Table Of ContentМинистерство науки и высшего образования Российской Федерации
Сибирский федеральный университет
A SNOW GARDEN
Учебно-методическое пособие
Электронное издание
Красноярск
СФУ
2020
УДК 811.111(07)
ББК 81.432.1я73
A10
Составители: Кошкина Инна Витальевна
Чистова Ольга Андреевна
Макарова Светлана Михайловна
Кузьмина София Всеволодовна
A10 A Snow Garden : учеб.-метод. пособие / сост.: И. В. Кошкина, О. А. Чи-
стова, С. М. Макарова, С. В, Кузьмина. – Электрон. дан. (1,1 Мб). – Крас-
ноярск : Сиб. федер. ун-т, 2020. – Систем. требования: PC не ниже класса
Pentium I ; 128 Mb RAM ; Windows 98/XP/7 ; Adobe Reader V8.0 и выше. –
Загл. с экрана.
Пособие содержит информацию о сборнике рассказов английской писатель-
ницы Рэйчел Джойс, включает описание жанровых и стилистических особенностей ко-
роткого рассказа, а также раскрывает особенности культурных реалий и традиций
празднования английского Рождества. Особое внимание уделяется представленным
в пособии комплексам упражнений по каждому из рассказов сборника, позволяющим
не только закрепить лексико-грамматический материал, использованный в произведе-
нии, но также организовать дискуссионную работу на основе содержания рассказов
и их художественных особенностей.
Предназначено для студентов 1-4 курса отделения иностранных языков Инсти-
тута филологии и языковой коммуникации СФУ, может быть интересно студентам дру-
гих направлений, а также широкому кругу читателей, интересующихся современной
британской литературой.
УДК 811.111(07)
ББК 81.432.1я73
© Сибирский федеральный
университет, 2020
Электронное учебное издание
Подготовлено к публикации издательством
Библиотечно-издательского комплекса
Подписано в свет 18.11.2020. Заказ №11436
Тиражируется на машиночитаемых носителях
Библиотечно-издательский комплекс
Сибирского федерального университета
660041, г. Красноярск, пр. Свободный, 82а
Тел. (391)206-26-16; http://rio.sfu-kras.ru
E-mail: [email protected]
CONTENTS
1. BEFORE READING ......................................................................................... 5
1.1. About the Author ......................................................................................... 5
1.2. About the Book ........................................................................................... 5
1.3. What is a Short Story? ................................................................................ 5
1.4. Understanding the English Christmas ......................................................... 7
2. WHILE READING ......................................................................................... 10
2.1. A Faraway Smell of Lemon ...................................................................... 10
2.2. The Marriage Manual ................................................................................ 13
2.3. Christmas Day at the Airport .................................................................... 16
2.4. The Boxing Day Ball ................................................................................ 21
2.5. Snow Garden ............................................................................................. 23
2.6. I’ll be Home for Christmas ....................................................................... 26
2.7. Trees .......................................................................................................... 28
3. AFTER READING ......................................................................................... 31
APPENDIX A ..................................................................................................... 32
APPENDIX B ...................................................................................................... 33
APPENDIX C ...................................................................................................... 38
REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 41
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INTRODUCTION
“I took a course in speed reading, learning to read straight down the middle
of the page, and I was able to go through War and Peace in 20 minutes. It’s about
Russia.” This line ironically summarises the experience of Woody Allen, a
famous American director and writer, with speed-reading which still has
undeniable appeal to many of those who barely have time to engage with
books. However, the research suggests that as reading speed increases as a result
of effortful speed-reading, comprehension goes down (Handel, 2019). Therefore,
it is only by becoming a voracious reader and a more skilled language user that
one can enhance reading fluency and comprehension.
The aim of this study guide is to help learners obtain thorough practice in
dealing not only with scanning and skimming, but with a range of reading
subskills. Activities presented in the book bridge intensive and extensive
approaches to the source texts, and serve such purposes as mastering inferring,
predicting and analysing various aspects of A Snow Garden, short stories by
Rachel Joyce. This study guide is divided into three main parts, each focusing on
the information and activities for the specific stages of working with the stories.
1. Before reading: the part devoted to the brief information about Rachel
Joyce and her stories and outlining the major cultural features of Christmas in
Britain.
2. While reading: a series of lexico-grammar and comprehension
activities, designed to reflect each story, encompassing tasks for general and
detailed understanding of the text so as to encourage language analysis and full-
blown discussions.
