I. Teaching objectives:
This unit aims to help students
1. Familiarize with the British/Canadian novelist Arthur Hailey and his writing;
2. recognize fiction narrative and its major elements
3. enjoy fiction by acting out
II. About the author
A. Arthur Hailey (1920-2004)
• British/Canadian novelist
• Born in Luton, Bedfordshire, England
•6号人 航海王图片Served in the Royal Air Force (1939-1947)
• 1947, moved to Canada
• 1956, became a full-time writer
怎么会遇见你
• 1965-1969, lived in California
• 1969, moved to the Bahamas to avoid American and Canadian income taxes, which t were claiming 90% if his income.
B. His novels:
•七夕时间 Runaway Zero-Eight (1958)- in-flight medical emergency;
• The Final Diagnosis(1959) - hospital politics as en from the pathology department;
• In High Places (1960) - Cold War Era politics in North America
• Hotel (1965) - hotels
• Airport (1968) - airport politics
• Wheels (1971) - automobile industry
• The Moneychangers (1975) - banks
• Overload (1979) - power crisis in California
• Strong Medicine (1984) - pharmaceutical industry
•肉馅月饼 The Evening News (1990) - newscasters
• Detective (1997) - investigation politics
•
C. Characteristics of his writing
• He would spend about one year rearching a subject, followed by six months reviewing his notes and, finally, about 18 months writing the book.
• Each of his novels has a different industrial or commercial tting and includes, in a
ddition to dramatic human conflict, carefully rearched information about the way that particular environments and systems function and how the affect society and its inhabitants.
左手食指有痣• Many of his books have reached #1 on the New York Times bestller list and more than 170 million copies have been sold worldwide in 40 languages.
• Many have been made into movies and Hotel萌动校园 was made into a long-running television ries. Airport became a blockbuster movie with stunning visual effects.
III. A detailed study of the text:
1. the chief hou officer., Ogilvie, who had declared he would…took twice that time:
The chief hou officer. Ogilvie, gave the Croydons a mysterious telephone call telling them he would pay them a visit an hour later, but actually he appeared at their suite two hours later.
1) chief hou officer: Hotels in the ploy detectives to take care of hotel curity, called ‘hou dicks’, dignified appellation—hou officer.
2) Suite: a t of rooms. A suite in a hotel is usually expensive. The suite the Croydons are staying in is St. Gregory Hotel’s largest and most elaborate, called the Presidential Suite, which has houd, according to the book, a succession of distinguished guests, including visiting presidents and royalty.
3) Cryptic telephone call: The message over the phone was brief and with mysterious implications.
4) Actually took twice that time: He was slow in coming becau he wanted to create the impression that he was a busy and important man and to keep the Croydons on tenterhooks.
2. the Duke: (in Britain) a nobleman , who rank is just below that of a prince. Below the duke are the marquis, earl, viscount and baron.
3. the Duchess: wife or widow of a duke, or a woman with a rank equal to that of a duke
4. the nerves of both the Duke and Duchess were excessively frayed: The nerves of both the Duke and Duchess were worn out by the long wait, were over-strained. Both the Duke and Duchess were extremely nervous. More examples with the word fray:
Clothes frayed at the neck, knees, etc.
Frayed cuffs, button-holes, etc.
Tempers become frayed.
5. the muted buzzer: muted to render the noi of the bell less harsh and strident
6. she had dispatched her maid on an invented errand: They nt her out to get her out of the way; the ‘errand’ being just an excu, a trip which was not necessary. Obviously the talk between Ogilvie and the Croydons had to be kept a cret.
7. the moon-faced made cretary: the u of male before cretary is to avoid possibi
lity of the reader’s assuming otherwi, for commonly in the U.S. cretaryship is the female profession.
Note: male nur, man rvant, but woman doctors, woman pilot. ‘Moon-faced’ means having a round face. The young man’s appearance is in keeping with his timid character(fear of pet animals).
8. cruelly instructed: ‘cruel’ becau they knew the cretary was terrified of dogs. They could easily have found some other errand for him.
