CHOCOLAT
BY JOANNE HARRIS
QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION
... hot greasy scents of frying pancakes and sausages and powdery-sweet waffles cooked on the hot plate right there by the roadside, with the confetti sleeting down collars and cuffs and rolling in the gutters like an idiot antidote to winter.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 1
No one looks at us. We might as well be invisible; our clothing marks us as strangers, trnasients. They are polite, so polite; no one stares at us.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 3
She smells of smoke and frying pancakes and warm bedclothes on a winter's morning.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 5
A slight air of embarrassment prevails, of abashment at this excess of noise and color. Like rain in midsummer it evaporates, runs ion tthe cracked earth and through the parched stones, leaving barely a trace. Two hours later Lansquenet-sous-Tannes is invisible once more, like an enchanted village that appears only once every year. But for the carnival we should have missed it altogether.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 5
She is right. The smell is like daylight trapped for years until it has gone sour and rancid, of mouse droppings and the ghosts of things unremembered and unmourned. It echose like a cave, the small heat of our presence only serving to accentuate every shadow. Paint and sunlight and soapy water will rid it of the grime, but the sadness is another matter, the forlorn resonance of a house where no one has laughed for years.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 6
Sandalwood on our pillow to sweeten our dreams.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 7
After tha one one every looked up at my window, though I counted over sixty heads, scarves, berets, hats drawn down against tn invisible wind- but I felt their studied, curious indifference. They had matters of importance to consider, said their hunched shoulders and lowered heads.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 9
"Well, we could doo with some help here," I suggested. "Not you, of course-"quickly, as he began to reply. "But perhaps you know someone whou could do with the extra money? A plasterer, someone who might be able to help with the decorating?"
This was surely safe territory.
"I can't think of anyone."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 11
She has an odd facility for acquiring helpers. Though I offered to assist her, I doubted whether she would find many of our villagers willing.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 15
All I want is to guide them, mon pere, to free them from their sin. But they fight me at every turn, like children refusing wholesome fare in order to continue eating what sickents them. I know you understand. ... Their faces are sullen, resentful. Yesterday they lkeft the service with ash on their foreheads and a look of guilty relief. Left to their secret indulgences, their solitary vices. Don't they understand? The Lord sees everything; I see everything. Paul-Marie Muscate beats his wife. He pays ten Aves weekly in the confessional and leavees to begin again in exactly the same way. HIs wife steals. Last week she went to the market and stole trumpery jewelry from a vendor's stall. Guillaume Duplessis wants to know if animals have souls, and weeps when I tell him they don't. Charlotte Edouard thinks her husband has a mistress - I know he has three, but he confessional keeps me silent. What children they are! Their demainds leave me bloodied and reeling. But I cannot afford to show weakness. Sheep are not the docile, pleasant creatures of the pastoral idyll. Any countryman will tell you that. They are sly, occasionally vicious, pathologically stupid. I cannot afford to be lenient. That is why, once a week, I allow myself this one indulgence. Your mouth is as closely sealed, mon pere, as that of the confessional. Your ears are always open, your heart always kind. For an hour I can lay aside the burden. I can be fallible.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 13
I am not kind. I come here for my own releif, not yours. And yet i like to believe my visits givve you pleasure, keeping you in touch wiht the hard edges of a world gone soft and featureless.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 16
To be talked over as if you were an object - Can he hear us? Do you think he understands? - your opinioins unsought, discarded ... To be closed from everything, and yet to feel, to think ... This is the truth of hell, stripped of it's gaudy medievalisms. This loss of contact.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 16
A man of any age can choose his friends where he likes,
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 27
Some people never have to think about giving.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 28
He has a lot to learn, that man, even if he has a got a degree in theology. And my silly daughter too. You don't get degrees in life, do you?