3. After reading: the part presenting the reference material for language
consolidation and strengthening learners’ skills in writing reviews on R. Joyce’s
stories and effective story-based discussions.
The book is addressed for 1-4-year students at the Linguistics Department,
Institute of Philology and Language Communication, Siberian Federal University.
It could also be of great importance for all learners of English at upper-
intermediate and advanced levels, interested in the modern British literature and
culture. The study guide can be used for self-study or in the classroom.
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1. BEFORE READING
1.1. About the Author
Born in London, Rachel Joyce is the author of the Sunday Times and an
acclaimed British writer. She moved to writing after a long career as an actor,
performing leading roles for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National
Theatre. In 2012 she published her first novel The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold
Fry which immediately became a bestseller and was shortlisted for the
Commonwealth Book prize and longlisted for the prestigious Man Booker Prize.
Since then she published the novels “Perfect”, “The Love Song of Miss Queenie
Hennessy”, “The Music Shop” and a collection of short stories, “A Snow Garden”
& Other Stories. All of them have been warmly welcomed by critics and readers,
and translated into thirty-six languages. Jen Campbell, author and book reviewer,
wrote about Rachel Joyce: “She’s very good at having a balance between heart-
warming, joyful and brutally honest, which I think is something we’re all
navigating in life a lot.” Rachel has also written over twenty original afternoon
plays and adaptations of the classics for BBC Radio 4, including all the Bronte
novels. She lives with her family in Gloucestershire, South West England.
1.2. About the Book
“A Snow Garden” consists of seven loosely interlinked warm-hearted
stories set in the last fortnight of the year, all as funny, joyous, poignant and
memorable as Christmas should be. In this slim collection, Rachel Joyce explores
the possibilities of the short story with minor characters in one story becoming
major characters in another. The creative process is discussed in the foreword, in
which Joyce reveals how the characters first came into being – several having
being cut from drafts of previous novels. “A Snow Garden” collection
compellingly captures what Joyce excels in evoking throughout her writing –
reflections of human relationships and the intimations of new beginnings, seen
through the multi-faceted prism of an English Christmas. English readers will
recognize many details and many typical responses to Christmas, as well as many
extraordinary ones. So, in order to understand “A Snow Garden”, non-English
readers need to understand first what Christmas means to the English, and then
why Joyce treats the celebration in such varying tones.
1.3. What is a Short Story?
A short story is fictional work of prose that is shorter in length than a novel.
Edgar Allan Poe, in his essay “The Philosophy of Composition”, said that a short
story should be read in one sitting, anywhere from a half hour to two hours.
In contemporary fiction, a short story can range from 1,000 to 20,000
words. Because of the shorter length, a short story usually focuses on one plot,
one main character (with a few additional minor characters), and one central
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theme, whereas a novel can tackle multiple plots and themes, with a variety of
prominent characters. Some questions that one can ask of a novel cannot be
explored properly in a story of limited space. This kind of close analysis, paying
attention to detail and to what is implied but not said, is part of the art of reading
a short story.
In reality, reading of a short story is an excellent training in critical and
thoughtful reading. There is not much room for plot in a short story, but a situation
or an idea, and it is important to work out what that situation or idea actually is.
Short stories are impossible to summarise. “What is the point?” we ask, but the
author is asking us to look at details, not at generalities. Sometimes you arrive at
an intuitive understanding of the idea using only small clues to get there, like
observations of character behaviour to figure out their true emotions and
motivations. Sometimes you cannot know until the very end of the story. In both
life and literature, situations are complicated due to social forces like
relationships, moral codes, personal desires, culture, etc. This means that there are
multiple factors that shape what’s true. That’s why it’s crucial to refrain from
making quick simple judgements about a character and make sure to consider
multiple influences and events.
What is more, short stories also lend themselves more to experimentation –
that is, uncommon prose styles or literary devices, which might get tedious in a
novel, may work well in a short story. The stories are enlivened by the use of
similes which seem to grow, quite naturally, out of the efforts of the characters to
understand themselves.
At last, short stories are too compact for long conversations. The writer has
to drive the story a few steps forward, reveal aspects of character, catch the
rhythms of colloquial speech, often switching the tone from humorous to serious
or vice-versa, within a very short space, as if conveying a picture of human
experience with joy and sadness, anger, humour, grief, and love.
There are five key elements that go into every great short story: character,
setting, conflict, plot and theme.
A character is a person, or sometimes even an animal, who takes part in
the action of a short story or other literary work.
