The Most Beautiful Woman in Town, by Charles Bukowski

Analysis

Audiobook

Tales of Ordinary Madness, Wikipedia

Factotum, Wikipedia

Factotum, movie

Barfly, Wikipedia

Barfly, movie

Tales of Ordinary Madness, movie

Charles Bukowski chez Bernard Pivot

SUMMARY, by Begoña Devis

Despite the nice title, that story is in fact a very sad one, very Bukowski-esque. The most beautiful woman in town is also the unhappiest. She feels her beauty is a curse, believing no one can see beyond the obvious: her perfect body, her attractive and unique face. That’s why she attacks herself, constantly at war with herself and with everyone else; and even having found someone capable of seeing her inner beauty, and with whom she could perhaps be happy, she doesn’t allow it, probably because she doesn’t feel worthy of it, and finally decides she can no longer live in a world that seems too cruel and heartless to her. Her soul is too sensitive to bear it, and she’s also too angry, too young and too immature to have the ability to see things any other way and give herself a chance.
    In a few sentences, Bukowski gives us very important details about this beautiful girl so we can understand her behaviour. What happiness could she feel as a child in her family with an alcoholic father, who probably plunged them into poverty and abandonment? How could she believe she deserved happiness after being abandoned by her mother along with her four sisters following her father’s death? How could she trust others if all she received was envy from her sisters and sexual abuse from men? Even during the years she spent in a convent with her sisters, she didn’t live in peace; she was too beautiful not to be envied and rejected. It was only natural that she hated her beauty and decided to put an end to it once and for all.

 
PERSONAL OPINION
 
Childhood abandonment, alcoholism, and the sensitivity hidden behind rudeness and outbursts are recurring themes in Bukowski, who narrates his own miserable life through his stories. This one, coming from its author, is as heartbreaking as it is predictable, though always interesting to read, due to his direct, abrupt, and at times almost pornographic style, which makes it unique and compelling.
    Aside from the story itself, I personally —although I understand it couldn’t be any other way— have always found it deeply unfair that an unhappy childhood leads to a difficult life, while a happy one greatly contributes to making adulthood much more enjoyable. It’s like a win-or-nothing game, and only a few manage to turn things around, reconcile with their past, and live a full and happy life despite a difficult start. This wasn’t the case for the most beautiful woman in town.

QUESTIONS

-Cass was misusing her beauty. What do you think of working as a model? Is it a job as any other one, or it isn't a job you wouldn't like for your children? Is it a sexist job?
-Would you like to live for a time in a convent? Do you think it would be a benefit for people who lead a stressing life?
-What can be the reason of a self-inflicted wound? Has it anything to do with masochism?
-After making love, the narrator asked the girl her name. What would be the first questions you ask in a first date?
-"Once you accept a drink, you create your own trouble". How true / sexist is this sentence, in your opinion?

VOCABULARY

zap, of age, forged, fair, dramatics, schitzi, elephant ear, bail, fad, hustling, haggle, wearing, pecker, pace, shack, offhand

Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Josep Guiteres

In this story we have the themes of gender roles, domination, submission, control, identity and tradition.

Throughout the story, Frau Brechenmacher is always at the disposal of her husband.

When her husband arrives home, the Frau has already prepared all the clothes for him to go to the wedding, making sure that he would be ready before her.

Even the Frau uses her daughter Rose to help her to prepare his husband’s things for the wedding. In reality, she is teaching her how to serve her husband.

When the couple goes to the wedding, he walks in front of her it as if there was a hierarchy that the Frau had to follow, that is, the Herr occupies first place in the entire story.

When they arrived at the place where the wedding was being held, the Frau sat next to her friend Frau Ledermann, who told her that it was very striking that her skirt was open at the back; but she was so attentive to her family that she forgot to take care of herself.

At the wedding it seems that men and women are separated as if each one had their own place in this event.

According to the conversation between the two women, the bride, who already has a daughter, did not want to marry anyone, but agreed to marry due to the traditional composition of the family.

When the Herr gave the gift to the bride and the groom, of all those present, the Frau was the only person who did not laugh, possibly because for her the gift symbolizes the result of her life.

When the couple arrived home, the Frau prepared dinner for her husband, an obvious sign of submission to the man. The Frau went to bed and curled up like a child, and this position tells us that she has not grown since she has not had the opportunity to develop her own life.

QUESTIONS

-They leave the children alone in the house. How has our concept of safety changed? Can you tell an example of it that shocks you?

-The father was the top authority in the family, and he had the monopoly of violence. How has it changed?

-How do you know the Brechenmacher family is a low-class family, and what details show us that they pretend to be of a higher class?

