Fusilli, by Graham Swift

FUSILLI, by Aurora Ledesma

SUMMARY

The story begins with an unnamed man shopping in a British supermarket called Waitrose, two weeks before Christmas. While he is in the supermarket, he thinks about how he and his wife Jenny, had decided not to celebrate Christmas that year. They had also ignored Remembrance Day because of superstition. As he walks through the aisles, he remembers a call a month ago, from his son Doug, who was a soldier deployed to Afghanistan. The man was anxious to talk to his son. Doug advised his father to try the “fusilli” variety: “You should stick with dried” “Fresh is a scam”.

Now the man thinks that he and his wife will never eat fusilli again. It is revealed that Doug has died, and the call was the last time his father had heard his voice. Doug was in a mortuary in Swindon, waiting for the coroner’s decision. It was pretty clear now that they couldn’t have Doug before Christmas.

In the pasta aisle, while he is remembering the call, he sees a woman with two children. The woman is a bit stressed because her noisy children were screaming and out-of-control. He looks at the mother and thinks, “She doesn’t know how lucky she is”.

In the end of the story, he decides to buy the fusilli and puts it close to his chest. The pasta isn’t to eat, but it is some sort of memory for Doug.

 

ANALYSIS

In this story, the narrator goes between the present time and the past. The short narration is structured around the feelings and thoughts of a father who has just lost his son. Therefore, loss and grief are the most important themes. It shows us the difficult life of a father who is trying to accept the death of his son, who has been killed in the Afghanistan war. The man is also shown to suffer from multiple emotional conflicts. He wants to remember his son, but, at the same time, he is terrified of thinking about him. He also remembered when his son was a kid in the days when Christmas was coming, looking for a gift to give him. He also wondered if the toy gun he once gave Doug, as a Christmas gift, indicated that Doug would end up going to war. He constantly reconsiders his past actions and thinks he could have prevented his son becoming a soldier or even prevented his son’s death.

This story tells us what happens to the one left behind and how they deal with grief. His grief makes him question everything. Maybe, if he hadn’t been angry when his son called, his son wouldn’t have died.

 

The story deals with several themes, such as:

-The loss of a loved one and grief. Is it possible to become happy again after having lost a person you love as dearly as parents love their children?

-The meaning of wars in a distant country for families, no parents should live to see their son or daughter die. However, in times of war, young men and women, sometimes have to pay the heaviest price and sacrifice their lives to protect others.

-How superstitions influence us.

-The consumerism and all the products for sale a long time before the main holidays (Christmas, Halloween…)

QUESTIONS

What do you think about Christmas? Do you understand people who doesn’t celebrate it? What is your opinion about Bank holidays or days’ celebrations?

What do people do on Remembrance Day? When is it? Why there were “little boxes of poppies”?

What is it your method of shopping in a supermarket?

What can you say about Helmand?

What is your opinion about taking part in a foreign war like a soldier or like a Blue Helmet?

What kind of conversation can you have with a person that is in the middle of a war?

What do you think of giving toy weapons as a present for children?

“The kids were doing only what kids do”. How true is this sentence? (Boys will be boys)

When did you know that your children could give advice to you?

Why did the writer choose “Fusilli” for the title?

 

VOCABULARY

aisle, mince pies, poppies, supermarket run, dithering, scam, fads, splashing out, Waitrose, Tesco's, mortuary, traipsing, Mothercare, marauding, goat, brats, knobbly

TWO WORLD WAR I POEMS

In Flanders Fields, by John McCrae

Strange Meeting, by Wilfred Owen

Saving Grace, by Graham Swift

Saving Grace, by Carme Sanz

 Dr Shah, an eminent cardiologist, was born in Battersea, a famous neighbourhood in London. He was a very peculiar man or, better to say, a peculiar doctor, because while he treats his patients, he likes to relate them the history of his own family.

Although he has never been to India, he has the appearance of an Indian man, because his father came from this country.  In those times, India was ruled by the British, that means, before its independence in 1952.

His father was very fond of British culture, because his family was one of the few that really revered the British, and was educated as any boy in Britain. So, when the Second World War started, he fought for the British and, in the D-Day, he was badly wounded in his leg. It was then when he met Dr Chaudhry and, thanks to him, he could save not only his leg, but probably also his life.

Dr Chaudhry came from India too, and, in those times, not many people wanted to be treated by an Asian doctor, no matter how good he or she was. At this point, Dr Shah liked to say that his father was really lucky also because, thanks to his being in hospital, he met his future wife, Nurse Rosie.

