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

Fear and Trembling, by Amélie Nothomb

BIOGRAPHY

This is a slightly different biography, mixing Wikipedia and other sources with my personal opinion of her.

Amélie Nothomb is a very interesting writer, quite different from the others writers I know. She stems from a Belgian noble family. Her father was the Belgian diplomat Patrick Nothomb, and she is the grandniece of Charles Ferdinand Nothomb, a Belgian Foreign Secretary (1960–2001), and the great-granddaughter of the writer and politician Pierre Nothomb. She is a Commander of the Order of the Crown and has had the title of Baroness bestowed upon her by King Philippe of Belgium.

But I have said that she is a very different person for other reasons. Let’s see. For starters, she has two places and two dates of birth. According to some sources, she was born in Etterbeek (Brussels) on 9 July 1966, Belgium, but according to herself, she was born in Kobe (Japan) in 1967. It is a metaphorical statement, since her childhood memories begin in Japan, where she lived from the ages of two to five, the time that most deeply marked his character, due to his learning at school, and his close relationship with his beloved Nanny.

After living in Japan, she lived in China, New York, Bangladesh, Burma, The United Kingdom and Laos, and finally in Belgium. All these transfers were due to his father’s profession (a diplomat, as I said) and undoubtedly marked her character. In Biographie de la faim, at one point in the novel she writes: “the majority of international terrorists are children of diplomats. It does not surprise me”. Her sense of humour, cynical and intelligent, is one of her main characteristics.

She has a brother and a sister, and she has always felt very close to the latter, with whom she takes refuge imagining fictional worlds (and both writing about that) during their childhood, in which they saw the horror of hunger and misery of places like China or Bangladesh.

At the age of 17, she discovered Europe, and more specifically Belgium, where at first she felt like a foreigner. She studied Romance Philology at the Free University of Brussels (with liberal socialist tendencies), where she found it difficult to integrate because her last name evokes her family’s extreme right-wing past. She refers to this experience in her novel Antichrista.

After graduating at the age of 21, she returned to Tokyo and worked for a year in a large Japanese company. She recounts this experience in her novel Fear and Trembling. When she returned to Belgium, she wrote her first novel, Hygiène de l’assassin, which was very well received by the critics and the public. From that moment, she devoted herself exclusively to writing. According to her own explanation, she spends four hours a day writing, and she writes three novels a year, of which she only publishes one. She has written more than thirty novels and almost 20 short stories.

In 2012, Luca Chiari directed the documentary Amélie Nothomb: une vie entre deux eaux (“A Life Between Two Waters”) about Amélie’s return to Japan, where she rediscovered the beauty of its landscapes, its peaceful rites, the sadness of Fukushima, but especially, where she met again her Japanese nursemaid, Nishio San.

She is, as I have already said, very special even by the way of presenting herself.  In her photos on her books, she always appears dressed in black and wearing a big hat, which gives her a distant, even cold appearance.

In my opinion, perhaps it’s the way of creating a character that allows her to stay hidden, and also away from fashion. As she explains in her numerous autobiographical books, Amélie does not consider herself beautiful at all, but she admires beauty, especially feminine beauty, and that way of showing herself, always just her face and little else, protects her from her unattractive appearance (according to her, who also says that she is quite short and suffers from scoliosis).

All her novels are interesting, especially the autobiographical ones, and almost all of them are short and easy to read because they are captivating and full of surrealism and intelligence.

Try reading this author, because I am sure you will enjoy her a lot.

 

SUMMARY

 

I’m going to make a general summary of the entire book, in order to awaken your curiosity and your desire to read it. I hope I get it without too many spoilers. For that reason I’ll focus on explaining what was happening around the book at that time, especially the motivation that led Amélie Nothomb to go to Japan, and the feelings she had during that year.

Firstly, in my opinion, we are faced with a book about love, about crazy, excessive, disproportionate and absurd love. All these adjectives also serve to describe the content of the book.

At the age of 20, Amélie Nothomb was in love with Japan, or more precisely with an idea of Japan, the one she had of the Japan of her early childhood, between two and five years old, with a loving nanny, a school she loved attending and using a language she found sublime. In some of her books, she speaks with pride of the Japanese language, with a forceful pronunciation and significant ideographs, instead of the pitiful language her brothers were forced to study at the same time (English), a “boiled” language, according to her, in which some words mix with others forming a broth that is sometimes unintelligible (I agree, by the way). She remembers herself writing at school, and reading Japanese books (not children’s stories but books for adults) with enthusiasm.

Isn’t it incredible that someone could write and read fluently in Japanese at that age, and that her memories of that time are so clear? However, that is what she describes very clearly in at least two of her books: Le sabotage amoreux (1999) and Biographie de la faim (2004), both autobiographical. In both she makes it clear, and still considers it so, that the separation from Japan to go living in China (the communist China of the eighties) was the most painful and traumatic separation of her life. That was the reason why, after having finished his studies in Romance Philology, she made every effort to obtain the degree of Japanese translator, so that she could go to work for one of the most important corporate companies in that country for a year.