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 30
"You don't get much entertainment around here," she observed. "Especially if you're old," She paused and peered at me again. "But with you I think maybe we're in for a little entertainment."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 30
"Oh, I'm not allowed chocolate. Caro and that idiot doctor won't allow it. Or anything else I might enjoy," she added wryly. "First smoking, then alcohol, now this... God knows if I gave up breathing perhaps I might live forever."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 31
I see the brave adventure we lived for so long in a different light now that I am the mother. I see myself as I was, the brown girl with the long uncombed hair, wearing cast-off charity-shop clothing, learning math the hard way, geography the hard way - How much bread for two francs? How far will a fifty-mark rail ticket take us? - And I do not want it for her.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 33
But I let her go without a word, aching to hold her but too aware of the wall of privacy slamming down between us. Children are born wild, I know. The best I can hope for is a little tenderness, a seeming docility. eneath the surface the wilderness remains, stark, savage, and alien.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 49
There is a kind of sorcery in all cooking: in the choosing of ingredients, the process of mixing, grating, melting, infusing, and flavoritng, the recipes taken from ancient books, the traditional utensils - the pestle and mortar with which my mother made her incense turned to a more homely purpose, her spices and aromatics giving up their subtleties to a baser, more sensual magic.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 51
...so much loving preparation, so much art and experience, put into a pleasure that can last only a moment, and which only a few will ever fully appreciate.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 51
To her, food was no pleasure, but a tiresome necessity to be worried over, a tax on the price of our freedom.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 51
"You won't ever guess his favorite, she says. "He hasn't got one."
"I find that difficult to believe," I smile. "Everyone has a favorite. Even Monsieur Muscat."
Lucie considers this for a moment. "Maybe his favorite is the one he takes from someone else," she tells me limpidly.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 63
As an antidote I read Jung and Herman Hesse and learned about the collective unconscious. Divination is a means of telling ourselves what we already know. What we fear. There are no demons, but a collection of archetypes every civilization has in common. The fear of loss - Death. The fear of displacement - the Tower. The fear of transience - the Chariot.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 76
"It isn't me," I whispered. "It's you, it's supposed to be you, you're the Black Man, you're - Then I was falling backward through the looking glass with cards spraying aout in all directions around me - Nine of swords, DEATH. Three of Swords, DEATH. The Tower, DEATH. The Charito, DEATH.
I awoke screaming, wtih Anoouk standing above me, her dark face blurry with sleep and anxiety.
"Maman, what is it?" Her arms are warm around my neck. She smells of chocolate and vanilla and peaceful untroubled sleep.
"Nothing. A dream. Nothing."
She croons to me in her small soft voice, and I have an unnerviing impression of thw orld reversed, of myself melting into her like a nautilus into its spiral, round-around-around, of her hand cool on my forehead, her mouth against my hair, "Out-out, out," she murmurs automatically. "Evil spirits, get thee hence. It's okay now , maman. All gone." I don't know where she picks these things up from. My mother used to say that, but I don't remember ever teaching Anouk. And yet she uses it like an old familiar formula.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 144
Ironic, isn't it? A week ago I was still uestioning my own faith. Too self-absorbed to see the sings. Too feeble to play my part. And yet the Bible tels us uite clearly what we must do. Weeds and wehat cannot grow peacefully together. Any gardener could tell you the same thing.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 151
It is difficult to remember that until last week they were barely nodding aqcuaintances. There is a kind of intensity with them now, a lowered tone, a suggestion of intimacy. Politics, music, chess, religion, rugby, poetry - the swoop and segue from one topic to another like gourmets at a buffet who cannot bear to leave any dish untasted.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 152
"It's dreadful," he said, "but I have such an appetite. I feel as if I haven't eaten for a month. I've just buried my dog, and I could eat a -" He broke off in confusion. It feels terribly wrong somehow, " he said. "Like eating meat on Good Friday."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 156
"No point carrying useless ballast. It won't change a thing."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 157
"Where do you think Charly isnow, marman?"
There are lies I could tell her, comforting lies. But I find a I cannot. "I don't know, Nanou. I like to think - we can start again. In a new body that ins't old or sick. Or in a bird, or a tree. But no one one really knows."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 157
I dotn' think there is such a thing as a good or bad Christian," i told him. "Only good or bad people."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 171
"In that case, the things I've believe all my life - about sin and redemption and the mortification of the body - you'd say one of those things mean anything, wouldn't you?"
