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

Seraglio, by Graham Swift

SERAGLIO, PLOT AND COMMENTARY, by Núria Lecina

This short story tells us about the relationship of a couple. We don’t know their names.  Maybe the storyteller, who is the husband, doesn’t think it is necessary. He explains the facts and his thoughts.  Neither, we never know his wife’s feelings in this experience.  They are on holidays in Istanbul, but they could be anywhere, their relationship would be the same.

They decided to travel to Istanbul, a place really beautiful and interesting, because they wanted something exotic, they needed holidays, but different. “A place where you can save your ordinary life”. They look for an escape. They feel that have suffered, and now they are in convalescence, so that’s why they want an exotic and special place. But this way they won’t solve their problems. Sooner or later, they’ll return.

Thanks to the husband’s narration, who has a tourist’s book, we know a lot of aspects about the exotic Istanbul. For instance, what is the Seraglio, the place where the Sultan had all his women or concubines.

He also defines what is his wife like, both physically and psychologically. And what is the couple’s life like.

It is a rich text in descriptions, full of adjectives that help the reader to understand and imagine the situation.

One day in these holidays, when the husband arrives to the hotel after he has done a photographic report, he finds his wife laying on the bed crying. She explains to him that a hotel’s worker has come to their room to repair the heater, and when he had finished, he approached her and touched her. The explanations aren’t much clearer, neither what they can do to clear up the incident. At this moment, the situation becomes tense. Is she the victim? Is he guilty because he wasn’t there? Is it necessary to inform against? What is the meaning of “touched her”?  Did she use this fact to blame him? Is he being insensitive? …

This fact makes the husband think about how they can have arrived to this way of living, and then he tells us about their past. Their wedding was seven years ago. They worked together. He immediately fell in love with her. Soon they got married.

He, practising an odd philosophy, tested his love. He had a lover to check that really the woman who loved was his wife. This adventure, like a secret Seraglio, finished when the wife was pregnant. But soon after, she had a miscarriage, and it all got ruined. Perhaps his cheating on her was also an addition to their crisis?

Between them, it was installed the silence, a common guilt, the incapacity to talk about the loss, the incapacity to talk about the causes of everything and about what they could do to get out of their mourning.  And so, the solution was the escape, covering up what hurt them, the loss.

From that moment, rewards are the most important thing: theatre, restaurants, concerts, exhibitions, and expensive holidays.

I think the last sentence sums it up well: “So, one doesn’t have to cross to the other continent, doesn’t have to know what really happened”.

Until when?

QUESTIONS

-What do you know about the history of Istanbul?

-A cruel custom is mentioned. Do you know about similar customs related to power?

-Beauty is sometimes terrible: that is what we call sublime. Do you know any examples of this?

-What do you think of the famous cliché “Men seem to have the power, but who really gives orders is his wife”?

-What do you know about Oman II?

-“On holiday, you want to be spared ordinary life”. What do you think of the tourists lying on the beach, while shipwrecked immigrant people that have come out of a small boat lay on the beach?

-Do you think clichés in the story about Turkey are close to reality? Have you seen “Midnight Express” or “The Turkish Lover”?

-What do you know about Florence Nightingale?

-Where is Surrey in England? Do you know anything about it?

-How fond of taking photos are you? How do you like taking them?

-Do you think something really happened between the porter and the wife? How do you know?

-According to your opinion, are police officers competent enough to attend assaulted women?

-“But I have wanted this too.” What does it mean? Page 4, line 11.

-Was he really in love with his wife? How do you know?

-What do you think of the saying “Out of sight, out of mind”?

-Can you comment the sentence “Men want power over women in order to be able to let women take this power from them”?

-Do you usually discuss a film / play after seeing it with your friends / partner?

-Who killed their baby? Did he have a reason to feel guilty, and thus cause the miscarriage? What reason could be?

-What is the best way to narrate an embarrassing / delicate situation?

-What do you think is the meaning of her holding “one hand, closed, to her throat”?

-Having in mind their circumstances (abroad, tourists, eastern country…), what would you have done in her situation, talk to the manager, go to the police, go to your embassy…?

-Why did the author mention that the radiator was “distinctly warmer”?

-Why in the plane “other people glanced at his wife”?

-Do you think their marriage will go on?

 

VOCABULARY

sherbet, rent, squalls, hailstorms, bloated, spattered, Elastoplast, cripples, chequers, bled, dig, flawless, complexion, fastidious, tends, interfered, elicit, bluffly, blowing up, sensible, cut out, consultant designer, crushed, make believe, conscripted, heater, siege, scornful, issue, scoff, linen, gauge, ledge, reprieve, stay of execution, plane trees

A Horse and Two Goats, by R. K. Narayan

R. K. Narayan at the Wikipedia

A Horse and Two Goats at enciclopedia.com

A Horse and two Goats, cartoon

 

