Best wishes to all of you. My special thanks to those who encouraged me to go on. Will post soon on new subjects. Happy New Year!
see February 22, and you will find explanations about this chapter.
As for the doll.. It's an example taken by Tom to show Kafka's part in assuaging a little girl's sadness after she had lost her doll.
He, a famous writer, an old man, living through difficult times in Germany, took the time to write imaginary letters from the doll to the little girl in which she explained that she needed to visit the world... and eventually to marry, so that after three weeks the girl was prepared to accept she wouldn't see the doll any more.
So part of the writer for Tom: someone able to invent stories to help people to deny reality. (see the last sentence "as long as the story goes, reality no longer exists"... )
But Tom's message is ambiguous. Is denying reality what the writer is supposed to do or is it to make people accept it even by resorting to white lies. And is this an aim or a side-effect of his art?
I am just giving you some elements to think about...
I hope it will help you.
quote
"Bonjour je vous avais écrit l'année dernière car je passais le Bac en candidat libre et je n'avais pas les extraits de Paul Auster, et ma version du livre était différente de la votre (je crois que j'ai la version poche). Je ne veux surtout pas vous déranger, mais j'aide une amie qui a raté son bac l'année dernière et je me demandais si il vous serait possible de me renvoyer ces extraits s'il vous plaît. Je souhaiterai rajouter que sans votre aide l'année dernière j'étais simplement perdue...
...
Cordialement.
Charlotte Bruyère."
j'espère que votre amie aura réussi cette année.
Sorry Lisa for mistaking Riding North for Flying North. However a parallel between these two chapters might be very interesting!
Chapter: Riding North
The problem evoked in this chapter |
The questions evoked by Tom on the writer are mostly questions about himself and writing. (cf. previous elements of his biography) What makes a real writer? Is the writer someone supernatural or can he just be an ordinary human? ( and in fact, is there a recipe to become a writer?) When Tom draws parallels between great writers, he remains at the surface of things. He is just an observer not an actor. So can one who wants to be a writer be a mere observer? Being in or out is the problem of the excerpt, how can an individual understand the world and possibly share his experience with others? And what if the individual is a writer? I How can one know he is in or out? · Bare facts aren’t enough to help understand the world. · One often needs mediation to be able to accept reality: either it’s a father figure (Nathan or Harry for Tom) or it’s literature; for fiction can help ensure the transition between dreams and reality: the story of the little girl and the doll stands for it. So the writer can embody this father-figure. The great writer would be both in (an actor) and out (an observer), able to convey a message to readers. II But the use of specious arguments both prevents accurate understanding of the world and acceptance of hardships and undermines the seriousness of the arguments or of the message. · Even literature isn’t totally reliable despite the positive side of lies which follow the rules of fiction. (ironic) · Acknowledging this, Tom shows he is not so far from the real world. But he sees it more clearly for others than for himself. Therefore and ironically, this is immediately contradicted by the last two sentences of the chapter. “When a person is lucky enough to live inside a story, to live in an imaginary world, the pains of the world disappear. For as long as …. Reality no longer exists”. Conclusion, even after leaving his job as a taxi driver, Tom doesn’t seem to be able to completely face reality to be fully in (inside real life). A writer can be both in and out (Kafka), that’s perhaps one of the reasons why Nathan doesn’t think he is a real writer perhaps because at sixty, one is too much in real life and lacks the ability to live in a parallel world. Considering writing as a disease that can infect anyone at any time Tom has still a good reason to cling to his dream. |
viewpoint |
Through Nathan, the I-narrator’s eyes. |
Symbols |
North= reason, stands for the rational on the move, driving: the best moment for Tom to think! |
Circumstances |
Nathan and Tom are taking Lucy North to a cousin’s. |
Characters |
Nathan, Tom, Lucy Tom is rather ironical towards Nathan, but the latter is in the process of writing, which is not the case for him; Tom’s arguments remain at the surface of his topic. (he is deep into useless statistics: so he is always at the periphery of things: the present trip illustrates this fact in the next chapter. Nathan is without illusions. So being a true writer or not is not his concern; As for Lucy, she is determined not to stay with the cousin in the North, ”she had pretended to agree”, she is totally "in" all the more since she even takes things at face value. And ironically, she is described sleeping. |
Attitudes |
Tom and Nathan feel relaxed. Tom appears happy to drive, (reminiscent of his life a few weeks before) |
Topic |
First they are speaking of the book Nathan is writing: The Book of Human Folly then about how Nathan feels as a writer, What is a writer? What makes someone a writer…can it be too late to start writing at 60; the age? What about the number of books? The destiny of the writer, how old he was when he died, if his message has been distorted or not... Writing is a disease according to Tom so it can infect anyone at any time. (see the chapter for the right quote) |
Specious arguments and irony |
Irony comes from two sources: it’s both in and out; first the title of the chapter and then the arguments used in the analysis of what characterizes writers. (But the problem is when is someone in or out?) The set of statistics in Tom’s speech casts doubts on the seriousness of the message and Nathan’s answer isn’t much more accurate. Trying to connect facts together seems rational but there is a paradox when one tries to find connections between facts and fiction as it is the case for Tom with the story of Kafka and the little girl and Lucy. The idea that there are signs to be deciphered.. (What is the connection between the little girl and Lucy’s presence?) " I think there's a message in it for us, some kind of warning about how we're supposed to act." |
Tom’s message |
If Tom’s arguments are specious, his message makes sense: It’s difficult to face reality: either you are in and acting or you are an observer and you are out. The individual often needs mediation to help him or her understand and accept the world. The mediator can be a father-figure such as Nathan or Harry for Tom or writers (the story between Kafka and the little girl stands for it) |
The writer and lies |
The writer is entitled to tell lies (within the rules of fiction…. And if he does so it’s to help. |
Auster’s tenets |
-Irony -True and false/ right and wrong/ the moving and narrow line between them. - The part of chance - Signs to be deciphered. |
Just a few ideas after reading this chapter. I would focus on the importance of words. (the verbs talk, tell, speak, suggest, insist, sermons, hymns are recurrent, and these are only a few in that field.)