I smiled at his seriousness, "I'd say you've been talking to Armade, " I said gently. "And I'd also say that you and she are entitled to your beliefs. As long as they make you happy."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 172
I don't want to take this medicine every day," she said calmly. "I don't want to follow endless diet-sheets. I don't want to be waited on by kind nurses who talk to me as if I were in kindergarten. I'm eighty years old for crying out loud, and if I can't be trusted to know wha I want at my age - "
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 214
My dear girl, at my age I can be anything I please. I can be absurd if I felt like it. I'm old enough to get away with anything.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 217
"I don't think that white collar gives you sole right of access to the divine," she finished more gently. "I think there may be room somewhere for both of us, don't you?"
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 225
It is not she, but I who have been flind. The red-ribboned walking stick, the tentative gestures, the unfinished tapestry, the eyes shadowed beneath a succession of hats...
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 227
"You're not so old," I wailed in spite of myself. "I can't believe you're giving up like this!"
She looked at me. "And yet you were the one, weren't you, who told Guillaume to leave Charly some dignity."
"You're not a dog!" I retorted, angry now.
"No," replied Armande softely, "and I have a choice."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 229
Perhaps it is what I suspected from the first, that Reynaud and I are linked, that one balances the other and without him I have no purpose here.
Whatever it is, the neediness of the town is gone; I can feel satisfaction in its place, a full-bellied satiety with no more room for me. In homes everywhere in Lansquenet couples are making love, children are playing, dogs are barking, televisions blaring...without us.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 305
No longer will tourists drive through Lansquenet on the way to other places. I have put the invisible town on the map.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 305
VOCABULARY - Chocolate, Joanne Harris
Augury, pg 54
-the art or practice of an augur; divination. 2. the rite or ceremony of an augur. 3. an omen, token, or indication.
-1 : divination from auspices or omens; also : an instance of this 2 : omen, portent
-The augur was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome and Etruria. His main role was to interpret the will of the gods
- the art of divination by observing the behaviour of birds--was extensively cultivated by the Etrurians and Romans.
-The object of augury was not so much to foretell the future as to indicate what line of action should be followed, in any given circumstances, by the nation. The augurs were consulted on all matters of importance, and the position of augur was thus one of great consequence.
Bravado, pg 101
- pretended courage or defiant confidence when one is really afraid.
- 1. a. Defiant or swaggering behavior: strove to prevent our courage from turning into bravado.
- A pretense of bravery; The quality or state of being foolhardy; A blustering swaggering conduct;
- to challenge, to show off
dour, pg 169
1. sullen; gloomy: Marked by sternness or harshness; forbidding: a dour, self-sacrificing life.
Guenwald, pg 207
is German for "green forest" and may refer to ... German painter and poet; Mark Gruenwald (1953-1996),
gendarmes, pg between 71? and 76?
- medieval or early modern cavalryman
- plural of gent d'armes, literally, armed people. Date: 1793
- a uniformed national police force, sometimes part of the military.
Linchpin, pg 32
a fastener used to prevent a wheel or other rotating part from sliding off the axle.
mimosa, pg 209
a cocktail-like drink composed of three parts champagne or other sparkling wine and two parts thoroughly chilled orange juice
segue, pg 152
1. Music To make a transition directly from one section or theme to another. 2. To move smoothly and unhesitatingly from one state, condition, situation, or element to another.
St. Elmo's Fire, pg 163
a weather phenomena that often appears on the masts of ships and the wings of airplanes. an electrical weather phenomenon in which luminous plasma is created by a coronal discharge originating from a grounded object in an atmospheric electric field (such as those generated by thunderstorms or thunderstorms created by a volcanic explosion).
St. Elmo's fire is named after St. Erasmus of Formiae (also called St. Elmo, a common mispronunciation among sailors of St. Ermo), the patron saint of sailors. The phenomenon sometimes appeared on ships at sea during thunderstorms and was regarded by sailors with religious awe for its glowing ball of light, accounting for the name.
