Department of English

Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University

 

Happiness

(2018)

 

Aminatta Forna

(November 1, 1964 – )


 

Notes


9  Waterloo Bridge:

Waterloo Bridge, by Nigel Rudyard
Waterloo Bridge, photo: Nigel Rudyard

Waterloo Bridge, by Roger
Waterloo Bridge, photo: Roger

London map with Waterloo Bridge
London map with Waterloo Bridge

Waterloo Bridge view of Parliament
View of Parliament from Bridge

Waterloo Bridge welder
Waterloo Bridge welder, 1944
  • Colin Schultz, "This Bridge Is Nicknamed the ‘Ladies Bridge’ Because It Was Built Largely by Women," Smithsonian Magazine, 15 Jul. 2013.
    As World War II overtook Europe and men went off to battle, the women of England, much as in America, entered—or were conscripted into–the wartime workforce. “Before long,” says the BBC, “women made up one third of the total workforce in the metal and chemical industries, as well as in ship-building and vehicle manufacture.” They also worked on English infrastructure: “They worked on the railways, canals and on buses. Women built Waterloo Bridge in London.”
  • Anika Burgess, "Women Built London’s Waterloo Bridge, But It Took These Photos to Prove It," Atlas Obscura, 21 Sep. 2018.
    For more than half a century, it was just a rumor. As London’s river boat pilots passed by Waterloo Bridge (“The Ladies’ Bridge,” as some of them called it) they’d tell a story about the women who had built the bridge during World War II. But the idea that women had been largely involved in building Waterloo Bridge wasn’t included in any official history of the structure, or detailed in any records. During the new bridge’s opening ceremony, on December 10, 1945, then-Deputy Prime Minister Herbert Morrison had declared that “the men that built Waterloo Bridge are fortunate men.” It wasn’t until 2015 that the hard work of these women could be confirmed, by the historian Christine Wall, thanks to a series of photographs she found.
  • Concrete History, Christine Hall, and Derek Moir, "The Ladies Bridge," The Ladies' Bridge.
    "I can remember seeing ladies here...I think there was quite a few hundred ladies up here they did the less technical jobs, the lifting and the tugging where the men done the crane work and the technical type of work. And the ladies were in two grades of ladies. The ladies with the turbans and the dungarees you know with the bib up—there was more of them—but the ladies which were like the senior lady that could drive and could undertake a more of a technical job like, they wore an all in one overall a bit similar to the men...They probably didn't remember the women, you know if you have a flat cap on and an overall all in one, even today I have a lot of trouble to see who's a man and who's a lady. My father he used to love the ladies..."
    David Church—Son of crane driver on Waterloo Bridge interviewed in 2006.
  • "Waterloo Bridge," Historic England.
 

9  National Theatre:

National Theatre
National Theatre, photo: Philip Vile

National Theatre flytowers
View from Waterloo Bridge

National Theatre north-east view
North-east side

National Theatre interior
Interior


Season 4 2012–2013 trailer
  • "The History of the National Theatre," National Theatre
    It is over five decades since the National Theatre Company under Laurence Olivier gave their first-ever performance. Since the opening night of Hamlet, starring Peter O'Toole, on 22 October 1963, the National Theatre has produced well over 800 plays. For its first 13 years, the Company worked at the Old Vic Theatre, while waiting for its new home to be completed. In 1976, under Peter Hall, the move took place and Denys Lasdun's National Theatre building was opened by The Queen.

    In each of the years since, the National has staged over twenty new productions. Several different productions can be seen in any one week and there are over 1,000 performances every year, given by a company of 150 actors to over 600,000 people, with many more seeing NT productions in the West End, on tour or via NT Live cinema broadcasts.
  • Daniel Rosenthal, "Architectural History of the National Theatre Part One: The Men Who Might Have Built the National," Google Arts and Culture.
    "[The National Theatre must] break away, completely and unequivocally, from the ideals...of the profit-making stage...It must bulk large in the social and intellectual life of London...be visibly and unmistakably a popular institution." – William Archer and Harley Granville Barker, 1904.

    The Scheme called for the construction of a "thoroughly dignified and delightful playhouse", in which "architectural dignity...would of course be essential...The Theatre should not be...a palace of art, but neither should it be a gaunt and depressing barrack."
  • "Architectural History of the National Theatre Part Two: The Man Who Built the National," Google Arts and Culture.
    Lasdun recalled the evolution of the open-stage auditorium design as follows:
    I told the committee we were going to work from the centre outwards. That meant asking and trying to answer—"What is the relationship between actor and audience, between actor and actor, and between audience and audience?" We searched for an open relationship that looked back to the Greeks and Elizabethans and...looked forward to a contemporary view of society in which all could have a fair chance to see, hear and share the collective experience of exploring human truths...Everyone was terribly relieved that they weren't talking to an expert who would say—"This is what the National Theatre is going to be—this is the architect speaking."
  • Andrzej Lukowski, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know about the National Theatre (But Were Afraid to Ask)," TimeOut, 21 Oct. 2013.
 

