The Invisible Japanese Gentelmen, by Graham Greene

GRAHAM GREENE

Graham Greene was born in 1904. His father was a teacher in a boarding school, and he attended his father’s lessons. In his family we find people related to letters, for example his brother was a BBC director and his mother was an R. L. Stevenson’s cousin. He had a difficult adolescence and, because of that, he had to attend psychoanalysis sessions, a very unusual treatment at the time. In his diaries, he said he attempted to commit suicide by the system of the Russian roulette.

He studied History in Oxford. There he fell in love with a catholic woman and converted to Catholicism and got married.

After the university, he got a job as a subeditor for The Times. While working as a journalist, he wrote a novel The Man Within, an espionage story round Europe. He was 25. It was a success, and he decided to become a full-time writer, although his two following novels didn’t sell well. His next hit was The Stamboul Train, also a thriller, published when he was 28.

From that moment on, he divided his works into two classes: “entertainment”, that is thrillers and spy stories; and “novels”, or literary works, where he would deal with more philosophical problems, as, for instance, religion and the relation between goodness and badness. In this sense, he is considered a catholic writer, not only because he was a convert, but because in this literary works, the heroes are religious catholic people who want to atone for their sins. An example of these literary works is The Power and the Glory, where a Mexican priest, drunkard, father of a daughter, flying from the Mexican Revolution, debates between doing his clerical obligations or saving his life.

During the Second World War, he worked for the Foreign Office in Sierra Leone: that is, he worked for the British Secret Service, the MI6. There he was under the orders of Kim Philby, the famous double agent who had to run away to the USSR. He was his inspiration for his novel The Human Factor.

When he was 42 he got divorced and got married again, this time with a very rich woman. He travelled a lot, and thus he got a lot of material for his novels. During the last part of his life, he lived a life of luxury in Paris, the French Riviera, Capri and the Ritz in London. He died aged 86 of leukaemia.

A lot of his novels were adapted for the cinema: The Third Man, The Quiet American, The Burn-out Case, The Comedians, The End of the Affair…

 

SUMMARY

The story is very simple. The narrator, a couple, and eight Japanese men are having lunch in an expensive restaurant in the centre of London. The Japanese are eating and talking, but the narrator cannot hear them clearly, much less understand their language.

Between the Japanese and the narrator, the couple are having an argument. They are talking about getting married in a week, and they have different plans about the way of earning their living. The boy has been offered a place in a wine merchant business belonging to his uncle. But the girl has written a book, and her publisher is very hopeful about her work: she’s going to have an advance of 500 pounds, and then, the royalties. But the young man doesn’t trust very much in his fiancée’s literary career, although she has a project for another novel.

The narrator is a bit jealous of the girl, because he’s a writer himself, but much older. He meditates about the girl’s childish illusions, that is, about her excessive trust in her publisher; he thinks inexperienced writers (or even experienced, as the narrator is) are publishers’ instruments to get money, and when a writer doesn’t sell (so he or she isn’t useful any more), the publisher goes and looks for another one.

The girl claims she has a big power of observation; this talent is a good skill for a writer, but the fact is she hasn’t ever been aware of the conspicuous eight Japanese gentlemen sitting, talking and eating near her.

QUESTIONS

-Look for information about:

Bentley’s

Regency Way

Roedean College

Cheltenham Ladies’ College

Chablis

Nelson

Mrs Humphrey Ward

-What do you think / How do you feel when you hear a conversation in a language you don’t understand?

-Is it possible to write a good book being very young? What very young authors do you know?

-Can you write about something you haven’t experienced?

-Do you think the girl had powers of observation? What kind of powers of observation do you have, that is, what things attract your attention?

-Don you think they’ll get married in the end? What are they going to do (occupations)?

-DEBATE: What kind of job would you recommend to your children? Likes versus profits.

