Ways of Reading Third Edition - Martin Montgomery, Alan Durant, Nigel Fabb, Tom Furniss, Sara Mills 2007
Activity 1.1
Unit 1 Asking questions as a way into reading
Section 1 Basic techniques and problem-solving
1 Make a list of questions you feel it would be useful to ask about the following text. Alongside each question, note the specific piece(s) of information it would be helpful to know.
2 Arrange your questions under the various headings listed above (’Textual questions’, ’Contextual questions’, etc.). Don’t worry about answers to the questions, or even about where such answers might be found. Focus instead on what kinds of question you feel are worth pursuing.
Tranquerah Road
1
Poor relative, yet well-connected,
same line, same age as Heeren Street
(more or less, who knows?),
the long road comes and goes -
dream, nightmare, retrospect -
through my former house,
self-conscious, nondescript.
2
There was a remnant of a Portuguese settlement,
Kampong Serani, near the market,
where Max Gomes lived, my classmate.
At the end of the road, near Limbongan,
the Tranquerah English School,
our alma mater, heart of oak.
By a backlane the Methodist Girls’ School,
where my sister studied
See me, mother,
Can you see me?
The Lord’s Prayer, Psalm 23.
The Japanese came,
and we sang the Kimigayo,
learnt some Nihon Seishin.
Till their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
collapsed, and we had to change
our tune again - God Save the King.
Meliora hic sequamur.
The King died when I was in school,
and then, of course, God Save the Queen.
While Merdeka inspired -
for who are so free
as the sons of the brave? -
and so Negara-ku
at mammoth rallies
I salute them all
who made it possible,
for better, for worse.
3
A sudden trill,
mosquito whine
like enemy aeroplane
in a blanket stillness,
the heave and fall of snoring sea,
swish and rustle of coconut,
kapok, tamarind, fern-potted,
where pontianak perch
by the midnight road.
Wind lifts its haunches off the sea,
shakes dripping mane,
then gallops muffle-hoofed,
a flash of whiteness in sparse bamboo
in a Malay cemetery.
Yet I shall fear no evil
for Thou art with me
though the wind is a horse
is a jinn raving free
Thy rod and Thy staff
they comfort me
and fear is only in the mind
as Mother said
why want to be afraid
just say Omitohood Omitohood Omitohood
Amen.
3 When you have completed your list, read the information about the poem given on p. 339. This information is drawn from notes provided to accompany the poem in the author’s Selected Poems. Consider how far the pieces of information provided answer the questions you have asked.
4 How would having access, when you started reading, to the information you have now been given affect the kind of interpretation you would be likely to produce?
5 Now examine questions that remain unanswered by the information provided on p. 339. Some of these questions may just require specific pieces of information not provided in the notes; but many will involve the word ’why?’. Consider whether there is a difference between questions asking ’why?’ and your other questions. If so, how would you describe that difference?
6 Finally, consider how far texts in general rely on background information that will be available to differing extents to readers with different cultural background knowledge and experience, in the way that this poem appears to?
Reading
Fabb, N. and Durant, A. (2005) How to Write Essays and Dissertations: A Guide for English Literature Students, Harlow: Pearson.
Furniss, T.E. and Bath, M. (2006) Reading Poetry: An Introduction, 2nd edn, London: Longman, Chapter 1.
Lodge, D. (1992) The Art of Fiction, Harmondsworth: Penguin, esp. Chapter 1 (’Beginning’).
Wimsatt, W.K. and Beardsley, M.C. (1946) ’The Intentional Fallacy’, in D. Lodge (ed.) (1972) 20th Century Criticism, Harlow: Longman, pp. 334-44.
Wimsatt, W.K. and Beardsley, M.C. (1949) ’The Affective Fallacy’, in D. Lodge (ed.) (1972) 20th Century Criticism, Harlow: Longman, pp. 345-58.