Міністерство освіти і науки України

Вінницький державний педагогічний університет

імені Михайла Коцюбинського

кафедра англійської філології

МЕТОДИЧНІ РЕКОМЕНДАЦІЇ

з домашнього читання за романом

Р.Пілчер “The Shell Seekers”

для студентів IV курсу денного відділення

Вінниця 2006

Укладач:

Яцишина Світлана Анатоліївна

Збірник методичних рекомендацій розглянуто і схвалено на засіданні кафедри англійської філології, протокол № 4 , від 16.11.2005.

Рецензенти:

Гладьо Світлана Вікторівна, канд. філолог. наук, доцент

@ Яцишина, 2006

Вступ

Методичні рекомендації з домашнього читання для студентів IV курсу розроблені на основі книги британської письменниці Р.Пілчер “The Shell Seekers”, що вийшла в світ в 1987 році і вже стала класикою світової літератури.

Мета збірника – допомогти студентам краще розуміти оригінальний художній твір, навчитися сприймати його в культурологічному і часовому контексті, розвивати на цій основі власні практичні мовні уміння і навички.

Методичні рекомендації складаються з шістнадцяти розділів (за кількістю глав роману). Кожний розділ містить комплекс вправ репродуктивного і продуктивного характеру: завдання, спрямовані на опанування лексики твору, перевірку уваги студентів при сприйнятті фактичного матеріалу, розуміння мови роману, його стилістичний аналіз.

Лексичні вправи і завдання є різними за своїм рівнем і спрямованістю. Їх основними типами є вправи на коментування, вибір лексичної одиниці, знаходження відповідників, переклад. Тут застосовується принцип закріплення лексичних одиниць в різних контекстуальних оточеннях з тим, щоб якомога повніше розкрити їхній функціональний потенціал у сучасній мові. При цьому студенти заохочуються до активної роботи з тлумачним словником.

Завдання до обговорення тексту містять питання для дискусії, коментування, характеристику персонажів, питання, що стосуються проблематики твору, особливостей авторського стилю. Ця група завдань спрямована на розвиток комунікативних навичок студентів і навчання їх основам аналізу художнього тексту. При цьому робиться акцент на стимулювання читачів до висловлювання особистого ставлення щодо змісту роману, його героїв.

Збірник методичних рекомендацій містить довідку про автора.

Rosamunde Pilcher

Rosamunde Pilcher, nee Scott, was born in Lelant, Cornwall, on 22 September 1924. She was educated at St. Clare’s Polwithen and Howell’s School Llandaff, then at Miss Kerr-Sanders’ Secretarial College.

During the Second World War, she worked first in the Foreign Office, and then in the Women’s Royal Naval Service, serving in Portsmouth and Trincomalee, Ceylon, with the East India fleet.

After the war she married Graham Hope Pilcher and moved to Scotland. She and her husband today live near Dundee. They have four children and eight grandchildren.

Pilcher began her writing career in 1949 as an author of Mills and Boon romances, under the name Jane Fraser. She published ten such novels, the last (“The Keeper’s House”) in 1963. Between 1955 and 1957 she also wrote three plays (two co-written with Charles C. Gairdner), one of which (“The Dashing White Sergeant”) was produced in London in 1955 (the other plays are “The Piper of Orde” and “The Tulip Major”). Her first novel as Rosamunde Pilcher, “A Secret to tell”, was published in the same year, and there are two other Pilcher novels (“April” and “On My Own”) up to 1965, when she began exclusively using her own name.

Pilcher’s international reputation was secured by “The Shell Seekers” (1987), of which she has said (in the New York Times Book Review) that if she’d died the day after writing it, everyone would know exactly what happened in her own life. She has also said (in Publisher’s Weekly), “I don’t ever write about a place or a person or an experience that I don’t know a lot about.” Cornwall, where she was born, and Scotland, where she has lived for many years (in Invergowrie, Dundee), therefore figure largely in Pilcher’s work. She has published two short story collections: “The Blue Bedroom” (1985), and “Flowers in the Rain” (1991), and says her stories are “not so much love stories, but more about human relations… If the stories do not have a happy ending, then they always have a hopeful ending.”

