The Art of Reading – Lin Yutang

Unit – I

Lesson – 1.  The Art of Reading – Lin Yutang

Introduction:

Art of Reading is an essay extracted from Yutang’s book where he express the importance of living. This essay also tries to express the influence of reading the books and how reading will bring change and flavor in one’s life. Yutang make us understand the compare the difference between the life of a person who does not read and that of who does. He shays that if a person doesn’t have reading habit he has imprisoned himself in his immediate world in respect to time and space. His life falls into a set routine and will be limited to contact and conversation with a few friends. He is see’s only what happens in the immediate neighborhood. But, as soon as he starts reading books he enters in to a different world and becomes the best orator.

Content:    

Lin Yutang says that a readers is always carried away into a world of thoughts and reflections and thus they become a detected spectator of the events mentioned by the Author in that book. Yutang agrees up on the opinion of the Huang Shanku that a scholar who hasn’t read anything for 3 days feels that his talks has no flavor and his own face becomes hateful to look at in the mirror. A person doesn’t read to improve one’s mind but for pleasure. Once he thinks of reading with a sense of obligation does not understand the Art of Reading.

Yutang further moves on to express the opinion of Huang that ugly face that have a fascinating charm and beautiful faces that are insipid to look at and gives an example of a Chinese friends whose head was shaped like a bomb, yet, always a pleasure to see. Thus he says that a beautiful face will not make impact in the minds of others but the flavors in his conversation and flavor in his writing will make a great influence as he gets the flavors in his personality by reading books.

A person will get the flavor in his writing and speaking based on the selective books which he reads. Selections of books to read are based on their own taste as an individual has the taste for food. One cannot be forced to read the book which they don’t like. If a reader has no taste for what he reads, all the time is wasted. Yutang gives an example of growth of a tree and flow of a river and compare it with the personality of a person. He says that the intellectual interest of reading books grows like a tree or flow of a river. If a person has an interest in reading a book he will read it and gain knowledge about it in the same way when the sap is strong it will definitely turn into a big tree as is the same with the flow of water from the river to the sea. It travels from pleasant valley then to mountains and reaches the sea,   overcoming all the hurdles as it had a determined aim of reaching its destination.

 

Yutang includes, Confucius saying in his essay about the Analects; that a person cannot understand and cannot appreciate a book if he doesn’t have a mature wisdom. If one read a book of changes at 45 he will not be able to get the thoughts and experience which a masterpiece is trying to convey to a 50 years reader. A reader reading the same book at different periods, get a different flavor out of it. Thus the author tries to say that all good books can be read with profit and renewed pleasure a second time. Then he went on to say that it is very difficult to find one’s favorite author. It completely depend on one’s intellectual dev elopement and reaching an author where spirit is akin with his own.

Conclusion:

Yutang essay “Art of Reading” stats that reading is an art it should be done based on one’s interest, age and the type of book been selected. Reading plays a vital role in making one proficient, efficient and knowledgeable person. He will become a person who is liked and called for giving suggestions/advice for any situation. The thoughts, conversations and writings of Bibliophile (Bookworm) will be appreciated by everyone around him as he has flavor and charm. Reading has to be done with interest and one has to scan the content of what he reads so as to develop his intellect.

 

ENGLISH IMPORTANT QUESTIONS FOR BBA T&T F&N

IMPORTANT QUESTION FOR ENGLISH SUBJECT (RISING SUN -1)

Essay questions from all 5 Units

1. How does the Lin Yutang bring out the importance of the Art of Reading?
2. Describe the does Lin Yutang bring out the difference between the life of the man who reads and the man who does not read.
3. How does Ayyar bring out his wit and scholarship in his discussion with Englishmen? Elucidate the title.
4. Bring out the important points the author was trying to convey in ‘How I Argued while in England.’
5. How did the ‘Merchant of Death’ become a ‘Messenger of Peace’?
6. Explain the significant traits in the character and personality of Alfred Nobel.
7. Give an account of Rachel Carson’s life and her achievements.
8. What were the different assignments given by the American Government to Carson. Explain.
9. How is death portrayed in Dickinson’s ‘Because I could not stop for Death’.
10. Describe the relationship between Emily Dickinson’s and her companion in the carriage.
11. ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ Contrasts the world of beauty with the world of human obligation. – Discuss.
12. Critically evaluate the journey in “Enterprise”.
13. Explain how the mystery of Oliver’s parentage is solved?
14. “Oliver Twist” portrays child Labour – Evaluate.
15. Discuss the characters of Nancy, Fagin and Mr. Brownlow.

