The Sound of Stories - FINALISTS

We had a lot of entries by students from Negreira, Ordes, Ribeira, Sar and Vite. Thank you very much to all of you for your stories, they were really interesting to read. High literary level too, so it was difficult to choose the finalists, but here are 15 stories for your enjoyment. Please, read and vote for your favorite!

1. The daily melody
Today it was also with me. It’s the daily melody that accompanies me a long time ago. A melody that mixes the horrible noise of the alarm clock or phone, with the soft sounds of the water of the shower or walk through the field. It’s always there, accompanying me, always faithful, day after day. Sometimes I wonder how I have come to this situation. And, suddenly, I remember: It’s the melody of civilization. It is the price to pay for living in it. And I stay quiet again. And tomorrow, as a merry-go-round, return to start.


2. Bad
This is the sound... the bad sound, this is the day... the bad day. I need to be clean today, after I am going to be dirty... maybe tomorrow. Before I need to have a dirty breakfast... like my life. Am I afraid...? No, not really. The phone!!!... the bad sound of the phone... Nobody answers, but it’s better, I am a bad man, and I have a bad goal today. It is the moment, people call me, maybe a good day for a bad day for somebody. I am a bad boy in a bad day.

3. Never alone
I’d always wanted my grandmother´s house. It’s cozy and has a small garden. Five months ago, I moved there. Since then I don’t live alone. When her alarm clock rings, I rise and we start our daily routine. I’m a writer and work at home because this house is very inspiring. But when she’s bored she plays around. She phones me or rings the doorbell. There’s never anybody. She makes me walk around the house like a cat and mouse game. I can hear my grandmother’s ghost steps on the bed of leaves going away through the garden.

4. Back in Wonderland
It's a sunny day. I'm with Alice, the Rabbit and the Mad Hatter. A lovely carousel goes round and round. The alarm sounds. Damn! It's Monday! I get in the shower thinking about the beautiful feather hat of the Mad Hatter, I prepare coffee while I´m thinking about the White Rabbit... I would like to live adventures every day in Wonderland...The phone rings, but it's too late. Who was it? Don't know... The doorbell rings. I open the door and... here's the Hatter. While I leave home the music sounds, the carousel appears and here I am, in Wonderland.


5. IN LATE AUTUMN (mixed feelings)
Another day, another lie
This time, I’ll dare tell you.
I don’t want to hear that voice, again.
HOPELESS, HOPEFUL
I’ll make this all just one dream!
Ding, Dong!!! Who will it be!!!
Can´t I cry my pity?
I can’t read, my tears hinder.
EXCITED, EASE.
I walk slowly, hearing a squeak in autumn.
The sun is still in the sky and shining above me
I feel like shouting, laughing, singing, loving....
I hear the child’s smile
ENJOY, HARMLESS

6. Sophie
From my bed I could hear neighbours going into the stony path to feed the birds. When the alarm clock went off I was still awake, in my head was beating the tick-tock of the clock and the picture of Sophie in the bath. I could still feel her blood running down my body while I was hugging her tight against my chest. Later chaos came; the phone and doorbell rang steadily. Quickly the house was full of people, dolls, toy carousels and sweets. I still don't quite understand how my wife could give birth to Sophie in the bath.

7. The signal
The silence of the room was only broken by the ticking of the alarm clock, but she didn't open her eyes. Later she had a shower, prepared a cup of coffee and drank it while looking through the window . It was raining. How long had she been hiding there? Days, weeks… The insults, the punches, his cruelty... resounded still inside herself. Somebody phoned her, but nobody uttered a word. The signal! The bell rang, she opened the door anxiously and walked along the gravel path towards the car. The cheerful music of a new life began to sound!


8. HopeAfter thinking of her all night, he knew there was no way back. The ticking of the clock was his only friend during useless thoughts. He turned off the alarm clock and woke up, maybe a hot shower and a hot cup of coffee would turn him back to reality. It was pouring, the sound of a phone broke the silence. He picked up but nobody answered, he looked at the door and the bell rang, he opened it hoping she was there. Love’s like being lost in a forest, hope is the music that allows us to keep dreaming.

9. Flying high
Like every morning for the last sixty years, Ana turned off her alarm clock and woke up; prepared to face another routinary day. While having her breakfast, the doorbell broke the silence. Ana picked up the phone but nobody answered. ‘Would it be the call which she’d been waiting for so long?’ After a while, somebody knocked on the door. Ana smiled; the moment had come! She opened the door and walked to the big circus tent. In the end, she would be able to fulfill her dream. Just little before she died, Ana would become a trapeze artist.