The author’s other books are “September”, “Another View”, “The End of Summer”, “Wild Mountain Thyme”, “The Empty House”, “Sleeping Tiger”.

Prologue

1. Nancy

1. Pronounce and translate the words given below:

to manhandle, to simmer, hyacinth, kindling, bonus, tedious, heinous, orgy, surly, incumbent, meagre, fête, yoghurt, conundrum, rouge, urn.

2. Transcribe the following proper nouns:

Penelope, Cheltenham, Vicarage, Gloucestershire, Charlesworth, Archdeacon, Diocese, Rupert, Aga, Cornwall.

3. Explain in English the meaning of the word “to savour” and find in a dictionary the meanings and pronunciation of the words with the same root.

4. Explain what is meant by:

to be loud with recrimination (p. 5) to sound disconcerted (p. 5) to sound resigned (p. 6) to sound wistful (p. 6) uncouth ways (p. 8) to sound robust (p. 11)

to succumb to temptation (p. 11) anachronism (p. 10) forgotten nonentity (p. 11) to sound frustrated (p. 12) to be outrageous (p. 12) a cagey man (p. 14) a state of umbrage (p. 15)

Reconstruct the context in which the above words and expressions are used.

5. Translate the idioms into Ukrainian. Make up sentences of your own to illustrate their meaning.

not to sleep a wink (p. 6) to swallow one’s irritation (p. 9) to get smth for peanuts (p. 10) jumble sale (p. 12)

to square one’s shoulders (p. 12) to square one’s shoulders (p. 12) to raise a finger to help (p. 14) with a lavish hand (p. 16)

5. Discuss the chapters you’ve read according to the following points:

1. What feelings possessed Penelope Keeling when she returned home? Why did she decide to escape from the hospital?

2. Sum up what you have learnt about Penelope from the first pages of the book.

3. What did you learn about Lawrence Stern and his pictures?

4. Characterize Nancy. Speak of her relations with her family members and handymen. What impression did she produce on you?

5. How do you account for the way Nancy was treated by Mrs. Croftway? Give the main points of the conversation between them.

6. Describe Nancy’s house.

7. What did you learn about Olivia? Why did she advise Nancy to send her children to the local comprehensive school and sell up the Vicarage? Why did Nancy refuse it? What traits of her character does this refusal manifest?

8. Recount the conversation between Nancy and George. Comment on it.

7. Find instances of simile (comparison) and speak of their role in revealing the emotional attitude of the characters.

2. Olivia

1. Pronounce and translate the words given below:

glossy, lucid, banquette, consommé, escalope, to bridle, earthenware, croissant, tangent, to clamber, to endeavour, brusque, pâte, pristine, avarice, juniper.

2. Translate into Ukrainian:

1. He had an unworldly air about him, like some dedicated novice, and Olivia found it hard to believe that he had successfully come so far along the rat race of his chosen profession without getting his throat cut. (p. 22)

2. His appearance, though rumpled, was nevertheless deliciously clean, like fresh laundry, dried in the sunshine, but not yet ironed. (p. 22)

3. Nancy remembered that she was meant to taste it, so she took a sip, pursed her lips professionally, and pronounced it delicious. (p. 25)

4. All this did nothing to put Nancy in a better frame of mind. (p. 28)

5. “Contract gardeners are notoriously expensive.” (p. 29)

6. Nancy, all at once, realized that she had come to the end of her rope. (p. 30)

7. She could see the sum written out, with a pound sign and lots of lovely noughts. (p. 32)

8. It was hard not to smile at the recollection of Nancy’s face, jaw sagging and eyes goggling, when Olivia had told her the probable worth of the Lawrence Stern paintings. (p. 35)

