Вопрос № 348790 - Английский язык

Jonathan Swift, the famous English writer and the author of “Gulliver’s Travels”, was not very generous. He seldom gave anything to the servants or those who sent him presents. But once he received a lesson from a boy who very often carried him hares, partridges, and other game.

One day the boy arrived with a heavy basket containing fish, fruit, and game. He knocked at the door and Swift by chance opened it himself. “Here”, said the boy gruffly, “my master has sent you a basket full of things”.

Swift, feeling displeased at the boy’s rude manner, said to him: “Come here, my boy, and I will teach you how to deliver a message a little more politely; come, imagine yourself Jonathan Swift, and I will be the boy”. Then taking off his hat very politely, and addressing himself to the boy, he said. “Sir, my master sends you a little present, and begs you will do him the honour to accept it”.

“Oh, very well, my boy”, replied the boy, “tell your master I am much obliged to him, and there is half a crown for yourself”. Swift laughed heartily, and gave the boy a crown for his wit.

Once there was a man whose wife was dumb, and this made him very sad because he loved her very much. After some time he went to see a doctor and said. “Can you make my wife speak?” “Perhaps I can”, said the doctor, “the operation is difficult, but if I try, I’ll do my best”. “Of course, you may try”, said the husband, “I’ll bring her tomorrow”.

The next day the doctor made the operation and the dumb wife began to speak. She spoke so much and so loudly that in a few hours her husband ran back to the doctor and said,

“Can you make my wife dumb again?” “No”, said the doctor, “there are many ways to make a dumb woman speak, but no ways to make a woman stop talking”.

“What must I do?” said the man, “I shall soon die if I have to listen to her all day long”. “Well”, said the doctor, “I can’t make her dumb, but I can make you deaf and you will not have to listen to her”. “Very well”, said the man, “you may do so. It will be better than the other way”.

Alexander Sokurov is considered one of the Russia’s best film directors. Sokurov was called one of the top ten contemporary film directors by the European Academy of Film. He, however, has not always been so appreciated in his homeland. His films were not allowed during the late Soviet period.

Sokurov has featured more than 20 films which are valued for their beauty. Watching Sokurov’s film is like a walk through the Hermitage: there is no need to rush through it.

“My work has its foundations in Russian and European literary traditions,” said Sokurov in one of his interviews. I don’t like to create if I don’t have the canon of classic of literature as a support standing behind me.”

One of Sokurov’s latest films, called Moloch, tells the love story of Hitler and Eva Brown. The actors are Russians, the language of the film is German - perhaps, it helps to create the aura of authenticity.

Douglas Coupland is Canadian, born on a Canadian Air Force base near Baden-Baden, Germany, on December 30, 1961. In 1965 his family moved to Vancouver, Canada, where he continues to live and work. Coupland has studied art and design in Vancouver, Canada, Milan, Italy and Sapporo, Japan.

His first novel, “Generation X”, was published in March of 1991. Since then he has published nine novels and several non-fiction books in 35 languages. There are some books that reflect the philosophy of the young: “Microserfs”, “Life after God”, “Girlfriend in a Coma”, “Hey, Nostradamus”, etc.

He has written and performed for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, England. 2006 marks the premiere of the feature film “Everything’s Gone Green”, his first story written specifically for the screen and not adapted from any previous work.

Douglas Coupland is really an amazing contemporary writer; he paints a vivid picture with words like no one else. He really adequately shows generation X.

Alexander Petrov received the Oscar for the best animated short film, which is an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”. “This is my favourite story of Hemingway’s. I think it’s one of the best works of the 20th century,” said the 43-year-old Petrov in his speech.

Petrov began developing the idea of the film in 1994 and the following year proposed it to Montreal Productions Pascal Blais, who accepted the idea. Then the venture was given an official go-ahead - at a budget of almost $ 3,4 million.

Working in Montreal together with his son and cameraman Sergey Rechetnikov, Petrov hand-painted almost 29000 individual frames - literary using his fingertips, to create each scene.

Now, despite his international fame, Petrov is not seeking further work abroad. Instead, he is developing an animation studio and school in his hometown of Yaroslavl to encourage the emergence of a new generation of talents.

Readers of the mid-twentieth century often turned to “the bible of the generation” - the book “The Catcher in the Rye” by D.Salinger. But there are books written later, in the 1980-s and in the early 21st century which are comparable to that one. Such is Sue Townsend’s cycle of books starting from “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13” written with mild humour and irony and profound psychological insight into the inner world of a teenager.

Sue Townsend was born in Leicester in 1946. She attended Glen Hills school in the early 50s and then went to South Wigston Secondary Modem for Girls. But she left school when she was 15 and changed jobs several times (so she worked as a shop assistant, garage attendant and in a factory)!

Her writing career started when she was 35 - she won the Thames Playwrights Award. Her most famous and best known book is “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole” (1985) - a diary kept by a 13 year old boy - sort of intellectual. The book was so successful that it was followed by a number of sequels.

She got married when she was 18 and had three children. But her husband left her so she brought them up alone. Sue Townsend later got married again. In 1999 doctors found out she had diabetes and she slowly began losing her sight. Today she is almost blind.