Before children are released back into the community from our tender care at the end of the day, they are not allowed to pass through the gate and out into the real world until they can point to a parent waiting for them.
One girl in my class excitedly pointed through the fence at a shadowy figure and gibbered out that it was her mother. I asked her how she was so sure, “Ask you mother a question to prove that she is your mum!” I said.
The girl thought for a moment and then innocently asked, “Is it true that you have 42 years?” Collapse of all concerned to the bemusement of the girl herself!
It is not often that you get a smile at the end of a hard week. I took it as a good sign for the rest of the weekend.
I have borrowed another book from the shelf of books in English in school: ‘Vittorio the Vampire’ by Anne Rice.
One girl in my class excitedly pointed through the fence at a shadowy figure and gibbered out that it was her mother. I asked her how she was so sure, “Ask you mother a question to prove that she is your mum!” I said.
The girl thought for a moment and then innocently asked, “Is it true that you have 42 years?” Collapse of all concerned to the bemusement of the girl herself!
It is not often that you get a smile at the end of a hard week. I took it as a good sign for the rest of the weekend.
I have borrowed another book from the shelf of books in English in school: ‘Vittorio the Vampire’ by Anne Rice.
It is truly awful little potboiler. Within the first few pages her central character writes, “I have been in bed with the dead since 1450’ – well, he is a vampire after all! But, lest we should think that we are going to be treated with a faux piece of historical writing we are assured that we should not “look here, please, for antique language. You will not find a rigid fabricated English meant to conjure castle walls by stilted diction and constricted vocabulary.”
And she’s right.
What you find instead is sloppy language which uses lazy anachronisms in expression as a short hand way to vague period authenticity.
Considering our central character has “devoured over four centuries of English, from the plays of Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson to the abrupt and harshly evocative words of a Sylvester Stallone movie,” his language is signally lacking in verve and interest.
I suppose it is disingenuous to feel that my choice of a novel with a title like ‘Vittorio the Vampire’ lacks profundity, but it does. I suppose that the story of how a privileged noble Renaissance Italian boy becomes seduced into becoming a vampire after his heroic vendetta against the un-dead who slaughtered his family is something more for the beach than the study!
I should have waited for more sun and sand!
And she’s right.
What you find instead is sloppy language which uses lazy anachronisms in expression as a short hand way to vague period authenticity.
Considering our central character has “devoured over four centuries of English, from the plays of Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson to the abrupt and harshly evocative words of a Sylvester Stallone movie,” his language is signally lacking in verve and interest.
I suppose it is disingenuous to feel that my choice of a novel with a title like ‘Vittorio the Vampire’ lacks profundity, but it does. I suppose that the story of how a privileged noble Renaissance Italian boy becomes seduced into becoming a vampire after his heroic vendetta against the un-dead who slaughtered his family is something more for the beach than the study!
I should have waited for more sun and sand!
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