‘The Signalman’ – the kids at my old school enjoyed it (year 10 set 3). It’s a good story for discussion because it raises more questions than it answers. Dickens’… Read More »Dickens' The Signalman: the ambiguity of signs! by Alison Ridyard.
Three steps ahead of her lay an adventure. It just needed a shape. She set off down the lane towards the sea, pleased with her boots. Bees and wasps attacked the… Read More »English Tutor Manchester, Bolton and Bury: Rose meets the boy at the stile.
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary… Read More »Cath Corri and Gillman's Yellow Wallpaper: A Nightmare Destined for…?
Here is the rubric from an ELAT sample paper: Select two or three passages(a) to (f) and compare and contrast them in any ways that seem interesting to you, paying… Read More »ELAT English Entrance Examination: Practical Criticism tests your close reading confidence?
I have just started reading David Almond’s new novel The True tale of the Monster Billy Dean.It’s windy outside as Bolton gets the ‘tail’ end of Hurricane Katrina. Oddly enough… Read More »Reading The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean by David Almond.
UCAS application season is upon us. I have been reading the Sunday Times’ Guide to British Universities today( more on that tomorrow) and was inspired to seek out the very… Read More »So you want to go to Oxbridge? Tell me about a banana…
Here we go with a close reading and analysis of Susan Hill’s Strange Meeeting, where the two protagonists, Hilliard and Barton discover, and create, a deep and enduring connection. … Read More »Waiting for connection in Susan Hill’s Strange Meeting:A short analysis.
English students at all levels, but particularly at GCSE, A Level and Undergraduate levels are faced by the challenge of close textual analysis or ‘Practical Criticism’ as it used to… Read More »Analysing a novel: Susan Hill's Strange Meeting.
I was terrified by Susan HILL’S The Woman in Black. My Boxing Day was frosty in every way! So when I bought The Mist in the mirror for a week… Read More »Susan Hill's The Mist in the Mirror: the dangers of a neutral narrator?
I first read The Master and Margarita at Liverpool University when I was studying Russian Studies with English. My tutor Professor Arnold McMillin found my reaction slightly bizarre. as I… Read More »Waking up with the Master and Margarita-Bulgakov's helter skelter tapestry of fantasy and pantomine.
JUST FOUND THIS POEM OF MINE – WRITTEN IN 1980 – 31 YEARS AGO – AGED 23 – UNTITLED PEOPLE EVERYWHERE IN LIFE FROM EVERY WALK AND STATION FROM EVERY… Read More »Cath Corri: An untitled poem.
The small locomotive engine, Number 4, came clanking, stumbling down from Selston with seven full waggons. It appeared round the corner with loud threats of speed, but the colt that… Read More »D H Lawrence's Odour of Chrysanthemums by Cath Corri!
My life so far stilted, Duty bound. Wondering if that once,untamed energy Would ever be found. A longing to learn, To have knowledge, To be bright To put pen… Read More »Lorraine Farrimond:Ahead
WANDERING THROUGH (mothering) – WUTHERING HEIGHTS! It has only just struck me, that if writing is inevitably about life/lives and living – the birth of the novelist, historical documentation and… Read More »Cath Corri:Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights
The life that I have Is all that I have And the life that I have Is yours The love that I have Of the life that I have Is… Read More »Leo Marks-Yours
Cath Corri What novel/novelist has inspired or touched your life most and why? For me it is Toni Morrison’s BELOVED ………… unique in its style and works with history, language… Read More »Cath And Jen Corri talking about Toni Morrison's Beloved.
Halted against the shade of a last hill, They fed, and, lying easy, were at ease And, finding comfortable chests and knees Carelessly slept. But many there stood still To… Read More »Wilfred Owen's Spring Offensive: a healing pause.
Raynard Corri was the bastard offspring of Captain Africa (the lard mogul) and Tracy. The captain disappeared without Tracy, who perished alone , along with her diamond collection, the victim… Read More »Bern Corri by Cath Corri
NOvel is about more than a haunting. Beloved enters the narrative as a fully grown woman , but in fact is a pre-mature child (murdered by her mother to be… Read More »Cath Corri: Beloved by Toni Morrison
It seemed that out of battle I escaped Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped Through granites which titanic wars had groined. Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned, Too… Read More »Wilfred Owen's Strange Meeting part one.
She might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless… Read More »E M Forster Howard's End-only connect!
One Good Turn is the second novel in which Kate Atkinson featured her private detective, Jackson Brodie. Brodie is attractive, compassionate and flawed. Appealing of course, with the added attraction that he… Read More »One good Turn by Kate Atkinson; ‘A jolly Murder Mystery’ for Bolton, Bury and Manchester!
A NOISELESS, patient spider, I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament,… Read More »Soul adventures with Walt Whitman!
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant— Success in Cirrcuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightening to the Children eased With explanation… Read More »Emily Dickinson’s view of truth!
Yesterday I was fascinated by a pest controller telling me about cockroaches and their two brains. I do think Dr Who should maximise upon this enthralling fact! Today, I picked… Read More »Michael Morpurgo: A Elephant in the garden.
The trees rustled encouragingly as she hurried towards the familiar destination: another meeting at Spicer’s bar. She did not, absolutely did not, allow herself to imagine the figure waiting for… Read More »Another Misssion by Anna McNamara
Daphne Du Maurier – “The Old Man” Being unfamiliar with Du Maurier’s work, I didn’t know what to expect from this short story, and, having scanned the contents page of… Read More »Daphne Du Maurier's 'The Old man' with Alison Ridyard
Carol Ann Duffy – “You” – The Volatile Nature of Love In a characteristic adaptation of the sonnet form, Duffy expresses the contrasting emotions of passion and passivity, and the… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's You: The Volatile nature of Love by Alison Ridyard.
Daphne Du Maurier – “The Birds” “There were robins, finches, sparrows, blue tits, larks and bramblings, birds that by nature’s law kept to their own flock and their own territory,… Read More »Daphne du Maurier's The Birds by Alison Ridyard
Sometimes days become more fluid than chocolate milkshake! The other week I had the Emily Dickinson phrase, ‘started early, took my dog’ in my head in connection with the latest… Read More »Kate Atkinson and Jackson Brodie.
