Transcript National 4 English - English at Montrose

Int. 2 and Higher Notes on the novel
* The novel is written in what is called demotic Scots.
* This is not Scots that you would find in a Scots dictionary
but the language that people use in the street and is
usually local to an area like Glasgow or Aberdeen.
* In many novels it is used to give colour to the dialogue of
the characters. Writers like Walter Scott or Lewis Grassic
Gibbon are famous for it. English writers like Thomas
Hardy or Charlotte Bronte use it too for a similar effect.
What is unusual is to write the whole novel in demotic
language.
*Demotic Scots
Some writers do this as a political gesture; Anne Donovan
uses it because she wants to celebrate the lyrical richness
of the daily language of the characters.
The Scots she uses is a natural expression of the true feelings of the
characters. We feel a powerful honesty and truth in the dialogue
unencumbered by the formality of standard English.
In 2004 ‘Buddha Da’ won the Prince Maurice award for literature in
Mauritius , proving that demotic Scots can transcend national barriers
to enjoy critical acclaim.
*Demotic Scots
creates lyrical richness
* Rather than the stereotypical Scotland of many novels
Anne Donovan’s Glasgow avoids poverty, violence,
sectarianism, politics and consumerism and instead
presents a postcolonial, cosmopolitan Glasgow where
cultures seem to blend and tumble over each other
without friction.
* The tensions in the novel are to do with the family and
the individuals in it rather than the meeting of different
ways of life.
*The setting
*Glasgow of the future not the past
* Donovan’s view of Glasgow is one of cultural and
ideological synthesis.
* The dialect is Glaswegian and her religion is
catholic but Anne Marie finds comfort in her pal
Nisha who’s brother mixes hip hop, Indian and
European music to create a new stateless
synthesis.
* The characters all mix and blend and share
influences
* At the Buddhist centre Kevin attempts to define
fellow pupil Khalil as being from India and the
futility of the old labels is made clear.
“That where you came frae in’t it, Khalil?” Says Kevin.
‘Don’t be daft, he comes fae Pakistan.’
‘Ah do not,’ says Khalil. ’Ah come fae Govan.’
* The novel is told through the three narrators
Jimmy, Liz and Anne Marie
* This is more than just a stylistic device it goes
to the heart of one of the novel’s central ideas:
We tend to see things very much from our own
point of view, not realising how they may
affect those closest to us.
*Narrative Structure
Jimmy
‘Ah’m on a journey and ah don’t know
Where ah’m gaun’
Jimmy’s narrative charts his struggle to come to
terms with Buddhism and his home life. As with his
abortive visit to Cumnock, in many of his journeys
he gets things wrong and life turns out to be
different from what he might have expected.
*Narrative structure
* Each of the characters view the world from a
different angle.
* Jimmy has a very visual sense of the world, being a
painter. He is constantly seeing the beauty in things
and feels at home with colours and shapes, as we
can see when he starts to sketch out the Buddha for
the mural or on his trips to the botanic gardens and
Arthur's seat.
* He also has a big heart. He feels all the right
emotions but makes lots of mistakes when it comes
to thinking. His decisions to try Buddhism or to
attend the Lama's talk instead of his daughter’s
show, his difficulties in understanding things like
‘Karma’ all show that he is not that bright.
* The Characters
Jimmy - One man’s view
Jimmy is a character who’s lack of understanding of what effect
his actions will have on others contradicts his desire for peace
and inner harmony ‘enlightenment’.
Jimmy’s enlightenment does not happen until the end of the
novel when he is brought up sharply to face what his selfish and
fruitless pursuit of Buddhism has resulted in.
Anne Donovan uses Jimmy to powerfully suggest that real
‘clarity’ and ‘enlightenment’ is being aware of those around you
and what they feel and how your actions impact on them.
In the end Jimmy is enlightened and it is not Buddhism that
brings it to him but the powerful connection he has to those
around him and the stark reality of the world he lives in.
* The Characters
Jimmy – ‘A fruitless search for
Enlightenment’
* Anne Marie is both the same and the opposite of Jimmy
* She is unhappy with her life at the beginning of the book
just like Jimmy but…
* She doesn't turn her back on the life she has but accepts
what's wrong and finds new friends around her including
those from a different culture
* She shares Jimmy's enthusiasm for music but proves more
adaptive and grows… she likes Madonna who is famous for
reinventing herself and she is successful in finding new
friends and new musical ideas. Jimmy on the other hand
fails to do this.
