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21 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Where is much of the novel set in? |
Much of the novel is set in eastern Siberia, close to the mighty river Amur - the frontier between Siberia and Manchuria. |
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What is so special about the name "Amur"? |
Amur is also one of the Russian names for Cupid, the god for love, and in French the name of the river is spelled Amour, the French for "love." |
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How to translate kolkhoznik into English? |
A worker on such a farm |
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How to translate kulak into English? |
A peasant farmer, working for his own profit). |
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Describe Utkin's body. |
Her body, this glass with the hot brilliance of a ruby, will become a softer color. |
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Describe on how Utkin's breasts will become. |
Utkin's breasts will become firmer, turning a milky pink. |
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Describe the beach. |
Everything is drowsing in this great house lost amid the greenery : a broad-brimmed straw hat, glowing in the sunlight on the terrace; in the garden, twisted cherry trees with motionless branches and trunks oozing resin. |
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By looking across the great glassy bay, how does the expanse of sea become sparkling? |
There was a turquoise incrustation between the branches of the cherry trees. |
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Why does the author Andrei Makine describe Utkin as a princess of the blood? |
A few swims together in the foam; a few evening strolls in the fragrant shade of the cypress trees. |
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Describe the notes of Utkin's piano. |
The slow notes stir as if unwillingly, quiver like butterflies whose wings are weighed down with pollen, and sink into the sun-drenched silence of the empty building. |
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Describe Utkin's reaction when she suddenly feels Andrei Makine inside her. |
Utkin pauses and cries out only when she suddenly feels Utkin inside her. And seeking to recover her balance, overtaken by a joyful delirium, she leans on the piano, no longer looking at the keys. With both hands, her fingers fanned out. A thunderous drunken chord erupts. And the wild sounds coincide with her first moans. |
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As Andrei Makine penetrates, pushes, and lifts Utkin, describe what happens. |
As Andrei Makine penetrates, pushes, lifts Utkin, he takes her weight. Her only point of support is her hands, moving on the keyboard once more. . . . A chord noisier and still more insistent. She is all curved now, her head thrown back, the lower part of her body abandoned to me. Yes, trembling, rippling, like a red-hot mass on a glassblower's pipe. The beads of sweat make this oval of flesh swaying beneath my fingers quite transparent. . . . |
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What happens when the chords follow one another, more and more staccato, breathless? |
Utkin's cries answer them in a deafening symphony of pleasure: sunlight, the clanger of the chords, the loud outbursts of her voice, mingling happy sobs with cries of fury. |
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Why was Utkin clinging to the smooth keys? |
Smooth keys were clinging to the invisible edge of the pleasure that is already slipping away from Utkin's body . . . |
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What object was considered as raw material by Utkin and Andrei Makine? |
Piano |
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For the raw material, why did Andrei Makine say "don't polish it"? |
In any case, Andrei Makine would change everything around. |
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Metaphorically, describe how Andrei Makine's life is terrible. |
Why was Andrei Makine the one to be catapulted under the blocks of ice in the frenzied breakup of a great river, which crushed his body and then spewed it out, irremediably mutilated? |
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Why would Utkin murmur Amur? |
Utkin would murmur the name of the river - Amur - that bears the same name as the god of love, and enter into its cool resonance, as if into the body of a woman in a dream, one created from similar matter, supple, soft, and misty. |
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What does Andrei Makine want to do? |
Andrei Makine wants to outwit blind fate. |
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What will Utkin present Andrei Makine? |
Utkin presents Andrei Makine with her mass of red-hot glass just as it is. |
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What does Utkin not want to do with her mass of red-hot glass? |
Utkin does not engrave her mass of red-hot glass with the point of her chisel or inflate it with her breath. |