10. Oh Alice!
An alarm clock? Where am I? I see a bathroom, I take a shower, MMMMM smells good! Coffee, eggs, who made breakfast? Riiing! Hello!­, no one, ding dong, my red shoes knock on the floor, I find the door and open it, a chorus of birds greets me, a man with a long white beard looks at me, gives me a ring, smiles and goes walking on the grass, I follow him to a village, what is Gandalf doing in Oz if the music I hear is from another film?
ALICE, WHAT KIND OF MUSHROOMS DID YOU GIVE ME?

11. Lady Duplo
Lady Duplo truly thinks that her lucky number is two. For that reason she waited so long for today, the second of the second, to be the greatest day. Her clock rang twice and she went to take a shower and soaped herself two times. She let the phone ring twice before answering it and she prepared a bouquet with two flowers, but when Tom knocked on the door............ only once!......... lady Duplo worried............. but she, looking at him, felt doubly happy, because Tom, who will be her husband in two hours, made two hearts beat inside her.

12. Trapped
My heart’s beating faster than the alarm. A shower? What for? What I did has stained me forever. Now that he is absent, the coffee maker, the frying pans, breakfast time… everything turns so unfamiliar… The phone rings. My mother. She knows what I have done. No more blows now, no more cries. I get out. As I penetrate into the forest, the sound of the leaves makes me feel more alive. Am I free? Perhaps I am more imprisoned than ever. Trapped inside myself, entrapped by my conscience.


13. Destination unknown
The day everything was over began like any other day two years ago. That night, as usual, Leia barely slept. After switching off the useless alarm, she started her routine: a quick shower, scrambled eggs and coffee for breakfast… Then, her phone rang. Leia answered it, expecting to hear the voice of another agent. Instead, somebody hung up. She immediately knew what it meant, and the doorbell ringing confirmed her suspicions. She opened and no one was outside. Strangely calm, she took out her guns and walked into the forest. Maybe they caught her, but she wouldn't make it easy.

14. Yellowknife
“Morning awakening is the time I expect the most everyday. I love how Miley stretches herself to leave the warmth I breathe in. She moves into the bathroom and feels how water gives her a new, fluent, appearance. We left Tri-Cities under an unusual rain."

‘Jared, please, stop scribbling and answer the phone, will you?’ ‘Too late, no answer’ Someone’s just rung. Miley opened the door. Surprised, she could see an old man crossing the backyard. Miley´s (formerly Rayon´s) childhood spun one more time in the carousel. Stared at by his father, hieratic. He turned as pale as snow.

15. Synesthetic breath
These four windowless walls of my writing protect me from the stabs that sunlight settles on my ears, soaking me completely deaf facing the brightness of your lifestyle which blinds my eyes with just a clock whisper. I ask whether this faint hypoallergenic world of silence where I'm captive may become better than the outside world you perceive, in which you want to talk but nobody listens, where your steps make you the companion of death during the stroll to the end of everything and nothingness, where our worlds become the chilling smell of scream of the last breath.

LINK to the sound file that served as inspiration.

THE SOUND OF STORIES - Short Story Contest

Short story contest of the year!
Do you feel like writing but the muses don’t visit you anymore? Listen to the soundtrack we suggest and get inspired! We can think of no better way to celebrate World Book Day than reading and writing stories. And, of course, winning prizes for writing them!
To enter the contest, read the Terms and Conditions and download the Soundtrack

Problems? Send an email to: thesoundofstories@gmail.com

Thanks to Mariló Vélez for the idea and for organising it!

SCOUT AS AN ADULT. Harper Lee to publish new book, Go Set a Watchman

Last year we read the novel To Kill a Mockingbird in our book club and I think most of you liked it, so what do you think of this piece of news? Apparently Harper Lee wrote this novel before To Kill a Mockingbird, but it is set 20 years later, when Scout is already an adult.

Penguin Random House said that the new novel sees Scout “forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand both her father’s attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood”.

It will definitely be in my reading list!

BOOKS vs E-BOOKS

As some of you know, I am still not a convert to e-books. I hold on to paper books and only occasionally have I read books using an e-reader. The Hundred Foot Journey is one of them, but I must confess I had my notebook and pen close to my borrowed Kindle :) I still need to take notes and to have a visual, touchable map of what I'm reading.

That is the reason why I like this Ikea campaign to promote their paper catalogue. Having set foot in one of their stores only once, and unable to buy anything at all, I am still a fan of their advertising campaigns :)

THE HUNDRED "FOOD" JOURNEY

So, this is the first book we are reading for book club this year, and ain't it interesting? The first part of the book takes us to India. You can feel the pungent smells, the spicy scent of cinammon, curry and cardamom...