 VOCABULARY

crutch, blurb, jacket

ANALYSIS

REVIEW

VIDEO

Lady Windermere's Fan, By Oscar Wilde

SUMMARY

ACT I

It’s Margaret Windermere’s birthday, and she’s having a party tonight. Her husband has given a fan as a birthday present. Lord Darlington, a friend of the couple, is visiting lady Windermere and is paying her a lot of compliments. He is infatuated with her, but we don’t know if he’s really in love, or he’s only a rake. Lord Darlington knows lord Windermere has a singular relation with a woman called Mrs Erlynne, who is new in the city, and wants to take advantage of this in order to seduce lady Windermere.

Lady Windermere is going to find out about her husband supposed affair through the Duchess of Berwick, who tells her about the frequent visits her husband pays to Mrs Erlynne, hinting he has a love affair with her.

Lady Windermere doesn’t believe the story, but she has some doubts. In the end, she checks her husband bank books and discovers he has repeatedly given big sums of money to Mrs Erlynne.

She asks her husband why he has given her so much money, but he didn’t explain why; he only asks her to trust him and also to invite Mrs Erlynne to her birthday party. As she doesn’t want to do it, Lord Windermere writes himself the invitation card.

ACT 2

In the second act, we are at Lady Windermere birthday party. There are a lot of people, including Lord Windermere’s funny friends, Lord Darlington, the Duchess of Berwick and Mrs Erlynne. In the beginning, all the people want to avoid Mrs Erlynne, but, as the party goes on, everybody is seduced by her wits. Even one of Lord Windermere’s friends, Lord Augustus, aka Tuppy, a very simple man, falls in love with her.

Lady Windermere is so angry and disappointed with her husband, that she decides to accept Lord Darlington’s love and his proposition to elope with her. When the party is over, she leaves a letter for her husband telling him she is leaving him and goes away to Lord Darlington’s house. But Mrs Erlynne sees the letter, takes it before Lord Windermere knows anything about its content, and decides to save her and her marriage.

ACT 3

Lady Windermere is at Lord Darlington’s house waiting for him to run away together. But she has some doubts about her decision. After a while, in comes Mrs Erlynne. She tells her she wants to save her and her family, and lastly, she persuades her to go back to her husband. But, when they are going to go out, Lord Darlington and his friends, including Lord Windermere, are entering the house. Mrs Erlynne and Lady Windermere have to hide quickly.

But somebody finds Lady Windermere’s fan on a chair, and, when Lord Windermere is on the point of starting searching for his wife thinking she has something to do with Lord Darlington, Mrs Erlynne reveals herself. Everybody is astounded, Lady Windermere can make her escape, and Lord Augustus is quite disappointed.

ACT 4

Lady Windermere is at home thinking about the way to thank Mrs Erlynne, now she knows she isn’t a bad woman because she helped her to go back to her husband. But now her husband tells her she’s a contemptible woman.

At that moment, Mrs Erlynne comes to Lord Windermere’s to give back Lady Windermere’s fan and to ask for a photo of hers. While she is looking for it, and Lord Windermere and Mrs Erlynne are alone together, we find out that Mrs Erlynne is Lady Windermere’s mother, and that she abandoned her daughter twenty years ago to elope with her lover, who died some years after and left her alone in the world and rejected by every society. But neither he nor she tells anything of this secret to Lady Windermere.

In the end, Mrs Erlynne goes away, but not without finding a creditable explanation for her appearance at Lord Darlington’s, and this way she gets back Tuppy, and they leave for the continent together.

AUDIOBOOK

A Good Woman FILM

Lady Windermere's Fan FILM

Another Lady Windermere's Fan FILM

Marriage à la Mode, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Nora Carranza

It was Saturday afternoon and William was about to take a train in London, as he did many previous Saturdays. He felt sorrow for not having bought a suitable present for the kids, Paddy and Johnny, who awaited happily for the arrival of their dad because of his presents. 

The kids got annoyed when they obtained the same boxes of sweets William used to buy at the station.

As he intended to offer some different gifts, he made his decision for fruits: a melon and a pineapple. That matter of toys and objects for the children wasn’t an easy subject for William. His wife, Isabel, disapproved of the varied toys their children had, and destroyed them considering them typical and usual objects for children to play, a bad influence for the infant’s education and emotions.

