Table Of ContentNOW READ ON
Now Read On brings together literatures in English from around the world, combining an excellent choice
of texts with sound methodological guidance. It contains approximately eighty texts and extracts from
countries and continents including:
Africa Australia Great Britain India
Southeast Asia New Zealand the Caribbean the USA
Designed as a course for native and non-native English-speakers in how to read literature, this anthology
begins with short starter texts and questions, and develops in complexity as the reader progresses through
the book. Now Read On provides the user with
• hands-on experience of working with a plurality of texts and voices from around the world
• questions, exercises, pointers, and commentary, accompanying the passages of literature, and providing
the student with the tools and confidence to evaluate any text critically
• an understanding of the major genres—poetry, short stories, drama, and novels.
John McRae is Special Professor of Language in Literature Studies at the University of Nottingham. His
publications include The Language of Poetry (Routledge), The Routledge History of Literature in English
(with Ronald Carter), and The Penguin Guide to English Literature (with Ronald Carter).
Malachi Edwin Vethamani is Lecturer and teacher trainer in the Department of Education at the Faculty
of Educational Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia. His Ph.D. thesis at the University of Nottingham was on
language and point of view in Southeast Asian fiction. He has written widely on the teaching of literature
and language, and on new literatures in English, and is himself a short-story writer.
NOW READ ON
A course in multicultural reading
John McRae
and
Malachi Edwin Vethamani
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 1999 by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to
www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
© 1999 John McRae and Malachi Edwin Vethamani
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Now read on: a course in multicultural reading
John McRae & Malachi Edwin Vethamani.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Commonwealth literature (English) 2. Pluralism (Social
sciences)—Commonwealth countries—Literary collections.
3. Commonwealth countries—Cultural relations—Literary collections.
4. Ethnic groups—Commonwealth countries—Literary collections.
5. Pluralism (Social sciences)—Great Britain—Literary collections.
6. Great Britain—Cultural relations—Literary collections.
7. Ethnic groups—Great Britain—Literary collections. 8. English
language—Textbooks for foreign speakers. I. McRae, John.
II. Vethamani, Malachi Edwin, 1955–.
PR9085.N69 1999
820.8–dc21 98–38478
CIP
ISBN 0-203-97725-4 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-415-18216-6 (hbk)
0-415-18217-4 (pbk)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements viii
To the student x
To the teacher xii
PART I
Section 1—— Poetry 2
Abdul Ghafar Ibrahim The Wall 2
Mutabaruka (Allan Hope) You Ask Me 2
William Carlos Williams This Is Just to Say 2
Hilary Tham Offerings 4
Abdul Ghafar Ibrahim Hello 4
Arthur Gorges Her Face 4
Chinweizu Colonizer’s Logic 5
J.R.D.A.Dubreka Goodbye, Europeans 5
Lord Byron So We’ll Go No More A-Roving 6
Fadzillah Amin Dance 6
Section 2—— Short Stories 9
Ambrose Bierce The Disinterested Arbiter 9
Ernest Hemingway In Our Times 10
Samuel Clemens A Fable 11
Fredric Brown The Weapon 12
Grace Paley Mother 16
Catherine Lim The Journey 17
Laurie Clancy Reading the Signs 19
Section 3—— Plays 21
v
Edward Bond Bingo 20
Five Snippets 22
Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest 23
Harold Pinter Silence 24
William Shakespeare Macbeth 25
Anton Chekhov The Bear 25
Section 4—— Novels 28
D.H.Lawrence Sons and Lovers 27
Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms 28
George Orwell Keep the Aspidistra Flying 30
Shahnon Ahmad No Harvest But a Thorn 32
Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things 33
Lloyd Fernando Scorpion Orchid 34
Anita Desai A Village by the Sea 35
PART II
Section 5—— Poetry 38
Pitika Ntuli In My Country 38
Keorapetse Kgositsile Mandela’s Sermon 38
Mabel Segun Bride Price 38
Bini Bride’s Complaint 39
Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 39
John Keats La Belle Dame sans Merci 43
Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Charge of the Light Brigade 45
William Wordsworth Daffodils 47
John Agard Rainbow 49
Shirley Lim The Dulang-Washer 49
Maya Angelou Woman Work 50
The Joeys Men Are 52
Emily Dickinson A narrow Fellow in the Grass 53
Muhammad Haji Salleh Three Beserah Fishermen 54
vi
Thomas Hardy The Convergence of the Twain 56
Section 6—— Short Stories 59
Three Points of Entry 58
W.Somerset Maugham The Force of Circumstance 65
Isaac Asimov True Love 66
Nick Joaquin May Day Eve 69
