friendship between people of very different social classes possible? Why do you think so?

-Do you follow a diet? For your health or for your body shape / weight? Do / did you trust your diet?

-What are A levels and S levels?

-Is it usual that rich people don’t go to university? Do you think everybody should go?

-Do you know who were Walter Gropius, Conrad, Ford, Henry James, Wyndham Lewis, Gaudier-Brzeska, Mansfield, Pound?

-What kind of books do you imagine John Morrison wrote?

-What different talents (from the protagonist) did Mamie’s children have?

-Do you feel curiosity about how authors write? (I mean technical aspects: computer, pen, with music…) Do you know any singular case?

-What does “a Spartan boy carrying the fox under his shirt” refer to?

-What are “Honey” and “19”?

-Can you describe Tom?

-What do you know about “Derek and the Dominoes”?

-What good memories do you have about your holidays?

-“It was her mother fault”. What do you think of your parents’ responsibilities for our successes and failures?

-“It feels more sympathetic”. What can this mean when talking about a pack of cards?

-What do you think it’s the best way to break the ice in an embarrassing situation? For instance: “Charming day, isn’t it?” “Pray, don’t talk about the weather. Whenever people talk about the weather, I always feel they mean something else.”

-Do you know an easy card trick?

-What is it the meaning of the card trick for Gina’s maturing?

-How did Gina change over the years?

-What kind of novel was “Winter’s Day”?

-What books did made you cry?

-At the end, who is the victim in this sentence: so that your victim wouldn’t be able to put a card down wrong?

 

VOCABULARY

clothes-wise, Laura Ashley dress, pinafore, hair slide, toppling, glass-topped wicker table, raid, S level, awe, duffers, retakes, disingenuous, pushbike, wetsuit, fitting, sundial, gnarled, conkers, sparely, ferreting, off-handedness, frowsty, herbs, scuttled, fry-up, double declutching, sec, loo, tipsily, estate hands, drawn out (coffee), till, entropy, takeover, longhand, overspill, floundering

Matrilineal, by Tessa Hadley

Art Pepper

SUMMARY, by Nora Carranza

At the very beginning of Matrilineal, we know that Helen had left her husband forty years ago.

At that time, she was married to Phil, and they had two little girls: Nia and Sophie.

The family lived in an apartment at the top floor of a house situated in a nice street of a good neighbourhood. There were beautiful trees and gardens around the building.

To get to their flat, it was necessary to climb up an exterior metal staircase which produced a strong noise at every step they take, no matter how carefully they were. A retired Reverend lived on the flat below theirs. He was always looking through the curtains when the family went up and down, and also complained when they speak aloud, or play music or made some noise on the top floor.

The couple was not very well off, only Phil worked. He was a jazz musician; he played the alto saxophone and gave lessons at a college. Helen was a dancer before having the girls. Since then, she worked at home, took care of Nia and Sophie, took them to play in the gardens or went shopping with them for what was necessary at home, or to visit her mother by bus.

Helen had kept the physical aspect of a dancer and had a natural condition for spontaneous elegance.

The story explains that one grey afternoon Helen was at home; Sophie was sleeping and Nia playing with her doll. Helen used that quiet moment for scrubbing the floor. Unexpectedly, Phil arrived early: one lesson had been cancelled, and he returned happy at home to practise with his alto.

But Helen was not pleased at all with that possibility. They started an old quarrel, about playing music at home, the Reverend complaining, the difficulty of changing home…

When Helen met Phil, she fell in love with him because of his music, his body and movements on stage, the attraction he had over the audience. Now that all seemed evaporated, he accused Helen of killing him, and she threw the scrub at him hitting his head. Nia was astonished.

That same evening, Helen left home with her children and arrived to her mother’s apartment. The father was dead and, the lady, Nana Allen, lived on top of a hairdresser’s and also worked there. Helen didn’t have a close relationship with her mother, they were quite different.

Anyway, that evening the grandmother was helpful with the three visitors. She prepared something to eat, put the girls to sleep and talk to Helen for hours, although they saw facts in different ways.