And, at that point, the book begins. During that year, she will go from being practically nobody, with no one below her, to being much less than nothing, suffering an endless number of hilarious, humiliating, absurd and degrading situations. And she overcame all of this for love, for her love to Japan.

Instead of rebelling, as would be expected of someone with her character, she tries incessantly to understand, and even justify, these tyrannical behaviours of unlimited cruelty based on absurd rites of honour, which despise Westerners in general and women in particular (Japanese women are not exempt from this either, within a deeply sexist and classist society). And she tells us this with a great sense of humour, often close to sarcasm and surrealism, and with a great feeling of acceptance, even with a rare and almost inexplicable pleasure. 

In my opinion, the thing we have to thank that year in Japan for is that Amélie Nothomb decided that, after her return to Europe, she would dedicate herself exclusively to writing. The countless times she committed metaphorical suicide by jumping into the void through the company bay windows (a little spoiler, sorry), and flying over the wonderful landscapes of her beloved Japan, stimulated her imagination (already prodigious) and helped her to make that decision.

If you try reading Biographie de la faim and Fear and trembling you will be able to know Nothomb childhood and early youth, and perhaps to begin to appreciate his particular way of writing, and even of her being hedonistic, solitary, caustic, surreal and as fun as difficult to understand.

 

QUESTIONS

-What is the relation of the title with the novel? Does it have any relation with the book by Søren Kierkegaard?

-Why the reference to Aristotle?

-What do you know about the Japanese culture? Have you been there? Nothomb observations, are they clichés or real habits?

-Nothomb mentions Cleopatra and her nose. Do you think a so small detail can change the History?

-If you were to live abroad, what would be more important for you, to keep your culture and traditions, or to adapt to your new situation?

VOCABULARY

spat me out, bay window, open-plan, scornful, tore it up, output, refrain, umpteenth, brimmed, complexion, carnation, mourned, downfall, lair, ashen, dumbfounded, losing face, probed, slumped, kanji 

Psychology, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Cristina Fernández

An ex-lover goes to visit a woman, and both of them are pleased with it, just the sensation of being together and feeling the attraction. When he looked at her, she moved quickly away to prepare tea, interrupting their courtship.

Both of them wanted to speak about what she had said the last time they met, but she needed time for herself, to grow calm, to feel free. Friendship was a good option.

He was so comfortable with her that wanted to go on from where they left off last time, but she tried to stop it from happening again.

The attraction was in the air, they spoke nervously, lovingly, they wanted to succumb, but then their friendship would be in danger and she would suffer.

He wanted to stay but decided to go, she wanted him to stay but didn’t say, she cried, felt rage. The bell rang and she hoped it was him; instead it was an old friend: she hugged her and said goodbye.

Then she went to the writing table and wrote a letter for him, inviting him to come again like a friend.

QUESTIONS

-What do you think about the cliché “[women] long for tea as strong men long for wine”?

-What kind of traveller are you? What is the difference between a tourist and a traveller? How can a tourist be respectful with the environment and the native country?

-Do you think that spoiling things is something in our nature (tread virgin snow, breaking silence, breaking the smooth surface of the water)?

-What do you think of that kind of friendship called “friends with a benefit”? “Sexual love destroys friendship”: According to your point of view, is it a cliché?

-To your mind, is psychoanalysis effective or is it only quackery?

-What kind of novels do you like: psychological, historical, detective / crime novels…? Can you tell us about one you’ve read recently?

-Tell us some examples of the contradiction between clock time and psychological time. Do you have any anecdote?

-What do you do when you have a badly timed visitor?

 

VOCABULARY

lingeringly, shade, sharp, offspring, shooed away, utterly, wads, Roll (one's eyes), entreat, to the bone, be off, outlook, stodgy, put a spell on (somebody), jingle, soiled, reeled

AUDIOBOOK

ANALYSIS

ANOTHER ANALYSIS

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

People Are Life, by Graham Swift

Crisis in Six Scenes, by Woody Allen

PEOPLE ARE LIFE, by Aurora Ledesma

 Vangeli, a Greek Cypriot barber, is cutting the hair of an elderly customer. It’s the last customer of the day for him, and he is quite tired when the working day is over.  The customer confesses that is mother has just died. He had lived with his parents all his life and feels a bit abandoned now.

The barber senses that the man’s reflection in the mirror reveals more than his speech. Vangeli tries to sympathise but wants to know what is the full message. He asks himself, What is he telling me? That he is all alone in the world?