It seems that there was a “new Isabel”, with new ideas, living in a new house, surrounded by new friends, a group of young poets, who, for instance, eagerly enjoy the children’s sweets. So, William, with disgust, imagine one of them lapping up a slice of the melon he had already bought.

The train arrived at the crowded platform, William looked for the first-class smoker carriage, where he got comfortable in a corner and began to concentrate in his professional papers, while the usual bad distress in his breast diminished.

After a time travelling, his attention moved from his papers to the landscape, and as every Saturday, the images he contemplated drove him to Isabel. William thought about the New Isabel and the previous Isabel.

William remembered when, some time ago, coming back from his office, he met his loved family in the little white house, the one with blue curtains and beautiful petunias. But then, William had no idea about the inconvenience that little house represented for Isabel. He didn’t imagine Isabel felt lonely, disliked the Nanny and was willing to know interesting people and attend to cultural activities.

William also remembered the holidays the family used to have, how he and Isabel enjoyed being young, eating and sleeping together. But now, the New Isabel would be horrified with this kind of sentimentalism in her husband.

The New Isabel had found congenial people, could go about more, and she lived in a new house surrounded by new amazing friends, a new, large house, where William felt strange and where Isabel accused him of being tragic and dull.

The train arrived at the station, William saw her waiting for him, beautiful and alone, and for a moment, he had the illusion that nobody else had gone with Isabel to the station…, but he was mistaken because all the others ―Bill Hunt, Dennis Green and Moira Morrison― waited outside in the taxi. He could only say, “Oh!”

The taxi went to the shop where Bobby Kane had been choosing sweets because of their divine colours and aspect. He went out to meet the group and, as the shopman ran after him claiming for the money, Isabel has to pay for the sweets.

Isabel laughed when William explained the fruits were for the kids and said they would suffer agonies eating them, although she and Moira were delighted with the melon and pineapple.

After tea, William found himself alone, the kiddies were asleep, and the poets were off to bathe. He went to the sitting room, and there he discovered paintings on the walls and ashtrays full of cigarette ends everywhere.

The bathers came back, altering the quiet of the garden, asking for music, making snob jokes, until they had supper, eating and drinking a lot. Isabel filled glasses and changed plates. In the end, they all felt tired and went to bed.

The next afternoon, waiting for the taxi, William was finally alone with Isabel, but nevertheless he felt there was nothing to say.

Isabel mentioned they almost hadn’t seen each other, it has been so a short time, the children have been out… The next time!

The taxi arrived, Isabel said goodbye, gave a quick kiss to William and went inside.

When he was seated on the train with his arms around the pain in his breast, he began to write mentally a letter for Isabel, the New Isabel.

When the post arrived, the indolent group were sitting outside the house. The letter to Isabel had pages and pages, and began with “My darling, precious Isabel”.

William didn’t want to be a nuisance to her happiness.

Isabel passed through different emotions: fear, astonishment, confusion, and finally she laughed a lot.

She was asked to read out the letter and, as she did, they all went making laugh and fun about the moving William’s words.

Isabel run up to her bedroom, resenting the vain behaviour of her friends, while they were calling her from the garden, “Come for a bathe”!

Isabel knew she should stay and write to William, she had to decide! But, oh, it was too difficult! Better later… and Isabel ran downstairs laughing.

 

In this story, the group of poets appears like indolent, unproductive people. They don’t care about responsibilities in their life, nor respect the person who really works and whom they owe meals, house and entertainments. Even Isabel shares their inconsistent way of life.

I think these are common traits for many artists, like writers, painters, musicians, philosophers, sensitive people, absorbed in their creative mind, that must keep apart from every day’s matters to go on with their artistic or intellectual creation.

But other artists or thinkers can produce excellent works, earning a living by them, and keeping active compromise with the world they live in.

What could be the circumstances or conditions that determine which one of these ways a gifted person has to live in?

 

QUESTIONS

-Do you always take things to your family / friends when you go away? What kind of things do you usually take?

-Should taste be taught? Who decides tastes in a person life?

-How can you define a snob person? Remember, “snob” comes from “sans noblesse”, that is “without nobility”.

