16/12/08

Club de lectura de galego

Ola de novo, amigos e amigas,

na xuntanza última (día 1 de decembro. Asistencia: 7 persoas) acordamos o seguinte:


Reunírmonos o luns 15 de decembro a partir das 17.15 h. para falarmos do libro proposto: "Como nacen as baleas", de Anxos Sumai (Ed. Galaxia). (Hai que traer lida toda a novela)

Recórdovos que xa podedes traer comentarios escritos para incluír no blog (Entrase a través da páxina da EOI de Vigo).

Saúde e até loguiño

Moncho

15/12/08

YOUR STORIES 1 - English Reading Club - Bookworms

FAY WELDON’S WEEKEND, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fay_Weldon, http://www.redmood.com/weldon/interviews.html

Talking of Fay Weldon´s weekend and inspired by the title of her short story, it occurred to us that we could dwell on daily objects as titles for our personal stories. These are some of the results:

YOUR STORIES (1)

José Domingo Fernández Lariño bespeaks of an object intimately linked to our life stories, the bed, but in this case, the bed turns out to be the axe for other story telling. Sailing through the seven seas, as one would say, José Domingo treasures thousands of stories about the sea and its people.


STORY ABOUT A BED

It was on the bed of my cabin where I spent most of the time talking to Hassan: teaching him mechanics, the running of machines on board the ship we shared plus a little of French as I used to do with cadets or as they say “stagiaires”. This was Hassan’s second ship as a cadet, he had already been on board of another ship for three months. On board of that ship, a vast wall of silence had actually separated him from the rest of the crew members because he could not speak Spanish, and the Spanish crewmembers didn’t understand French.

Hassan would lie on top of the sheets but I taught him how to use them properly. As I tried to convince him of the prosaic use of things, he would rather fathom in other direction, he would intently preach me so I could righteously swerve in the direction of Islam. As he was enormously grateful to me, he believed it his duty to make me change my mind in order not to be consumed eternally by the lapping fires of hell.

Hassan would also complained about his not-very-thrifty-wife. He said “elle mange boucoup d’argent” and explained to me his careful surveillance upon her, namely, he gave her what he considered enough so she and her baby could be properly fed.
As a shipmate I had to disregard his growing disrespect towards my person and rank because like the other cadets he took for granted that education and culture were a synonym of numbed dumbness.
As he finished his training period, he went back home. I finish my story, back in that bed, in that cabin, where he last said goodbye to me.

by José Domingo Fernández Lariño (Advanced 2 student of English, Vigo EOI)




Luis Rodríguez chant is on books, and the landscape of books his eye rests upon:


BOOKS


Someone has been putting them on the shelves one by one, according to size. Some books are about trees or bushes and they live between a biography collection and a book on cats. Next to them there is a dictionary of art and a collection of books on many subjects, like photography or birds. None of them is larger than the others and the top of the books form a straight line or a gentle curve in every shelf.
There are books everywhere you look at in the room, two doors and a window curdle the landscape of books.
Apart from that, there is an iron on the table which is standing up proudly among this large amount of paper, sewn or glued together with words in between, among, up and down.

By Luis Rodríguez (Advanced 2 student of English, Vigo EOI)



MORE STORIES TO COME IN SHORT ........

2/12/08

English Reading Club - Bookworms





The Reading Club has been having a look at:
TAKING PICTURES BY ANNE ENRIGHT
Pawed, used, loved and lonely
Anne Enright's new stories take Hermione Lee to sad, stifling places - but make her laugh too




"TAKING PICTURES"

"Little Sister". By Anne Enright

The title offers the vacuum of the non –possessive article as it would naturally become in this context, “my little sister.” The hollowness that precedes the title heralds us into an already-established distance between narrator and “little sister” providing her with overtones of the religious. The story starts in “medias res,” little sister has already died, and the narrative voice intones a repetitive “I am not guilty for this” that already makes us suspicious of a likely liability on the part of the narratorial sister. We are offered a systematic happy family background but we are already inquisitive as to why little sister died of anorexia. Only one or two clues strewn through the narrative lead us into some sort of conviction of disaffection on the part of the father. Little sister disappears from the narrative to literally disappear already turned into an emaciated walking body to later die in hospital.

THESE ARE SOME OF THE QUESTIONS WE PULLED AT:

BY LOOKING AT THE TITLE WE CAN ALREADY INFER SOME DISTANCE BETWEEN THE SISTERS: Lack of possessive adjective “MY.” We mentioned that the lack of article could even have religious overtones. The story starts in "medias res", with "little sister" already dead. It opens up with the vagaries of the narratorial voice in a lethanic expiation of her own guilt.

FAMILY SECRETS- APPEASING OUR MINDS- PAYING FOR THE SINS OF OTHERS- NEGATIVE FAMILY CONNECTIONS ENCUMBERED BY BLOOD.

WHO’S TELLING THE STORY? / WHAT PERSPECTIVE ARE WE GIVEN? Limited vision and unreliable narrator


What are the tokens of growing up according to Serena? The drinking, the statutory sex, the high heels, getting into pubs ….

THE TIME OF THE STORY (flashbacks / flashforwards)

The FEELING OF GUILT. The guilt of one generation passing onto the other. Remorse / having a grudge against ../ vengeance


· When we first know about the fact that Serena is dead, the voice of "the other" tries to look for an explanation to see that there were no genetic forces involved in the bifurcated development of Serena and her.

· Family Secrets: When does Serena problem with "anorexia" start? Right after the metioning of the father she stops eating. The moment is graphically appointed in the text after “disaffection” takes place.

· There was no progression towards the illness, but it takes place just as she disappears from the narrative space, her home space, and she turns back, and the word is voiced like a ghostly appearance, as she is gaunt, and her eyes are glaring “anorexia”. According to this story, what is the profile of the Anorectic?

Her physical symptoms: her eye sockets are huge, she resembles a child rather than a woman. The consumptive illness empties her of her being, to turn her into a statuesque-like forever infant in the Dickensian fashion of female being perpetuated into the cast of childhood.


Comments and guidance by Ana María Sánchez Mosquera (PhD)

1/12/08

Clube de portugûes



O autor do livro em youtube:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc2hczEqQPc&feature=related

(notícia sobre a publicação de escritores africanos no Brasil)

Clube de portugûes

Cabritilla, desculpe que eu não tenha visto o seu comentário... Ainda bem que já sabe das minhas desavenças com a tecnologia nos últimos tempos (ou melhor, as desavenças dela comigo? - tanto faz). Com efeito tinha participado, e com uma delícia de comentário. Esse género de comentários, bem como os outros que também houve, é que gostamos de ter aqui, e até as perguntas deixam de fazer sentido (felizmente!). Nós colocamos questões para dar um ponto de par tida, ora, se quiserem, podemos colocar o blogue noutros termos, deixo à vossa escolha. Tenho gostado muito dos comentários que saíram até agora, há muita profundidade neles e isso é tão bom!!
Como na semana passada não foi possível entrar na segunda-feira, deixaremos passar mais uns dias antes de colocar as novas perguntas, ou tarefas. No entanto, para já, quem quiser, pode falar sobre o que acha dos tempos que são descritos no livro, o olhar do narrador, tudo o que acharem interessante.
Obrigada!