Question: Chapter XV. 

Return to the Congo Mouth. 



In the evening there was a palaver. 

I need hardly say that my guide, after being paid to show me Nsundi, never had the slightest intention to go beyond the Yellala. Irritated by sleeping in the open air, and by the total want of hospitality amongst the bushmen, he and his moleques had sat apart all day, the picture of stubborn discontent, and 

"Not a man in the place But had discontent written large in his face." 

I proposed to send back a party for rum, powder, and cloth to the extent of £150, or half the demand, and my factotum, Selim, behaved like a trump. Gidi Mavunga, quite beyond self-control, sprang up, and declared that, if the Mundele would not follow him, that obstinate person might remain behind. The normal official deprecation, as usual, made him the more headstrong; he rushed off and disappeared in the bush, followed by a part of his slaves, the others crying aloud to him, "Wenda!"-- get out! Seeing that the three linguisters did not move, he presently returned, and after a furious address in Fiote began a Portuguese tirade for my benefit. This white man had come to their country, and, instead of buying captives, was bent upon enslaving their Mfumos; but that "Branco" should suffer for his attempt; no "Mukanda" or book (that is, letter) should go down stream; all his goods belonged of right to his guide, and thus he would learn to sit upon the heads of the noblesse, with much of the same kind.  1. What did the narrator want to send back a party for?
2. And what else?
3. And anything else?
4. Where was the guide paid to show the narrator?
5. What did he have not intention of going beyond?
6. What was one of the things that irritated him?
7. And what else?
8. So where did he and the moleques sit?
9. Who was beyond self control and jumped up?
10. Where did he disappear to then?
11. Who followed him?
12. Who started a tirade in Portuguese?
13. Instead of buying captives, what was the white man bent upon?
14. What chapter is this?
15. What is the title of the passage?
16. What was there in the evening?
17. Who did Gidi Mavunga think might follow him?
18. What did some of the slaves cry out to him?
19. How many linguisters were there?
20. What is "Mukanda" ? Provide a numbered list of answers.
****
A numbered of answers: 1. rum
2. powder
3. cloth to the extent of £150
4. Nsundi
5. Yellala
6. sleeping in the open air
7. by the total want of hospitality amongst the bushmen
8. apart
9. Gidi Mavunga
10. in the bush
11. a part of his slaves
12. Gidi Mavunga,
13. enslaving their Mfumos
14. XV
15. Return to the Congo Mouth.
16. a palaver.
17. Mundele
18. Wenda!"-- get out
19. three
20. book


Question: When Marilynne Robinson published her first novel, Housekeeping, in 1980, she was unknown in the literary world. But an early review in The New York Times ensured that the book would be noticed. "It's as if, in writing it, she broke through the ordinary human condition with all its dissatisfactions, and achieved a kind of transfiguration ," wrote Anatole Broyard, with an enthusiasm and amazement that was shared by many critics and readers. The book became a classic, and Robinson was recognized as one of the outstanding American writers of our time. Yet it would be more than twenty years before she wrote another novel. 

During the period, Robinson devoted herself to writing nonfiction. Her essays and book reviews appeared in Harper's and The New York Times Book Review, and in 1989 she published Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution, criticizing severely the environmental and public health dangers caused by the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in England--and the political and moral corruption . In 1998, Robinson published a collection of her critical and theological writings, The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought, which featured reassessments of such figures as Charles Darwin, John Calvin, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Aside from a single short story--"Connie Bronson," published in The Paris Review in 1986--it wasn't until 2004 that she returned to fiction with the novel Gilead, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her third novel, Home, came out this fall. 

Her novels could be described as celebrations of the human--the characters in them are unforgettable creations. Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her sister Lucille, who are cared for by their eccentric Aunt Sylvie after their mother commits suicide. Robinson writes a lot about how each of the three is changed by their new life together. Gilead is an even more close exploration of personality: the book centres on John Ames, a seventy-seven-year-old pastor who is writing an account of his life and his family history to leave to his young son after he dies. Home borrows characters from Gilead but centers on Ames's friend Reverend Robert Boughton and his troubled son Jack. Robinson returned to the same territory as Gilead because, she said, "after I write a novel or a story, I miss the characters--I feel like losing some close friends." 1. Which book by Robinson is about Ruth and her sister Lucille?
2. When was it written?
3. How many years passed before she wrote another novel?
4. What did she write in between?
5. What did she publish in 1989?
6. And where did some of her essays and book reviews show up?
7. What did she publish in 1998?
8. What figures did it reassess?
9. What single short story did she write?
10. What did Anatole Broyard say about Housekeeping?
11. Who published Connie Bronson?
12. In what year?
13. When did Robinson start writing fiction again?
14. What was the name of the novel she wrote then?
15. When does her novel, Home, come out?
16. What happens to Ruth and Lucille's mother in Housekeeping?
17. Who takes care of them then?
18. What does the book Gilead center on?
19. How old is Ames?
20. Who is he writing his book for? Provide a numbered list of answers.
****
A numbered of answers:
1. Housekeeping.
2. 1980.
3. More than twenty.
4. Nonfiction.
5. Mother Country: Britain.
6. Harper's and The New York Times Book Review
7. The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought,
8. Charles Darwin and John Calvin.
9. Connie Bronson
10. "It's as if, in writing it, she broke through the ordinary human condition with all its dissatisfactions, and achieved a kind of transfiguration
11. The Paris Review.
12. 1986
13. 2004
14. Gilead.
15. This fall.
16. She commits suicide.
17. Their Aunt Sylvie.
18. John Ames.
19. 77.
20. His son.