-In the story, Isabel has changed after meeting some artists ang going to Paris with Moira. Do you think a friend, a book, a travel, can change radically a person?

-William is a grey, dull person that works in an office. He has traditional points of view and prejudices (“Hysterical”, of a girl running along the station.) And Isabel is lively, extrovert. Can personality decide about your job / loves / happiness? Give examples.

-Isabel new friends are a group of artists. What can you tell about the group of artists in La Dolce Vita? Can you compare the couple in La vie d’Adèle to William and Isabel?

-What is the touchstone to know what is really like a person?

-What do you know about the Ecclesiastes?

-In the station, when William goes back to London, Isabel wants to carry his suitcase. What do you thing about the traditional politeness to women?

-In your opinion, does Isabel really love William / their children? And what about William?

-Why did she laugh reading his letter? Will she write to him at the end?

-According to your view, who is right in their disagreement?

 

VOCABULARY

hard lines, ribbing, scrapped, poky, chambers, pinning, plait, wad, wiles, paper

AUDIOBOOK

ANOTHER AUDIOBOOK (from minute 32:59)

Marriage à la Mode, by William Hogarth

Line of beauty, by Hogarth

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS AND CRITICISM

The Stranger, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY

Mrs Hammond has been ten months away from home visiting her eldest daughter in Europe. Now the ship in which she has been travelling has stopped outside Auckland harbour for no apparent reason. A doctor has been sent for to go on board, and this situation lasts for a couple of hours.

Meanwhile, Mr Hammond, who has come from Napier where he lives, has been waiting with a number of people for the ship docking. Mr Hammond has been very nervous and agitated: he has paced up and down the wharf, he has lifted and girl on a barrel and then forgotten her, he has felt his heart beating… He has wondered if his wife had been ill on board...

Finally, the ship has berthed and is moored. Mr Hammond runs to greet his wife Janey; he goes on board to help her with the luggage. He is very excited because he wants to be alone with her and have some intimacy. He has even left their children at home and has booked a room in a hotel to spend at least a night together before going back to Napier with the family.

But before going away from the boat, Mrs Hammond wants to thank the captain and to say goodbye to her traveller mates, and Mr Hammond realizes her wife is very popular and he feels proud of her and likes her the more. But then, when she wants to say goodbye to the doctor, Mr Hammond is afraid again thinking that perhaps his wife has been ill during the passage, and what is more, he suspects that something singular (he doesn’t know what) has happened.

He longs to get some hours alone with his wife, but her responses to his desires are distant or cold. When they arrive to the hotel, he’s so in a hurry that he didn’t even greet his mates there: he wants to be immediately in their room. Alone with his wife, he doesn’t want to go down to the restaurant to have dinner. But he is a bit confused because of this lack of tenderness in his wife: she’s been ten months away!

In the end, she tells him why she’s in a so melancholic mood: a young passenger has died in her arms. He had felt sick and, according to the doctor, he has had a heart attack. Mr Hammond is more unsettled when he knows she was alone with the young man before and in the moment of his death. And he feels jealous, he feels he won’t be alone with his wife ever more. A dead man has beaten him to the punch, and he’ll never be able to get a rematch.

Jealousy, or envy, is in this case a contradictory feeling, because the object which spurs it doesn’t exist any more; so it’s like striking in the air, it’s a ghost and you’ll never be able to defeat it.

But is he really jealous, or he’s only disappointed because he couldn’t get satisfaction for his intimacy?

 

QUESTIONS

-At the beginning of the story it seems that the ship waiting near the harbour is in quarantine. What do you remember about the quarantine in the beginning of 2020? Where does the word “quarantine” come from (because sometimes means 15 days and in our case lasted 3 months)?

-What resources use the author to give us the impression that Mr Hammond is very anxious to meet his wife?

-When does he start to being jealous? Is jealousy a feature of a character, or it’s something you can feel all of a sudden? Is really a bad thing (morally) being jealous? Is it something you learn, or does it belong to the human nature?

-What can be the difference between “well-meaning envy” and “green envy”? Give examples.