The barber offers the consolation that is apparently expected of him with phrases like:

“Well it had to happen”, “Sooner or later”, “Eighty – Three’s not a bad age”, “But you have friends”, “If you have people to see and talk to, then you have friends”, “If you have people, you have life”.

The talkative barber narrator dispenses bits of wisdom like the story title to the customers who want a little philosophy with their hair-cut.

The protagonist is just as lonely and friendless as his customer. His mother and father died years ago in Cyprus. His English wife Irene died too, just three years ago. They’d been split up for years. He has two grown-up boys also who are both in computers and are embarrassed by their father who’s just been a barber all his life. Despite his loneliness and his problems, he says nothing to his customers. He knows how to listen to the sorrows of the others but he has no one to tell his own. At the end of the day, what he likes most is to get home and have a beer.

When he finishes serving his customers, he pats them on the shoulder and tells them.

-“ Thank you for the tip, and now go and live your life”.

  

Some reflections

The story makes us reflect on the true childhood friends with whom we shared everything, our homes, games, worries, sorrows and joys, friends with whom we spent all our time together and later in adulthood we wonder, where are the real friends now? Maybe, like the barbershop customer, we only have people with whom to share anecdotes in a café. Even the protagonist Vangeli, who, after a lifetime in England, doesn’t know the names of his customers and is surprised by some English reactions, doesn’t have real friends.

QUESTIONS

Can you make a summary of the narrator’s life?

“People are life” versus misanthropy / loneliness. What are the benefits and the shortcomings of one kind of attitude versus another?

“The last costumer is different”. Do you think people treat costumers differently according to the time of the day? For the barber, why the last one is different?

Different kinds of friendship: people to whom you say hello, people who you meet, mates at work, friends… How can you define true friendship? Is a real friend “someone you can talk to”?

Is a barber a kind of psychologist, philosopher, confessor (he didn’t know his costumers’ names)? And the hairdresser?

What do you think of this type of communication?: The barber looks at the man who is talking to through the mirror. Is it similar to the communications through mobiles or computers?

Do you think there is a relation between the way you wear your hair and your personality? And what about your hair’s shape, colour…?

“We are in each other’s lives: that’s having friends”: do you think is it a good definition? Why?

What do you know about Cyprus? History, politics…

Did the costumer really need a haircut? How do you know? Do you go to the hairdresser if you have to go to a funeral?

Are you embarrassed by your parents’ jobs? Are there “low” jobs or only “low paid jobs”? Who usually does the “low paid jobs” nowadays?

“It’s how the English are.” What are English people like? Is it all clichés?

Do you think is it easy to become a barber?

What differences can you find between a barber and a women’s hairdresser?

 

VOCABULARY

snipped, hefty, tough, crinkly, clippers, split up, gabble away, regular, flick

Going Up in the World, by Graham Swift

Going Up in the World

The story tells us about the lives of two friends, Charles Yates and Don Abbot, about their friendship, their partnership in business of cleaning windows in skyscrapers and how do they improve their status and their lifestyles. Now that they are nearly sixty, are they happy with their lives. The path they have followed, is it worthy of their effort? 

QUESTIONS

-According to the narrator, Charles Yates is a toff’s name. What do you know about names? Did you find anything curious about your name? Do you have prejudices about names? How did you choose your children’s name? Would you like to change your name? Do you celebrate your name’s day?

-What do you know about these places: Wapping, Blackheath…? In the story, they mention “cross the river”. What is the meaning of this phrase for the Londoners? They say it’s a “good move”.

-They play nine holes: Do you play any sport? Do you think that a sport defines the character of a person, that is, according to one’s personality there is a different sport for them?

-There was a time when everybody wore a chain round their neck, and now we consider it out of fashion. How does fashion change our minds?

-There are three generations of jobs in the story: docker, window cleaner (self-employed), liberal profession. What is it different between our jobs and our parents’ jobs? And what about next generation?

-What do you think about boxing? Do you think it should be banned, or banned in the Olympic Games, at least?

-Describe Charles Yates (appearance and personality)

-Describe Don’s character.

-Talk about Charles’s jobs.

-In the story, they say he can climb like a monkey. Do you have vertigo? What do you know about people who don’t feel vertigo?

-They mention something about “smiling differently”. What can be its meaning? Sometimes you cry when you are very happy. Is it possible to laugh when you are very sad?

-What is the double meaning of the title?

-At the end of the story, there’s a mysterious phrase: “whole fucking world”. What is the meaning of this in relation with the story? What is for you the final idea of the story?

 

VOCABULARY

toff, crisp bright, heath, brow, nine holes, sloppy, docker, chunky, nipper, bantamweight, oil rig, roofer, steeplejack, girders, giddiness, birdman, clincher, sprees, cuddling up, stashed, twigged, hunch, wheeler-dealer, muck about, contraptions, gentry, take your pick, barrow boys, whoosh, ref, cumbersome, lumbering, easy-peasy, tingle