Nia is who remembers those facts forty years later. By then, Phil was dead (he died of a heart attack in his fifties), Sophie got married and had three children; Nana Allen also died long ago, and Helen is in her sixties. She’s still an elegant woman, has had two important relationships, but didn’t get married again.

When Sophie tells her mother her memories about that evening, Helen didn’t remember it at all; she sincerely believes she was in love with Phil, she loved his music and, besides, she could have had a career as a dancer (not her idea when married).

Nia proposed Helen a trip to New York, to visit a painting exhibition, and there they went.

Nia had started to be worried about that trip because Helen could get ill, or they both could start arguing, even if they went normally well together.

After a rainy arrival at New York, little by little they got confident with the hotel and the city, did many visits and enjoyed the museum. Helen seemed completely satisfied when, after visiting the Met, they got back to the hotel. Nia went out for some food because her mother preferred to stay in bed. Finally, they ate, enjoyed watching television and felt asleep early.

When Nia woke during the night, she perceived the heat and presence of her mother, as when she was a small girl, and happily felt asleep again.

Perhaps the idea of Matrilineal is that some things are transmitted along generations from mother to daughter, in spite of differences and distance, and they need each other along lifetime, mainly when life becomes hard.

QUESTIONS

-“Forty years ago, Helen left her husband.” The narrator doesn’t use the word “divorced”. Do you think they got back together for some time, or they got divorced immediately? How do you know?

-Think about where they live. Why is this scenery important ?

-Can you tell us what mum advices her children about clothes? Do you think it’s a good piece of advice?

-Do you think Helen left dancing because she had children, or because she didn’t like dancing so much?

-They had problems with their neighbours downstairs. What are the typical problems with neighbours?

-“Helen left Phil at about half past six.” Why do you think the narrator tells us the time so exactly?

-In your opinion, did the weather have any influence in the incident between Helen and Bill?

-The narrator says they were poor. What details give us this idea?

-What is your experience / opinion about practising music at home?

-What do you know about Art Pepper?

-Why does Phil attract people? Do you think that is enough to be in love with someone? What do you do with a person of only one quality or talent?

-The college had complained about Phil’s hair. What can you say about etiquette at work / school?

-What method do you have to calm yourself down when you feel extremely irritated?

-When Helen imagined him dying in an accident after a concert, do you think she really wanted him dead?

-In your opinion, do their children understood what happened?

-Does the physical constitution determine a person’s character? I mean, do fat people are nicer / funnier than thin people? Or is it only a cliché?

-Mrs Allen has a special pronged fork. Do you have a very special object, tool, instrument… ? What is the meaning of this tool in the story?

“Love is such a lie. In marriage, it’s a lie.” Is this a universal truth, or only a moment of irritation?

-Singing / writing about love, does it mean one knows what love is?

-Do you think we can efface from our memory moments of our life because they were annoying us or because we feel remorse?

-What do you know about Greenham Common?

-What do you need to do to have a good trip in company?

-What do you travel for? What are you looking for when you travel?

-What is the meaning of the visit to NY in the story?

 

VOCABULARY

pollarded, matching, nonchalant, cut and line, valet, patent, intimation, driftwood, backcombed, slacks, hilly, tugs, chunky, soundproof, portentousness, off-beat, alto, insane, cot, starkly, moorland, muffled, fleece, thrush, leading rein, buoyant, wary, retail, bill, wig, poised, quivering, stubbornness, bleat, nana, quilt, barrel, special pronged fork, adamantly, seersucker, matted, puckery, crossly, perm papers, cheated, crumble, whorls, rougher, dado, pampered, rough, cornered, conveyor belt, shredder, skewed, rakishly, Ladies, surly, seediness, courtroom drama

 

As Much Love as Possible, by Graham Swift

As Much Love as Possible, by Nora Carranza

“As Much Love as Possible” explains an apparently eventless evening when two old friends, Alec and Bill, spend a few hours drinking whisky.

Alec invites Bill to come home and share a bottle of an old and appreciated Macallan, considering that his wife Sue would be out with her friends. Bill was also alone, his wife being away with her parents.

