Advanced Placement  2008-2009  

12^th Grade –Literature and Composition

Brentwood High School

L. Huddleston

Dear Advanced Placement Seniors:   

I hope you have a productive, but restful summer and that you will come back to BHS refreshed and ready for an in depth study of literature from around the world.  Also, I hope that you consider yourself a lifelong learner and that learning becomes “the strongest force you know ….”  Rick Bass Winter

Please pick up a copy of The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
           and a copy of              All the Pretty Horses        by Cormac McCarthy

Both of these novels have a distinct sense of “place.”  Much of the artistry in each novel is developed with this sense of place:  one is set in Mexico and the other in South Texas and Mexico.

   The Power and the Glory

  A Mexican priest in 1978 told Graham Greene’s biographer, Norman Sherry:  “as a Mexican I travel in those regions.  The first three paragraphs,  where he gives you the camera shots of the place,  why it is astounding.  You are IN the place.”

In 1960, a Catholic teacher in California wrote Greene:

                One day I gave The Power and the Glory to … a native old Mexican who had lived through
                 persecutions…She confessed that your descriptions were so vivid, your priest so real that
                 she found herself praying for him at Mass.  I understand how she felt.  Last year on a trip
                 through Mexico, I found myself peering into mud huts, through village streets, and across
                 impassable   mountain ranges, half believing that I would glimpse a dim figure stumbling in
                 the rain on his way  to the border. There is no greater tribute to your creation of this character –
                he lives.
                                                                                                         …From the intro to the novel
               (AND--- THE PRIEST IS A PARADOX)

     All the Pretty Horses       

                All the Pretty Horses has become a modern-day classic on both the high school and collegiate levels for its compelling epic narrative and magnificent drama about men and the human heart in conflict with itself.   It has won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Award.  This past year Cormac McCarthy also won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, The Road.

                From the novel:

               They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell
                was and  they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light to
                it and which  carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they
               rode not under but  among them and they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves
               newly loosed in that  dark electric….

 

In this novel, one might also see a paradox between the awesome beauty of the land and the harsh reality behind it.

 

                Assignment for both novels:

1.-----As you read,  highlight passages that describe a vivid scene, the extraordinary landscape, the simple
          everyday conversations of people—anything that helps you to gain a feel for these places.
           Understand the paradox that is the priest in The Power and the Glory and the paradox in

          All the Pretty Horses:      ( McCarthy’s beautiful descriptions of the setting vs. the awful reality)

2. ----Develop a quote log for each novel and include: the quote, the page number, and the
           speaker’s name.  (Remember that any passage you use BECOMES a quote from the novel and the
            speaker may simply be the narrator.)  Select passages that develop the idea of place, paradox, or just
             any passage that speaks to you.

         ---Quotes must span the length of the novel and be in chronological order

         ---Minimum Number of Quotes per Novel:   30
         ---Type the quote log
         ---Staple the pages of the log together.
         --- Include a cover page with your own original drawing of any scene in the novel that speaks of
               “place.”   COLOR IS REQUIRED!!!!   Do NOT use computer images.
          ---Do not turn in a spiral or bound journal.

Reminder:   Quote Logs and Drawings  - due the day you return for the fall semester.

 We will discuss these novels the first week back in school in August. After our
 discussions, you will be expected to write an essay over each novel about the paradox
in the novel.

 If you need to contact me during the summer email me at the following address

leeh@wcs.edu

I check this email all summer.   I look forward to meeting each of you this August.

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