Dr Chaudhry became as a family member, and Dr Shah thought he probably became a physician because of his mentorship.

To end up the story, he explained that his father had been a hospital porter for ten years, and then a clerk, in spite of his poor education. And this, thanks to his wife and probably to Dr Chaudhry.

 

As far as I am concerned, this story is easy to understand. The author presents his main character, Dr Shah, as an honest and calm man who likes to explain what happened to his family with all the issues of the immigrant people, but without any anger or resentment, just with the reality of facts. Things such as prejudice against foreigners were very strong in the past and have changed nowadays, although probably less than we’d like to. And eventually, how a man can feel a longing for his country and at the same time be able to start a new life.

QUESTIONS

What do you know about the English rule in India?

“He was born into one of those families who revered the British”. Is it possible friendship between owner and slave, between colonizer and colonized?

Where is Poona? Can you point Birmingham, Bradford or Battersea on a map?

Why sometimes a foreigner speaks the language better than natives?

According to your opinion, which position had to be the Indian position in the WW2, pro or against Nazis, pro or against British? Remember that Gandhi said that the British should not offer resistance to the Nazis, even when he knew about the genocide.

Do you think our lives are directed by the chance, or that we can decide our destiny?

What do you know about the D-Day?

He had an injured leg, and then he couldn’t go back to fight. Is that good luck? What do you know about SIW?

What can you tell us about amputations?

“If they let him do, he could save them”, being “he” a foreigner. What would you do in your case?

What does “Krupp” refer to?

“His home was in England now”. If you don’t live where you’ve been born, how do you know where is “your country”?

What do you think about following one's parents' trade? Is it a good idea?

He said cardiology was the glamour field. What is it now the glamour field in medicine?

Do you trust in foreigners when it’s an important job? Why? Did you have any experience with them?

 

VOCABULARY

awash, cut up rough, consultant, chapter and verse, on the mend, slot, overtook, mishap, whizzed, saving grace, stump, disadvantaged, pinstriped, against all the odds, disclaimingly, beam, dexterous, worked up, puny, plumply

Fireworks, by Graham Swift

Fireworks

This story deals with the feelings of a father when his only daughter is about getting married. Bur two weeks before the appointed wedding, there is the famous missile crisis. Are they going to celebrate the wedding, or they prefer waiting for the end of the world? A few days after, it’s the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes Day, but now the celebration will be a bit different and perhaps not so happy as in previous years.

QUESTIONS

-What do you know of the crisis of the missiles in Cuba?

-How do you think the world will end? Do you think it’s going to be and end for the humanity? What is, according to your opinion, the best literary end of the world?

-Is Monday the worst day of the week, or it is a cliché? Do you have a favourite day? And a day you hate? Do you know the origin of the prejudice against Fridays (in Anglo-Saxon countries) or Tuesdays (as for example in Spain)?

-About news: Why are they all the time negative? Is there a secret objective? Or is it simply because people don’t like good news?

-Can you see an analogy between the pair of presidents and the pair of fathers-in-law?

-Do you keep old clothes or do you prefer donating them? Is there any piece that you love specially and want to keep it forever?

-What do you know about Guy Fawkes Day? And about Guy Fawkes?

-Is there an analogy between Guy Fawkes Day and a wedding?

-There had been a worldly alarm of a nuclear explosion, and at the end there were only fireworks. Do you think the author wanted to mean something with this?

-What was your experience with weddings? Have you been in a very unusual wedding?

 

VOCABULARY

flippant, distraught, forked out, crackling, tantrum, chucking it down, glued, aimer, get into flaps, grizzling, fixture, thrill, regalia, give it a miss, foible, slouching, juddering, rant, plonked, Bovril, debriefings, swig

The Three Horsemen, by G. K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton at the Wikipedia

Review

The Paradoxes of Mr Pond at the Wikipedia

Audiobook (part 1. From minute 3)

Audiobook (part 2. From minute 3)

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, by Lídia Gàllego

 

BIOGRAPHY

 

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in Campden Hill in Kensington in 1874. He was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the “prince of paradox”. He wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4,000 essays (mostly newspaper columns), and several plays. He created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown and its writings consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour.

Chesterton was a large man, standing 1.93 m tall and weighing around 130 kg, who became fascinated with the occult and, along with his brother Cecil, experimented with Ouija boards. He was educated at St Paul’s School, then attended the Slade School of Art to become an illustrator. Chesterton also took classes in literature at University College London, but did not complete a degree in either subject. He declared himself agnostic in matters of religion.