* She finds Karma in the chanting of the Lammas and really
understands her Dad’s painting and so
*Anne Marie a symbol of
multiculturalism and hope
* Liz is the character most affected by Jimmy’s search for
enlightenment and clarity
* She is the dutiful daughter, mother and Wife and has little
expectation outside of her clearly defined role
* She finds pleasure in Anne Marie’s growth and ability to see
the world as it is and make the most of it.
* She is frustrated with Jimmy’s inability to see the
way things
really are.
* Liz of all the characters is enlightened in a very
straightforward way. Her rapid movement from a woman
defined by her duty to the free thinking and acting young
woman is remarkable.
* Donovan uses the fling with David the student to demonstrate
both her ability to free herself from the humdrum of her life
and her clarity to see that there is no real future in it and that
she must set him free and return to the solid if frustrating
reality of her family life.
*The woman Liz
* Quotes – Liz is someone who likes to see order and
predictability in her life…
* ‘Every night ah look at the calendar and think aboot whit
ah’ve got tae prepare for the morra, or next week. Is
there ironin tae be done, any messages tae get, dae a ah
need tae take sumpn oot the freezer for the morra’s
dinner?’
* ‘ Ah wish ah could see ma life spread oot in front of me,
as if ah was up in the sky; like an astronaut lookin at a
river, seein the start and the middle and the end of it as it
flows tae the sea.’
* We can see that Anne Donovan portrays Liz as the anchor
stone of the family and that she represents all that we
might imagine that a good mum a good person might be.
*Practical Liz
* Liz is surprisingly also presented as a surprisingly sensual
person and this is placed in sharp contrast to the
seemingly awkward attempts by Jimmy to awaken a sense
of the sensual nature of the world around him by Jimmy.
* ‘ …ah caught ma breath for a minute and shut my eyes,
feelin the cauld water and the heat aff the sun and the
nearness of him all at once.
* Her affair with David surprises us with its sensual
intensity. Donovan uses smell as one of the main methods
of relating aspects of Liz’s personality.
* ‘Its funny but when Liz is really mad aboot sumpn, she
goes mental with the bleach
*Sensual Liz
* Anne Donavan seems to set up a scenario where the search for
enlightenment pursued by Jimmy is sharply contrasted with Liz’s actual
experience. Jimmy seeks enlightenment by withdrawing from his world
whereas Liz becomes even more mentally and physically involved in it.
* The wise outcome of all this is that neither gain happiness but Liz
shows a new and startlingly clear view of the world and the people
around her;
* She lets David , the student, free to live his own life
* She sees how important to Anne Marie her dad is
* She realises that bring up the baby will be best done with Jimmy
however nuts he can be
* She knows that she herself needs the predictable and the controllable
*Clarity and the mixture of reality
and imaginative characterisation
* Jimmy sees the world in a visual way
* ‘ wanst ah started tae move the pencil alang the lines of the drawin ,
ah felt ok again.’ 165
* Jimmy is always seeking ‘clarity. And this Jimmy’s understanding of
what enlightenment is.
* Ironically the novel holds out the possibility that Jimmy ends up a
better Buddhist by abandoning Buddhism and accepting an other man’s
baby. He loses his preoccupation with self and the self’s desires and
becomes the ‘big hearted ‘ man of the beginning of the novel
*Jimmy sees the world in
pictures but loses the clarity he
seeks through Buddhism
* Anne Marie is the symbol of hope and multiculturalism in
the novel
* She shows the same practical ‘clarity’ that Liz does.
* She moves from the friend that has sidelined her and
finds a new friend and in doing so finds her new hobby
and passion in life.
* Her acceptance of both her father’s wayward attempts at
Buddhism and her mothers new found lease of life show
that although she sees the world through the eyes of an
adolescent she understands it.
* Her use of the lamas chanting in her successful pop fusion
says it all ; she can see the possibilities of the future with
‘clarity’ even though she is just starting out.
