Aquí tenéis el resumen del Laboratorio de lectura del pasado viernes.
En esta ocasión intercambiamos opiniones sobre un relato de Ian McEwan titulado My Purple Scented Novel. Mantuvimos una charla muy animada sobre los temas principales tratados en el texto tales como el éxito profesional y personal, el destino, la amistad, la lealtad, la traición y las relaciones personales en general. También tuvimos una discusión muy interesante sobre las posibles diferentes interpretaciones del comportamiento del personaje principal en el relato.
Como siempre, agradeceros a todos el esfuerzo de leer y comentar en inglés y el interés que mostráis por el Laboratorio de lectura.
¡Nos vemos en el próximo Laboratorio!
Hi! Here you have my comments about the book!
Brief explanation about the story:
This novel treats about two friends who became writers. They made everything together, they read the same books, commented them, wrote their own stories and even read and commented each other’s.
One of them, Jocelyn, became more well-known and recognised, his novels were more successful than Parker’s ones. With the past of the time they stopped talking about the novels of the others and, probably, they stopped of reading them too. Once, Parker visited Jocelyn and his wife and her explained him that Jocelyn was really upset because he had written a terribly bad draft of his new novel (or this was his thought). Secretly, Parker read the draft and it was incredibly good. Suddenly he was involved in a plot of tricks and lies: he copy the book, rewriting or adding some parts and he published.
The book has not so much success but, three years later, Jocelyn decided to publish his novel and was the most successful ever. Parker was astonished and he decided to let the people think that yours was the original one. He sent a copy of his novel to a prestigious critic with an anonymous letter saying that this novel seems so similar to Jocelyn’s. The scandal brought up and Parker decided to act normally with his friend, even forgiving him and ended the story pretending to be like a family.
· Personal opinion
I got really hooked on the book, it is short but the story is told in a really interesting way; creating on you a need of knowing what happened and how. The way of writing seemed to me quite easy, with lot of adjectives but easy to understand.
Reading the story I developed a kind of empathy for Parker, I really like this character; always fighting and working for his objective without giving up and even analyzing his reality (they didn’t have so much money or savings and he started to work as a teacher too). On the other side was Jocelyn, Parker didn’t express clearly during the story but, Jocelyn seemed a kind of pretentious person, someone who has achieved everything in his life and, maybe not in a rude way, but looking down at the others.
But at the end, everything changed. I could understand the way of acting of Parker after reading the book: he was desperate but I don’t really know if he is always looking for excuses – not only for justify his acts in front of the others but also in front of himself. But definitely he acted as a villain, as a betrayer and, even worse, betraying a person who is part of his family, a really close friend. Even with a bad action as the one he already made with the copy of the book, he could have shown a different attitude then, he could seem sorry at least.
From my point of view is really despicable this attitude: betrayed a friend, act with a kind of compassion about him and make as “nothing happened”.
It is also true that I though in some moments that maybe Jocelyn realised what happened and maybe he tried to act as really upset due to the scandal but pretending that Parker decided to tell the truth. Even the last part, when he said that this happened because they have shared everything, they could be trying to obtain a confession from Parker.
Thanks for helping us to understand that read in English is not as difficult as we think 🙂
Hi Jessica!
Thanks a lot for your analysis of the story. What you say about Jocelyn’s attitude is really interesting, that about him knowing what Parker had actually done.
Thanks a lot for your lengthy comment.
Hope you can come back to our Friday activities very soon!