fredag 30 november 2012

Part 5

Finally the last part of this book project! It's been interesting and I've become more comfortable with reading in english. I've already praised this book in almost every post but I guess I have to do it again. I loved the book, it's just my type of genre but I'm not sure everyone would enjoy it. I'm a fan of everything that's a bit weird and out of the ordinary, some people like the common and what's considerd normal and that's alright too.
I really liked the characters, especially the indian, you really get a sense of what it's like to be him. McMurphy is ofcourse a interesting man aswell, although a bit irritating. He's a bit like a five year old kid, "look at me look at me look at me!". The nurse gives me some serious chills, what an unpleasant woman she seems to be. I like the plot but then again I'm a sucker for mental hospital stories. It's truly a beautiful story in a way, although a bit dirty on the sides. I've already commented on how much I like the language the book is written in, I really like Ken Kesey's style. It's different and very bold I can imagine, since the book was published in 1962. One thing I'll have in mind after this project is to keep on reading english books. I read a lot of book written by english authors and I think it's always best to read a book in it's original language if possible.

Letter:

Dear Mr. Kesey

I'd like to start with a thank you. Thank you for writing this book and for having the courage to publish it. I can imagine what kind of critisism you got in the 60's when the book was published. I think it's very important that more books like this gets out in the public, stories about mental illness are often portrayed in a unfavorable way of the people with a mental condition. I did not get that feeling at all when I read your book, I thought that the people that suppoused to be sane seemed to be the most insane at times. My favourite character in this book is ofcourse the indian. It's just pure beauty when he breaks out of his shell, thanks to McMurphy. I think the book raises important questions. What's really crazy, and who? What makes us more sane than the people in the mental hospital, maybe we're just better at pretending to be normal?
Thank you once again for giving me a great reading experience, and that you broadened my view on how you can experiment with the english language.

Story:


There once was a woman called Mary. She was a very old woman and she lived all by herself in a little cabin in the woods. She always wore old fashioned dresses and on top of that a tailormade coatee. The people in the village nearby thought she was wicked, a cranky old lady that sulked all the time. That was not true at all, Mary was just afraid to cause a racket and she did not want to cause a nuisance. She almost never went to the village and when she did, she held on tight to her wicker and cane. The only time she went to the village was if she was out of supplies such as sugar or flour, and when she went to the market she was so nervous that she fumbled and jumbled and acted very fidgety. She was so nervous that if someone came to close she snarled without meaning to.

On day Mary had to go to the village to buy supplies so she could bake a cake. She went to the store to buy some milk. There was a new man working in the store, a man she had not seen before. He looked a bit crummy, he had stubble on his chin, deep creases on his forehead, he had squinty eyes and when Mary came up to him she noticed that he trembled. He was sweeping the floor and as she got closer to him he looked up with a very bashful, almost hostile look on his face. Mary looked around in the store and noticed that the shoppers looked at him in a very unkind way. She was not the type of lady that spoke to strangers, or anyone at all, she had no peers, but when she stood before the man she heard herself say “Hello!”.  The man squinted back at her and looked very cornered. “Do you work here?” Mary asked the man. “I’m merely an aide.” He replied. He seems mannerly, Mary thought to herself, although his hair is a bit ruffled. He seems to be lonely, just like me. She really surprised herself when she said “Maybe you would like to help me with some baking? I live in a cabin a few miles from here”. He looked back at her, almost with an enthused look on his face. “I’d love that. But why do you want to invite me to your home, can’t you see the way the people look at me? They’re all afraid of me and I have no friends at all”. Mary looked at him, almost maudlin. “I know what it’s like to be an outcast, I know it all too well”. “What’s your name?” she asked the man. “Mark” he replied. Mary smiled at him and said “Mark and Mary, that sounds good to me.”

onsdag 21 november 2012

Part 4

Time for part 4, I'm almost at the end!

My reading has been going fairly good this week, I'm almost happy that I'll soon be done reading this book, then I can watch the movie again and compare it to the book. The one thing I find a bit difficult about this assignment is the part when we have to do the wordlist. I'd like to make a list of words that I don't know the meaning of, but it's harder than you might think. Guess I have a good english vocabulary, the spelling is the hard part.

The first blog I commented on was this : http://skolbloggen.ratata.fi/
It catched my eye mostly because the writer had a post with a Joy Division video, one of my all time favourite bands! He also chose a book that seems really good, Fear and loathing in Las Vegas. As a 60's fan I think I would like that book a lot.

The second one that catched my eye was this one : http://leobackman.wordpress.com/
This blogger writes really good in english and I try to pick blogs that have long posts, not just a few sentences. High fidelity seems like a book that I would enjoy, this project is really great that way, we get a lot of book-tips!

The last one I commented on was: http://johndoe0451.blogspot.fi/
I found this blog because the blogger commented on another blog, and I thought it was funny so I visited johndoe0451 and I liked the blog. He picked a George Orwell book that I've read in swedish, 1984. This blogger is also a good writer, you can tell who of the bloggers is used to read english books and who's not. This is a good way to practise!

tisdag 13 november 2012

Part 3

Here I am again, past deadline as always. My reading has been going well although a little bit slow. Working 40+ hours a week makes you a bit tired (poor excuse, I know). Anyway, I still like the book a lot and I'm really curious about what McMurphy might do next, he sure is a trouble maker. I've learned, ones again, that reading in english just is a little bit more difficult than reading in swedish, and it takes more time!