He married Frances Blogg in 1901. Chesterton allowed Frances to lead him back to Anglicanism, though he later considered Anglicanism to be a “pale imitation” of Catholicism. He entered full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in 1922. The couple never had children.

In September 1895, Chesterton began working for the London publisher George Redway. One year later, he moved to the publishing house T. Fisher Unwin, where he remained until 1902. During this period, he also undertook his first journalistic work, as a freelance art and literary critic. Early on, Chesterton showed a great interest in and talent for art. He had planned to become an artist, and his writings show a vision that clothed abstract ideas in concrete and memorable images.

Chesterton was part of the Detection Club, a society of British mystery authors founded by Anthony Berkeley in 1928. He was elected as the first president and served from 1930 to 1936.

Chesterton died of congestive heart failure on the14th June 1936, aged 62. Near the end of Chesterton’s life, Pope Pius XI invested him as Knight Commander with Star of the Papal Order of St. Gregory the Great. The Chesterton Society proposed his beatification.

 

The Three Horsemen

Mr. Pond, a government official and old friend of the author’s father, explains, in a meeting between acquaintances, a case he had to solve a few years ago: Marshal Von Grock, who leads a regiment of Prussian hussars in occupied Poland, considers that Paul Petrowski, a Polish poet and singer, must be executed because his public demonstrations of patriotism are a danger. For this reason and considering that the poet is about to be released, he sends a messenger, Lieutenant Von Hocheimer, with precise orders for his execution shortly before the arrival of the Prince. The Prince knows that this act would have international repercussions, would make Petrowski a martyr and would cause them a lot of trouble, so he decides to send a messenger with a pardon to stop the marshal’s order. Nevertheless, the marshal remains convinced that Petrowski must die for the safety of the Prince and the homeland, so he secretly sends a third messenger, Sergeant Schwartz, to prevent the pardon from arriving. Eventually, no messenger will arrive, and the poet Petrowski will be released. Mr. Pond tells his acquaintances why he thinks it happened so.

QUESTIONS

Talk about the characters:

-Mr Pond

-Paul Petrowsky. Why is he dangerous (for the Prussians)?

-Marshal Von Grock: physical appearance and personality.

-Lieutenant Von Hocheimer

-His Highness

-Arnold Von Schacht

-Sergeant Schwartz. Why did Grock choose him for the mission?

What is a paradox? Can you give some examples?

What in life is a lot but never too much? Why?

The narrator say that Captain Gahagan seems to belong to a past when being a duellist was more common. What duels in fiction do you remember the best?

“It was his one compliment to poetry.” What do we have to understand by this sentence?

Grock says they must serve (different from obey) His Highness? What does it imply?

What do you know about the Ems telegram (or dispatch)? So when do you think the story is situated?

What is the meaning of this sentence: “Death is the fact of all facts”?

What is the relation between Goethe and Weimar?

“The world is changed not by what is said, but by what is done”, said Grock. Do you agree? Why?

Why does the narrator use this image: “The sergeant felt vaguely the presence of some primordial slime the was neither solid nor liquid nor capable of any form”?

What do you know about Rops?

What does that mean: “an act is unanswerable even when it is indefensible”?

 

VOCABULARY

creepy, dapper, random, owlishly, abreast, couriers, laid waste, wilderness, spick and span, baldric, reprieve, asinine, scoff, thwarts, chargers, Fatherland, overriding, orderly, marksmanship, scum, etcher

Guests of the Nation, by Frank O'Connor

Frank O'Connor at the Wikipedia

Guests of the Nation at the Wikipedia

Guests of the Nation at encyclopaedia.com

Analysis

1935 Movie

TV Movie

Film adaptation

Irish Wars movie

Michael Collins movie

BIOGRAPHY

Frank O’Connor is the pseudonym of Michael Francis O'Connor O'Donovan, he was born in September 17, 1903 in Cork, Ireland, only child of Michael O'Donovan, labourer and sometime British army soldier, and Mary (‘Minnie’) O'Connor, domestic servant. He was raised in an extremely chaotic and poor environment and his early life was marked by his father's alcoholism, debt, and ill-treatment of his mother. His childhood was shaped in part by his mother, who supplied much of the family's income by cleaning houses, because his father was unable to keep steady employment due to his drunkenness. O'Connor adored his mother and was bitterly resentful of his father.

