6. Ideas, views, attitudes

Attention should be paid to prepositions that follow them.

idea about/on

e.g. The author expresses some interesting ideas about/on family life.

idea of

e.g. The idea of individual responsibility is introduced right at the beginning and developed throughout the book. The idea of racial equality is never explicitly stated/expressed but it's implicit in all his works.

view on/about

e.g. What are the author's views on/about the role of the artist in society?

view of

e.g. The author's view of society is limited.

attitude to

e.g. The author's attitude to scientific progress is not clear from this novel.

7. Style

The following adjectives are used to describe a writer’s style:

good beautiful graceful flowing polished clear, lucid simple down-to-earth matter-of-fact terse (‘concise, without unnecessary words’) emotional sentimental literary vivid , vigorous energetic, racy lively

bad, poor clumsy, heavy abrupt, jerky crude obscure complex ornate, flowery (derog.) high-flown (often derog.) unemotional, restrained dispassionate unsentimental colloquial, conversational dull lifeless, monotonous, repetitive

8. Spirit, atmosphere, mood, feeling

e.g. In a little while I forgot what the book was about, but the spirit (of it) stayed with me for a long time.

The spirit of the book has been lost in translation/in the film.

The book is written in the spirit of James Joyce/optimism.

The book has something of the spirit of James Joyce.

Atmosphere is less serious, more superficial.

Mood and feeling can sometimes be used in the similar way to atmosphere.

e.g. The atmosphere/mood of the book is one of hope and faith in the future.

The author creates an atmosphere/feeling of mystery and suspense right from the very first page.

The gay, light-hearted atmosphere/mood of the book makes it ideal holiday reading.

Focus on vocabulary

1. Transcribe and read out the given words.

despicable, subtle, superficial, admirable, obscure, ornate, dispassionate, monotonous, atmosphere, abrupt, heroine

2. Define the meaning of the following words.

1. prolific 6. hilarious

2. pretentious 7. riveting

3. intricate 8. despicable

4. plausible 9. ornate

5. credible 10. lucid

3. Give synonyms.

1. gripping 6. funny

2. realistic 7. dull

3. amusing 8. complex

4. lucid 9. poorly-drawn

5. skillfully developed 10. credible

4. Make compound adjectives matching the stems on the left with the stems on the right. Can you explain their meaning?

1. heavy a. fact

2. fast b. drawn

3. far c. earth

4. true-to d. packed

5. up-and e. provoking

6. down-to f. life

7. vividly g. moving

8. long h. flown

9. action i. going

10. well j. drawn-out

11. slow k. fetched

12. thought l. coming

13. poorly m. written

14. matter-of

15. high

5. Give the opposites of these words.

1. virtuous 6. readable

2. original 7. complex

3. superficial 8. amusing

4. convincing 9. imaginative

5. fast-moving 10. realistic

6. Read through the following list of adjectives and classify them as positive or negative.

long-drawn-out, impressive, ingenious, superficial, unputdownable, powerful, readable, primitive, despicable, vivid, pretentious, original, polished, artificial, flowery, crude, repetitive, stirring