UFF 2009 Inglês - Questões

In Philip Roth’s novel Exit Ghost, the narrator, Nathan Zucherman, a famous writer, comes backto New York, the city he left eleven years before. Alone on his New England Mountain, Zuckerman had devoted his time exclusively to being a writer. Below is an extract from the novel.

What surprised me most my first few days walking around the city? The most obvious thing-the cell phones. We had no reception as yet (13) up on my mountain, and down in Athena, where they do have it, I’d rarely see people striding (1) the streets talking uninhibitedly into their phones. I remembered a New York when the only people walking up Broadway seemingly talking to themselves were crazy (10). What had happened in these ten years for there suddenly to be so much to say-so much so pressing that it couldn’t wait to be said? Everywhere I walked, somebody was approaching me talking on a phone and someone was behind me talking on a phone. Inside the cars, the drivers were on the phone. When I took a taxi, the cabbie (2) was on the phone. For one who frequently went without talking to anyone for days at a time (11), I had to wonder what that had previously held them up (3) had collapsed in people to make incessant talking into a telephone preferable to walking about under no one’s surveillance (4), momentarily solitary, assimilating the streets through one’s animal senses and thinking the myriad (5) thoughts that the activities of a city inspire. For me it made the streets appear comic and the people ridiculous. And yet (14) it seemed like a real tragedy, too. [...] I was impressed by the conspicuousness (6) of it all and found myself entertaining the idea for a story in which Manhattan has turned into a sinister collectivity where everyone is spying on everyone else, everyone being tracked by the person at the other end of his or her phone, even though, incessantly dialing one another from wherever they like in the great out of doors, the telephoners believe themselves to be experiencing the maximum freedom. I knew that merely by thinking up such a scenario I was at one with all the cranks (7) who imagined, from the beginnings of industrialization, that the machine was the enemy of life. Still, I could not help it (12): I did not see how anyone could believe he was continuing to live a human existence by walking about talking into a phone for half his waking life. No, those gadgets (8) did not promise to be a boon (9) to promoting reflection among the general public.

(From ROTH, Philip, Exit Ghost. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007)

Glossary

striding (1) = walking with long steps

cabbie (2) = taxi-driver

held [them] up (3) = delayed

surveillance (4) = close observation

myriad (5) = a great number

conspicuousness (6) = the quality of being visible

cranks (7) = eccentric people

gadgets (8) = electronic devices

boon (9) = something helpful

Modern life has turned cell phones into a device hardly nobody can do without. Nathan Zuckerman’s feelings toward cell phones, however, are quite different. Comment.

In Philip Roth’s novel Exit Ghost, the narrator, Nathan Zucherman, a famous writer, comes backto New York, the city he left eleven years before. Alone on his New England Mountain, Zuckerman had devoted his time exclusively to being a writer. Below is an extract from the novel.

What surprised me most my first few days walking around the city? The most obvious thing-the cell phones. We had no reception as yet (13) up on my mountain, and down in Athena, where they do have it, I’d rarely see people striding (1) the streets talking uninhibitedly into their phones. I remembered a New York when the only people walking up Broadway seemingly talking to themselves were crazy (10). What had happened in these ten years for there suddenly to be so much to say-so much so pressing that it couldn’t wait to be said? Everywhere I walked, somebody was approaching me talking on a phone and someone was behind me talking on a phone. Inside the cars, the drivers were on the phone. When I took a taxi, the cabbie (2) was on the phone. For one who frequently went without talking to anyone for days at a time (11), I had to wonder what that had previously held them up (3) had collapsed in people to make incessant talking into a telephone preferable to walking about under no one’s surveillance (4), momentarily solitary, assimilating the streets through one’s animal senses and thinking the myriad (5) thoughts that the activities of a city inspire. For me it made the streets appear comic and the people ridiculous. And yet (14) it seemed like a real tragedy, too. [...] I was impressed by the conspicuousness (6) of it all and found myself entertaining the idea for a story in which Manhattan has turned into a sinister collectivity where everyone is spying on everyone else, everyone being tracked by the person at the other end of his or her phone, even though, incessantly dialing one another from wherever they like in the great out of doors, the telephoners believe themselves to be experiencing the maximum freedom. I knew that merely by thinking up such a scenario I was at one with all the cranks (7) who imagined, from the beginnings of industrialization, that the machine was the enemy of life. Still, I could not help it (12): I did not see how anyone could believe he was continuing to live a human existence by walking about talking into a phone for half his waking life. No, those gadgets (8) did not promise to be a boon (9) to promoting reflection among the general public.

