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'In the skin of a lion'..post your qs here (doesn't look like many ppl r doing it :o) (1 Viewer)

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hahaha I'm the first one to reply... how sad...

My question is: "Why can't we just screw this module?" It sucks.. plain and simple... there's no clear path of study, and most of the book you have to sift through with a magnifying glass to make some semblance of sense.
 
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yeah, i enjoyed reading that book...but only when i read it for the second time, coz i had no clue what was going on when we read it in class the first time.
but yeah...just too much crap to learn
 
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Suprisingly, it links with the EE2 Retreat from the Global module, which I'm also doing. Migrants... marginalised... lyrical prose romanticising incredibly icky jobs of marginalised people...post-modern fragmentation of time which expresses _________.... elliptical structure....
 
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Well, time to bump this thing back to the top. more ITSOAL convos!

I'm sure we're all in the process of reviewing the book, or at least thinking about reviewing it (at least I am. I've been doing a lot of thinking, recently).

I'm wondering how many critical things we have to put in there... I was given a list of good quotes, but can't remember them for the life of me... the only one I remember is "Ondaatje is aware of his 'fictional' ordering", although I can't remember who said it. Can anyone enlighten me?
 

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glitterfairy said:
Suprisingly, it links with the EE2 Retreat from the Global module, which I'm also doing. Migrants... marginalised... lyrical prose romanticising incredibly icky jobs of marginalised people...post-modern fragmentation of time which expresses _________.... elliptical structure....
don't you mean EE1?? Scary stuff to study modules for course 2. haha. We did postmodernism and ITSOAL relates to it too... since its so wonderfully postmodern... pity i cant use it for an extra text for english ext. I guess it relates to "texts and ways of thinking" then?

glitterfairy said:
I'm wondering how many critical things we have to put in there... I was given a list of good quotes, but can't remember them for the life of me... the only one I remember is "Ondaatje is aware of his 'fictional' ordering", although I can't remember who said it. Can anyone enlighten me?
Turcotte said that. :cool:
 
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Actually, I'm seriously thought about using ITSOAL as a related text for Retreat From the Global. Then i found a better one... but anyway.

My teacher wrote the Retreat from the Global module, and he's also my English teacher (so he taught me ITSOAL himself). I asked him if I could use Ondaatje as a related text - specifically INCLUDING Itsoal - and he said yes!

So if it works for you, use it. I have an HSC Senior Marker that says "You can!"

Thanks muchly about Turcotte. I found the list of critics today - after cleaning my room for 5 hours... then separating school from non-school "junk", then starting to sub-section my subject "piles"... then, i'll start studying... :S
 
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i suck at writing intros...can anyone help me out.

'the first sentence of every novel should be: trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human'.
is our trust justified with regard to ISL?


so far, i've got...

The looseness in ondaajte's novel ISL is significant in how stories of characters are told. The audience is encouraged to 'trust' ondaajte while unofficial histories are revealed and voices of the minority are heard. Ondaatje exposes the truth while telling the audience to "meander if you want to get to town". While this trust is justified, it is extended as the structure of the novel is much like in real life, unordered and non linear........
 
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I would be careful about the word "minority". The migrants in many cases often outnumber residents - perhaps "marginalised" (ie ignored) would be better.

The elliptical, fragmented structure is interesting. Do we trust Ondaatje? I don't know, sometimes i want to wring his neck because he's playing around too much.

To be honest I've never fully trusted Ondaatje. To me, his fragmentation serves to prove how easily history can be manipulated (HEY! That could be a very good thing to talk about... good work, glitterfairy!) and that we shouldn't really wholeheartedly trust any one opinion.

The "meander if you want to get into town" seems to signifiy that readers should form their own opinions rather than allowing the composer to ram "facts" down their throats.

If it helps, I always find that if I discuss a text (broadly) before writing an essay, I have a much firmer grasp on what to say and what perspective to write it from. :)

Talk away, my friend!
 
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hey, that helped heaps..
*me changes intro*

if you want, you can just throw facts at me that could help form the body of the essay :D
 
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This sounds like fun! Ok, where do i start...

Let me pick something I don't know very well. Umm... I kinda haven't read the book since like... oh, term 1 this year... :S So here goes!

I remember that there was a reference to this photographer dude who took photos of people as they were - in slums etc. The camera doesn't lie, right?

What else - ok, there's this really weird part in the novel where Patrick is with like, non-English-speaking migrants and he stays with them and stuff and stays over for dinner etc etc and in return, I think they want him to teach them english or something.

HEY! reminds me (this is a really good chat, we should have another one) about a quote I actually reworked for my EE2 major work. To blab on about my own story - I have one character say "Sorry, I don't speak your language". This was inspired by something Ondaathe says somewhere - either in the book itself or somewhere else, I had it on a sheet somewhere. Anyway, the quote is "Without language we are lost".

I think that's why the photos are so important. the marginalised people can't write, and the authenticity of oral history (hey this can be linked to EE1 RFTG too - wow I'm good at this today) is doubtful, so the photos are all they've got (check it out, taken by a white dude. poor people can't afford cameras). Then they get Patrick.

The puppet play is a very good example of this.

you also should talk about the influence of women in Patrick's life.

*decides that it's high time to actually read the HUGE stack of ITSOAL notes*
 
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Question:

how many criticisms do you guys have? I presume 2 isn't enough... :(
 
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really? ok. I've got two choice quotes from critics, not sure whether I should use more though, ugh, there's so many of them, and you have to link it back to stuff, and talk about the other stuff, which you have to sophisticatedly merge with all the other stuff, and like, grr.
 
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so far, i have the options of doing:
- love and relationships
- identity
- immigrant experience
- unofficial histories
- art/language
- power and authority

if you can think of any other ideas/critics/themes, post them up and talk away!
 
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Women darling, women. Relationships are important but so far as I remember, if it wasn't for Alice (particularly her death) and... what's the other person's name? The radio girl, Patrick would never have actually carried out his rebellious work.
 
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clara dear..

hey, i've got a question for you :)
how does ondaatje make his narrative realistic?..i've got a lot of ideas..just seeing if something new pops up.
 
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Well, sweetie-pie,

Go back to the elliptical and fragmented structure. Would you say that ITSOAL is buffed and polished till it shines? No. Well, you could say yes, but let's pretend that you don't. It's fatally flawed but at the same time that flaw is a pretty gorgeous flaw, don't you think?

by the same token, that flaw- the elliptical rather than round structure, makes it human. Life is not perfect. Only in the movies. that's why this novel is more realistic. The stuff in the book could actually happen. The depths of morality are real, the corruption of humanity is real.

Does that help?
 
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hmm..yeah, that's what i had just about..
i also would've said how events of histories are actually real and actually DID happen. ie ambrose small, nun falling off the bridge, bridge building casualties etc etc..
just like in real life, these events don't happen in sequence and rather, they happen simultaneously. so through the characters, ondaatje re-tells the stories of their lives which intersect with other characters at one point or another which makes these stories seem real
 

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