-At the end of the story, we can see that a dead man has “replaced” or “overcame” the husband. James Joyce did something similar in his story The Dead. Why in the story is the bond with the dead man so strong? What do you think of the famous sentence in The Little Prince, by Saint Exupéry, “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed [or saved]”?

 

VOCABULARY

crinkled, galley, stern, snugly, glasses, roped, liner, dent, thrum, wheezed, raked, rot, bee-line, pikestaff, took it all, put off, butting in, chucked, thirsted, hover

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

SUMMARY

AUDIOBOOK

The Dead, by James Joyce

Mr Reginald Peacock's Day, by Katherine Mansfield

 

SUMMARY, by Cristina Fernández

The tale is the story of one day in the life of an egocentric musician that has success in his career, but unable to manage with bills, creditors and everyday details.

He would like to be one of the aristocrat group of people for whom he works, and behaves like one of them, meanwhile his wife has to manage to please his extravagances with a low budget and be her maid.

The marriage doesn’t work, as he adores everything in other women and loathes everything about his wife. Also, he tries to teach his son to behave like an aristocrat, with the result that the child finds it absurd.

To summarize the day, he gives singing lessons at home to grateful women and at night he sings in a private house, and that night he went to dinner too with one of his students.

Today, all has been a success in his life, but not his marital relationship, as he treats his wife as a maid, and he would like she would be like one of his pupils.

 

QUESTIONS TO REFLECT

Why do we want to be the centre of everything?

Why is always the other the responsible for a failure?

QUESTIONS TO DEBATE

-What can you tell us about the hero’s name?
-What is the best way to wake up? Do you think that having to get up at a determined time is a kind of being a slave?
-Do you think marriage / living together changes the relationship between a couple?

-Our society has to do exercise or go to the gym because most of the jobs don’t imply movement. Is this good or bad for our health in particular, or for the mankind in general?

-According to your opinion, what kind of formalisms are necessary in our daily routines? (saying “thank you”, e.g.) Aren’t these formulas worn out?

-What are your politics about keeping a servant?

-“Vanity, that bright bird”: what is the meaning of this expression? When vanity can be positive?

-How can governments promote culture for everybody, not only for rich people?

-“Nobody is a hero for their servant / husband /wife”. Why is that?

-“Ah, is we only were friends, how much I could tell her now!” Do you tell different things to a friend than to your spouse?

 

VOCABULARY

overall, stick and stone, shell, clip his wings, wedded, loofah, thrill, make it up, looked up, pansy, chords, waft, dairy

ANALYSIS

IDEAS MAP

Bliss, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Josep Guiteres

Bertha Young, a 30-year-old young woman, was married to Harry, whom she adored and loved, just like he adored her. They had a daughter, Bertha, whom she loved madly. Her husband had money and a good job, and they lived in a beautiful house with a garden. They also had friends of similar level to theirs.

Bertha felt completely happy, perhaps until the end of the night when they had invited the couple Norman Knight and wife, a theatre entrepreneur, Eddy Warren (a writer), and Pearl Fulton (a decorator) to dinner.

Bertha felt admiration and affection, or perhaps something more, for Pearl, unlike her husband Harry, who apparently detested her.

At the end of the dinner, when the guests left, Bertha realized that Pearl and her husband Harry were in a relationship. So Bertha asked herself the big question: and now what is going to happen?

 

PERSONAL REFLECTION

Because of the details that Katherine provides in her magnificent short story “Bliss”, and because of the analysis that Dr Oliver Tearle makes of the short story, I believe that if Katherine had continued writing after Bertha’s question, “what is going to happen now?”, she could have written a lot of different endings, but due to her short life she decided not to waste time on it, leaving this work to her readers.

QUESTIONS

-The story’s morality seems to be “ignorance is bliss”, or “out of sight, out of mind”. From your experience, what do you think it’s better: to always tell the truth, or to hide the things you imagine they can hurt?

-According to your view, why the baby is called “Little B”?

-Why is Bertha suddenly full of desire for her husband? Why was she generally cold?

-At the end, what do you think it will happen to their marriage? Is he going to break up with Miss Fulton? Is Bertha going to forgive him?