3. Explain the meaning of the following word-combinations and phrases. Recall the situations in which they are used in the novel:

free lancing (p. 22) customary obsequious ceremony (p. 25) mind-boggling news (p. 26) a good conversation stopper (p. 27)

a country GP (p. 27) a prolific painter (p. 31) to produce a magic rabbit out of the hat (p. 33) sham logs (p. 34)

3. Discuss the chapter you’ve read according to the following points:

1. Introduce Lyle Medwin. What telephone call did Olivia receive while talking to him?

2. Why did Nancy appear out of place at L’Escargot?

3. Comment on Olivia’s words: “… our father was never anything, financially, but a dead loss…” (p. 30)

4. Speak on the relations between Olivia and her sister’s family, Noel, her parents. In what way did the sisters’ attitude towards their mother differ? What did they have in common?

5. What was Nancy’s purpose in coming to London? Do you agree that she was making a mountain out of a molehill?

6. Describe Olivia’s house.

7. What made Olivia an efficient editor?

3. Cosmo

1. Pronounce and translate the words given below:

claustrophobia, dinghy, bantam, commerce, turquoise, tumbler, nubile, discomfiture, acrimony, clandestine, venom, hilarious, to imbue, voluptuous, a beau, pendant, sapphire, secateurs, cauliflower, debutante, robin.

2. Translate into Ukrainian. Reconstruct the context in which the following words and expressions are used:

a momentous party (p. 36) a gentleman of leisure (p. 37) to relapse into a fetid sulk (p. 39) a fifty-a-day man (p. 40) a domesticated creature (p. 41) an open-ended invitation (p. 41) a sabbatical (to take a sabbatical) (p. 41)

to put down one’s roots (p. 42) to do weeding (p. 45) a lightweight sort of a person (p. 47) a mammoth feast (p. 49) an old folks’ home (p. 54) goggle-eyed giggles (p. 59) to cock a snook (p.64)

3. Retell the chapter according to the following plan:

1. A party on a boat.

2. Olivia meets Cosmo.

3. Cosmo’s place.

4. Olivia decides to take a sabbatical.

5. Cosmo talks about himself.

6. Olivia revises her life.

7. The arrival of Penelope and Antonia.

8. Aunt Ethel.

9. The Party at Ca’n D’alt.

10. Olivia’s departure.

4. Sum up what you have learned about Penelope and Olivia.

4. Illustrate one of the following proverbs by retelling an episode from the chapter under discussion.

1. Honesty is the best policy.

2. Nothing venture, nothing have.

3. Second thoughts are best.

4. Still waters run deep.

5. Step by step one goes far.

6. A rolling stone gathers no moss.

4. Noel

1. Pronounce and translate the words given below:

exodus, copious, dicey, chassis, pieds-a-terre, minuscule, beige, dowager, resurgence, emaciation, maw, grandeur, turquoise-blue, raison d’etre, marquee, ignoramus.

2. Translate into Ukrainian. Reproduce the context in which the following words and expressions are used:

a cover story (p. 66) a point-to-point (p. 66) to be loaded (p. 66) marvelously macho (p. 66) to be thrown back on one’s own resources (p. 67)

against all odds (p. 68) an idyllic way of life (p. 69) anorexic (p. 71) a scrumptious coat (p. 71) to ignore the irrelevance (p. 76) at one’s most urbane (p. 78)

2. Give nouns to go with the following adjectives; use the word-combinations in examples of your own:

futuristic, minuscule, showy, glossy, prestigious, insatiable, meagre, casual, skinny, skimpy, flimsy, droopy, imposing, adequate.

4. Find these allusions in the text and say what you know about them:

Harrods, Bentley, Knightsbridge, E-type Jaguar, Gucci, Davos, Sutherland, Wormwood Scrubs Prison, Wellingtons, Petticoat Lane, Georgian house, Victorian furniture, Ophelia, the Metropolitan Museum.

4. Translate in writing:

“One Star was the bottom… and champagne still flowing at six o’clock in the morning.” (p. 74)

Find in the passage instances of the stylistic figures you are acquainted with and comment on their role in the narration.

