THE LIGHTHOUSE by P.D.JAMES Review

THE LIGHTHOUSE by P.D.JAMES

The complete review's Review:

       The Lighthouse is a P.D.James mystery that again features Commander Adam Dalgliesh, ready, it seems, to settle down with Emma Lavenham, a bit worried about growing old -- and particularly concerned that he might be becoming "one more bureaucrat" rather than doing the detective-work that he's meant for. Thank god for a convenient murder !
       The murder is of an author, Nathan Oliver, "acknowledged to be one of the world's greatest novelists", a modern Henry James. He's most acclaimed for how realistic and precise his descriptions of his characters and what happens to them are -- but it's also a character flaw. As his secretary-cum-editor explains:

He's a conduit. Emotion flows through him. He can describe, but he can't feel, not for other people.

       Indeed, Oliver is a great user of people, and not a very nice guy. Not everyone is willing to acknowledge it, but there's almost no one around who regrets his death.
       As significant as the victim is the locale of the murder, Combe Island, a private get-away where important figures are common. One reason Dalgliesh is dispatched there is because the Prime Minister wants to use it in a few month's time, and it wouldn't do for there to be any security or other concerns. It's hard to reach -- there's almost nowhere to land a boat, and helicopters are the preferred method of travel -- safe, and quiet. Guests who want to get away from it all really can.
       There's a motley permanent staff that includes a doctor and priest (both having left the mainland in semi-disgrace), as well as a young waif named Millie that they've taken in for the time being. Oliver was born on the island, and according to the terms of the island's trust, has the right to come whenever he wants -- which he does quarterly, along with his daughter, Miranda, and his editor-lackey, Dennis Tremlett. Among the other guests is a scientist at a laboratory that does animal-testing (and gets lots of flak for it).
       In short order, most of the people on the island have a motive for murder: Miranda and Dennis are in love, and Oliver threatens to cut them off, knowing they have nothing to fall back on. One guest confronts Oliver, angry that the central figure in the writer's next novel is obviously based on him. And Oliver has told the island-administrators that he's planning on moving there fulltime -- and that he wants one of the cottages, in which one of the island's longterm residents is comfortably housed at present. No one wants Oliver around fulltime, but he threatens to change his will, withdrawing his generous bequest to the island if he doesn't get his way. And then there's the helper who loses a blood sample Oliver wanted sent to the mainland: Oliver wants him fired .....
       So Oliver winds up dead, possibly a suicide but more likely a murder, and Adam Dalgliesh is called in. It's a bit inconvenient -- he was planning to spend the weekend with Emma -- but once again P.D.James does everything she can to avoid writing about the two of them actually together, as Emma is again relegated to an entirely peripheral role. Dalgliesh only takes two other officers with him, DI Kate Miskin, and the new man in town (or at least on the team), Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith.
       The island makes for a nice, self-contained locale, and while some comfort themselves with the thought that someone might have snuck in and done the dirty deed, it's pretty clear that there's a murderer among them. When SARS fells one of the islanders and a more (and less) voluntary quarantine is imposed the island's isolation helps add to the sense of menace and concern. Especially as a second person turns up murdered .....
       Adam Dalgliesh has good instincts, but above all he's methodical, and The Lighthouse is a procedural. In leisurely (and expert) fashion James sets the stage and introduces the actors, and then lets the detectives get to work. There are motives galore, and there are hidden facts that get uncovered which paint an even more complex picture. Interestingly, many of the motives remain hidden from the police: quite a few people get away with not being entirely forthright (and a few even with some lies).
       A different sort of complication arises when Dalgliesh himself becomes incapacitated with SARS, and Kate Miskin takes over the reins. Still, it's 'an Adam Dalgliesh mystery' and even on his sick-bed he's the man who connects the most important dots.
       The Lighthouse is a very satisfying read, especially in its build-up. James has a nice touch in presenting the different characters, including the familiar police officers possibly moving on to new stages in their lives. There's a bit much history a few of them (including Oliver) are burdened with, but it does make for a few decent twists along the way.
       Oddly, it's Dalgliesh himself that proves a bit problematic. He's still a commanding figure, but there are considerable concerns -- first imagined, then real -- about his health and advancing age. James putting him to one side as the murder inquiry winds up, as well as her inability to write a scene with him and Emma together covering more than a page or two leaves one with a sense that she's not quite sure what to do with him. And then there's Dalgliesh-as-poet, a central part of his identity but one that's not really glimpsed either -- aside from the alarming but otherwise ignored concern raised early on that if he could no longer actively do detective-work:

If this happened, would he any longer be a poet ? Wasn't it the rich soil of a murder investigation, in shared exertion and the prospect of danger, and in the pitiableness of desperate and broken lives that his poetry put out its shoots >

       The reader is never given any evidence -- not necessarily of his poetry, but even just him in any way being a poet -- to judge.
       So James seems a bit unsure of where Dalgliesh is at at the moment -- but one still hopes he'll be hard at work (and happily married) next time 'round.
       A good, enjoyable read.

