Dieci racconti da: Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories, Sintesi del corso di Lingua Inglese

Scarica Dieci racconti da: Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories • A Family Man, V. S. Pritchett • The invisible Japanese gentlemen, Graham Greene • My enemy's enemy, Kingsley Amis • To Room Nineteen, Doris Lessing • A Meeting In Middle Age, William Trevor • Let me count the times, Martin Amis • My Wife is a White Russian, Rose Tremain • Philomela, Emma Tennant • A Family Supper, Kazuo Ishiguro • Structural Antropology, Adam Mars-Jones A Family Man, V. S. Pritchett The story is about a young and single woman, called Berenice; her colleague and lover, William, is married and has children. One day, William's wife, Florence, who is an ugly and fat woman, comes at Berenice's house, asking for a flute which Berenice had to repair. She tries to deceive her, but Florence knows everything. Berenice is shown a card from another of William's lovers, Rosie, about a necklace, by which she can prove her false innocence: she is the one who made the necklace, not the writer of the card. Florence apologizes, and Berenice explains that her husband is collecting money for Rosie's wedding. Florence goes away telling Berenice not to be jealous of Florence, for her turn will come soon. In the meanwhile, Berenice thinks about her relationship with William. He likes to surprise her with her visits, and he has lied to her about his wife, telling her she was beautiful. She liked to imagine the way William and his wife spent their time together, she was weirdly proud of William's wife beauty, and now Florence has ruined it all. She remembers him standing all alone in the garden and playing the flute, she imagines him with Rosie, and she is jealous. At the end, she is happy to be single, because couples lie and force others to lie, which is something she hates. In my opinion, Berenice's behaviour is not so clear: she tells us that she hates lies, but in the meanwhile she has a secret relationship with a married man, who forces her, for example, to make people believe she has a father, just for her own safety in his opinion. Despite that, William doesn't seem to care so much about her, since when they're together he goes out and plays a flute instead of spending his time with her. Another oddity is that Berenice has never been jealous of Florence, but she is extremely jealous of Rosie, when she knows about her relationship with William. I think, however, that there is so much truth about Berenice's last statement about couples: maybe it is not a universal truth, but I seriously think that many people who are in a relationship are liars. The invisible Japanese gentlemen, Graham Greene The story takes place in a restaurant. The narrator is one of the costumers and describes the two sequences of events he sees in there. One of the tables is taken by eight Japanese gentlemen, who are having a fish dinner. In the meanwhile, a couple is sitting at another table. The girl is talking to her fiancé about their marriage, which is apparently meant to take place real soon. She is almost planning their whole future, talking about her novel, The Chelsea Set, and she is sure she will be able to maintain her lover and herself with the publication of this novel, since her publisher seems to have a very good opinion about it. Her boyfriend just agrees with everything she says, but he doesn't really seem so much convinced about her plans. She won't change her mind, however, because she has a big faith in her power of observation, which helps her to write, which is the reason why she wants to move to St Tropez for her next novel. While they're talking, the Japanese are talking, and smiling, and bowing to each other; however, she didn't even notice them. The narrator seems to know something about writing novels and publishers, and keeps on thinking about this young girl's future, which won't probably be so wonderful as she expects. I think that the girl is making a big mistake, which is the biggest and most natural mistake made by every young person with huge dreams: she thinks that her talent alone will bring her to success. Talent is certainly a good thing, but it isn't enough: as the narrator says, the effort becomes higher and higher, and you still have to be prepared to failure, because even if you are able to produce a masterpiece, the public won't necessary appreciate it. However, I also think that she overestimates her skills: she keeps on talking about her power of observation, but the Japanese men who are talking, bowing and doing things which may seem strange to people who come from England or America, and she didn't even see them. So, maybe the narrator is right, when he thinks that he wouldn't like to see her as a novelists, which however is unlikely to happen. My enemy's enemy, Kingsley Amis The story takes place in a military unit of the British army. The Adjutant and some other officers would really like to get rid of the responsible of the Signal Office, Dalessio, also known as Dally. Despite his great and hard work, they can't stand his untidiness and his unruly behaviour, which they find very annoying. Captain Thurston seems to respect him, even if he suspects that Dalessio has not a good opinion of him, and he defends him every time the Adjutant talks about getting rid of him. One day, the Colonel tells the soldiers that some snap inspections will be made in their rooms, to be sure that they're keeping them clean; Dalessio has been writing a letter during the whole speech, and the Adjutant is sure he hasn't heard a word. He tells Thurston that this is a plan to get rid of Dally, because the Colonel will get angry when he will see what a mess his room is. Thurston doesn't warn Dally, because he is afraid that the Adjutant won't allow him to go to his wife at the end of the month, and because is irritated by his last conversation with Dally, who was openly sarcastic. Before he leaves, another officer, Bentham, tells him he has warned Dally about the snap inspection. This short story shows that the ones who talk the most are often the ones who do the less. Bentham, on the other hand, doesn't talk much about Dally's qualities, but he's still the only one who really helps him, without hesitating. It is true that Dally's behaviour towards Thurston may seem a bit annoying, but I think it is caused mostly by the captain’s hesitation to do something against his superiors' wierd decisions, like their order to have “Don Giovanni”; she