Short Questions From All 5 Units

1. What is the key to all reading?
2. When can reading be called an art?
3. What is Lin Yutang’s concept of beauty?
4. What should Indians be able to do if they were really equal?
5. What is Ayya’s concept of completeness? How complete are humans when they are born?
6. How does Alfred Noble ‘a merchant of death’ turn to be ‘a messenger of peace’?
7. Name the title of the book written by Bertha and presented to Noble.
8. List out the different inventions/ discoveries done by Alfred Noble.
9. What was the assignment given to Carson by the Bureau of Fisheries? What did she do?
10. What was the impact of ‘Silent Spring’?
11. Name the occupants in the carriage.
12. What were the places which Emily passed in the poem ‘Because I could not stop for Death?
13. Where does Robert Frost stand?
14. What did the little horse think about Robert?
15. How do the pilgrims realize that home is the place where they can have grace?
16. What is an enterprise?
17. Which place the poet describes in ‘Notes Towards a poem that can never be written’.
18. Where is Oliver Twist born?
19. Write a short note on the death of Fagin.
20. Write a note on the conditions of the Workhouse and orphanages.

Merchant of death

Alferd Nobel was born On October 21, 1833 to immanuel Nobel in Stockholm, Sweden who was a famous scientist, inventor, businessman was called the ‘Merchant of Death’ for his invention of dynamite and explosives which was criticised for finding ways to kill people faster than ever and the most prestigious award is given after his name.

Alfred’s father was an engineer and inventor. He built bridges and buildings and experimented with different ways of blasting rocks.  Later, he moved to St. Petersburg, Russia and opened a mechanical workshop that provided equipment for the Russian army. He also made the Russian Tsar and his generals believe that sea mines could be used to stop enemy ships from entering and attacking St. Petersburg. The mines stopped the British Royal Navy from moving into firing range of St. Petersburg during the Crimean War in 1853-1856.

The four Nobel brothers were given first class education with the help of private tutors . At the age of 17, Alfred could speak and write in Swedish, Russian, French, English and German. Alfred travels abroad
as his father wanted him to follow his footsteps and increase business.

Alfred became very interested in nitroglycerine and how it could be used in construction work. When he returned back to Russia after his studies, he worked together with his father to develop nitroglycerine as a commercially and technically useful explosive. He concentrated on developing nitroglycerine as an explosive. Sadly, these experiments resulted in accidents that killed several people, including Alfred’s younger brother, Emil. The government decided to ban these experiments. But, Alfred did not give up and moved his experiments in 1864, he was able to start mass production of nitroglycerine but he did not stop experimenting with different additives to make the production much safer.

Alfred invents “dynamite”

Alfred found, through his experiments, that mixing nitroglycerine with a fine sand called kieselguhr would turn the liquid into paste and thus make it safe . The invention was made in 1866. Alfred got a patent or legal right of ownership on this material the next year. He named it “dynamite.”

Alfred was able to put up factories in 90 different places. He was described as “Europe’s richest vagabond.” He also experimented in making synthetic rubber and leather and artificial silk. By the time of his death in 1896 he had 355 patents.

Meets Bertha von Suttner

Alfred had no family of his own. One day, he announced in the newspapers for a secretary. An Austrian lady, Bertha gets that job. After working for a short time, she moved back to Austria to marry Count Arthur von Suttner.

Alfred and Bertha von Suttner remained friends and exchanged letters through the years. She later became very active in the peace movement. She wrote the famous book “Lay Down Your Arms.” When Alfred Nobel later wrote his will to establish the Nobel Prizes, he included a prize for persons or organizations who promoted peace.