Tia Maria, pg 71
a Jamaican rum-based coffee liqueur.
treacly, pg 208
resembling treacle, tread down · tread on · tread on (someone's); overly sweet. cloying, saccharine, syrupy · sweet - having or denoting the characteristic taste of sugar ; Obsolete. a remedy for poison; any effective remedy. Brit. molasses; anything very sweet or cloying. Before the revolution Chukovsky had tried to free children's literature from treacly verse and goody-goody stories
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 1
No one looks at us. We might as well be invisible; our clothing marks us as strangers, trnasients. They are polite, so polite; no one stares at us.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 3
She smells of smoke and frying pancakes and warm bedclothes on a winter's morning.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 5
A slight air of embarrassment prevails, of abashment at this excess of noise and color. Like rain in midsummer it evaporates, runs ion tthe cracked earth and through the parched stones, leaving barely a trace. Two hours later Lansquenet-sous-Tannes is invisible once more, like an enchanted village that appears only once every year. But for the carnival we should have missed it altogether.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 5
She is right. The smell is like daylight trapped for years until it has gone sour and rancid, of mouse droppings and the ghosts of things unremembered and unmourned. It echose like a cave, the small heat of our presence only serving to accentuate every shadow. Paint and sunlight and soapy water will rid it of the grime, but the sadness is another matter, the forlorn resonance of a house where no one has laughed for years.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 6
Sandalwood on our pillow to sweeten our dreams.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 7
After tha one one every looked up at my window, though I counted over sixty heads, scarves, berets, hats drawn down against tn invisible wind- but I felt their studied, curious indifference. They had matters of importance to consider, said their hunched shoulders and lowered heads.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 9
"Well, we could doo with some help here," I suggested. "Not you, of course-"quickly, as he began to reply. "But perhaps you know someone whou could do with the extra money? A plasterer, someone who might be able to help with the decorating?"
This was surely safe territory.
"I can't think of anyone."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 11
She has an odd facility for acquiring helpers. Though I offered to assist her, I doubted whether she would find many of our villagers willing.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 15
All I want is to guide them, mon pere, to free them from their sin. But they fight me at every turn, like children refusing wholesome fare in order to continue eating what sickents them. I know you understand. ... Their faces are sullen, resentful. Yesterday they lkeft the service with ash on their foreheads and a look of guilty relief. Left to their secret indulgences, their solitary vices. Don't they understand? The Lord sees everything; I see everything. Paul-Marie Muscate beats his wife. He pays ten Aves weekly in the confessional and leavees to begin again in exactly the same way. HIs wife steals. Last week she went to the market and stole trumpery jewelry from a vendor's stall. Guillaume Duplessis wants to know if animals have souls, and weeps when I tell him they don't. Charlotte Edouard thinks her husband has a mistress - I know he has three, but he confessional keeps me silent. What children they are! Their demainds leave me bloodied and reeling. But I cannot afford to show weakness. Sheep are not the docile, pleasant creatures of the pastoral idyll. Any countryman will tell you that. They are sly, occasionally vicious, pathologically stupid. I cannot afford to be lenient. That is why, once a week, I allow myself this one indulgence. Your mouth is as closely sealed, mon pere, as that of the confessional. Your ears are always open, your heart always kind. For an hour I can lay aside the burden. I can be fallible.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 13
I am not kind. I come here for my own releif, not yours. And yet i like to believe my visits givve you pleasure, keeping you in touch wiht the hard edges of a world gone soft and featureless.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 16
To be talked over as if you were an object - Can he hear us? Do you think he understands? - your opinioins unsought, discarded ... To be closed from everything, and yet to feel, to think ... This is the truth of hell, stripped of it's gaudy medievalisms. This loss of contact.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 16
A man of any age can choose his friends where he likes,
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 27
Some people never have to think about giving.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 28
He has a lot to learn, that man, even if he has a got a degree in theology. And my silly daughter too. You don't get degrees in life, do you?