He has recounted the early years of his life in one of his best books, An Only Child, a memoir published in1961 and continued his autobiography in his book, My Father's Son, which was published in 1968, posthumously. In his memoirs, he recalled his childhood as "those terrible years” and admitted that he had never been able to forgive his father for his abuse of himself and his mother.
He received little formal education in Saint Patrick’s School in Cork, but his family's poverty forced him to leave school aged fourteen. As a child he was taught briefly by Daniel Corkery (1878–1964), who was also a later mentor and encouraged his learning Irish.
In 1918, he joined the First Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and served in combat during the Irish War of Independence. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and joined the Anti-Treaty IRA during the Irish Civil War, working in a small propaganda unit in Cork City. He was imprisoned in the Gormanston camp between 1922 and 1923.
After this episode he turned against republicanism and political violence generally. His experiences in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War are reflected in The Big Fellow, his biography of Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins, published in 1937, and one of his best-known short stories, Guests of the Nation (1931), published in various forms during O'Connor's lifetime and included in Frank O'Connor-Collected Stories, published in 1981.
Between 1924 and 1928, he taught Irish in country schools, worked as a librarian in Wicklow, Cork, and continued to train himself for a writing career. In these years he adopted pseudonym “Frank O’Connor” to keep his position as a librarian and retain independence as a writer. He published stories, reviews and translations in The Irish Statesman, Dublin Magazine, The Tribune.
With Sean Hendrick, founded the Cork Drama League to stage continental playwrights such as Chekhov and Ibsen. In 1928 he moved to Dublin to become librarian of Pembroke Library in Ballsbridge.
From 1935 to 1939 he was a director of the Abbey Theatre and worked in close contact with W.B. Yeats, its founder. Two plays were produced by him in the Abbey: In the Train (1937) and Moses Rock (1938). He became best known for his short stories publishing a several number of collections from 1936.
In 1937, he made his first broadcast on Radio Eireann.
In 1939, he married Evelyn Bowen. They had a son and a daughter, and they were divorced in 1953.
In 1941, he produced, The Statue's Daughter, at the Gate Theatre and began working with the BBC in London. Many of his stories, like Midnight Court, were later banned.
During World War II (1939 to 1945), he worked as a broadcaster for the British Ministry of Information.
Following the war, in 1945, O’Connor began a twenty-yearlong association with the American magazine The New Yorker. During this time, he had to readapt his narrative style and innovate some techniques to appeal to his new reading public.
At the age of 48, he became a teacher at Northwester University and Harvard.
In 1950, he accepted invitations to teach in the United States, and worked as a visiting professor. In this country many of his short stories had been published in The New Yorker and won great acclaim. He spent much of the 1950s in the United States.
He married, secondly in 1953 with Harriet Rich of Baltimore, whom he met while lecturing at North-Western University (Evanston -Illinois-). They had one daughter.
In 1961, he had a stroke while teaching at Stanford University and he returned to Ireland. He died from a heart attack in Dublin, Ireland on 10 March 1966.
O'Connor's literary career, which lasted more than 40 years (1922-1966), was very prolific. He published over two dozen volumes of varied literary types: several plays in collaboration and alone, most of them produced at the Abbey Theatre, where he was once a director; translations from the Irish such as The Wild Bird's Nest (1932); verse such as Three Old Brothers (1936); local travel writing such as Leinster, Munster and Connaught (1950); criticism such as Mirror in the Roadway (1956); novels such as The Saint and Mary Kate (1932); short stories in several collections, including Crab Apple Jelly (1944); and the autobiographical volumes An Only Child (1961) and My Father's Son (1969). He also wrote about 300 known pieces of journalism, including many reviews, as well as articles on social, political, and cultural issues. He made about 175 radio and television broadcasts in Ireland and Britain and a few in the United States. 

Frank O'Connor Festival and Prize

Since 2000, The Munster Literature Centre in O'Connor's hometown of Cork has run a festival dedicated to the short story form in O'Connor's name: The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award which is awarded to the best short fiction collection published in English anywhere in the world in the year preceding the festival. The prize is also opened to translated works and in the event of a translation winning the prize is divided equally between author and translator. The award is described as "the richest prize for the short story form" and is one of the most valuable literary prizes for any category of literature.

