Summary short stories, Apuntes de Idioma Inglés

¡Descarga Summary short stories y más Apuntes en PDF de Idioma Inglés solo en Docsity! 1. MR BOTIBOL Mr. Botibol is a very odd-looking and strange man. At the beginning of the story, he goes to lunch with Mr. Clements, the solicitor of a firm looking to buy out his company. Mr. Botibol accepts the bid (which was much too low) and allows Mr. Clements to get him drunk. Once he is tipsy, Mr. Botibol admits that he has never had one bit of success in his life – not even with women. When he arrives home, Botibol switches on the radio and hears a symphony by Beethoven. He gets the sudden impulse to pretend to conduct the symphony. This makes him feel so good that he does it again the next day. He decided to have a real concert hall built in his home with a gramaphone setup so that he can conduct to his heart’s content. His butler is alarmed at these changes (as well as the fact that Botibol is now drinking wine at all his meals), but Botibol tries to explain that he’s not going mad. Botibol has such a great time in his concert hall that he decides to have a grand piano installed, but one that makes no noice. Then he can pretend to play concertos as well as conduct them. While he is buying piano records, a girl strikes up a conversation with him. She loves Chopin, whose records Botibol has just bought. To his own surprise, he invites her to come listen to them. When she arrives the next day, he shows her the concert hall and explains about his secret. He talks her into “performing” with him that night, her on the piano and him conducting. They change into their fancy dress and have a lovely dinner with lots of wine. Then they went to the concert hall and gave the performance of their lives. Mr. Botibol was impressed with her fake piano- playing, and excitedly invites her to play again the next night. Suddenly she realizes that it’s late and she has to work in the morning. Mr. Botibol asks where she works. Reluctantly, she tells him that she is a piano teacher. He is shocked into silence. 2. THE HITCH-HIKER The narrator is driving to London in his new BMW 1975 when he picks up a hitchhiker. The man, who looks rather like a rat, mentions that he's going to the horse races, but not to bet or work the ticket machines. The narrator is intrigued and says that he's a writer. They get to talking about the car, and the narrator proudly states that it can hit one hundred and twenty-nine miles per hour. The hitchhiker doubts that, so once they hit a straight patch of road, the narrator steps on the gas. They're almost there when a policeman on a motorcycle zooms past and signals them to stop. The cop is a bit of a bully and threatens to have the narrator thrown in prison. He takes down his address and also the address of the hitchhiker. Then he gives them a ticket and leaves and they continue on their way. The narrator is worried about the ticket, but the hitchhiker says it will be fine. They begin talking about their careers again, and eventually the hitchhiker announces that he is a "fingersmith". He is so skilled with his hands that he even manages to remove the narrator's belt without him noticing. He attends the races and steals money from the winners. "That policeman's going to check up on you pretty thoroughly", the narrator says. "Doesn't that worry you a bit?" The hitchhiker responds that no one will be checking up on him, as policemen have notoriously bad memories. "What's memory got to do with it?" the narrator asks. "It's written down in his book, isn't it?" The hitchhiker proudly announces that he's stolen both books from the policeman. "Easiest job I ever done." They pull off the road to burn the books. 1 3. PARSON’S PLEASURE Cyril Boggis is a skilled antiques dealer who has a small shop in Chelsea, London. He manages to make a profit each year by buying valuable furniture cheaply from unsuspecting country people while posing as a clergyman and president of the Society for the Preservation of Rare Furniture. He gains entry to their houses in the guise of cataloguing their old furniture; if he sees something he can re-sell, he offers to buy it. In order to buy the furniture for less than it is worth he uses his knowledge and a number of tricks, such as substituting machine-made screws for the genuine old ones. One trip sees him exploring Buckinghamshire. After leaving his station wagon hidden so as not to spoil his image as an old clergyman, he walks to a rundown farmhouse where he meets three locals – Claud, Bert, and Rummins – in the yard. On being allowed into the farmhouse to have a look at the furniture, he finds a priceless Chippendale commode in the lounge, one that matches the three famous existing pieces known as 'The Chippendale Commodes'. He tells the men he needs a new set of legs for a table he owns, and he asks for the ones on the commode. He convinces a reluctant Rummins that the piece is not worth anything as it is an "imitation". He buys it for £20, intending to sell it for £20,000. While Boggis goes away to get his vehicle the three men decide to help the parson; they assume his car will not be big enough to easily carry the commode and fear he will lose interest in the deal once he discovers the piece will not fit inside. Since he is only requesting the legs, the farmers saw them off. With some difficulty they chop the remainder of the commode up, since Boggis called it 'firewood' and they feel they must fit all of it in. As they wait for Boggis to return, they comment that the commode was made by a 'bloody good carpenter no matter what the parson says'. 