Sophie Lasnier's Blog

1. "boisterous", turbulent. Boisterous is used to describe the children playing. 2. "scold", an abusive and noisy woman. Mr. Summers' wife is described as a scold. 3. "perfunctory", superficial mundane routine. One of the traditions is described as being perfunctory. 4. "craned", to stretch to get a better view. A woman cranes her neck to see the ceremony. 5. "jovial", jolly. Mr. Summers looks jovial. I enjoyed the story, although I would have hoped that the ending wouldn't be so obvious.

1. Ebro: A river in Spain. The story is set in the valley surrounding the Ebro. 2. Reales: Spanish currency discontinued in 1864. The price of the drinks in the story is four reales. I really enjoyed the story.  I had never read his work before, and now I think I finally understand his "iceberg theory".  I had to read it a second time to understand the underlying tension in the story.

Revision Translating a Masterpiece The task of bringing to life great literary works is not a simple one.  And yet,  the 1992 adaptation of the novella  Of  Mice and  Men   is a strong rendering of  Steinbeck's literary style as visuals .  As said by Megan Rosenfeld from The Washington Post, "all of the collaborators seem guided by the intention to let Steinbeck's brilliance shine through, unaugmented by false modern analysis or technical gimmickry.". Firstly, the film wonderfully transforms the vivid descriptions of rural California into a stylized color palette.  In the book, vivid descriptions of nature are peppered into the story to add a sense of realism: " A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool.” (Steinbeck).  When it came to tur...

Who is Louis Dudek?   He is a professor at McGill a poet, an academic and a publisher. Who is Dr. Bernhard Beutler?   He is a german doctor that studied Louis Dudek's work in his doctorate on imagism in Canadian poetry. How did the interviewer, Frank Bonkowski, come to meet Dr. Beutler?   He was a student at the Goethe Institut in the 1970s. Why is it worthwhile reading poetry?   It is the highest form of art, it is imaginative and it liberates the soul. What kind of poetry did Louis Dudek write?   Realist lyric poetry influenced by the Imagists with a style that doesn't use a lot of adverbs and adjectives.  The city is sometimes the setting. What happened the first time Dr. Beutler met Dudek?   He asked his where he was and said he was at McGill, he then asked to meet him halfway.  He was very direct. What did Leonard Cohen say about Dudek?   He said that Louis Dudek was one of the greatest professors at McGill, he was sweet, gen...