BooksTheworld of books is enormous. Reading plays an important role in my life. I readboth for pleasure and for information. There are books which have been ourgreat favorites since childhood. We grow up with them and they stay in ourmemory forever. Thanks to books we can talk to people who lived in differentages and countries. Since childhood I have been enchanted by Pushkin and
Gogol,Chekhov was one of the highest authorities to me. I also was delighted withBlock and other great poets. Later my heart was won by Ahmatova. My motherenjoys reading biography, documentary, memoirs. I think a book withoutillustrations is boring to read because a nicely illustrated book adds tobetter understanding of the characters. I like when a book develops a literarytaste, arouses curiosity and
admiration, brings pleasure and delight,entertains the reader and appeals to the reader s interest. There is suchpractice in the world when popular novels and stories are turned into films andplays. In my opinion the film version of some novels only added to theirpopularity, for example Gone with the wind was published in 1936and the film version was made in 1939 and it surpassed the book in popularity.One of my favoriteauthors is Frank O
Connor. I would like to tell you about Frank O Connor sstory The Idealist . I intend to divide my story into four points.Firstly I will dwell on Frank O Connor s biography, secondly on thedescription of the main heroes, thirdly on the theme of the story and finally on my attitude to the heroes. It is useful to start with Frank O Connor sbiography.
Frank O Connor is a pseudonym of Michael Odonovan, born in Cork,Ireland in 1903. He grew up in an Irish provincial town. His published worksinclude poems, plays, novels, translations, criticism. Frank O Connor was areal master of the short story. He could draw his readers into Irish life,showing his sense of humour and his compassion for human
beings in theirloneliness and their confusion. Another point with which I want to deal is thedescription of the main heroes. As you know a story s success depends on howheroes are presented in the story. They can be presented through thecharacter s actions or their speech through a physical description and throughthe opinions of other characters. In the
Idealist the heroes arepresented through actions and conversations. I think that each character musthave a special quality that makes you remember him for a long time. The main hero Delany was truthful, frank, decisive. Gorman, his classmate was mean,dishonest and unpleasant. By the way of contrast the author managed tounderline the romantic nature of
Delany, who created his own world of things,people and ideas. What impressed me most of all in Melonie, the teacher, it washis cruelty. He punished pupils with a cane. It goes without sign that thetheme of the story is the relationships between pupils and a teacher. I thinkthey were awful. Though Delany created his own world thanks to books, the realworld turned out to differ from the imaginary
one. I shall now elaborate thefourth point of my talk. I sympathize admire, hate, spoilt my impressions ofthe book with the main hero because he didn t give up reading, he continuedreading books. Books broaden our horizons, enrich our mind and wash away fromthe soul the dust of everyday life. In the author I appreciate such qualitiesas an ability to portrait life very truthfully an ability to depictcharacters so vividly that people immediately recognize themselves
a sense ofhumor and a skill with the language. On this note I shall conclude my story.