THE GREAT GATSBY

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was the last book presentation.  A memorable book with one of the most forceful beginnings I've ever read.
So I thought it might be a good way to say good-gye, to post it here, and wish you  many many memorable readings - in English... - in the years to come :-)

See you soon

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

He didn't say any more, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought-frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction-Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the "creative temperament"-it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No-Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

You can find more in http://www.publicbookshelf.com/fiction/great-gatsby/younger-vulnerable-1

Translating (2)

For our second exercise in translating click here. That's where you'll find the extract from Falling Man by Don LeLillo that you read and analysed in class.

Translating (1)

Check your translation of this extract from Angela's Ashes against the published Portuguese version. What similarities do you find? What differences? Which version do you like best? Yours?

Paddy Clohessy has no shoe to his foot, his mother shaves his head to keep the lice away, his eyes are red, his nose always snotty. The sores on his kneecaps never heal because he picks at the scabs and puts them in the mouth. His clothes are rags he has to share with his six brothers and a sister and when he comes to school with a bloody nose or a black eye you know he had a fight over the clothes that morning. He hates school. He's seven going on eight, the biggest and oldest boy in the class, and he can't wait to grow up and be fourteen so that he can run away and pass for seventeen and join the English army and go to India where it's nice and warm and he'll live in a tent with a dark girl with the red dot on her forehead and he'll be lying there eating figs, that's what they eat in India, figs, and she'll cook the curry day and night and plonk on a ukelele and when he has enough money he'll send for the whole family and they'll all live in the tent especially his poor father who's at home coughing up great gobs of blood because of the consumption. When my mother sees Paddy on the street she says, Wisha, look at that poor child. He's a skeleton with rags and if they were making a film about the famine he'd surely be put in the middle of it.



Paddy Clohessy não tem sapatos, a mãe rapa-lhe o cabelo para ele não ter piolhos, tem os olhos sempre vermelhos e o nariz sempre ranhoso. Anda sempre com feridas nos joelhos, que nunca se curam, porque ele arranca as crostas e mete-as na boca. Anda vestido com farrapos que tem de partilhar com seis irmãos e uma irmã, e quando aparece na escola a deitar sangue do nariz ou com um olho negro já sabemos que andou à pancada de manhã por causa da roupa. Odeia a escola. Tem quase oito anos, é o maior e o mais velho da nossa aula e está ansioso por crescer e chegar aos catorze anos para poder fugir, fazer-se passar por dezassete anos, alistar-se no exército inglês e ir para a Índia, onde o tempo é quente e onde ele irá viver numa tenda com uma rapariga de pele escura com uma marca vermelha na testa onde há-de comer figos deitado, é isso que comem na Índia, figos, e ela há-de cozinhar caril dia e noite e tocar ukelele e, quando ele tiver dinheiro suficiente, mandará ir a família toda para lá, e vão viver todos na mesma tenda, principalmente o pai dele, que está em casa a deitar grandes golfadas de sangue quando tosse por causa da tuberculose. Quando a minha mãe vê o Paddy na rua, diz, Vejam-me só aquela criança. É um autêntico esqueleto coberto de farrapos. Se alguma vez fizessem um filme sobre a fome, de certeza que ele entrava.



Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt - Flamingo, 1997 pp 132-133

As Cinzas de Ângela, Editorial Presença, 2000 - Tradução de Maria do Carmo Figueira

FOCUS on GRAMMAR and VOCABULARY

Here is the link to the worksheet you did on Monday, with KEY. Exactly, the kind of worksheet you just detest ... and which we will keep doing so you can improve accuracy and fluency in English.
Practice makes perfect :-)

Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story

Tomorrow we'll listen to (some of ) your brief accounts of the TIME Magazine articles you read but most of the lesson will be centered around this amazing talk by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngoze Adiche:
THE DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY 

WALTZ WITH BASHIR

As it seems no one in class has seen or heard of this film, with the exception, of course, of our film buff, Pedro.
I would definitely recommed this site for information about the film and historical background.
Some research on the history of Israel would come handy too, for better understanding of the film and the current situation in the Middle East.
It's a tough film, but definitely worth seeing.