When Bill arrives, Sue is about to leave, and looks fantastic, it seems she has a kind of shine in herself. She welcomes Bill with a generous hug.

Years ago, Bill didn’t try to make any move to approach Sue, he considered she was the right girl for Alec, and gave the precedence to his good friend.  It was a good decision and, in a short time, he met Sophie, they got married and had two kids.

Alec and Sue took some years before they had twins, probably they enjoyed that time just for them together. By now, the twins were 4 or 5 years old, Bill wasn’t sure, although he was their godfather.

Alec had forgotten to call the taxi for Sue, but Bill offered himself for a ride to the restaurant.

But when Bill drove to the restaurant, he felt as if he and Sue were a couple having a date. Sue was grateful to Bill, explained about her two friends, they all had gone to the same hair academy, and now each one had her own salon, financed by Alec.

Bill asked himself when he and Sue will be together in such an intimacy and exclaimed, “I love you, Sue. I love Sophie, but I love you. Don’t you think there could be as much love as possible”? As an answer to that, Sue approached and gave Bill a soft kiss.

They say formal goodbyes, but Bill remarked, “I can see down your top when you lean”.

Later, Bill and Alec spent the informal evening drinking the Macallan and eating the pie Sue left for them.

Bill knew he had to stop drinking alcohol, he wanted to go back home driving his car, and avoiding having to sleep in the spare bedroom in that house.

Nothing notorious seems to have occurred during the facts described in the story.

Finally, Sue returned home at about half past eleven, not very late in Alec’s opinion. She looked as before, with her natural inner light, after the “girls” night out.

When Bill asked Sue about her evening, she replied she had the “most wonderful evening”.

 

I think that, as in many other stories of this author, we can imagine different motives for the actions of the characters. Perhaps Bill was moved by old feelings, hidden in his heart, that reappeared at that moment of unexpected proximity with warm Sue.

Bill was moved when he saw the twins sleeping, remembering his own children. Was he resenting his words to Sue? Was he thinking about his friend Alec, who ignored what had happened?

And Sue, why was she so happy, because of her time with the girls, or because the feelings she provoked in her husband's friend?

QUESTIONS

-There is a word repeated several times, “decent”. What does this word mean for you?

-“Girls night”, “boys night”: what do people do in these nights? Why are they different?

-Alec says that the bottle of whiskey fell off the back of a lorry. Do you think it’s true? If not, why does he say that?

-Do women tend to dress more carefully than men (they are only wearing “woollens”), more “decorated”? In this sense, do you think women use more icons than men on the whatsapp conversations?

-Why didn’t Bill marry Sue? Don’t you think he excused his decision with poor arguments? So, why does he feel something for her now?

-Usually, people get less attractive when they grow old (they say). How can they reverse it? Or is it the way we see people?

-What made you suspect that that night she had tender feelings for Bill?

-Bill felt attracted by Sue’s attire (she shimmered). But there was also something in her personality that seduced Bill: what was it?

-We’re having again a question we’ve debated before: is it possible to love two girlfriends / boyfriends… at the same time?

-Why do you think she kissed him when he told her he loved her? Was his love for Sue platonic? Was it a loving kiss, or a compassionate kiss?

Why wouldn’t Bill like to spend the night in their spare room?

What do you know about the film Un rencontre (“Reencontrar el amor”, in Spanish), starring François Creuzet and Sophie Marceau?

Why do you think she wasn’t awkward in any moment?

Do you think she came earlier from her dinner because she wanted to see him?

In your opinion, her wonderful evening was because of the girls’ night or because what Bill said to her?

 

VOCABULARY

ushered, soldiered, yersel, cardiganed hug, shepherd's pie, dastardly, woollens, ditzy, shrewd, best man, hitched, shimmer, puffa, tumblers, quandary, breast-beating, sparko, buster, contritely, scoffed at, bogus, rueful, bubble, sloshed, cane, mop it up, waxing, Caledonian, haggis, mon, schoolmasterly, slobs, garbled, wee, smarting, blunder