(From ROTH, Philip, Exit Ghost. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007)

Glossary

striding (1) = walking with long steps

cabbie (2) = taxi-driver

held [them] up (3) = delayed

surveillance (4) = close observation

myriad (5) = a great number

conspicuousness (6) = the quality of being visible

cranks (7) = eccentric people

gadgets (8) = electronic devices

boon (9) = something helpful

"I remembered a New York when the only people walking up Broadway seemingly talking to themselves were crazy.” (10)

According to Nathan Zuckerman, how does this attitude compare to the behavior of New Yorkers nowadays?

In Philip Roth’s novel Exit Ghost, the narrator, Nathan Zucherman, a famous writer, comes backto New York, the city he left eleven years before. Alone on his New England Mountain, Zuckerman had devoted his time exclusively to being a writer. Below is an extract from the novel.

What surprised me most my first few days walking around the city? The most obvious thing-the cell phones. We had no reception as yet (13) up on my mountain, and down in Athena, where they do have it, I’d rarely see people striding (1) the streets talking uninhibitedly into their phones. I remembered a New York when the only people walking up Broadway seemingly talking to themselves were crazy (10). What had happened in these ten years for there suddenly to be so much to say-so much so pressing that it couldn’t wait to be said? Everywhere I walked, somebody was approaching me talking on a phone and someone was behind me talking on a phone. Inside the cars, the drivers were on the phone. When I took a taxi, the cabbie (2) was on the phone. For one who frequently went without talking to anyone for days at a time (11), I had to wonder what that had previously held them up (3) had collapsed in people to make incessant talking into a telephone preferable to walking about under no one’s surveillance (4), momentarily solitary, assimilating the streets through one’s animal senses and thinking the myriad (5) thoughts that the activities of a city inspire. For me it made the streets appear comic and the people ridiculous. And yet (14) it seemed like a real tragedy, too. [...] I was impressed by the conspicuousness (6) of it all and found myself entertaining the idea for a story in which Manhattan has turned into a sinister collectivity where everyone is spying on everyone else, everyone being tracked by the person at the other end of his or her phone, even though, incessantly dialing one another from wherever they like in the great out of doors, the telephoners believe themselves to be experiencing the maximum freedom. I knew that merely by thinking up such a scenario I was at one with all the cranks (7) who imagined, from the beginnings of industrialization, that the machine was the enemy of life. Still, I could not help it (12): I did not see how anyone could believe he was continuing to live a human existence by walking about talking into a phone for half his waking life. No, those gadgets (8) did not promise to be a boon (9) to promoting reflection among the general public.

(From ROTH, Philip, Exit Ghost. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007)

Glossary

striding (1) = walking with long steps

cabbie (2) = taxi-driver

held [them] up (3) = delayed

surveillance (4) = close observation

myriad (5) = a great number

conspicuousness (6) = the quality of being visible

cranks (7) = eccentric people

gadgets (8) = electronic devices

boon (9) = something helpful

The statement "For one who frequently went without talking to anyone for days at a time [...]” (11) reveals one aspect of Nathan Zuckerman’s personality. Comment.

In Philip Roth’s novel Exit Ghost, the narrator, Nathan Zucherman, a famous writer, comes backto New York, the city he left eleven years before. Alone on his New England Mountain, Zuckerman had devoted his time exclusively to being a writer. Below is an extract from the novel.

