ALONSO,+ANNA

19/03/2012  //Boyhood, scenes from provincial life//, by John Maxwell Coetzee. As you can guess by the tittle, this book tells the fictitious boyhood of the writter JM Coetzee in South Africa, around the middle of the XXth century. Contrary to other students opinion, I didn't find the novel very interesting, maybe because last summer I read another book writen by the same author that I found extremely good: Waiting for the Barbarians. So, I think, I felt a big expectation about this new one for me but finally it did not live up to the hype. Maybe because I did not get involved by the story when I was reading, the boy experiences did not seem really attractives to my reading taste. Moreover, I found the vocabulary a little difficult because of the description of past memories or private souvenirs and emotions. To //summarize//, if you love "memoirs" stories and you like plots connecting with boyhood emotions, this is your book! If you do not, anyway, try to read other Coetzee novels because he is a master writing about human feelings and universal fears.

MARKING AND ASSESSMENT

//Boyhood, scenes from provincial life//, by John Maxwell Coetzee. As you can guess by the title, this book tells the fictitious boyhood of the writer JM Coetzee in South Africa, around the middle of the XXth century. Contrary to other students' opinion, I didn't find the novel very interesting, maybe because last summer I read another book writen by the same author that I found extremely good: Waiting for the Barbarians. So, I think, I felt a big expectation about this new one for me but finally it did not live up to the hype. Maybe because I did not get involved by the story when I was reading, the boy's experiences did not seem really attractive to my reading taste. Moreover, I found the vocabulary a little difficult because of the description of past memories or private souvenirs and emotions.

To //sum up//, if you love "memoirs" stories and you like plots connected with boyhood emotions, this is your book! If you do not, anyway, try to read other Coetzee novels because he is a master writing about human feelings and universal fears.

=**Good **=

**SECOND PRESENTATION**(8) Excellent content- Please study the pronunciation points. There are some recurrent pronunciation mistakes. Classify them and take note of them. are fighting since the 80´s (have been denounce (better:report) important on art (in) actress (actresses) chosen (/ou/, not /u/) has always exist (+ed) period (/i/, not /e/)XX apparition? of the film camera (emergence) basic (/ei/, not /a/) fil festival (film, the "m" is pronounced) pioner (pioneer)(stress on the last, syllable) social (/ou/, not /o/)XXX written (/i/, not /ai/) waitress(/ei/, not /ai/) experiences (/i:/, not /e/) sixteen boy (sixteen year old) all moments that he tries (every time he tries) social cells? (place on the conveyor belt?) classificated (classified) hear (/hiª/, not /her/) last film it´s (is) worker class woman (working) region (/i:/, not /e/) Hunt (/^/, not /u/) their relationship change (+s /Iz/) women (/i/, not /u/)

24/01/12

I would share with you this interesting documentary about some of the real causes abaout crises Debtocracy:Debtocracy: the causes of the debt crisis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKpxPo-lInk 05/12/2011 **//The seven ages of man//, by W. Shakespeare.** In my opinion, even if this ages are the same today than in Shakespeare times, the metaphorical sense have changed a lot. Maybe **the baby** can be considered as he was in XV century but not **the child**, almost not here, where they can´t play on the street any more, where they have right to go to school -paying more taxes every year-, where they are hyper protected by parents but not by society. After than, **the lover**... OK, I agree... in a big general way, I mean, people loving other people... because today love is not this specific way to love a man if you were a woman or the opposite if you were a man. Nowadays love is more complex than that, even //liquid// as some thinker like Bauman has written. Now, **the soldier**. Why? This ages where people are more active and have more life experiences couldn't be compared by the poet with other thing? This one, I don't see it. Fifth place for the judge, wisdom and peace... not everybody, of course! Now it's time to **the elderly** and today, this age is maybe the worst because of the actual life conditions for old people living alone with a ridiculous retirement pension. And finally, **the dead**, of course, and this is the same, now and five centuries before, even for women! All this is too pessimistic, I know but I'm in this mood today, not in a romantic one, I'm sorry... If we compare this ages with history ages, in which one are we nowadays when democracy has being replaced by the most aggressive form of capitalism? CORRECTIONS AND ASSESSMENT