 

GUESTS OF THE NATION 

Film Inspiration

Guests of the Nation has been filmed several times. The first film was a silent one, directed in 1934 by Denis Johnston and featuring Barry Fitzgerald and Cyril Cusack. The second one, was the Neil Jordan’s award-winning film The Crying Game (1992) which partially adapted the story for another period of Irish revolutionary violence called de Troubles in the 1970s and 80s

 Plot

Guests of the Nation is about two Englishmen, Hawkins and Belcher, who are held prisoner by Bonaparte, Donovan, and Noble, members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), somewhere in Ireland, during the Irish War of Independence in the early 20^th century. The story is told by Bonaparte, who recalls his time guarding both prisoners.
Belcher and Hawkins live in an old woman's house with the two Irishmen, Noble and Bonaparte, who are supposed to keep an eye on them. They all spend a lot of time together arguing, playing cards, discussing politics and religion as if they weren't part of the armed conflict that surrounds them. They have become true comrades and friends.
Donovan, the third Irishman, is the officer in charge of the small Irish group, and he is not so friendly with the Englishmen.
When Donovan informs Bonaparte that although Englishmen are prisoners, they are also being held as hostages, so if the English shoot any of their Irish prisoners, they are going to execute Hawkins and Belcher in revenge, Bonaparte is surprised by this news, and he says that he is not comfortable with the idea of killing them.

The next day, in the evening, while they are playing cards, Donovan asks for the two prisoners, then he notifies them that four Irish soldiers have been executed by de British, including a sixteen-year-old boy, so they are going to be killed in retaliation. They cannot understand what happen because they believe that a friend could never murder a friend they are all friends. Hawkins even offers to leave the British Army and join the Irish, in his opinion friendship is more important than a war. But Donovan ignores this and shoots him. Later, Donovan tries to excuse his action by claiming that he’s only doing his duty, but Belcher says that he is not agree with what duty means, however he doesn’t blame them, and call them “good lads”. Then, Donovan shoots Belcher and kills him, too.

After finishing their "duty" and burying the prisoners, Noble and Bonaparte return to the woman's house very sad. Their reactions to the traumatic experiences they have lived through are different. As Noble and the old woman fall to their knees in prayer, Bonaparte goes outside to look at the stars and listen to the birds, feeling far away from everything and a great loneliness.

This interesting and cruel story shows that people from different countries and with different views on life can be friends and live together in peace. But when it happens in a time of war and everyone has to do their duty, even if their hearts tell them otherwise, they should not put their friendship before their obligations.
We can find several other topics in this story, apart from duty, war and friendship, which are currently very present in our society, and which are sometimes a source of conflict, such as national identity, home and family, religion, spirituality and materialism.

https://www.dib.ie/biography/oconnor-frank-a6631
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/666705
https://www.irishplayography.com/person.aspx?personid=38813
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Frank-OConnor
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Frank_O%27Connor
https://frankoconnor.ucc.ie/introduction_to_foc.php%3Fteanga=.html
https://prabook.com/web/frank.o_connor/3737936

https://www.litcharts.com/lit/guests-of-the-nation#context

QUESTIONS

Talk about the different characters

    Belcher

    ‘Awkins

    Noble

    Bonaparte (the narrator)

    Jeremiah Donovan

    The woman

Historical context: What do you know about the independence of Ireland?

    1916 Rising

    Bloody Sunday

    Independence War

    Civil War

What is the Stockholm syndrome?

What do you know about the Lima Syndrome?

What do the prisoners and guards do to pass away the time?

Jeremiah has all the time his hands in his pockets. What can this attitude suggest?

“Our lads didn’t dance foreign dances on principle” (372, 9-10). What do you think of this kind of “boycott”? Do you know another one that is curious or singular?

What is your opinion about “cursing and bad language”? Why do you think some people use a lot of 4-letter words?

What is the limit of duty? Can duty be an excuse in front of justice, or in front of your conscience?

They shot the two Englishmen as a retaliation for the shooting of four Irishmen. What is the difference between justice and revenge?

Do you think it would have been a better solution to accept the desertion of ‘Awkings?

How can the Irish Militia prove that they have shot the prisoners if they bury them?

What do you think Bonaparte is going to do after this experience? What would you do?

VOCABULARY

chum, produce, tray, stayed put, took to, arskin, tunics, crochety, hatchet, parlatic, platoon, fleeced, comedown, gulp, fust, strolled, spell, all and sundry, jest, arsk, bleedin', bumped off, put the wind up, hinder, gibing, shifted, sidled, bog, houseen, telling her beads, crabbed