The setting of a short story is the time and place in which it happens.
Authors often use descriptions of landscape, scenery, buildings, seasons or
weather to provide a strong sense of setting.
A plot is a series of events and character actions that relate to the central
conflict.
The conflict is a struggle between two people or things in a short story. The
main character is usually on one side of the central conflict.
On the other side, the main character may struggle against another
important character, against the forces of nature, against society, or even against
something inside himself or herself (feelings, emotions, illness).
The theme is the central idea or belief in a short story.
As with novels, short stories come in all kinds of categories: action,
adventure, biography, comedy, crime, detective, drama, dystopia, fable, fantasy,
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history, horror, mystery, philosophy, politics, romance, satire, science fiction,
supernatural, thriller, tragedy, and Western.
1.4. Understanding the English Christmas
Christmas and New Year’s Eve are by far the most important calendrical
holidays in England. Christmas Day is firmly established as a ‘family’ ritual,
while New Year’s Eve is a much more raucous celebration with friends. But when
English people talk about ‘Christmas’ (as in ‘What are you doing for Christmas?’
or ‘I hate Christmas!’), they often mean the entire holiday period, from the
23rd/24th of December right through to New Year’s Day, including, typically and
traditionally, at least some of the following:
Christmas Eve – family; last minute shopping; panics and squabbles; tree
lights; possibly church – early evening carols or midnight service;
Christmas Day – family; tree; present-giving rituals; marathon cooking
and eating of huge Christmas lunch; the Queen’s broadcast on television/radio –
or pointedly not watching/listening to the Queen; more food and drink;
Boxing Day – hangover; family ‘outing’ of some sort, if only to local
park; long country walk; visiting the other set of relatives; escape from family to
pub;
27th–30th December – slightly strange ‘limbo’ period; some back at
work, but often achieving very little; others shopping, going for walks, trying to
keep children amused; more overeating and drinking; visiting friends/relatives;
television; videos; pub;
New Year’s Eve – friends; big boozy parties or pub-crawls; dressing
up/fancy-dress; loud music; dancing; champagne, fireworks; New Year’s
resolutions;
New Year’s Day – sleep in; hangover.
Preparations for and run-up to Christmas in Britain (specifically in England
in this book) may start at least a month ahead, as it is a festival of various essential
elements that include:
Family. ‘Going home for Christmas’, ‘Coming home for Christmas’,
‘Who is “doing Christmas” this year?’ are all urgent matters for discussion among
families. Parents hope to see their grown-up children who should come home by
Christmas Eve, 24t December. Parents of school-age children might take part,
reluctantly or not, in activities, like ‘Nativity Play’. Adults who are planning the
main Christmas meal will spend hours on arrangements to ensure that their elderly
parents are somehow able to take part in the feast. Everybody resolves to be
friendly and forgiving to all their family members; the resolution may not be
successfully kept, for bitter family rows are also a part of Christmas, but
underlying the angry words and excitable arguments is the recognition that ‘we
are part of a family’ which inevitably entails both love and conflict.
Jesus’s Birth. In two of the gospels in the New Testament of the Bible,
(St Matthew and St Luke) we read the story of Jesus’ birth. The two accounts
7
differ, but storytellers have been conflating them for centuries. The simple
elements of the story are thus: Mary and Joseph travelled from Nazareth to
Bethlehem at a time when many people were on the move. Mary was heavily
pregnant, but when they reached Bethlehem all the rooms for travellers in the inns
and houses were already taken. At last an innkeeper allowed them to sleep in the
stable. That night Jesus was born, and Mary wrapped him up and put him in the
‘manger’, a feeding box for the cattle. Nearby in the fields, shepherds saw angels
appearing in the skies. The angels announced the birth of a Saviour and told the
shepherds to walk to Bethlehem and pay homage to the baby. The shepherds duly
found Jesus in the stable with Mary and Joseph, and were very surprised. In the
other Gospel account, the visitors were three Kings (or Wise Men) from the east
who were following a star that led them to the place where Mary and Joseph were
staying. There is no mention of a stable in St Matthew’s account, but the stable
glimmers in everyone’s imagination, along with all the animals.
