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.

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.