Alfred died in San Remo, Italy on December 10, 1896. In his last will and testament, he wrote that much of his fortune was to be used to give prizes to those who have done their best for humanity in the field of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace.

In 1901, the first Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine and Literature were first awarded in Stockholm, Sweden and the Peace Prize in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway.

Write about Alfred Nobel invitions?
Alfred Nobel

He left his enormous savings to fund a set of prizes, called the Nobel Prizes, allegedly in his last will — which he signed on November 27 in 1895.

Some facts about the Merchant of Death, Alfred Nobel:

1. Nobel was always very interested in explosives and dynamite. Following his studies, he subsequently invented a detonator in 1863, and, in 1865, he designed the blasting cap.

2. In September 1864, a cabin which he was using for the preparation of Nitroglycerin exploded at the factory, killing five people, including Nobel’s younger brother Emil.

3. In 1888, Alfred’s brother Ludvig died while visiting Cannes and a French newspaper mistakenly published Alfred’s death with the title ‘The Merchant of Death is Dead’.

4. Thinking that he had passed away, the newspaper severely condemned him for his invention of dynamite. It also stated that “Dr Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”

5. Alfred was disappointed with what he read and became much concerned with how he would be remembered.

6. Nevertheless, Nobel carried on his experiments in other factories, and focused on improving the stability of the explosives he was developing.

7. Nobel invented the dynamite in 1867, a substance easier and safer to handle than the more unstable nitroglycerin.

8. In order to improve his image of a ‘Merchant of Death,’ Nobel considered naming the highly powerful substance ‘Nobel’s Safety Powder’, but settled with ‘Dynamite’ instead — which meant ‘power’ in Greek.

9. Nobel was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1884, the same institution that later selected laureates for the Nobel prizes.

10. On December 10, 1896, Alfred Nobel succumbed to a lingering heart ailment.

11. To clear his name, he left most of his wealth in a trust, in order to fund the awards that came to be known as the Nobel Prizes.

12. The Nobel Prizes were created as awards for people who made the greatest contributions to mankind in subjects that interested Alfred Nobel, namely Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature and Peace.

Oliver Twist – Fagin

Fagin

Although Dickens denied that anti-Semitism had influenced his portrait of Fagin, the Jewish thief’s characterization does seem to owe much to ethnic stereotypes. He is ugly, simpering, miserly, and avaricious. Constant references to him as “the Jew” seem to indicate that his negative traits are intimately connected to his ethnic identity. However, Fagin is more than a statement of ethnic prejudice. He is a richly drawn, resonant embodiment of terrifying villainy. At times, he seems like a child’s distorted vision of pure evil. Fagin is described as a “loathsome reptile” and as having “fangs such as should have been a dog’s or rat’s.” Other characters occasionally refer to him as “the old one,” a popular nickname for the devil. Oliver wakes up to find Fagin nearby. Oliver encounters him in the hazy zone between sleep and waking, at the precise time when dreams and nightmares are born from “the mere silent presence of some external object.” Indeed, Fagin is meant to inspire nightmares in child and adult readers alike. Perhaps most frightening of all, though, is Chapter 52, in which we enter Fagin’s head for his “last night alive.” The gallows, and the fear they inspire in Fagin, are a specter even more horrifying to contemplate than Fagin himself.

Oliver Twist -Nancy

Character of Nancy in Oliver Twist

Nancy

A major concern of Oliver Twist is the question of whether a bad environment can irrevocably poison someone’s character and soul. As the novel progresses, the character who best illustrates the contradictory issues brought up by that question is Nancy. As a child of the streets, Nancy has been a thief and drinks to excess. She wass immersed in the vices condemned by her society, but she also commits perhaps the most noble act in the novel when she sacrifices her own life in order to protect Oliver. Nancy’s moral complexity is unique among the major characters in Oliver Twist.The novel is full of characters who are all good and can barely comprehend evil, such as Oliver, Rose, and Brownlow; and characters who are all evil and can barely comprehend good, such as Fagin, Sikes, and Monks. Only Nancy comprehends and is capable of both good and evil. Her ultimate choice to do good at a great personal cost is a strong argument in favor of the incorruptibility of basic goodness, no matter how many environmental obstacles it may face.