The expeditions to the markets with Hassan's mom and dad (and how different those trips are). I thoroughly enjoyed this first part, and it is also a fast historical overview of the British Empire losing grip of India.

I must say this first part made me think of a Hindi movie I watched some time ago, The Lunchbox, mostly at the beginning when they talk about the dabbawala business. The Lunchbox is an epistolary romantic movie, but I think it also taps into many different issues in Indian society, such as loneliness, unhappy marriages or women's emancipation.

I have only just started the second part, which moves to London.

I am actually quite enjoying the book, especially the graphic images Morais uses, like the one about the octopus which appears at the beginning of the second part. You'll know what I'm talking about when you get to it :) or if you have already read it, I am sure it's made an impression on you too.

I certainly hope you book clubbers are also having a good time whilst reading the book. In Ribeira we will be meeting on DECEMBER 9th to discuss just half of the book so that will certainly be exciting. Can't wait!

SALMAN RUSHDIE on García Márquez

I did not want to make the previous entry too long, but this is a really good essay by Rushdie paying homage to Gabriel García Márquez, "Gabo". I love the parallelism he establishes with Faulkner too.

"The trouble with the term “magic realism,” el realismo mágico, is that when people say or hear it they are really hearing or saying only half of it, “magic,” without paying attention to the other half, “realism.” But if magic realism were just magic, it wouldn’t matter. It would be mere whimsy — writing in which, because anything can happen, nothing has effect. It’s because the magic in magic realism has deep roots in the real, because it grows out of the real and illuminates it in beautiful and unexpected ways, that it works. "

GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ: A Life in Pictures

The Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, who has died aged 87, helped to ignite the worldwide boom in Spanish literature with novels such as 100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. Here The Guardian celebrates his life with a selection of images charting his journey from childhood in northern Colombia to global literary titan.

And an interview with Isabel Allende where she remembers the life and legacy of late writer Gabriel García Márquez. She reads from his landmark novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and talks about how García Márquez influenced generations of thinkers and writers in Latin America and across the world. "He’s the master of masters," Allende says. "In a way, he conquered readers and conquered the world, and told the world about us, Latin Americans, and told us who we are. In his pages, we saw ourselves in a mirror." Allende describes the first time she read "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and how it impacted her. "It was as if someone was telling me my own story," she says. We also air video of García Márquez in his own words and hear Democracy Now! co-host Juan González read from "The General in His Labyrinth."

To Kill a Mockingbird and Censorship

Remember we were talking about this book being censored in some states? Here's a website with some details on the subject.

Even though it has been deemed classic literature, “To Kill a Mockingbird” still finds itself on the banned books list. The racial content, profanity, and references to rape have caused many to challenge the book and have the novel removed from school libraries and classrooms.

Throughout the novel, vulgar language is used causing many to disagree with the use of “To Kill a Mockingbird” in classrooms. Words such as “damn” and “nigger” are used over and over which many find offensive. The fact that the young children characters are the one’s using this profanity causes many to question the novel and don’t want their children using that type of language because children in the book do.

Race is a constant theme in “To Kill a Mockingbird” which parents find as an excellent example to challenge the book. The Tom Robinson rape case shows that even though he is innocent, he is convicted because of his race. It’s stated several times throughout the book a black person will always be convicted if it’s a white person accusing them. Colored women are depicted as the “help” because they cook, clean, and take care of children for the white families. Racial slurs such as “nigger lover” are used which many find offensive and promotes racism and inequality of the races. This term is a main reason for challenging and banning “To Kill a Mockingbird”.

While Lee presents the idea and concept of rape in a mature way, many find the discussion of rape inappropriate for their children to read. The entire second half of the book is dedicated to telling the story of Tom Robinsons’ rape case and the trial which most find unsuitable and use against schools to ban the book.

The Time Keeper and After The Quake

I love reading while traveling, it makes the flights endurable and it adds value to my trips, because it brings together two of my greatest passions, reading and traveling. This was one of those books that I just grabbed because the blurb looked interesting. It is VERY EASY to read - short sequences, direct language, simple plot - so it's a good one to read even if your English level is not that high. I mean, you'll learn English and still enjoy the fun of a good plot.

Here's an extract from a review, whose opinion I share.

The Time Keeper is one of those books that, despite almost farcical sequences, works because of its message. Albom’s style of writing is fluent, simple and with an emphasis on brevity. It explores time from various aspects: its creation, its use and abuse and how its value varies from person to person.

