1 Ian McEwan: An alternative history of the future of humanity 2 Machines Like Me has a fantastic setting but very real political and social preoccupations (Sat, Apr. 13, 2019) 3 www.irishtimes.comhttps://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/ian-mcewan-an-alternative-history-of-the-future-of-humanity- 4 1.3854699#.XLM22CHd9-E.mailto 5 “The present is the frailest of improbable constructs,” says the narrator of 6 Ian McEwan’s 16th novel Machines Like Me. “It could have been different. 7 Any part of it, or all of it, could be otherwise.” 8 In the author’s house down a quiet mews in London’s Bloomsbury, he 9 makes tea as I set up my equipment for our interview, and the present political moment can’t help but invade 10 our friendly small talk about books. What has he been reading recently? He loves Sally Rooney’s Normal 11 People, he tells me, admiring especially what he calls the “clever rhetorical trick” of how she merges the 12 thoughts of protagonists Marianne and Connell. The prose is “very fine, approachable and easily absorbed, 13 but nicely overladen with emotional frit”. 14 On souped-up multi-strain creative nonfiction he’s not so keen. “I want some invention: to be stretched in 15 that way.” But he likes the autofiction of Knausgaard, I’ve read somewhere. He’s “compelling in his 16 thoroughness” but can be overwhelming. “One day I’d say I can’t take any more of this, and the next day 17 read 100 pages. It’s a bit like Brexit coverage,” he tells me. “I don’t care how much I hate it; I’ve got to have 18 more of it.” 19 When we speak, we are in the hinterland between one of UK prime minister’s Theresa May’s many feints, 20 stalls and threats in the process of exiting the EU. I ask McEwan whether he thinks Brexit’s having politicised 21 a generation will be ultimately a good or bad thing for art-making. 22 “I don’t know,” he says. “I think the cultural consequences are already profound in that we are going to 23 resemble the United States. A land with two cultures that won’t speak to each other. The moment the Tories 24 called a referendum and urged us to take sides in their 40-year civil war, we had a nervous breakdown. And 25 it’s very hard to get out of it at the moment.” 26 In his clipped tenor, McEwan relays an imagined chain of events in which the UK gets itself out of this 27 breakdown. “If we have a second referendum, which is what I hope parliament will push for, Remain will win 28 but narrowly. The other half will feel betrayed. We’re better behaved, I think,” he says about the Remain side. 29 “We don’t send death and rape threats as easily as Brexiters. A Remainer has not yet stabbed a Brexiter MP 30 in the street. I think we’ve been the herbivores in this.” 31 To reduce the Booker winner’s career to the familiar march of preoccupations, he was fashionable in the 32 1970s and 1980s for books that dwelt ………. (11) brutality and psychosexual aberrations: incest, animals 33 trained to rape humans, necrophilia, dismemberment. From here he became the respected (and respectable) 34 laureate of trauma, guilt, tension and trickery. His highly intelligent narrators, often at the top of their fields, 35 give …………. (12) pages to explaining Einstein, photovoltaics, John Keats, John Milton, probability, string 36 quartets, Darwin, the structure of DNA, family law and solar energy, without alienating his popular readership. 37 His books have lent themselves successfully …………. (13) the screen (last year adaptations of both On 38 Chesil Beach and The Children Act were released). Technically, they often achieve the level of neatness and 39 elegance which their left-brain characters often profess to admire in famous scientific equations. They have for 40 a long time been grounded ……………. (14) the political moments of their setting, but creeping …………. (15), 41 every couple of books or so, has been an urgent modern worry. Climate change, post 9/11 politics, artificial 42 intelligence. EJERCICIO 1: Ian McEwan: An alternative history of the future of humanity A. Which of the four alternatives (a, b, c or d) can be used instead of the word or phrase in bold italic type without changing their meaning in the context? (4 x 0.5= 2) ANSWER (a, b, c, d) a) avenue b) block 1. mews (line 8) c) neighbourhood d) short street a) overloaded 2. overladen b) overexposed (line 13) c) overwhelmed