Nancy’s love for Sikes exemplifies the moral ambiguity of her character. As she herself points out to Rose, devotion to a man can be “a comfort and a pride” under the right circumstances. But for Nancy, such devotion is “a new means of violence and suffering”—indeed, her relationship with Sikes leads her to criminal acts for his sake and eventually to her own demise. The same behavior, in different circumstances, can have very different consequences and moral significance. In much of Oliver Twist, morality and nobility are black-and-white issues, but Nancy’s character suggests that the boundary between virtue and vice is not always clearly drawn.

Oliver Twist Summary

Oliver Twist Summary
Oliver Twist is born in a workhouse in 1830s England. His mother, whose name no one knows, was found at the gate of an Orphanage and dies just after Oliver’s birth. Oliver spends the first nine years of his life in a badly run home for young orphans and then was transferred to a workhouse for adults. After the other boys bully Oliver into asking for more gruel at the end of a meal, Mr. Bumble, the parish beadle, offers five pounds to anyone who will take the boy away from the workhouse. Oliver narrowly escapes being apprenticed to a brutish chimney sweep and was eventually apprenticed to a local undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry. When the undertaker’s other apprentice, Noah Claypole, makes disparaging comments about Oliver’s mother, Oliver attacks him and incurs the Sowerberrys’ wrath. Desperate, Oliver runs away at dawn and travels toward London.

Outside London, Oliver, starved and exhausted, meets Jack Dawkins, a boy his own age. Jack offers him shelter in the London house of his benefactor, Fagin. It turns out that Fagin was a career criminal who trains orphan boys to pick pockets for him. After a few days of training, Oliver was sent on a pickpocketing mission with two other boys. When he sees them swipe a handkerchief from an elderly gentleman, Oliver is horrified and runs off. He is caught but narrowly escapes being convicted of the theft. Mr. Brownlow, the man whose handkerchief was stolen, takes the feverish Oliver to his home and nurses him back to health. Mr. Brownlow is struck by Oliver’s resemblance to a portrait of a young woman that hangs in his house. Oliver thrives in Mr. Brownlow’s home, but two young adults in Fagin’s gang, Bill Sikes and his lover Nancy, capture Oliver and return him to Fagin.

Fagin sends Oliver to assist Sikes in a burglary. Oliver was shot by a servant of the house and, after Sikes escapes, was taken in by the women who live there, Mrs. Maylie and her beautiful adopted niece Rose. They grow fond of Oliver, and he spends an idyllic summer with them in the countryside. But Fagin and a mysterious man named Monks are set on recapturing Oliver. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Oliver’s mother left behind a gold locket when she died. Monks obtains and destroys that locket. When the Maylies come to London, Nancy meets secretly with Rose and informs her of Fagin’s designs, but a member of Fagin’s gang overhears the conversation. When word of Nancy’s disclosure reaches Sikes, he brutally murders Nancy and flees London. Pursued by his guilty conscience and an angry mob, he inadvertently hangs himself while trying to escape.
Mr. Brownlow, with whom the Maylies have reunited Oliver, confronts Monks and wrings the truth about Oliver’s parentage from him. It was revealed that Monks is Oliver’s half brother. Their father, Mr. Leeford, was unhappily married to a wealthy woman and had an affair with Oliver’s mother, Agnes Fleming. Monks has been pursuing Oliver all along in the hopes of ensuring that his half-brother is deprived of his share of the family inheritance. Mr. Brownlow forces Monks to sign over Oliver’s share to Oliver. Moreover, it was discovered that Rose is Agnes’s younger sister, hence Oliver’s aunt. Fagin is hung for his crimes. Finally, Mr. Brownlow adopts Oliver, and they and the Maylies retire to a blissful existence in the countryside.