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 30
"You don't get much entertainment around here," she observed. "Especially if you're old," She paused and peered at me again. "But with you I think maybe we're in for a little entertainment."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 30
"Oh, I'm not allowed chocolate. Caro and that idiot doctor won't allow it. Or anything else I might enjoy," she added wryly. "First smoking, then alcohol, now this... God knows if I gave up breathing perhaps I might live forever."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 31
I see the brave adventure we lived for so long in a different light now that I am the mother. I see myself as I was, the brown girl with the long uncombed hair, wearing cast-off charity-shop clothing, learning math the hard way, geography the hard way - How much bread for two francs? How far will a fifty-mark rail ticket take us? - And I do not want it for her.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 33
But I let her go without a word, aching to hold her but too aware of the wall of privacy slamming down between us. Children are born wild, I know. The best I can hope for is a little tenderness, a seeming docility. eneath the surface the wilderness remains, stark, savage, and alien.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 49
There is a kind of sorcery in all cooking: in the choosing of ingredients, the process of mixing, grating, melting, infusing, and flavoritng, the recipes taken from ancient books, the traditional utensils - the pestle and mortar with which my mother made her incense turned to a more homely purpose, her spices and aromatics giving up their subtleties to a baser, more sensual magic.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 51
...so much loving preparation, so much art and experience, put into a pleasure that can last only a moment, and which only a few will ever fully appreciate.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 51
To her, food was no pleasure, but a tiresome necessity to be worried over, a tax on the price of our freedom.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 51
"You won't ever guess his favorite, she says. "He hasn't got one."
"I find that difficult to believe," I smile. "Everyone has a favorite. Even Monsieur Muscat."
Lucie considers this for a moment. "Maybe his favorite is the one he takes from someone else," she tells me limpidly.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 63
As an antidote I read Jung and Herman Hesse and learned about the collective unconscious. Divination is a means of telling ourselves what we already know. What we fear. There are no demons, but a collection of archetypes every civilization has in common. The fear of loss - Death. The fear of displacement - the Tower. The fear of transience - the Chariot.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 76
"It isn't me," I whispered. "It's you, it's supposed to be you, you're the Black Man, you're - Then I was falling backward through the looking glass with cards spraying aout in all directions around me - Nine of swords, DEATH. Three of Swords, DEATH. The Tower, DEATH. The Charito, DEATH.
I awoke screaming, wtih Anoouk standing above me, her dark face blurry with sleep and anxiety.
"Maman, what is it?" Her arms are warm around my neck. She smells of chocolate and vanilla and peaceful untroubled sleep.
"Nothing. A dream. Nothing."
She croons to me in her small soft voice, and I have an unnerviing impression of thw orld reversed, of myself melting into her like a nautilus into its spiral, round-around-around, of her hand cool on my forehead, her mouth against my hair, "Out-out, out," she murmurs automatically. "Evil spirits, get thee hence. It's okay now , maman. All gone." I don't know where she picks these things up from. My mother used to say that, but I don't remember ever teaching Anouk. And yet she uses it like an old familiar formula.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 144
Ironic, isn't it? A week ago I was still uestioning my own faith. Too self-absorbed to see the sings. Too feeble to play my part. And yet the Bible tels us uite clearly what we must do. Weeds and wehat cannot grow peacefully together. Any gardener could tell you the same thing.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 151
It is difficult to remember that until last week they were barely nodding aqcuaintances. There is a kind of intensity with them now, a lowered tone, a suggestion of intimacy. Politics, music, chess, religion, rugby, poetry - the swoop and segue from one topic to another like gourmets at a buffet who cannot bear to leave any dish untasted.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 152
"It's dreadful," he said, "but I have such an appetite. I feel as if I haven't eaten for a month. I've just buried my dog, and I could eat a -" He broke off in confusion. It feels terribly wrong somehow, " he said. "Like eating meat on Good Friday."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 156
"No point carrying useless ballast. It won't change a thing."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 157
"Where do you think Charly isnow, marman?"
There are lies I could tell her, comforting lies. But I find a I cannot. "I don't know, Nanou. I like to think - we can start again. In a new body that ins't old or sick. Or in a bird, or a tree. But no one one really knows."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 157
I dotn' think there is such a thing as a good or bad Christian," i told him. "Only good or bad people."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 171
"In that case, the things I've believe all my life - about sin and redemption and the mortification of the body - you'd say one of those things mean anything, wouldn't you?"