I don't know if the incident I picked is the most important one but it's one of those incidents that makes you think "Well, all hell is going to break loose now.". McMurphy ones again got on the Big Nurse's nerves, he made the paitients on the ward leave their duties and they all just sat around the tv and ignored her. After that the doctors and nurses had a meeting about McMurphy and they are talking about sending him to another hospital, a far more worse than the one his in now. I don't know if they are going to go through with the plans, but I'm shure McMurphy's in for a lot of trouble..

Reminisce - Minnas
Peers - Kamrater
Maudlin - Gråtmild
Monotony - Monotoni
Pathology - Patologi
Merely - Bara
Aide - Medhjälpare
Enthused - Entusiastisk
Ruffled - Ruffsig
Flurry - Uppsjö
Brim - Rand, kant
Rattle - Rassla
Mannerly - Väluppfostrad
Enforce - Genomdriva
Mist - Dimma
Regulation - Reglering
Chasm - Klyfta
Buck - Dollar
Notion - Begrepp
Noteworthy - Anmärkningsvärd




tisdag 6 november 2012

Part 2

I've been reading One flew over the Cuckoos nest for a couple of weeks now but I've been a little slow when it comes to updating my blog.

After reading another fifty pages from the book I like it even more than I did in the beginning. It's a little difficult reading it though, beacuse it's so well written that all the horrible things that happens in the mental hospital gives you quite a few scary images in your head if you've got a good imagination. The few scenes from the movie that I can remember doesn't compare to the book, as it usually is. So far I've learned more about the english language when it comes to slang, because there's many slang words in the book and when the characters speak it's written exactly as it would sound like in reality, so sometimes you're not really shure what they actually say.

As I said before, when the characters speak, it's not formal, especially when one of the main characters McMurphy has something to say. Here's two examples:

"Is this the usual pro-cedure for these Group The'rpy shindings? Bunch of chickens at a peckin' party?"

"There! Damn you right there! That's where I want you workin' not gawkin' around like som big useless cow!"

 The book is both narrative and with a lot of dialog, the sentences can sometimes be really long, at times a charachter has something to say for a whole page. When the book it narrative it's from the Indians perspective.

Stubble - skäggstubb
Straddle - Grensla
Frown - Rynka pannan
Squint - Kisa
Pecking - Picka
Crease - Veck
Sweep - Sopa
Crummy - Läskig
Ward - Avdelning
Devouring - Sluka
Bashful - Blyg
Tendencie - Tendens
Hostile - Fientlig
Manure - Gödsel
Schedule - Schema
Trembling - Darrande
Cornered - Satt i ett hörn
Strain - Spänna
Cardboard - Kartong
Transmitted - Överförs


måndag 22 oktober 2012

Part 1

I have to start with an apology for starting this blog after the first deadline have passed. I don't have any good excuse, I just read the instructions poorly.

Now to the book project. I think it's a really great idea to make us students more intreseted in reading in other languages than swedish. I've read english books before, not so many but it's not totally unfamiliar for me. It was a little difficult finding a suiting book at first, I found a couple of real classics in the local library, books written by Jane Austen and such and I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to read a masterpiece in the original language. Well, I read a couple of pages from the book "Emma" by Jane Austen and gave up. It took to much time trying to understand the old fashioned words, I'd never finish the book in time. But some day I'll read Emma, even if it might take some time to get through the book.
So far I've learned that you can be sure that you are a good reader in your own language, it's not sure at all that you can be as good reading in another language even if you can speak it and understand it.

I finally found the perfect book for this project, a book I've wanted to read for a long time now, "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" by Ken Kesey. I have to admit, I've seen the movie, but it's many years ago and I hardly remember anything about it. I remember Jack Nicholsons crazy grin, that's about it.
The book so far has been very good, better than I thought actually. It's really funny at times, Kesey has a wonderful way of letting the reader get to know the charachters simply by what they say and how they say it. I don't know how to describe it, Kesey writes what the charachters say as they actually would say it in real life, not stiff and correct as in some other books. The books is about a mental hospital in the 60's. Already after reading a few pages you understand that the mental hospital in this case wasn't all that nice. The book is written from Chief's perspective, a big, quiet man that observes everything that happens in the hospital. He's an intreseting man, with strange thoughts and it's going to be intresting to get to know him more.
You know that the whole hospital is going to be turned totally upside down when a man called McMurphy enters the building. He really stirs the pot, with he's crazy looks and attitude. He says what's on his mind and loves being in the center of attention. You know there's going to be trouble, the hospital is run by a very unpleasant and mean nurse, "The Big nurse", Miss Ratched.

Cagey - Slug
Wicker - Korg
Swivel - Snurra på
Snarl - Morra
Racket - Bråk
Enamel - Emalj
Flick - Knäpp (ljud)
Sawdust - Sågspån
Tailormade - Skräddarsydd
Subtract - Subtrahera
Sidle - Smyga sig fram till någon
Nuisance - Otyg, besvär
Fumbling - Valhänt
Jumble - Röra, virrvarr
Cavalry - truppförband som stred till häst
Cane - Rör,käpp
Sulk - Tjura
Fidgety - Rastlös, nervös
Auctioneer - Auktionsutropare
Wicked - Ond, elak