PET PRACTICE.
Girls, here you have some exercises to practise narrative tenses.  Do them all and print the first two so that I have a look at your work.

http://www.ice.urv.cat/eoiact/level3/narrativetenses1.htm
http://www.admc.hct.ac.ae/hd1/english/narrate/narrtense.htm
http://elt.oup.com/student/naturalenglish/upp/a_grammar/unit05/neup_grammar05?cc=ar&selLanguage=en
http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=414

UPPER ELEMENTARY GRAMMAR PRACTICE

DEAR SWEETIES

CLICK AT

docs.google.com/document/d/1x9GrT8NOqNzQ1QnbPazI8V4SElAPS1ZlJq-kXWaS5tY/edit?pli=1

AND SEE IF YOU CAN DO THESE EXERCISES

YOUR TEACHER YAMILA

P.E.T PRACTICE ACTIVITIES AND EX

WHY WE SHOULD ALL SAY NO THE AGREEMENT YPF -CHEVRON

THE ARGENTINE long sought deal with Chevron Corp. to exploit shale oil reserves in Patagonia was strongly criticized Wednesday by Mapuche Indians, human rights activists, environmentalists and leftists who called it a sellout to the U.S. that could drain and pollute the nation's resources.

The $1.5 billion joint venture with Chevron was made public in a brief announcement by the state-owned YPF oil company Tuesday night. President Cristina Fernandez said the deal will promote energy independence for Argentina, but many of her one-time allies warned that it would do the opposite.

"It's an irresponsibility and a lack of consciousness that the national government hands over these resources to Chevron," said Nilo Cayuqueo, who leads a Mapuche community in Neuquen province, where the Vaca Muerta shale oil basin is. "We're talking about money here, nothing else. They don't talk about the environment, or of future generations."

Mapuches say the land belongs to them and contend they weren't consulted about the deal in violation of international treaties covering indigenous peoples. YPF denied that claim Tuesday.

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, an Argentine rights activist awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980, said the deal would hurt the country.

"We Argentines," he said, "are giving our resources to the United States and converting YPF into a highly polluting company that will use this method known as fracking," which requires millions of gallons of fresh water pumped at high pressure to extract oil and natural gas from otherwise unproductive wells deep underground in shale deposits.

Perez Esquivel said he would file suit demanding to see environmental impact studies and try to block the oil development. But he said he had little hope of success since the court system recently overturned an injunction seizing any Chevron profits in Argentina if the company didn't pay a $19 billion damage judgment won by plaintiffs in Ecuador, where the Texaco oil company since bought by Chevron was judged to have contaminated parts of the Amazon.

The deal reached with Chevron is the biggest foreign investment that Argentina has attracted since expropriating YPF from control of the Spanish company Grupo Repsol last year. Repsol is demanding $10 billion in compensation and threatens to sue any oil company that takes over the wells.

C.A.E. COMPLETE MODEL EXAM

CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS INGLESES C-65 This complete exam is on the web at :http://www.english-online.org.uk/caefolder/caehome.php?name=Practice%20for%20the%20Cambridge%20Advanced%20English

FRANKENSTEIN S STORY A SUMMARY

FRANKENSTEIN S BY MARY SHELLEY

In a series of letters, Robert Walton, the captain of a ship bound for the North Pole, recounts to his sister back in England the progress of his dangerous mission. Successful early on, the mission is soon interrupted by seas full of impassable ice. Trapped, Walton encounters Victor Frankenstein, who has been traveling by dog-drawn sledge across the ice and is weakened by the cold. Walton takes him aboard ship, helps nurse him back to health, and hears the fantastic tale of the monster that Frankenstein created.

Victor first describes his early life in Geneva. At the end of a blissful childhood spent in the company of Elizabeth Lavenza (his cousin in the 1818 edition, his adopted sister in the 1831 edition) and friend Henry Clerval, Victor enters the university of Ingolstadt to study natural philosophy and chemistry. There, he is consumed by the desire to discover the secret of life and, after several years of research, becomes convinced that he has found it.
Armed with the knowledge he has long been seeking, Victor spends months feverishly fashioning a creature out of old body parts. One climactic night, in the secrecy of his apartment, he brings his creation to life. When he looks at the monstrosity that he has created, however, the sight horrifies him. After a fitful night of sleep, interrupted by the specter of the monster looming over him, he runs into the streets, eventually wandering in remorse. Victor runs into Henry, who has come to study at the university, and he takes his friend back to his apartment. Though the monster is gone, Victor falls into a feverish illness.
Sickened by his horrific deed, Victor prepares to return to Geneva, to his family, and to health. Just before departing Ingolstadt, however, he receives a letter from his father informing him that his youngest brother, William, has been murdered. Grief-stricken, Victor hurries home. While passing through the woods where William was strangled, he catches sight of the monster and becomes convinced that the monster is his brother’s murderer. Arriving in Geneva, Victor finds that Justine Moritz, a kind, gentle girl who had been adopted by the Frankenstein household, has been accused. She is tried, condemned, and executed, despite her assertions of innocence. Victor grows despondent, guilty with the knowledge that the monster he has created bears responsibility for the death of two innocent loved ones.
Hoping to ease his grief, Victor takes a vacation to the mountains. While he is alone one day, crossing an enormous glacier, the monster approaches him. The monster admits to the murder of William but begs for understanding. Lonely, shunned, and forlorn, he says that he struck out at William in a desperate attempt to injure Victor, his cruel creator. The monster begs Victor to create a mate for him, a monster equally grotesque to serve as his sole companion.
Victor refuses at first, horrified by the prospect of creating a second monster. The monster is eloquent and persuasive, however, and he eventually convinces Victor. After returning to Geneva, Victor heads for England, accompanied by Henry, to gather information for the creation of a female monster. Leaving Henry in Scotland, he secludes himself on a desolate island in the Orkneys and works reluctantly at repeating his first success. One night, struck by doubts about the morality of his actions, Victor glances out the window to see the monster glaring in at him with a frightening grin. Horrified by the possible consequences of his work, Victor destroys his new creation. The monster, enraged, vows revenge, swearing that he will be with Victor on Victor’s wedding night.