What surprised me most my first few days walking around the city? The most obvious thing-the cell phones. We had no reception as yet (13) up on my mountain, and down in Athena, where they do have it, I’d rarely see people striding (1) the streets talking uninhibitedly into their phones. I remembered a New York when the only people walking up Broadway seemingly talking to themselves were crazy (10). What had happened in these ten years for there suddenly to be so much to say-so much so pressing that it couldn’t wait to be said? Everywhere I walked, somebody was approaching me talking on a phone and someone was behind me talking on a phone. Inside the cars, the drivers were on the phone. When I took a taxi, the cabbie (2) was on the phone. For one who frequently went without talking to anyone for days at a time (11), I had to wonder what that had previously held them up (3) had collapsed in people to make incessant talking into a telephone preferable to walking about under no one’s surveillance (4), momentarily solitary, assimilating the streets through one’s animal senses and thinking the myriad (5) thoughts that the activities of a city inspire. For me it made the streets appear comic and the people ridiculous. And yet (14) it seemed like a real tragedy, too. [...] I was impressed by the conspicuousness (6) of it all and found myself entertaining the idea for a story in which Manhattan has turned into a sinister collectivity where everyone is spying on everyone else, everyone being tracked by the person at the other end of his or her phone, even though, incessantly dialing one another from wherever they like in the great out of doors, the telephoners believe themselves to be experiencing the maximum freedom. I knew that merely by thinking up such a scenario I was at one with all the cranks (7) who imagined, from the beginnings of industrialization, that the machine was the enemy of life. Still, I could not help it (12): I did not see how anyone could believe he was continuing to live a human existence by walking about talking into a phone for half his waking life. No, those gadgets (8) did not promise to be a boon (9) to promoting reflection among the general public.

(From ROTH, Philip, Exit Ghost. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007)

Glossary

striding (1) = walking with long steps

cabbie (2) = taxi-driver

held [them] up (3) = delayed

surveillance (4) = close observation

myriad (5) = a great number

conspicuousness (6) = the quality of being visible

cranks (7) = eccentric people

gadgets (8) = electronic devices

boon (9) = something helpful

What does Nathan Zuckerman mean by “Still, I could not help it” (12)?

In Philip Roth’s novel Exit Ghost, the narrator, Nathan Zucherman, a famous writer, comes backto New York, the city he left eleven years before. Alone on his New England Mountain, Zuckerman had devoted his time exclusively to being a writer. Below is an extract from the novel.

What surprised me most my first few days walking around the city? The most obvious thing-the cell phones. We had no reception as yet (13) up on my mountain, and down in Athena, where they do have it, I’d rarely see people striding (1) the streets talking uninhibitedly into their phones. I remembered a New York when the only people walking up Broadway seemingly talking to themselves were crazy (10). What had happened in these ten years for there suddenly to be so much to say-so much so pressing that it couldn’t wait to be said? Everywhere I walked, somebody was approaching me talking on a phone and someone was behind me talking on a phone. Inside the cars, the drivers were on the phone. When I took a taxi, the cabbie (2) was on the phone. For one who frequently went without talking to anyone for days at a time (11), I had to wonder what that had previously held them up (3) had collapsed in people to make incessant talking into a telephone preferable to walking about under no one’s surveillance (4), momentarily solitary, assimilating the streets through one’s animal senses and thinking the myriad (5) thoughts that the activities of a city inspire. For me it made the streets appear comic and the people ridiculous. And yet (14) it seemed like a real tragedy, too. [...] I was impressed by the conspicuousness (6) of it all and found myself entertaining the idea for a story in which Manhattan has turned into a sinister collectivity where everyone is spying on everyone else, everyone being tracked by the person at the other end of his or her phone, even though, incessantly dialing one another from wherever they like in the great out of doors, the telephoners believe themselves to be experiencing the maximum freedom. I knew that merely by thinking up such a scenario I was at one with all the cranks (7) who imagined, from the beginnings of industrialization, that the machine was the enemy of life. Still, I could not help it (12): I did not see how anyone could believe he was continuing to live a human existence by walking about talking into a phone for half his waking life. No, those gadgets (8) did not promise to be a boon (9) to promoting reflection among the general public.

(From ROTH, Philip, Exit Ghost. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2007)

Glossary

striding (1) = walking with long steps

cabbie (2) = taxi-driver

held [them] up (3) = delayed

surveillance (4) = close observation

myriad (5) = a great number

conspicuousness (6) = the quality of being visible

cranks (7) = eccentric people

gadgets (8) = electronic devices

boon (9) = something helpful

The connector yet is used differently on (13) and (14) in the text. Explain these different uses.