It is not easy to imagine a world without timekeeping and yet, Albom’s right: the more we count time — and there are many ways of counting it — the more misery it creates. “Man alone measures time. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.”

Another lovely, easy-to-read book. And a pleasure to read too! Here's an extract from a review too.

Each of these stories, as their collective title suggests, takes place in the aftermath of the Kobe earthquake, but because none of them is directly linked to it, they allow Murakami to examine its effects obliquely, from within his own infinitely nuanced metaphysical world.

If an earthquake is what happens beneath the ground, beyond our sight and immediate comprehension, then so too are our individual lives shaped by psychological and emotional tremors that we find hard to grasp, and subject to numerous unpredictable and violent aftershocks.

AUSTEN… AGAIN

So here we are, new year and old authors revisited. I was surprised to see we open 2014 with a new film revisiting Jane Austen. I don't know whether it will polish or bust the myth, it looks more like the second to me, sorry. 

The film is based on a novel by Shannon Hale (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Hess) and is officially described on the author's site as follows: Jane Hayes is a seemingly normal young New Yorker, but she has a secret. Her obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of "Pride & Prejudice," is ruining her love life: no real man can compare. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women, Jane's fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become realer than she ever could have imagined.Decked out in empire-waist gowns, Jane struggles to master Regency etiquette and flirts with gardeners and gentlemen or maybe even, she suspects, with the actors who are playing them. It's all a game, Jane knows. And yet the longer she stays, the more her insecurities seem to fall away, and the more she wonders: Is she about to kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?Russell will play the part of Jane with Feild playing a Darcy-impersonator who works for the resort.

On the bright side, the movie has brought back a lot of discussion about Jane Austen and her novels, which makes me really happy.

And you, austenite or not? Will you watch the movie?

Reading in Galician - FANECA BRAVA

I've just finished reading this novel, which I came across quite accidentally and it was a real pleasure to read, and a nice surprise. It is a page-turner, and I personally enjoyed Portas's skillful use of language, poetic yet dynamic. 

Here's a small extract from a review:

Trátase dunha intriga ben artellada e dunha novela coidadosamente escrita, cuxa lectura engancha e seduce. Ese coidado na escrita, que tanto se agradece, non a converte, porén, nunha lectura difícil, senón fluída e rápida a medida que se van desvelando misterios e se quere saber máis. 

And an interview with the author:

HAVISHAM - Prelude to Great Expectations

I quite enjoyed Great Expectations, and Miss Havisham was quite a disturbing character. This book by Ronald Frame presents itself as the prequel to Great Expectations.

Here's an extract from a review:

The greatest difficulty with Havisham, however, lies at the very heart of the endeavour. Frame seeks to recast Miss Havisham as a woman of flesh and blood, driven mad by heartbreak, but that is to miss the point of Dickens's creation. Miss Havisham is not an elusive ghost like Brontë's Bertha but nor is she real, as Pip is real. She is an illusion of startling intensity, like the gods of fable or the witch in a fairy story. Trapped in her mausoleum of a house, the embodiment of disillusionment and bitterness, of a life wasted and anguish turned inside out, she derives her power from her otherness. By making a real person of her, Frame is obliged not only to scale her down to human size but to explain all the awkward logistical quibbles that Dickens imperiously overlooked. In so doing, he diminishes both her majestic inhumanity and her terrible pathos, and loosens her hold over our imaginations.

HOTELS and BOOKS

Remember our literary tour in New York?

It turns out the idea of hotels and books is actually catching up in other places too (Miami, London, Ireland). I hate hotels, so those which add a library or a reading room… well, it's definitely a perk, isn't it? According to this article, "… newer literary-minded hotels are establishing places for the reader and brewer to go that, in the best cases, further an understanding of the destination".

I would love to stay at Ballyfin Hotel above, for example :)

WRITING BECOMING A BROADCAST SPECTACLE

Who would be brave enough to combine writing and a reality show? Well, the Italians, of course. Here's the idea: a show in which inspiring authors vie at literary challenges until one contestant wins a major book deal - and some level of publicity.

Don't be too eager to criticize the initiative. Let's wait and see!

More info here.

DORIS LESSING DIES

Sad news today, hearing about the death of Doris Lessing. Tributes pour in for Nobel prize-winning author of over 50 novels including The Golden Notebook. Our personal homage here:

An extract of "Fable", one of her poems:

But for a while the dance went on -
That is how it seems to me now:
Slow forms moving calm through
Pools of light like gold net on the floor.
It might have gone on, dream-like, for ever.