4. Sum up Noel. What are the most remarkable traits of his character?

What conclusions as to Noel’s attitude towards life and relations between people can you draw from this chapter?

5. Hank

1. Pronounce and translate the words given below:

dinner-à-deux, maquillage, bureau, perambulator, wallet, porcelain, to perk, cornucopia, devious, bruise, pallor, claret, lintel, peony, sirloin, privet (hedge), penchant, antlers, aperture.

2. Translate the sentences into Ukrainian, give the situations from the book they are used in:

1. And she was filled with disgust at herself. (p. 86)

2. It was the understatement of her life. (p. 87)

3. He was like a rock. (p. 88)

4. As it is, she never stops. (p. 90)

5. Just my mother’s cup of tea. (p. 90)

6. The garden, when she came here, was a wilderness, but that had been part of the fun. (p. 94)

7. Perhaps it was a pity that anybody ever told anybody anything. (p. 96)

8. Any painter has to move, to change. Otherwise he wouldn’t be worth his salt. (p. 100)

9. Not for the first time Penelope wished that she were truly religious. (p. 103)

10. She could think of nothing and filled in the ensuing pause with the business of pouring the tea. (p. 105)

11. Penelope wondered if she would notice if Penelope picked up a newspaper and read it. (p. 108)

3. Finish the comparisons:

1. The roses he had brought her had started to open, the petals curling back from the tight inner buds, like…

2. She did not know that her face was ashen, her dark eyes like…

3. The problems, arranged together, could be made to cancel each other out, like…

4. The road climbed, twisting up the side of a hill, and at its summit village came into view, nestled like…, with the silver waters of the Windbrush, like…

5. Long and low it (the house) lay, whitewashed and half-timbered, with its netted thatch jutting out over the upstairs windows like…

6. Visions widened, like… , and having come so far, it seemed ridiculous not to pause and enjoy them.

7. What had happened to the years, speeding away as they had, like…

8. Its impact hit you like…

9. She was tiny as a child, with seaweedy hair and round, pale green eyes like…

10. Amabel, who had taken off Lawrence’s coat, crouched like… in the corner of the sofa.

11. Amabel sat there, stifling another yawn, and looking like …

3. Translate in writing:

“A long rope was strung… she had scattered herself.” (pp. 92-93)

“In the middle of the night… and loved and been young.” (p. 109)

Find in the above paragraphs stylistic figures you are acquainted with and comment on their role in the narration.

3. Discuss the chapter answering the questions.

1. Why did Olivia postpone the telephone call to her mother?

2. How did Olivia talk about her relatives? Why was she unkind to them? What did she learn about Hank’s family?

3. What news did Antonia break? How did Olivia take it? Why did she hesitate to accept Antonia?

4. Give the main points of the conversation between Olivia and Hank on their way to Temple Pudley. How was the problem of the housekeeper for Penelope solved? How did the decision affect Olivia?

5. What did the countryside look like? Comment on Olivia’s words: “You can’t say I’m not giving you your money’s worth.”

6. How did Penelope make herself ready for Olivia’s visit? Describe her clothes. What made them festive? How is Penelope’s state of mind revealed?

7. Describe Podmore’s Thatch.

8. How did Penelope feel about getting old? What, in her opinion, were the advantages of her age?

9. How can you account for Penelope’s “yearning desire, almost a compulsion, to go back to Porthkerris”? Why had she not gone?

10. Comment on the conversation between Olivia and her mother. What made their relations special? Why did Olivia refuse to accompany Penelope to Porthkerris? Do you justify her refusal?

11. Speak of Noel’s visit to Podmore’s Thatch. What made his visit different from that of Olivia’s?

12. Why was it difficult for Penelope to support the conversation with Amabel? What emotions did “The Shell Seekers” evoke in Noel and his girlfriend?

13. What was the point in Noel’s coming to Podmore’s Thatch?