Barnaby, Sophia and Picasso

Today we continued the Close Reading about the Butte de Warlencourt: the writer thinks that many of the young men who died in the war were potential poets like...

... Ezra Pound (he survived) or potential painters like...

Picasso (so did he). The writer blamed generals like

Earl Haig of Britain and

Joffre of France for mismanaging the war. He said that they "exacerbated" it (what does this mean?) and that the press were "compliant" (in what way?)

We then read chapter 7 of "PP" in which we noticed that time has passed and Barnaby is very very keen on Sophia. Find a quotation to illustrate this and post it in a comment.

Barnaby likes Sophia for her organisational skills; she likes him for... what?

Sophia meets the Kazmerow grandparents. What do we discover that Barnaby and his mother have in common?

Later, his clients are getting ill, dying or at least tidying up in case they die. Even Maud May, his "Tallulah" client, has broken her hip.

She presumably reminds him of Talullah Bankhead.

Sophia wangles a meeting between her mother and Barnaby. What is her mother's reaction? How does Sophia behave? Why, do you think?

Post a comment answering at least one of the questions/requests for quotation above.

Homework - the rest of the Butte questions.

Ballet show and the Butte de Warlencourt

Photo by Megyarsh

Yesterday we looked at chapters 5 and 6 of “A Patchwork Planet” and noticed in chapter 5 the various signs given by Anne Tyler that Sophia has designs on Barnaby. Please add a comment quoting one of these signs – find something to say that’s different from any previous comment.

We also find out a couple of things about how Barnaby looks – what?

We see that Barnaby seems genuinely to want to pay back his aunt. Consider what theme(s) this illustrates.

In chapter 6, Barnaby accompanies his mother to Opal’s ballet show and shows some signs of regressing to his usual self. Can you spot one? – please comment. We also learn a bit about the end of his marriage to Natalie. The next day, he goes to the station to meet Sophia off the train. Why?

Read this interview with Anne Tyler in which she’s talking about “A Patchwork Planet”.

http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm?author_number=313

Interestingly – well, I think it’s interesting – she says she doesn’t think about themes when writing a novel. She just tries to tell a story. But it’s clear that because she makes it all hang together, there are themes, and, usefully for you, this gives you something to write about.

We then read and discussed the old Close Reading about the Butte de Warlencourt. Read the background to this here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butte_de_Warlencourt

In reading this passage, we learned about the use of the transferred epithet (epithet = description) – transferring a description from one thing to another, eg

I lay on my sleepless pillow.
He went up to his lonely room.

In the passage we have “outraged flesh” – suggesting that even the soldiers’ dead and dismembered bodies were horrified (outraged) at the terrible things (outrages) that had happened to them.

What do the words below mean? Pick one and give me the meaning in a comment.

Radical

Rhetoric

Chivalry

Cheval

Conditioned

Propaganda

Homework for Wednesday 29 October.

Answer blog questions and say anything else that occurs to you (I won’t put the comments up on the board).

And do the following questions from the “Butte”:

Section 1
Ai

Section 2
A, b, c, di and dii

Section 4
A, b, c.

Happy holiday!

Inca gold and patchwork quilts

Today we started with Close Reading and I reminded you (again) about how to answer imagery questions – some of those who handed in homework last week didn’t get it quite right. (In fact, no one who handed in the homework got the full 2 marks.)

I suggested that you try the formula:

“Just as… [literal idea]
so [what the writer is really meaning here].”

This gives us:

Just as it would be astonishing for an outsider to come across Incas nonchalantly using precious gold for pots and pans to use in the kitchen

so the writer was amazed to hear astonishing stories told by his relatives - while they seemed not to think there was anything remarkable about them at all.

We then read the rest of the Alan Bennett Close Reading passage, which is to be finished for homework.

Before starting “A Patchwork Planet” we read Shakespeare’s “A Consolation”, in which the poet thinks of times when he’s been at his lowest ebb and then – “Haply I think on Thee” – perhaps he remembers his beloved – and he’s happy again.

In chapter 4 of “A Patchwork Planet” we read about Barnaby’s 30th birthday dinner at his parents’. We learned about his mother’s background; more about his occasional irresistible urges to mess up; more (in flashback – part of the structure of the novel) about his arrest for burglary and the consequences of this. He tells us about being sent to Renascence by his parents, and having to learn “A Consolation”. The poem makes him miserable because he too feels “in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” – but has no “Thee” to love him.

There is quite a lot in this chapter about change (not just on Barnaby’s part: who else has changed?) and the symbolism of clothes. Then there’s the third turning point in the book. The first was Barnaby’s going to meet up with Sophia; the second was his meeting up with Opal. What’s the third?

Homework: finish Alan Bennett Close Reading; read ch 5 of “PP”; do Language Skills book pages 7-9; and comment on this blog - if nothing else, answer the two questions I ask above.

The first five weeks

This is a bit of an experiment. Because we meet only once a week – and because you are VERY KEEN (aren’t you?) to do well this year, I thought I’d try a class blog to clarify some of the things we’ve done. The photo above illustrates well how NOT to study...

This is the fifth week of the course, but some people have joined more recently so a bit of revision may be useful for them too. This post is a bit long because it's covering several weeks but I expect future posts to be a bit more concise.

So far, we’ve considered basic grammar. A sentence needs a finite verb (that’s a verb with a subject and a tense) – or it’s not a sentence. If it nevertheless makes sense in context – for example, “In the garden” as a reply to “Where’s the cat?” then it’s a minor sentence.

An excellent site for basic grammar is

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

It has lots and lots on it. Go to Word and Sentence Level and click on verbs and then subjects. And then read some more!

We’ve also done quite a bit of Close Reading.

Some main points about how to answer Close Reading questions:

To answer Understanding questions – use your own words!

To answer context (Analysis) questions – even if the word “context” isn’t used (it might say “the surrounding sentences” or “the rest of the paragraph”) you must

1.give the meaning of the word or phrase you’re asked to focus on
2. quote from the context
3. show the connection between your meaning and your quotation.

Eg:
The teacher’s unkind words about my essay reminded me of the pejorative comments made by my father when he read it the previous evening.

Question: How does the context help you to understand the meaning of the word “pejorative”? (2 marks)

Answer:
1. “Pejorative” means critical. (1 mark)
2. The writer says “the teacher’s unkind words about my essay”
3. which tells us that the teacher criticised it. (1 mark)

To answer imagery questions – which are usually Evaluation ones:
1. Write about the literal meaning
2. Show the connection with what the writer means here.

Eg: “The balloon of his self confidence had to be burst”.

Question: Discuss the effectiveness of the writer’s use of imagery. (2 marks)


Answer:

1. It is effective. When a balloon is blown up, it gets much bigger. When it’s burst, it returns to its original size. (1 mark)
2. Similarly, the man had an overinflated idea of his own abilities. He had to be brought down to a more realistic assessment of himself. (1 mark)

We’ve also read chapters 1- 3 of our novel, “A Patchwork Planet” and have noticed several themes emerging already.

One is trust – who trusts Barnaby and who doesn’t?
Another is change – why does Barnaby want to change, and what symbols of change have we already seen?
Another is family relationships – what do we know about these so far?

After next week’s blog post, I expect comments!