Nativity Play. Paintings of the birth of Jesus (Nativity) are part of all
Christian traditions. In England, virtually all children, at one time or more in their
young childhood, take part in a Nativity Play with the leading roles (Mary, Joseph)
and the principal supporting ones (Three Kings, Innkeeper, Head Shepherd,
Angel-of-the-Lord), or playing mere background shepherds, angels, sheep, cows,
donkeys and so on. Or the school may have been gripped by a sudden fit of
political correctness and attempted to replace the traditional Nativity with
something more ‘multicultural’. Anyway, it is a deeply embedded, touching and
memorable tradition, because the story about a baby being born transcends
Christian and religious belief which has a much wider appeal. For children, it is a
story they can understand, while priests and capitalists combine to insist that
Christmas is a 'children’s festival’ when their wishes and dreams must be listened
to.
Presents. People give each other presents for all sorts of reasons: because
they want to give pleasure to their family members and friends; because they half-
consciously remember the three Kings who brought presents for the baby Jesus;
because they want to be generous; because there are huge pressures from retailers,
advertisers, the whole society, to buy more and more. This is the central
contradiction and the population-wide dilemma about Christmas.
Eating. This tradition dates back to the great mid-winter feasts that would
provide a period of cheerfulness in cold, dark days. In England, certain foods are
associated with Christmas: a large, stuffed, roasted turkey, roast potatoes,
chestnuts and bacon rolls, bread sauce, Brussel sprouts, followed by a Christmas
pudding which is very rich, dense with dried fruit and spices, and made several
weeks before Christmas, accompanied by brandy sauce or brandy butter. Other
foods eaten at Christmas include ‘Christmas cake’, a baked variation of
‘Christmas pudding’, and ‘mince pies’ - small pies stuffed with dried fruit, fat,
spices and alcohol, eaten hot or warm.
Music. Much of music, specially written for Christmas over the centuries,
is sung or performed in churches. People who never normally go to church
because they are not interested in religious practices turn up at Christmas services
8
to listen to choirs, both professional and amateur. The English know, love and
sing Christmas carols. They are taught to very small children; older children grow
up learning a wider variety of carols at school which may be performed at a carol
service; carols are sung at parties and gatherings and impromptu meetings; carol
singers are groups who go from house to house singing a few versus of a carol
and collecting money for a good cause from those who live there; carols are played
through loudspeakers and everywhere on the media; carols are played and sung
on the streets for weeks before Christmas. There are dozens of carols in the
popular memory, hundreds which are regularly performed, and new ones which
are written every year.
Along with the carols and their religious or pastoral content are popular
songs with a Christmas theme. These are easier to adapt to commercial purposes,
so in shops and stores you will hear endless variations of ‘Jingle Bells’ or
‘Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer’. The point is that, at Christmas, nobody can
avoid carols celebrating the Christmas story and many other stories.
9
2. WHILE READING
2.1. A Faraway Smell of Lemon
Task 1. Find in the text English equivalents for the following words and
expressions:
Бытовая химия, чистящее средство, метла, совок, швабра Кентукки,
резиновая швабра, тряпка для мытья пола, тряпка для вытирания пыли,
металлическая мочалка для чистки посуды, перчатки для хозяйственных
работ.
Task 2. Give Russian equivalents for the following words and
expressions from the text and use them in the sentences of your own:
PTA, Nativity play, Gabriel, mince pie, satsuma, party frock, fuzzy, to
flaunt.
Task 3. Find the Russian equivalents for words relating to painful
emotional states. Put this vocabulary in a correct form to fill in the gaps:
Tearjerker, catharsis, misty-eyed, heart-wrenching, rail, shudder, clench,
slant.
1. If you go _______ every time you see photos with your ex-boyfriend,
throw them away immediately!
2. Without warning, something warm _______ down the side of Binny’s
nose towards her mouth. It tastes of salt.
3. No matter how terrible your life situation gets, the world doesn’t stop or
________.
4. And so Binny dares to think of those other people she has lost. No matter
how much she _______, some of them are gone forever.
5. Deep inside her, something is stretching and expanding and she has to
_______ her jaw to keep a grip.
6. All of us need sort of _________ to find one people usually go to the
cinema to watch some ____________.
7. A lemon smell brings back _______________ memories.
Task 4. Match the following words and expressions with their
definitions and then use them to fill in the gaps:
1. to jostle with a. to leave someone at a certain destination
b. to make something rapidly, in a short period of
2. to drop off
time
3. to run up something c. soon after something
4. to give in d. to show promise of improving
5. hot on the heels of e. to take hold of something suddenly and without
something warning
6. to look up for
f. to surrender to something
someone
7. to snatch out of g. to be crowded with people in a hurry
10