Is the blog dead?

Quite rightly this was Bernardo's question yesterday.. Well, I can tell you any news of the blog's untimely death is largely exaggerated and here is evidence of that.
Click here for SUMMER TERM planning and the schedule for the READING PROJECT presentations.

ANGELA'S ASHES is the book Jorge is going to introduce to you on Monday next week. Find out more about the author, Frank McCourt, and the book so that you you can better appreciate Jorge's presentation and feel tempted to read the book soon.

I recommend (2)

Abstracção e Figura Humana na Colecção de Arte Britânica do CAM

22/01 to 18/04/2010 - 10 am to 6 pm
Tuesday to Sunday - Centro de Arte Moderna, piso 1 - Gulbenkian



Since art and, more specifically, modern art has been our focus for a while why not take some time to visit this exhibition.

I recommend (1)

THE LISBON PLAYERS

Bouncers

by John Godber

Directed by Rafaela Lacerda

“You gotta have a tie
You gotta have a suit
You gotta look nice
Or you’ll get the boot”

Thursday to Saturday, 9pm:  4th, 5th, 6th and 11th 12th, 13th March
Sunday Matinees, 5pm: 7th and 14th March

It's always an opportunity and I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy it.

 

Pessimistic? Optimistic?

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
Mark Twain

Can you guess why this quote crossed my mind after the debate about the film INVICTUS on Friday? 

I should say I much prefer the first verse of Invictus:

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.


(By the way, it was a great idea to bring the poem to class :-))

Nelson Mandela...

... and his 8 lessons of leadership.

I'm sure you'll enjoy reading this article from TIME Magazine.

Still on our quest for ... What is art? (3)

Take a look at this extraordinary photo by Henri Cartier-Bresson - Aquila degli Abbruzzi (1952). Then read the text below, another text taken from 'The Story of Art' by E.H. Gombrich (pp 496,497).
Can you relate it to (i) the texts you read by Hallstrom, (ii) our BIG question - What is art?

"... it may be argued that a photographer such as Henri Cartier-Bresson (b.1908) enjoys as much esteem today as any painter now alive. Many a tourist may have snapped a view of a picturesque Italian village but it is most unlikely that any of them succeeded in producing such a convincing image as Cartier-Bresson did of Aquila degli Abbruzzi. With his miniature camera at the ready, Cartier-Bresson experienced the excitement of the huntsman lying in wait, finger on the trigger, for the precise moment to 'shoot'. But he has also confessed to a 'passion for geometry', which made him carefully compose any scene within his viewfinder. The result is that we feel that we are in the picture, that we sense the coming and going of the women carrying loaves up the steep incline, and remain captivated by the composition - of the raillings and the steps, the church and the distant houses - which rivals in interest many more contrived paintings."

What is art? Final task

Here is the powerpoint with the images for you to select and the instructions for the essay.
Take your time.

What is art? (2)

Weeping Woman (1937) Pablo Picasso

For your reference here is the worksheet we started last lesson. You worked really well which shows you quite enjoyed reading these extraordinary texts taken from the book Atom Station by Halldór Laxness.

And don't forget ... before starting you should always read instructions carefully :-))

Reading Project

By now, I guess everybody is busy reading and reading your chosen books. I acknowledge you did not exactly choose the easy way, which is great :-)
So it's time to post here some guidelines so you know what is expected of you in your oral presentation and written assignment.
Make sure you know when your presentation is due. Click here.

What is ART?

I don't think we will ever answer this question but we  can certainly read and find out more about ART.

To start with here is an extract from Gombrich's classic The Story of Art.  


Note: This is a book I strongly recommend. 

Are we talking Human Rights?

Switzerland votes on minaret ban
Check the worksheet and start preparing the debate.
See how Europe, or European's press, reacted to the outcome of the vote.

So this is 2010...

Happy New Year ... Hope all your wishes come true :-)

Here is how we will be starting the New Year. Yes, we'll be talking about Human Rights.