Out of the shelter/ David Lodge

Out of the shelter/ David Lodge
Message de cbgirl posté le 28-12-2016 à 11:33:09 (S | E | F)
Bonjour,
ma professeur d'anglais nous a donné un passage du livre "Out of the Shelter" de David Lodge à étudier, le problème est que je n'arrive pas à comprendre certains aspects..
Le passage à étudier concerne l'enfance de Timothy. Mais je n'arrive pas à savoir qui sont les personnages par rapport à Timothy ainsi que ce qui se passe dans le passage : "there was a loud whistling noise and a flash and a roar and juste before the light went out his mother seemed to be flying across the shelter"
(=il y eu un fort sifflement et un éclair et un rugissement et juste avant que la lumière s'éteigne, sa mère parut voler à travers l'abri). Un orage ? Un bombardement ? Je ne vois pas d'où vient la lumière et ce rugissement...

J'espère que vous pourrez m'aider si vous avez déjà lu ce livre, merci pour vos réponses!

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Modifié par lucile83 le 28-12-2016 11:45

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Réponse : Out of the shelter/ David Lodge de gerondif, postée le 28-12-2016 à 11:56:44 (S | E)
Bonjour,
je ne connais pas ce livre, Wikipedia donne comme début de résumé:
Timothy Young, at five, enjoys having to go to his neighbor's shelter during the Blitz, partly because he gets to sleep with his friend Jill. However, Jill and her mother are killed in an air raid.(texte complet ci-dessous)
Donc, comme vous l'avez traduit, il semble bien que ce soit une description d'un bombardement, le sifflement de la bombe qui fend l'air, le rugissement de l'explosion, l'éclair de lumière et le souffle de la bombe qui projette la personne à travers l'abri.

La lumière voyage plus vite que le son (cf un éclair précède le bruit du tonnerre, un feu d'artifice luit avant son boum pour le public placé à distance), donc il est normal que le flash précède le roar.

Soignez un peu votre français:
"J'espère que vous pourrais(son ê) m'aider"
J'espère que vous pourrez( son é) m'aider.
sa mère paru volé à travers l'abri.
sa mère parut voler à travers l'abri.
en u, c'est un participe passé: il est perdu, foutu, dû.
ut, c'est une conjugaison au passé simple : il parut hésiter, il fut condamné.

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Réponse : Out of the shelter/ David Lodge de lucile83, postée le 28-12-2016 à 18:01:50 (S | E)
Hello,
Something to help you about the plot and who's who

From Amazon and reports of medias:
The restrictions of a wartime childhood in London and subsequent post-war shortages have done little to enrich Timothy's early youth.
But everything changes when his glamorous older sister, Kath, invites him to spend the summer at Heidelberg. Kath, who left home long ago to work for the American army, introduces her sixteen-year-old brother to a lifestyle that is deliriously fast, furious and extravagant.
Dazzled by the indulgent habits of the American forces, but at the same time sensitive to the broken spirits of the German community beneath this sparkling surface, Timothy will find that his summer holiday is in more ways than one an unforgettable rite of passage.

The plot from Wikipedia:
Timothy Young, at five, enjoys having to go to his neighbor's shelter during the Blitz, partly because he gets to sleep with his friend Jill. However, Jill and her mother are killed in an air raid. Timothy spends some of the war in the country before he and his rather narrow-minded Catholic parents return to their lower-middle-class neighbourhood in London. He sees his sister Kath, who is eleven years older, only on her rare visits home, as she is now working in Germany with the occupying forces.

In 1951, he faces a decision of whether to apply his mathematical and artistic talent to an apprenticeship as a draughtsman or to the study of architecture at university. Kath invites him to visit her in Heidelberg during the summer. After some trepidation, he agrees. The boat and train journey is highly unpleasant, but he is befriended by a young American man with unconventional views, Don Kowalski. Kath's life in Heidelberg is far more luxurious than anything Timothy knew in England, where some basic foods are still rationed and economic growth is slow. He joins in the good meals, games, and pleasure trips Kath has with her fun-loving friends, especially two Americans, Greg and Vince. Timothy lives surreptitiously in an empty room in a woman's hostel. When he spends a day with Rudolf, the young German porter of Kath's residence, and his family, he sees the much lower German standard of living and deals with his conflicted feelings about the Germans. He also visits an American family with boys his own age and the American school where Don teaches, but doesn't get along well there.

His sexual awakening includes hearing his neighbor in the hostel having sex, seeing Kath in bed with Don (who has been sacked because he'd been a conscientious objector), refusing a sexual offer from a woman in the hostel, and developing an infatuation with an American girl. He finally meets her at another American girl's birthday party on a riverboat and then has an erotic encounter with her in his room.

Kath's routine is disturbed when Greg and Vince disappear on a trip to Berlin, but they return a few days later, apparently having strayed into the Russian zone and been interrogated as possible spies. Timothy goes to a party with Kath where she and her friends dress up in Vince's collection of Nazi uniforms and medals. Don breaks up this nightmarish scene and reveals that Vince has had a sexual relationship with Rudolf, possibly extorting sexual favours in return for help denazifying Rudolf's father.

An epilogue takes place in a motel in California, where Timothy, now a thirty-year-old academic in Environmental Studies, and his wife and sons are visiting Kath, who's still single. It's revealed that Vince and Greg were both homosexual and their disappearance in Berlin was an attempt to defect to the Soviets. Don is now a professor and has been married and divorced. Timothy reflects on how lucky he is to have a good career and a loving family when things have not gone so well for others.

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