d) overburdened a) visualizes 3. relays b) thinks of (line 26) c) conveys d) insists on a) members of the Green Party 4. herbivores b) the most honest (line 30) c) the least violent d) the most innocent B. Which of the four definitions (a, b, c or d) can be used to explain the meaning of the words and phrases in bold italic type in the context? (3 x 0.5= 1.5) ANSWER (a, b, c, d) a) original and easy to read 5. souped-up multi- b) original and tangled strain (line 14) c) tricky and complicated d) hands-down and simple a) a place where nothing happens b) a change in the scenery 6. hinterland (line 19) c) the backcountry of a settlement d) a backwater a) situation where nobody dominates as in rock-paper-scissors 7. many feints, stalls b) stages of the negotiation and threats (lines 19-20) c) strategies and tactics d) a win-win situation C. Which of the four alternatives (a, b, c or d) means approximately the same thing in the context of the article as the word in bold italic type at the left of the column? (3 x 0.5= 1.5) ANSWER (a, b, c, d) 8. frit a) refuse b) matter c) ideas d) intention (line 13) 9. compelling a) compulsory b) enjoyable c) sane d) fascinating (line15) 10. clipped a) brisk b) curty c) clear d) peremptory (line 26) D. Complete each gap in the last two paragraphs (lines 31 to 42) with one word. (5 x 0.5= 2.5) ANSWER 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. E. Which two of the following options can be used as an alternative to “…can’t help but invade…” (line 9) without changing the meaning of the sentence? (2 x 0.5= 1) 16. ANSWERS (Tick √) a) comes off b) takes over c) comes out against d) severs e) comes in on f) pervades g) comes up h) interferes F. Which underlined letter of the words below (a, b, c or d) shares the same pronunciation as the underlined letter of the word overladen (line 13)? (1 x 0.25= 0.25) 17. ANSWER (a, b, c, d) a) overcast b) overmanned c) overawed d) overstatement G. The underlined letter of the word thoroughness (line 16) shares the same pronunciation as the underlined letters of two of the following words. (2 x 0.25= 0.5) 18. ANSWER (Tick √) a) thorax b) thong c) thoughtful d) thou e) thumb f) throughout g) thuggish h) None of the above H. Which of the following options (a, b, c or d) can be used as an alternative to “…called a referendum…” (line 24) without changing the meaning of the sentence? (1 x 0.25= 0.25) 19. ANSWER (Tick √) a) hallooed b) demanded c) claimed d) yearned for e) arranged I. The end of the word in bold italic type on the left rhymes with the end of one of the alternatives (a, b, c or d). (2 x 0.25= 0.5) ANSWER 20. (a, b, c, d) coverage a) sabotage b) bandage c) massage d) barrage (line 17) laureate a) create b) chariot c) certificate d) consulate (line 34) 1 City of Djinns, by William Dalrymple 2 ONE 3 THE FLAT PERCHED at the top of the house, little more than a lean-to riveted to Mrs Puri’s ceiling. 4 The stairwell exuded sticky, airless September heat; the roof was as thin as corrugated iron. 5 Inside we were greeted by a scene from Great Expectations: a thick pall of dust on every surface, a 6 family of sparrows nesting in the blinds and a fleece of old cobwebs — great arbours of spider silk — 7 arching the corner walls. Mrs Puri stood at the doorway, a small, bent figure in a salwar kameez. 8 ‘The last tenant did not go out much,’ she said, prodding the cobwebs with her walking stick. She 9 added: ‘He was not a tidy gentleman.’ Olivia blew on a cupboard; the dust was so thick you could sign your 10 name in it. 11 Our landlady, though a grandmother, soon proved herself to be a formidable woman. A Sikh from 12 Lahore, Mrs Puri was expelled from her old home during Partition and in the upheavals of 1947 lost 13 everything. She arrived in Delhi on a bullock cart. Forty-two years later she had made the transition from 14 refugee pauper to Punjabi princess. She was now very rich indeed. She owned houses all over Delhi and 15 had swapped her bullock for a fleet of new Maruti cars, the much coveted replacement for the old 16 Hindustan Ambassador. Mrs Puri also controlled a variety of business interests. These included the 17 Gloriana Finishing School, India’s first etiquette college, a unique institution which taught village girls how 18 to use knives and forks, apply lipstick and make polite conversation about the weather.