4. TASTE There are six people eating a fine dinner at the house of Mike Schofield, a London stockbroker: Mike, his wife and daughter, an unnamed narrator and his wife, and a wine connoisseur, Richard Pratt. Pratt often makes small bets with Schofield to guess what wine is being served at the table, but during the night in the story he is uninterested, instead attempting to socialize with Schofield's eighteen-year-old daughter, Louise. When Schofield brings the second wine of the night he remarks that it will be impossible to guess where it is from, but Pratt takes that as a challenge. The tough talk on both sides leads the two to increase the bet until Pratt declares that he would like to bet for the hand of Schofield's daughter in marriage—if he loses, he will give Schofield both of his houses. Though his wife and daughter are understandably horrified, Mike eventually convinces them to accept the bet—it is too good a deal to pass up, especially since the wine will be impossible to identify. However, Pratt proceeds to name the district, commune, vineyard, and the year of the wine (though Mike doesn't turn over the bottle, his reaction appears to be one of disbelief that Pratt could have guessed correctly). At this moment, however, the maid walks in and returns to Pratt his glasses, which he had left on the cabinet in the study earlier in the evening where the bottle had been left out to reach room temperature. (Pratt had picked out this place in the study on an earlier visit as the ideal place to sit the 2 Behind the Rows. One of these is Issac's lieutenant, named Malachi. Malachi's wife, Ruth, is pregnant with their child, and expresses anger and sadness that their baby will grow up without a father. Ruth would like nothing more to burn all the corn and burn Gatlin to the ground, but controls herself as she knows He Who Walks Behind the Rows not only sees all, he can read hearts. The story ends by saying that the corn surrounding Gatlin is pleased. 8. ZERO HOUR Mink and the neighborhood kids are hard at work outside all day, playing a game called Invasion. Or at least that's what her mom thinks. Throughout the day, the mother continues to have strange encounters with Mink as she talks about her friend, Drill, who is supposed to be an alien that's planning an invasion of Earth by using the children. The mother laughs at this and marvels at children's imagination. However, when she talks with her friend from several cities away, she hears that they are playing the same game and have someone named "Drill" too. The mother finds this curious but doesn't think much of this either, and she doesn't quite seem to understand why it is only children under 10 years old that are allowed to play this game too. Mink explains that people over ten years old will only make fun of them and more importantly, lost their ability to be impressionable. Finally, five o'clock rolls around which according to Mink is the time the invasion will start. The father comes home and the two are talking when a loud buzzing noise can be heard from outside. The mother pieces together what is actually happening and drags the father up into the attic, trying to explain that they need to find cover because something horrible is going to happen. The father resists and continues to make noise while in the attic. The story ends with Mink entering the attic with the alien behind her. 9. THE CAPE Every little boy dreams about putting on a cape and soaring up, up, and away... but "what if "one day that dream were to come true? Eric was like every other eight-year-old boy, until a tragic accident changed his life forever. THE CAPE explores the dark side of power, as the adult Eric - a confused and broken man - takes to the skies... and sets out to exact a terrible vengeance on everyone who ever disappointed him. Seven-year-old Eric learns that he can fly while wearing his blue cape. But after suffering a terrible injury he thinks the cape is lost, only to find the cape again years later. A young boy (eric) wearing a costume cape discovers he can fly. Unfortunately, to prove to himself that it is the cape that makes him fly, he takes it off. He falls to the ground and is injured badly, including brain trauma. The once bright boy becomes a slacker while his brother (nicky) excels in life. They boy steals his brother’s girlfriend and they live together for a couple years before she tires of his slacker ways. One night as an adult, he finds the cape and puts it on. It has lost none of its magic. He decides to pay his old girlfriend a visit. The end of this story left me thinking, so what? Hill develops the main character well enough. But I think we were supposed to care about 5 the brother and the girlfriend as well. They weren’t well developed enough to make me care about their feelings or their fate. Our hero discovers that he can fly by accident one day, thanks to a cape his mother made for him. Unfortunately, he loses the cape in mid air, and is seriously injured in the fall. This one event helps set the course for his life. 6