Katherine Mansfield The Garden Party 71
Janet Frame You Are Now Entering the Human Heart 71
Section 7 —— Plays 77
William Shakespeare Macbeth 76
Harold Pinter A Night Out 78
Mahesh Dattani Dance Like a Man 79
Ramli Ibrahim In the Name of Love 81
Section 8 —— Novels 82
George Orwell Animal Farm 81
Jack Schaefer Shane 82
Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird 84
James Vance Marshall Walkabout 87
PART III
Section 9—— Poetry 94
Kojo Gyinage Kyei Time 94
W.H.Auden Stop All the Clocks 94
Emily Dickinson Because I could not stop for Death 95
Wilfred Owen Anthem for Doomed Youth, Futility 96 97
Edwin Brock Song of the Battery Hen 97
James Berry Fantasy of an African Boy 98
Sudeep Sen New York Times 99
John Keats When I Have Fears, To Autumn 100 101
Section 10 —— Short Stories 104
Steven Schutzman The Bank Robbery 103
vii
Simon Tay Drive 106
Arthur Conan Doyle The Hound of the Baskervilles 107
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Like Birds, Like Fishes 110
Siew Yue Killingley Everything’s Arranged 111
Pira Sudham Rains 112
Saki (H.H.Munro) The Open Window 113
Section 11—— Plays 118
George Bernard Shaw Pygmalion 117
Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest 121
William Shakespeare Hamlet, As You Like It, Julius Caesar 124
126 127
Wole Soyinka The Swamp Dwellers 128
Athol Fugard Sizwe Bansi Is Dead 130
Section 12—— Novels 135
John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men 134
K.S.Maniam The Return 137
R.K.Narayan The Man-Eater of Malgudi 140
Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart 144
Examination strategies 149
Text appendix 151
Index of authors 159
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Achebe, Chinua Things Fall Apart, 1958
Agard, John ‘Rainbow’ from Mangoes and Bullets, 1985, reprinted by permission of Serpent’s Tail Ltd
Bond, Edward ‘Bingo’ from Penguin Modern Poets, 1996, reprinted by permission of Random House
Brock, Edwin Song of the Battery Hen, reprinted by permission of Secker and Warburg
Desai, Anita A Village by the Sea copyright Anita Desai, 1982, reprinted by permission of the author c/o
Rogers, White and Coleridge
Fernanco, Lloyd Scorpion Orchid, 1953, reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers
Frame, Janet You are Now Entering the Human Heart, 1984, from Penguin Book of Short Stories,
reprinted by permission of the author and Curtis Brown (Aust) Pty Ltd, Sydney
Hemingway, Ernest A Farewell to Arms, 1929, reprinted by permission of the estate of Ernest
Hemingway and Jonathan Cape
Ramli Ibrahim In the Name of Love, reprinted by permission of Skoob Books Ltd
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer, Like Birds, Like Fishes, reprinted by permission of the author and John Murray
Publishers Ltd
Lawrence, D.H. Sons and Lovers, 1948, reprinted by permission of Laurence Pollinger Ltd and the Estate
of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli, and Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Puttnam Inc.
Lee, Harper To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960, by permission of Heinemann
Lim, Catherine The Journey, reprinted by permission of Heinemann Southeast Asia
Mahesh, Dattani Dance Like a Man from Final Solutions and Other Plays, reprinted by permission of
East West Books (Madras) PVT. Ltd
Maniam, K.S. The Return, reprinted by permission of Skoob Books
Marshall, James Vance Walkabout, 1954, reprinted by permission of John Johnson Ltd
Maugham, W.Somerset The Force of Circumstance from Collected Short Stories, 1984, reprinted by
permission of Heinemann
Orwell, George Keep the Aspidistra Flying, 1936, copyright Mark Hamilton as the Literary Executor of
the Estate of the Late Sonia Brownell Orwell, reprinted by permission of Mark Secker and Warburg Ltd and
A&M Heath and Co. Ltd, and Laurence Pollinger Ltd
Paley, Grace Mother from Later the Same Day, reprinted by permission of Little Brown
Pinter, Harold A Night Out from A Slight Ache and Other Plays, 1968, reprinted by permission of Faber
and Faber Ltd
Roy, Arundhati The God of Small Things, 1997, reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers and
David Godwin Associates
Sen, Sudeep New York Times from New York Times (London: The Many Press, 1993) and Postmarked
India: New and Selected Poems (New Delhi: HarperCollins, 1997)
ix
Steinbeck, John Of Mice and Men, 1938, reprinted by permission of Heinemann
Sudham, Pira Rains, reprinted by permission of the author
Williams, William Carlos ‘This is Just to Say’ from Collected Poems 1909–1959, 1987, eds., Wilton, E.,
and Macgowan, C., reprinted by permission of Laurence Pollinger Ltd, Carcanet Press, and New Directions
Publishing Corporation
Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders before publication. If any copyright
holders have queries they are invited to contact the publishers.