And a short interview:

And a Guardian article:

"After 40 years of being shortlisted, Lessing at 87 was the oldest winner of the literature prize, and only the 11th female winner in its then 104-year history. What a pity, she scolded, that Virginia Woolf wasn't number four or five. The Swedish academy (which, according to Lessing, had publicly disapproved of her in the 1970s), described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". The Golden Notebook, published 45 years before, was commended as a "pioneering work" that "belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th-century view of the male-female relationship". Read the whole article here.

LITERARY GRAFFITI

Check out this website where you can see 20 awesome examples of literary graffiti. Wouldn't it be awesome to have some of them in our town?

And speaking of graffiti, I love this Parisian initiative.

RUNNING AND READING

It must be that the race season is on for me, but I've been thinking a lot about Will Smith's speech on running and reading, two of my great passions in life. I know it's not too elaborate and it seems pretty simple... however I love it and it helps me build up my stamina!

“The keys to life are running and reading. When you're running, there's a little person that talks to you and says, "Oh I'm tired. My lung's about to pop. I'm so hurt. There's no way I can possibly continue." You want to quit. If you learn how to defeat that person when you're running. You will how to not quit when things get hard in your life. For reading: there have been gazillions of people that have lived before all of us. There's no new problem you could have--with your parents, with school, with a bully. There's no new problem that someone hasn't already had and written about it in a book.”

FIRST BOOK (Ribeira): Summer Lies

The first book we'll read in our book club in Ribeira will be Summer Lies, a collection of 7 short stories by Bernhard Schlink, a German author who may sound familiar to you because he is the author of Der Verleser (The Reader), a novel "about a teenager who has an affair with a woman in her 30es who suddenly vanishes but whom he meets again as a law student when visiting a trial about war crimes" (Wikipedia). The book became a bestseller both in Germany and the USA and was translated into 39 languages, including Spanish. There is also a movie (see trailer below).

This movie and book are available in our library in Ribeira if you wish to borrow them.

And about Summer Lies, here are some extracts from two reviews:


"Unlike many novelists, who use short fiction as a rest stop on the highway to longer works, Schlink seems to have lingered with these stories. Each story in “Summer Lies” has heft, solidity — even more of an accomplishment given the delicate, fleeting emotions it captures." (The NY Times)

"The stories in "Summer Lies" tell of Germans living in the present with ordinary if somewhat cerebral lives. They're all successful professionals. University professors, jurists or writers — all jobs Schlink himself has held over the years.


The best of the seven stories are powerful and deeply moving meditations on family life, love and duty. As in "The Reader," Schlink and his spare, unassuming prose mask big artistic ambitions — he's trying to untangle the complicated, contradictory ways Germans of his time have defined success and happiness."(LA Times).


The meeting to discuss the book will take place on JANUARY 15th. Happy reading!

FIGHT THE SUMMER SLIDE! PREPARE A SUMMER READING LIST

It's almost official, the academic year at the Official School of Languages is over, you're probably taking your final tests, over the moon because you've passed all the skills or trying to put together a working plan to pass those skills you need to retake in September.

In any case, SUMMER READING combats "summer slide", a term mainly applied to children who stop reading over the summer. "Summer slide" means that students actually lose somem of the reading skills they gained during the school year and start the new one behind where they finished the last. Active reading during the summer months prevents summer slide.

In our case, as adult language learners, we are not immune to "summer slide" and it is normally worse because not only do we fail to read, but also to do other things in English (speak, listen, write,...) and then when we come back in September we feel words fail us. So how about coming up with a plan to prevent that?

There are some websites, like this one (NYC), this one (Oprah's suggestions), this one (reading lists suggested by TEDsters) or this one (by Publisher's Weekly) which already provide you with a list of suggested books (fiction, non-fiction, adults, children,...).

If you'd rather create your own, go ahead! And of course, you're more than welcome to suggest your recommendations in this blog.

As for me, I've already started Life of Pi. I really enjoyed the movie, and Paul has been suggesting this book for book club since year one. Maybe it's time to give it a try! :) Next on the list is La Reina Descalza and then we'll see.

HAPPY SUMMER AND READ ON!

J.K. ROWLING'S THOUGHTS ON HARRY POTTER GO ON SALE

Sotheby's is auctioning first edition books with handwritten notes by the authors and the top lot is the first Harry Potter novel containing revealing commentary by J.K. Rowling. Watch a video about it here.

How much would you be willing to pay? Do you collect rare editions of books, books signed by the author, special editions or book memorabilia?