looked for money and she has obtained them, but she has to live with a paralysed husband who doesn't even love; she could even ask for a divorce, but she doesn't, I don't understand why. The unhappiness of her marriage is certainly perceived by the two Australians, especially by the Australian wife, even though they are strangers. Philomela, Emma Tennant The story takes place in Thrace, in ancient times. The protagonist is now the wife of the rich Theresious, and she was forced to marry and follow him in Thrace, abandoning Athens and her beloved sister Philomela. For many years, the woman has been missing Philomela, and she ended up with becoming depressed, until Theresious tells her that he'll go, take Philomela and bring her at home with him. When he comes back and tells his wife that Philomela is dead, she becomes even more depressed, and tries to wash away her pain with wine for a year. One day, she received a tapestry, made by her sister, whose images showed her that Philomela was alive: Theresious had found her, cut her tongue and imprisoned her in a castle. Her sister immediately sends her servants to rescue her; when she finally comes, Theresious just says that he must have made a mistake. The two women plan their revenge: one evening, during a party, they manage to take Itylus, the woman's older child, to see a dead sea monster, laying on the beach, far away from everyone. They kill him, cut his meat, and cook it. That night, during the banquet, they offered Itylus' meat to Theresious, who eats it without any suspect, until his wife tells him what he has done. This story is about an evil act, which is followed by an evil revenge; both Theresious and his wife have been deprived of a part of them, which was probably the most important thing they had. Philomela's sister though she had lost her forever, and when she finally comes back to her she has lost her tongue; she can't express either her feelings or her sister's feelings, which is something she used to do before the marriage, as we're told at the beginning of her story. So, Philomela is back now, but things will never be as they were before. On the other hand, Theresious lost his first son, which in ancient times is something very difficult to deal with; what's more, he lost a son who had started to spend more time with him, as we're told by his wife. Finally, there is no need to say what an horror must be for a parent to eat his son's meat. A Family Supper, Kazuo Ishiguro The narrator is a young Japanese man, who lives in California, and goes back to see his family in Tokyo. Two years before, his mother is died by eating a poisonous fish, but as he didn't get on well with his family, the young man didn't know the details concerning his mother's death before coming back home. In the meantime, his father's firm has failed, and his colleague has committed suicide, killing his whole family with him. Despite that, the protagonist's father thinks that his colleague was a man of principle and honour, who has made a mistake, since he was full of pain. Then Kikuko, the young man's younger sister, enters the room. When she's alone with her brother, she smokes, and she tells him she has a boyfriend, but she is unsure about going with him to America. She tells her brother about her mother's regret for being far away from him, and they talk about a woman they had seen in their garden, at night, wearing a white kimono, who was apparently their neighbour. Then, they have dinner with their father: suddenly, the young man sees the photo of a woman with a white kimono, and doesn't recognize her: his father tells him that the woman is his mother; then they start eating some fish. At the end of the evening, the young man and his father talk about their family's future. In my opinion, this short story is quite disturbing. From the very beginning, we know about the unfortunate death of the protagonist's mother because of a fish, and about a whole family's death, caused by a man, who is both father and husband, that maybe made a mistake, maybe not. The protagonist's father seems a very strict man, someone who rarely smiles and wants to be obeyed: he doesn't allow her daughter to smoke, and we don't know why he got angry with his son, but I am quite sure that it was simply because they had different ideas about something, and the old man couldn't accept it. He says that he admires a man who has killed his wife, his children and himself, which is quite weird, even if we assume that he didn't do it on purpose: since we are told that the whole family is eating fish, I think there are chances that the father has decided to kill them all with the same fish which killed his wife. Another disturbing element is the mysterious woman with the white kimono, who is apparently very similar to the protagonist's mother, even though I can't really explain why this is disturbing. Structural Anthropology, Adam Mars-Jones This story is a sort of psychological analysis of a marriage relationship: the woman finds out that her husband has betrayed her, and during the night, while he's asleep and can't wake up because of the drugs she put in his food, she takes her revenge by stucking his hand on his private members, which caused some difficulties to the doctors who had to take care of him. The author states that the basis of the psychological nature of this revenge is to be found in a series of oppositions: nature-culture, limp-stiff, food-drug, private-public, comedy- tragedy. It is difficult to give an opinion about a scientific issue, because I obviously don't have the necessary competences. However, I have always found this kind of psychological analyses very interesting, and in this case I appreciated the author's comparison between marriage and food, and adultery and drugs: since a married man choose to have both his marriage and a mistress, which means that he'd like to have food and drugs at the same time, his wife decides to put drugs in his food, which can be seen as an ironical and evil way to make him happy. In my opinion, this comparison perfectly explains the main difference between marriage and adultery: the former may be annoying sometimes, but gives you security, the latter is more exiting, but this excitementis ephemeral, and you'll eventually get tired of it, soon or later. I also appreciated the comedy-tragedy opposition, where the author explains that the wife has made a matter of private tragedy a matter of private laughter, by the original way she has chosen to get her revenge.