*Anne Marie a symbol of
multiculturalism and hope
* ‘ Wish there was some way of knowin if we’re daen the
right thing, but there isnae. Never is.’
* Clarity or Enlightenment it all amounts to us trying to make
sense of a world that is often hurtful and random, which
sometimes makes sense and is wonderful and sometimes is
mad and cruel.
* Anne Donovan is suggesting that religion and philosophy are
no substitute for dealing with people as they are and the
world as it; is not trying to see it in a different way.
*The thematic
conclusion of the book
Paragraph 1
Introduction
Name of novel and author and a brief answer to the question.
Paragraph 2
Brief summary and lead into the
first main point
‘Buddha Da tells the story of
Jimmy, Liz and their daughter
Anne Marie…
Buddha Da tells the story of Jimmy, Liz and their
daughter Anne Marie who are a normal family
from Glasgow . The novel is written I demotic
scots and gives first person accounts of the family
problems which ensue from Jimmy deciding to
become a Buddhist. The family eventually split
up and Liz finds herself having a fling and
eventually getting pregnant with a PhD student.
The story revolves around the issue of Jimmy’s
search for some kind of ‘clarity’ and his seeming
lack of it. Liz on the other hand and her daughter
find new things and a kind of truth about life.
Paragraph 3 PEE ( Point , Example, Explanation)
Your first main point
One of the main characters is Jimmy and he starts off as a very
ordinary fellow but has that 21st century desire for direction.
‘Ah’m on a journey and ah don’t know
Where ah’m gaun’
Jimmy is used by Anne Donovan as an extreme example of the way in
which today’s society seems to think that somewhere there is an
answer to the eternal questions ,’why are we here ? What is it all
about?
Jimmy tries religion with comical results but the serious point is that
in extracting himself from the people around him and the trials and
tribulations of ordinary people he loses everything that is precious.
She also makes the point that this search for meaning is not confined
to the idle middle classes; Jimmy is a stereotypical working class
bloke and is just as lost as the rest of us.
* PEE ( Point , Example, Explanation)
* The character who really seems to explore the human issue dealt with in the novel is Liz.
We see her as very normal and routed in the real world of motherhood , being a good wife
and looking after her own mum. What challenges her challenges our own sense of what is
enlightened, what would ‘clarity ‘ look like for a normal person.
* ‘ Ah wish ah could see ma life spread oot in front of me, as if ah was up in the
sky; like an astronaut lookin at a river, seein the start and the middle and the
end of it as it flows tae the sea.’
* In Liz we can hear Anne Donovan’s voice speaking asking us to really look at our
lives and try to evaluate just what we have control of and just what
enlightenment might mean for someone like us , like Liz. In this quotation we
are aware of the Buddhist–like appreciation of the world , the sky , the sea but it
is tempered here with a need to kbnow what the consequences of our decisions
are. In this she is so unlike Jimmy and seems to have a much greater claim to
clarity than Jimmy. So Donavan gives us another perspective on the issue of
‘enlightenment or clarity in the book.
*Paragraph 4
The second main Point
* The third narrator Anne-Marie
* The symbol of hope and the future in the novel
* How does this character add to the over
commentary the writer is making about
‘clarity’ and enlightenment?
*Paragraph 4
3rd Main Point
* The writer’s craft.
* Anne Donovan uses demotic Scots, three first
person narrators and a lot of humour . How
does this make her exploration of the issue of
enlightenment effective?
*Paragraph 5
4th Main Point
* The conclusion of the novel
* The ending is not what you would expect the
conclusion seems to come quite suddenly and
yet how else could it have ended. What is
Donovan’s message from the book ? What does
it have to say about Buddhism and
‘enlightenment and was it effective?
*Paragraph 6
5th and final main point
* In conclusion…
* Here you restate the question and answer it as clearly as you can
* … the novel ‘Buddha Da is tackling one of the eternal issues that
concern us as people ; what is it all about ? Am I doing the right thing?
How could I see things more clearly ? Religion? Philosophy? Music ? In
the end it is a very brave message of commonsense , love and duty that
tumbles out unexpectedly from the book…
* ‘ Wish there was some way of knowin if we’re daen the right thing, but
there isnae. Never is.’
*Last Paragraph and
conclusion