Vocabulary: Practice vocabulary on vocabulary.com. Take test online when you feel you are ready to!
Grammar packet: Turn in grammar packet today.
WRITING: Work on short story.
MADONNAS:
Post a response to questions 1-3 from earlier post of discussion questions.
- The working of memory is a key theme of this novel. As a young woman, remembering the missing paintings is a deliberate act of survival and homage for Marina. In old age, however, she can no longer control what she remembers or forgets. "More distressing than the loss of words is the way that time contracts and fractures and drops her in unexpected places." How has Dean used the vagaries of Marina's memory to structure the novel? How does the narrative itself mimic the ways in which memory functions?
- Sometimes, Marina finds consolations within the loss of her short-term memory. "One of the effects of this deterioration seems to be that as the scope of her attention narrows, it also focuses like a magnifying glass on smaller pleasures that have escaped her notice for years." Is aging merely an accumulation of deficits or are there gifts as well?
- The narrative is interspersed with single-page chapters describing a room or a painting in the Hermitage Museum. Who is describing these paintings and what is the significance of the paintings chosen? How is each interlude connected to the chapter that follows?
1. It goes back in time, to reminisce of old memories rather than focusing on the present, which seems more slow and saddening. It's used to give us background information so we can understand why things are the way they are, too.
ReplyDelete2. There are gifts. Some can be knowledgeable and wise, and others can be helped and brought back up. Sometimes just being able to relax and sleep is enough for some people. Knowing someone is there for you is also a positive.
3. Marina is describing the paintings, the significance depends on what she's thinking about. If she is trying to remember something, she might drift back to when they were packing and remember a painting instead. It is what she was doing for a while, safely putting paintings away.
1. The way the way the book is structured is like that of real memories. They're random, and don't come up in any particular order at all. It shows why we are like what we are, and gives incite on how we function.
ReplyDelete2. Aging does have it's gifts. You get to see the world in a new light that you might not've when you were younger. You get to cherish the things you have, and what you had. You get to watch everyone around you grow.
3. The person describing the paintings is Marina, and it's important because it shows what exactly she's remembering. The interludes introduce what is going to happen next.
-Aryonna and Pia
1. The novel explains her story non-linearly, using her bouncing memory as a tool. It explains the story in a way that leaves you hanging enough that you want to keep reading, but not too much that you have no idea what's going on.
ReplyDelete2. There are advantages. You have gained a lot of experience and you can relive them. The smaller pleasures are also magnified so you can enjoy those more.
3. Marina is the one describing those paintings. The significance of the paintings is that it's correlated to other moments in the story. In the following chapter there is usually some reference to that painting.