“Giving her [the bride] the appearance of an iced cake all ready to be cut and served in little pieces to the bridegroom sitting beside her.” What in a current wedding ceremony goes on showing the male domination, according to your view?

What stories with illegitimate children do you know? Tell us a summary of one of them.

How could be possible that a woman is more male chauvinist than a man?

Herr Brechenmachen carries “the coffee pot to the bridal pair… She lifted the lid, peeped in, then shut it down with a little scream”. What was inside the coffee-pot? What can be the meaning of this present?

-How can you imagine Frau Brechebnmachen wedding night?

 

VOCABULARY

muddled, cinders, fir, saucers, overawed, bows, perspiration, froth, wedged, dandle, clout

ANALYSIS

AUDIOBOOK

Lore (video: watch from minute 140)

The Thing Around Your Neck, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the Wikipedia

The Thing Around Your Neck at the Wikipedia

The Thing Around Your Neck: summary and analysis, LitCharts

Chimamanda website

Chimamanda independent website

Nigeria at the Wikipedia

Biafra at the Wikipedia

Tedx talk: We should all be feminists (very easy to understand and very funny)

Half of a Yellow Sun (trailer)

Presentation, by Adriana Cruz

BIOGRAPHY

Chiamamanda Ngozi Adichie is a famous writer, teacher, novelist, playwright and feminist activist.
She was born in Agba village, Enugu (Nigeria) on the15th September, 1977. She grew up as the fifth of six children in Nsukka city. 
Her father, James Nwoye Adichie worked as a professor of statistics, and her mother, Grace Ifeoma was the first secretary of the University of Nigeria.
The family lost almost everything during the Nigerian Civil War, including both maternal and paternal grandfathers. Her family's ancestral village is in Abba in Anambra State, Nigeria.
She studied Medicine and Pharmacy at the University of Nigeria for a year and a half. During this period, she edited The Compass, a magazine run by the Catholic University's medical students. At the age of 19, Adichie left Nigeria for the United States to study Communications and Political Science at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She soon transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University to be near her sister Uche, who had a medical practice in Coventry, Connecticut.
 She got married to Ivara Esege, and they have one child.
From 2016 to 2019 he won several honorary titles as the Doctor of Humane Letters and the Doctor Honoris Causa, from the Université de Fribourg, Switzerland.
She was the author of many novels: Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, the short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck (translated into 19 languages), and the essay We Should All Be Feminists. Her most recent books are Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions and Notes on Grief.
Adichie divides her time between the United States and her second residence in Nigeria, where she teaches writing workshops.

 The Thing Around Your Neck

This book was first published in 2009, and talks about a woman named Akunna who gains a sought-after American visa and goes to live with her uncle; but he molests her, and she ends up working as a waitress in Connecticut. She ends up meeting a man whom she falls in love with, but, along the way, she experiences cultural difficulties with him.
The title story depicts the choking loneliness of a Nigerian girl who moves to an America that turns out to be nothing like the country she expected. Although falling in love brings her desires nearly within reach, a death in her homeland forces her to re-examine them.
The history based in Lagos and USA, and deals about prejudices and difficulties in accepting the pre-established cultural differences and prejudice of sex, ethnicity, macho and white dominant culture, and many difficulties to get a visa.

QUESTIONS

According to the family, what things do you have to get when you are in the USA, and what you don’t?

Personal question: What things do you usually buy as souvenirs when you go away?
They call “America” the USA. Is that correct?

Where is Maine? What kind of place is (or was) it? And Connecticut?
“They were desperately trying to look diverse” (where her uncle is working): What is your opinion about positive discrimination?
The story is told in the second person singular (you). Why?
In Maine they asked her about her hair: What is the best way to deal with “different” people?
Why did she leave her uncle’s house? Was he really her uncle?
How did her boss Juan treat her in her first job?
According to the protagonist, how is life back in Nigeria?
What were the brown envelopes for?
What stories did she want to tell her family about “America”?
What were the usual clichés about black people?
What things did her future boyfriend (the white costumer) know about Africa?
Why did the protagonist say white people were always “condescending” with Africa?
Talk about professor Cobbledick.
The fortune strips of paper she got in the Chinese restaurant were blank. What does it mean for the story?
Can you remember the story of her father in the raining day in Lagos?
She cooked dinner for her boyfriend: how did he like it?
What kinds of presents didn’t she like?
What do people think of them as a couple?
What behaviour and what decisions of her boyfriend didn’t she understand?
Why does she go back to Nigeria?
In your opinion, is she going to go back to the USA then?
What does the title mean?

VOCABULARY

visa, to get in one’s feet, self-tanner, gawp, Greyhound bus, community college, course syllabi, hawk, preemie, shantytown, maudlin, Jeopardy, root for, throw up, MSG, Nawal El Saadawi