I smiled at his seriousness, "I'd say you've been talking to Armade, " I said gently. "And I'd also say that you and she are entitled to your beliefs. As long as they make you happy."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 172
I don't want to take this medicine every day," she said calmly. "I don't want to follow endless diet-sheets. I don't want to be waited on by kind nurses who talk to me as if I were in kindergarten. I'm eighty years old for crying out loud, and if I can't be trusted to know wha I want at my age - "
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 214
My dear girl, at my age I can be anything I please. I can be absurd if I felt like it. I'm old enough to get away with anything.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 217
"I don't think that white collar gives you sole right of access to the divine," she finished more gently. "I think there may be room somewhere for both of us, don't you?"
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 225
It is not she, but I who have been flind. The red-ribboned walking stick, the tentative gestures, the unfinished tapestry, the eyes shadowed beneath a succession of hats...
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 227
"You're not so old," I wailed in spite of myself. "I can't believe you're giving up like this!"
She looked at me. "And yet you were the one, weren't you, who told Guillaume to leave Charly some dignity."
"You're not a dog!" I retorted, angry now.
"No," replied Armande softely, "and I have a choice."
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 229
Perhaps it is what I suspected from the first, that Reynaud and I are linked, that one balances the other and without him I have no purpose here.
Whatever it is, the neediness of the town is gone; I can feel satisfaction in its place, a full-bellied satiety with no more room for me. In homes everywhere in Lansquenet couples are making love, children are playing, dogs are barking, televisions blaring...without us.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 305
No longer will tourists drive through Lansquenet on the way to other places. I have put the invisible town on the map.
Joanne Harris, Chocolat, pg 305
VOCABULARY - Chocolate, Joanne Harris
Augury, pg 54
-the art or practice of an augur; divination. 2. the rite or ceremony of an augur. 3. an omen, token, or indication.
-1 : divination from auspices or omens; also : an instance of this 2 : omen, portent
-The augur was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome and Etruria. His main role was to interpret the will of the gods
- the art of divination by observing the behaviour of birds--was extensively cultivated by the Etrurians and Romans.
-The object of augury was not so much to foretell the future as to indicate what line of action should be followed, in any given circumstances, by the nation. The augurs were consulted on all matters of importance, and the position of augur was thus one of great consequence.
Bravado, pg 101
- pretended courage or defiant confidence when one is really afraid.
- 1. a. Defiant or swaggering behavior: strove to prevent our courage from turning into bravado.
- A pretense of bravery; The quality or state of being foolhardy; A blustering swaggering conduct;
- to challenge, to show off
dour, pg 169
1. sullen; gloomy: Marked by sternness or harshness; forbidding: a dour, self-sacrificing life.
Guenwald, pg 207
is German for "green forest" and may refer to ... German painter and poet; Mark Gruenwald (1953-1996),
gendarmes, pg between 71? and 76?
- medieval or early modern cavalryman
- plural of gent d'armes, literally, armed people. Date: 1793
- a uniformed national police force, sometimes part of the military.
Linchpin, pg 32
a fastener used to prevent a wheel or other rotating part from sliding off the axle.
mimosa, pg 209
a cocktail-like drink composed of three parts champagne or other sparkling wine and two parts thoroughly chilled orange juice
segue, pg 152
1. Music To make a transition directly from one section or theme to another. 2. To move smoothly and unhesitatingly from one state, condition, situation, or element to another.
St. Elmo's Fire, pg 163
a weather phenomena that often appears on the masts of ships and the wings of airplanes. an electrical weather phenomenon in which luminous plasma is created by a coronal discharge originating from a grounded object in an atmospheric electric field (such as those generated by thunderstorms or thunderstorms created by a volcanic explosion).
St. Elmo's fire is named after St. Erasmus of Formiae (also called St. Elmo, a common mispronunciation among sailors of St. Ermo), the patron saint of sailors. The phenomenon sometimes appeared on ships at sea during thunderstorms and was regarded by sailors with religious awe for its glowing ball of light, accounting for the name.
Tia Maria, pg 71
a Jamaican rum-based coffee liqueur.
treacly, pg 208
resembling treacle, tread down · tread on · tread on (someone's); overly sweet. cloying, saccharine, syrupy · sweet - having or denoting the characteristic taste of sugar ; Obsolete. a remedy for poison; any effective remedy. Brit. molasses; anything very sweet or cloying. Before the revolution Chukovsky had tried to free children's literature from treacly verse and goody-goody stories
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.