N    112  English Books I learnt in High School  (part  2  )

Coral Island

Coral Island  is about the adventures of 3 teenage boys who happened to meet on a ship bound for the islands of the Pacific Ocean. On their first trip their ship met  a dreadful storm and got wrecked. The 3 boys escaped death by clinging to an oar and they were washed ashore of an island.

They survived by eating coconuts, oysters and what food the island had to offer them. Later they discovered an underwater cave where they can hide from enemies.

They  encountered island people who were cannibals, and  came in canoes to their island, and also a pirate ship, but they overcame all dangers and even got hold of the pirate ship. With that ship the boys sailed back to their home in England via Tahiti where they recruit a crew of sailors and thus left behind the beautiful, bright green Coral Islands of the Pacific Ocean.

The Kon Tiki Expedition

Kon Tiki is the name of the chief God of the Indians of Peru of South America. The inhabitants of the Pacific Islands claimed  that he is son of the Sun and the original founder of their race.

While staying on a small island in the middle of the Pacific the author Thor Heyerdahl started to think about the origin of the people who inhabited the South Sea Islands such as Polynesia , Samoa, Easter Island, Tahiti and Fiji. The islands are far apart,but the people speak the same language , Polynesian.

There also is history that before the Inca Indians came to Peru, there was a race of white skin people, who put up enormous monuments, and taught the Incas agriculture, But they left Peru as suddenly as they had come and they disappeared forever across the Pacific.

So the author thought , are these island people, the people who left Peru long ago and came to settle in these islands. But how did they cross the ocean? They had only rafts made of balsa wood and could they reach the islands in these rafts?

To prove this theory , the author and 5 friends acquired a balsa woof raft and sailed the Pacific, faced many difficulties and like many stories had a happy ending.

Treasures of a kingdom

I don’t have this book in my possession, so I cannot even give a short gist of it.As much as I remember it is a treasure hunting story and the setting is in Thailand. But I remember one thing and that is the long question I had to answer in the final exam.I had to write about “Ordeal by Water “ The treasures may had been hidden in a cave and to reach that place the characters in the story had to swim or dive in water.It was not easy ,so that it was dubbed ordeal which means a very unpleasant and prolonged experience. If interested anybody can look for that book in some library or old book stores.

Now I have described 5 books I had learnt in Matric class about half a century ago.After us I remember the books prescribed for Matric class students are more easier and only one book was prescribed

The English texts prescribed for students in our country are all abridged or made easy with limited vocabularyfor students who are learnind English as a 2^nd language. But all are interesting in their own way. As for me I would read from beginning to end as soon as I get them, at the start of the school term.They can be called classics by now, but they will never become out of date and are good for English learners. So students who are starting to learn English should look for them,  to improve their English or simply for leisurely reading.

 

 

 

N   111  English Books I Learnt in High School   Part 1

While we were gathering in the room I keep my books my granddaughter ( would be 1^st year student in college ) Nang Saw Yun Nwe  happened to open a cupboard, took out an English book which has the date 63-64 on its opening page and asked me when I used that book.

The book is Six Detective Stories. I remember that it was the book we had to learn in Inter A, my 1^st year in college and I told her so. The books I learnt in my High School  class are also nearby , and so  I took out what I have and showed her, telling that those were what we had learnt in matriculation class.And then I got an idea that it would be good if  students of these days know what we learnt in our times (more than half a century ago )it would be knowledgeable for them , and so I decided to let them know in a blog.

In my matriculation class I chose to take Additional English as I was weak in Science subjects. Additional English was not taught in school. So, students who took that subject had to attend private tuition from our English teacher Mrs Jasper. I remember we cycled to her house which was on highground in the western part of  Taunggyi.

For Additional English 3 books were prescribed for us .They were English Short Stories of Today, Great Expectations and Coral Island .For Enlish subject we had to learn two, which were Treasures of a Kingdom and Coral Island ( If I am not mistaken with 9^th Standard English books ) What I want to say is that  English was not as easy as today, when students have to learn only one textbook and even that is not easy for them.

As I have mentioned above our English teacher was Mrs Jasper, a plump English lady who wore dresses and sandals and spoke English only.She lived with her sister Josephine, and adopted daughter  who would become teacher Angela  and 2 dogs. At the beginning of the period she would talk about them and only after sometime she would run through the pages of the English text. I don’t think she taught us in detail, but I remember we were given short and long questions.

I think long questions are not included in today’s 10^th Standard question paper.As for me English is not very difficult  as I had been reading English books from about 7^th Standard, simple , easy ones like comics, schoolgirls picture and own library. I can answer short and long questions well without learning  by heart. But I was not that hard working and because Distinctions were not so popular those days , I did not get any D even though I passed from the 2^nd level.

Now I will give the gist of the texts….In English Short Stories of Today there are 14 stories written by famous authors of which “ A Night at a Cottage “ is the shortest, and many readers would know about it as there also is a Burmese version of it.

An escaped convict had difficulty to find a place to stay on a rainy night.He chose a cottage set back far from the road.He broke the lock, opened  the door and settled in an inner room, which had a rusty stove . He lit it to dry his wet clothes and went to sleep for a while. When he woke up he heard sound of footsteps coming in and then saw a stranger enter the room. The stranger was dripping wet and he went to the stove to warm his hands.The convict greeted the stranger and they got into some  conversation.The convict asked why nobody lived in that cottage and even no signs of tramps stopping there either.

The stranger answered, “Ghosts “ The ghost who lived there, and continued to tell the story. The man’s children had gone dead and he decided to drown himself in the pond. He was all slimy and floating when people pulled him out of the pond. And after that people would hear him walking up and down the cottage..

They continued talking for quite a time, but even then the man didn’t seem to get dry. The convict cried  “ God…. man…. can’t you ever get dry “ The stranger replied, “Dry….I shan’t never be dry, be it wet or fine, winter or summer, see that “

He thrust his muddy hands in the fire, glowering over it fiercely and madly. But then the convict caught up his boots and ran crying out into the night.

Great Expectations

 Great Expectations is a classic written by the famous author Charles Dickens (1812- 1870 )It is a long and complicated story with many characters, among which the following are the main characters.

Pip…. the main character who was an apprentice to his brother in law, Joe, the blacksmith. He suddenly came into a large fortune (his Great Expectation ) from a mysterious benefactor.

Miss Havisham…. an eccentric rich old lady who lived at Satis House

Estella… Miss Havisham’s adopted, beautiful but cold daughter

Magwitch…. an escaped convict whom Pip helped to escape when he was a boy

Herbert…. Pip’s best friend in London

Mr jaggers…. a lawyer

The story is long and included wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and eventual triumph of good over evil. It is popular with both readers and critics and has been translated to many languages.

To be continued….