-What can be the meaning of The parable of the young women? (page 180, line 4/5)

-Along the story, we find some hints / signs that make us suspect that something happens between Miss Fulton and Harry. Can you tell us some of these hints?

-“Bertha guessed Miss Fulton’s mood so exactly…” This was Bertha’s first impression. Do you trust first impressions? Tell us an anecdote of yours where you had a first impression, and then, after knowing better the person, you had to change it.

-“In the drawing room, perhaps she [Miss Fulton] will ‘give a sign’ [to Bertha]”. Do you believe in love at first sight? How can you be aware that someone is in love with you?

-What is the meaning of these different symbols?

Fiddle

Tangerines, apples, strawberry, grapes

Pear tree (in bloom)

Cats (grey, and black -its shadow)

Lobster flesh

 

VOCABULARY

bowl a hoop, fiddle, M’m, tangerines, nursery, tugged, sound, make sb out, dullish, catching sb’s heels, couches, jonquils, stodgy, fluke, rose to a man, bored, fillet, snip, conservatory, teeming

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS IN VIDEO

AUDIOBOOK

Millie, by Katherine Mansfield

AUDIOBOOK

SUMMARY, by Begoña Devis

A really hot day, Millie was looking from her verandah at several men riding horses. She looked at them until they were out of sight. She knew that them were trying to catch the young boy who they believed had murdered Mr Williamson, a man liked by everyone, cheerful and friendly. He had appeared in a pool of blood, shot in his head. At the same time, young Harrison, who had arrived to learning farming, had disappeared. That is why they were looking for him, certain that the murderer could not be other than him. Among the group of men was Willy Cox, a young fellow, and Sid, her husband.

Millie went back into the kitchen; it was half past two and Sid wouldn’t be home until half past ten. She prepared her food, cleaned up, and then was looking around, and thinking about nothing and everything, when she heard a noise. She discovered that there was an apparently dead man in the back yard. She went to get her gun, threatened the man and, when she turned him towards her, she discovered a scared young man, almost a child. Millie felt great pity for him and, when he was finally able to stand up and walk, she asked him to follow her to give him something to eat. But he was too scared even to eat. «When will they return?», the boy stammered. Then Millie realized that he had to be Mr Williamson’s young killer. She didn’t care and decided that the men wouldn’t be able to catch him if she helped him: he was just a child, and nobody knew what he had done, or he hadn’t done. You couldn’t trust the justice of men, she thought, for many times they are nothing more than beasts. «Not before half past ten», she told him.

At night, Millie was lying with Sid in bed. Below, there were Willy Cox with the other chap and his dog, Gumboil. Suddenly, the dog began to bark and run in all directions. Sid jumped out the bed and went down, while, in the yard, young Harrison climbed onto Sid’s horse and fled. Sid asked Millie for the lantern, but she pretended not to hear him. Suddenly, the men saw Harrison, and Millie realized that he no longer had a choice. When Millie became aware of this, she felt as if a strange mad joy smothered everything else: she rushed into the road with the lantern, while dancing and singing «Catch him, hunt him, shoot him!»

 PERSONAL OPINION 

I’m not sure about that, but I think that Millie was a kind of philosophical woman, who asked herself about the things of life, and she was not sure of nothing, especially about the human condition. When he saw the young Harrison, she felt pity for him and tried to help him, although maybe he was a murderer, but when she realized that he no longer had a choice, she joined the group of men who want to catch him, because, after all, who knows?

QUESTIONS

What were Millie’s tastes about men?

How do you think Mr Williamson’s death affected her?

Why do you think the young man killed Mr Williamson?

What was the matter with Millie? Why didn’t she want kids?

Why did she go on helping the boy when he knew he was a murderer?

Explain what happened during the ellipsis.

Why did she change her mind at the end? Or did she?

What do you think it’s better for the mankind, justice or pity?

 

VOCABULARY

quivered, dotty, simpered, packing case dressing table, wunner, bulge, ducked, yer, shamming, corned beef, fox, want, ketch, ole, spouting, lantin

Wikipedia

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Analysis