**//The seven ages of man//, by W. Shakespeare.** In my opinion, even if these ages are the same today as in Shakespeare´s times, the metaphorical sense has changed a lot. Maybe **the baby** can be seen the same way as in the 25th century but not **the child**, at least not here, where they can´t play on the street any more, where they have the duty to go to school -paying more taxes every year-, where they are hyper protective by parents but not by society. After that, **the lover**... OK, I agree... in a big general way, I mean, people loving other people... because today love is not this specific way to love a man if you were a woman or the opposite if you were a man. Nowadays love is more complex than that, even //liquid// as some thinker like Bauman has written. Now, **the soldier**. Why? These ages when people are more active and have more life experiences couldn't be compared by the poet with some other thing? I don´t like it. The fifth place is for the judge, wisdom and peace... not everybody, of course! Now it's time to **the elderly** and today, this age is maybe the worst because of the present life conditions for old people living alone with a ridiculous retirement pension. And finally, **the dead**, of course, and this is the same, now and five centuries before, even for women! All this is too pessimistic, I know but I'm in this mood today, not in a romantic one, I'm sorry... If we compare these ages with history´s ages, in which one are we nowadays, when democracy has been replaced by the most aggressive form of capitalism? Gosh! Do you mean that we are in the age of death of our civilisation, democracy being the age of the judge, the Middle Ages, the age of the soldier and so on?

Maybe we are not exactly in the age of death of our civilisation but we're in a period of deep changes that will modify the way of life as we know now... ** Very interesting **

05/12/2011

//**The grass is singing**//, by Doris Lessing //The grass is singing// explains the story of a white women in South Africa during the firsts years of the XX century. The novel tells the story of the murder and the madness' process of a hard woman married to an unlucky farmer living in the middle of nowhere. While you are reading it, you can easily imagine how difficult could be to live in that British colonies - even being a native or a colon - in that time. On one hand, colons' moral was closed, contradictory, conservative... on the other hand, natives had not any right at all, they only could be employed by colon people and try to survive.

In my opinion, the language level of the novel is a bit difficult to understand but, if you like real stories happening in such an exotic place, I think it's a good reading and you don't worry about it. Another positive point is that the main character of the book is a woman and I think we don't trend to imagine how they live in this countries when they where colonies because usually this kind of role has been played by man in many books so it's another good reason to read the book. Finally, if you know a little the writer, you can feel a bit upset because she lived in South Rhodesia when she was young and you see that she knows well what is she written about. It seems so far but it is not so really... CORRECTIONS AND ASSESSMENT //**The grass is singing**//, by Doris Lessing //The grass is singing// explains the story of a white woman in South Africa during the first few years of the 20th century. The novel tells the story of the murder and the madness' process of a hard woman married to an unlucky farmer living in the middle of nowhere. While you are reading it, you can easily imagine how difficult it must have been to live in those British colonies - both as a native and as a settler - in that time. On one hand, colonialist´s moral code was closed, contradictory, conservative... on the other hand, natives had no rights at all : they could only be employed by colonisers and try to survive.

In my opinion, the language of the novel is a bit difficult to understand but, if you like real stories happening in such an exotic place, I think it's a good reading and you don't worry about it. Another positive point is that the main character of the book is a woman and I think we don't tend to imagine how they live in these countries when they where colonies because this kind of role has usually been played by men in many books so that's another good reason to read the book. Finally, if you know the writer a little, you can feel a bit upset because she lived in South Rhodesia when she was young and you see that she knows well what is she written about. It seems so far but it is not so really...  I don´t quite get it: Why is her knowledege of the place upsetting? Or do you mean the fact that she lived away from her home country?

I meant the it surprising to think about how real the story could be, because the writer knew perfectly how was white people life in Africa at this time

=** Good- but you haven´t mentioned the brutality of the sex life described! **= 20/12/2011

If it does work, here you have my **oral presentation**! You have the links to the three songs and their lyrics on the slides.

** It works fine, thanks! **