I think you could
In fact words continually do and undo messages and relationships between people. They can be both medicines and weapons. The same words have different effects on different people.
And they are a game for the writer himself. Once again hypocrisy, and "those born-again holy rollers" are denounced, words aren't more reliable than those who utter them since they are not sure what their mesage is: "I don't know what to say".
Finally what comes first: the idea or the words? this is something you could mention in your conclusion...
Hope this will help you... Let me know!
bonjour, je vous remercie de vos messages et vous regroupe dans celui-ci car vous semblez exprimer les mêmes besoins.
L'épreuve d'oral se déroule à partir d'extraits choisis, non à partir de chapitres entiers. (à moins de changements récents).
Vous êtes intéressés par les mêmes chapitres:
"Overture" pour lequel 4 extraits ont été étudiés.
"On Rascals" qui est traité au N° 7
et "A Night Of Eating And Drinking" qui se trouve au N° 10.
Pour chacun des extraits il y a dans les tableaux une ou plusieurs propositions de problématiques. Simplement, rien n'est traité à fond car chacun peut apporter sa vision et ses constatations à son analyse. Les tableaux permettent de repérer les thèmes récurrents du roman... et ce à côté de quoi on ne peut pas passer.
Comme il s'agit d'extraits que j'ai choisis et parfois écourtés... je peux si vous le souhaiter vous adresser par email les textes, tels que mes élèves ont eu à les traiter.
N'hésitez pas à me contacter à nouveau si vous le souhaitez. Bon courage et bonne année à tous.
You saved me!
Oh my god, thank you so much, cause I was really in fix!
Now I can do a good job with what you sent me,
Thanx again,
Charlotte Bruyère.
Thank you for your messages... I worked on this chapter from "the telephone ended" to Saturday night". This part is the one treated on the blog in excerpt 8. I chose it because it deals with "X marks the spot" with all its meanings, and because this phrase is the title of the last chapter.
I am not going to suggest a plan for the whole chapter because normally for the bac, you have a 35 to 40 line-text only.
However I can give you a view of the various steps you can find in it and highlight the major themes as regards the novel.
First we have a physical description of Harry through Nathan's eyes during their first meeting. His face makes him comical. (see the "jack 'o lantern teeth or the pumpkin head for example)
Harry's words don't seem more serious at first (wordplay on their names: Glass, Wood, and why not Steel to be complete...) In fact the exes paragraph starts with derision but reflects a deeper reality that touches Nathan. The older we get, the more exes (ex something) we become. We are no longer with a possible future, we are only an addition of past moments and failures. (See what X means on the blog in the excerpt mentioned above).
X is also that hidden part of the self, the unpredictable part of an individual that makes relationships so difficult with our families for instance.
So once Nathan is back in his room, he wonders how he could ask his daughter to forgive him. (the example of L. Wittgenstein who couln't find forgiveness from his former students even years later, can't give Nathan much hope). In fact he decides to write a letter to her instead of calling her.
Strangely enough, Nathan feels more lonely now that he has found Tom. He adds a chapter to his book, one about an episode of his former life (the razor episode), in which the guests his wife had invited, arrived and finally left, while he ridiculed himself trying to get back a razor from a toilet, obstinate as he was. But his guilt in recalling the event is temporary.
Nathan prefers to dream of relationships and refuses to really get involved in any, at least at the beginning of the story.
More themes here: guilt is temporary/ prejudice is important (Harry looks funny and unreliable from what Tom said or Nahan could see at first, but he is not so superficial. Who is more superficial? Harry? Nathan?/ The truth may not always be permanent, which is paradoxical) / the part of chance (le hasard) is very important (check the chapter for it)./ Here are a few ideas... Notice that there is no final answer. (at least in my opinion).
Hope to read your reactions. Regards.
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