R. K. NARAYAN, by Begoña Devis

BIOGRAPHY

R. K. Narayan was an Indian writer born on October 10th, 1906 in Madras (now Chennai), British India, into a Hindu family. He was one of eight children, six sons and two daughters. His father was a school headmaster, and Narayan did some of his studies at his father’s school. As his father’s job entailed frequent transfers, Narayan spent part of childhood under the care of his maternal grandmother, Pavarti. During this time, his best friends were a peacock and a mischievous monkey.
When he was twelve years old, Narayan participated in a pro-independence march, for which he was reprimanded by his uncle, as the family was apolitical and considered all governments wicked.
Narayan moved to Mysore when his father was transferred to the Maharajas’s College High School. The well-stocked library at the school, and his father’s own, fed his reading habit, and he started writing as well. After completing high school, Narayan failed the university entrance examination and spent a year at home reading and writing.
After a brief job as a school teacher, Narayan realized that the only career for him was in writing, and he decided to stay at home and write novels.
While vacationing at his sister’s house in Coimbatore, in 1933, Narayan met and fell in love with Rajam, a 15-year-old girl who lived nearby, and married her. After that, Narayan became a reporter for a Madras paper called The Justice, dedicated to the rights of non-Brahmins. The job brought him in contact with a variety of people.
Narayan sent the manuscript of Swami and Friend (his first novel) to a friend in Oxford, and the friend showed it to Graham Green, who recommended the book to his publisher, and it was finally published in 1935.
R. K. Narayan developed his literary career in the English language and is considered one of the most important Indian storytellers of the 20th century.
Graham Greene considered himself a friend for life and decreed success in the Anglo-Saxon world, where Narayan was for a long time, before Salman Rushdie, perhaps the best-known storyteller of Indian origin.
He wrote about situations in a provincial society in which shopkeepers, beggars, businessmen and a greedy petty bourgeoisie live bustling side by side with the old and static world of the peasants and saints. His novels are set in the imaginary city of Malgudi, especially in the streets and popular settings, a microcosm of South India that still reflects the values and customs of the rural and archaic Indian world, but at the same time also the encounter/disagreement with the modernization that advances inexorably.
However, what stands out in Narayan is his use of irony, the acute observation of the changes that are taking place, rather than social or political denunciation. It also highlights how his characters and their environments continuously refer to the literary and religious heritage of India (sacred books, traditions and Hindu rites), a heritage that the author particularly loves and studies. This makes Narayan the singer of a world that, although not closed to the modern, continues to be deeply proud of its identity and cultural heritage.
Narayan received various awards and honours, such as the Padma Bhusham or the Sahita Akademi, India's second and third highest civilian awards.
R. K. Narayan died on May 13, 2001 in his hometown of Chennai.

 A Horse and Two Goats 

This is the history of a misunderstanding between a poor Indian man, Muni, and a rich American tourist who is visiting the village.
Muni is a very poor man who only has two goats and lives in a thatched hut. One day, Muni wakes up with the craving for something more sumptuous than the balls of cooked milled and raw onion he eats for his daily meal, and asks his wife to make a curry for dinner. She agrees to make him a curry, provided he can go to the local shop and buy the necessary ingredients for it.
Muni goes to buy them, but the shopkeeper refuses to allow him to purchase the items on credit, as Muni has no money. Muni returns home to inform his wife of the bad news. She exasperatedly orders him out of the house to graze his two goats, which are all he has left of a once large and healthy herd of sheep and goats that was afflicted by a pestilence.
As Muni walks toward the highway with his two scraggly goats, he arrives at his favourite spot, an area beside the highway that is the site of an old and grandiose statue of a warrior and a horse. Suddenly, a foreigner in a yellow station wagon comes barrelling down the highway, only to stop abruptly in front of Muni. He reveals that he is interested in buying the statue from Muni, whom he assumes to be its owner.
They both talk for a long time, but they don't understand each other at all. Muni explains to the foreigner the miracles and wonderful deeds carried out by the warrior of the statue, while the American tells him about his life in New York and what he wants to do with the statue in his mansion. The foreigner offers him more and more money, thinking that Muni is haggling, and Muni believes that he wants to buy the goats, so he takes the money very happily.
After that, the American loads the statue in his vehicle and drives it away, thinking he has bought it.
Muni returns home triumphant, informing his wife that he has managed to sell his goats, that had proven to be a curse to him as a constant reminder of how far he had fallen in the world. His wife initially assumes that he must have robbed someone, as the sum of 100 rupees is a small fortune. However, Muni’s elation does not last long as, soon enough, he hears the bleating of his goats at his door, and his wife threatens to call the police.
For me, the most interesting thing about the story is
the detailed vision of life in India for poor peasants like Muni, and the huge
difference of cultures that is reflected between that type of life and that of
the foreigner. The sense of humour and irony that there is, transforms a hard
to believe story in a fun and interesting one.

QUESTIONS

Talk about the characters

Muni (age, job, daily routines…)

His wife

The shopman

The postman

The American

Tell us something about the postman’s relationship with Muni. And with the postman.

Say something about Muni’s village.

What kind of conversation do the American and Muni have? What do they talk about?

What do people usually do when they try to communicate to a foreigner?

Once upon a time, offering a cigarette was a way to break the ice to start a conversation. Do you think we now communicate less because we smoke less?

“At seventy-one didn’t run, but surrenders to whatever came.” Do you think there is an age when every one of us has to surrender?

The America got stuck in the Empire State Building’s lift for hours, and then he decided to travel. If you had undergone a big thread in your life, what would you do to make up for it?

What is the American going to do with the statue? How did he carry it?

What kind of souvenirs do you by when you travel?

What is an “avatar”? Do you know something about Hinduism?

What is really communication? Is it always necessary to say something that makes sense?

What did Muni dream to do if he had some money?

What did the American buy, and what did Muni sell?

What happened when Muni arrived home with the money?

VOCABULARY

dotting, bullock, faggots, millet, pen, tethered, drumstick tree, ails, imp, ledger, swarga, fast, cronies, hailed, affluence, fleecy, gawky, bhang, thrashed, barren, spurn, scythe, dhobi, scrounge, cheetah, mauled, Namaste!, gainsay, slanderers, undaunted, wary, ingratiatingly, backwater, pinioned, Pongal, Parangi, quip, pundit, bearish, lakh, puja, creeper, gunny sack, dhoti