 

28  tango:


Fernando Gracia and Sol Cerquides, Solo Tango Orchestra
  • "The Tango," UNESCO
    The Argentinian and Uruguayan tradition of the Tango, now familiar around the world, was developed by the urban lower classes in Buenos Aires and Montevideo in the Rio de la Plata basin. Among this mix of European immigrants to the region, descendants of African slaves and the natives of the region known as "criollos," a wide range of customs, beliefs and rituals were merged and transformed into a distinctive cultural identity. As one of the most recognizable embodiments of that identity, the music, dance and poetry of tango both embodies and encourages diversity and cultural dialogue. It is practised in the traditional dance halls of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, spreading the spirit of its community across the globe even as it adapts to new environments and changing times. That community today includes musicians, professional and amateur dancers, choreographers, composers, songwriters, teachers of the art and the national living treasures who embody the culture of tango. Tango is also incorporated into celebrations of national heritage in Argentina and Uruguay, reflecting the widespread embrace of this popular urban music.
  • "Introduction to Tango Music," Performance Playground, University of Michigan
    Tango was born around the 18th century out of the fusion of the cultures in the Río de la Plata region that connects Argentina and Uruguay. Musical stylings from the indigenous people of the region combined with that from the enslaved and impoverished populations grew into the genre we know today. This multidimensional art form includes dance, poetry, and of course, music.
 


32  Esperanto:


Judith Meyer, "Esperanto: Like a Native" (2015)
  • "About Esperanto," Esperanto USA
    Esperanto is the world’s most widely spoken constructed language. It was introduced in 1887 by Dr. L. L. Zamenhof of Warsaw, in today’s Poland, to foster international understanding by allowing people with different native languages to communicate as equals. With a vocabulary of international words and a simple yet expressive grammar, it can be learned more easily than other language.
   


96  dog fox:


124  "Too Marvelous for Words": A 1937 song composed by Richard A. Whiting and lyrics by Johnny Mercer


  • Frank Sinatra, "Too Marvelous for Words," Ultimate Sinatra (2015; 2:27 min.)


125  Thomas Hood's 1844 poem: "The Bridge of Sighs"

  

275  Astor Piazzolla: 
 

"The New Tango" (1987)
  • "Astor Piazzolla," Philadelphia Chamber Music Orchestra
    Astor Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music. An excellent bandoneonist, he regularly performed his own compositions with different ensembles. He is known in his native land as “El Gran Astor” (“The Great Astor”).
  • María Susana Azzi, "His Life and Oeuvre," Astor Piazzolla (2018)
    Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was born in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina,on March 11,1921. His grandparents had emigrated from the north and south of Italy: from Lucca in Tuscany, and Trani in the Puglia region. Thus, Astor liked to joke with Osvaldo Pugliese that he was also a “pugliese”.
    [...]
    A coincidence was decisive in Astor's life: Béla Wilda, a disciple of Serge Rachmaninoff, happened to live near the Piazzollas. Astor got to know him, and he listened to him playing Bach for hours. This experience inspired him to learn to play Bach and Chopin on the bandoneon.
    There were many other influences in Astor's musical development. Asa boy, he was paid $25 to play a newspaper vendor in the film El día que me quieras (1935), which starred the famous tango singer Carlos Gardel. Years later, Piazzolla said “Everything gets under your skin! My rhythm accents are even like the Jewish popular music I heard at weddings”. Indeed, the 3-3-2 rhythmic arrangement is found in klezmer music. This pattern resembles the3-3-2 accents ─with emphasis on the first, fourth and sixth eighth notes in a 4/ 4bar─that derive from the milonga and the habanera, which gave rise to tango.
    [...]
    To free tango from its traditional patterns, Piazzolla began to use novel tone-colors and rhythms, as well as dissonant harmonies to give the music more nuances. “Swing” was the word Piazzolla used the mean rhythmic consciousness.The classical tango sextet consisted of two bandoneons, two violins, double bass, and piano. Piazzolla enlarged it with a cello and an electric guitar, and in 1955 he founded the Octeto Buenos Aires. Never before hada tango ensemble incorporated an electric guitar. The reactions were so angry that Horacio Malvicino, the electric guitarist in the Octet, recalls even receiving death threats.
  • "Piazzolla's Decalogue," Astor Piazzolla Foundation
  • "Piazzolla x Astor," Piazzolla 100 (excerpts and stories from Piazzolla's life)
    "I fell in love with music for the first time in my life when I was 16" (referring to tango). Mar el Plata, Argentina, 1938.

 

 

 

Comprehension Check

The Last Wolf

  • What does the wolfer decide to do with the pups (8)?
Chapter 1
  • What is "the Gents" (13)?
  • What does the nod signify? (13)
Chapter 2
            
 

 

 

Study Questions

  • Time
    • Discuss the precise/careful notation of time: year, seasons, date, the time of day, hour, minute, moment.
      • Dusk plus one hour. (26)
      • Dusk. Forty-eight hours missing. (126)
      • Minutes past midnight (136)
    • Timing: predictability, routine; accidents, chance; fate
      • "Old friends had heard nothing from their daughter whose habit it was to call every Sunday upon their return from church" (14)
      • "What if I tell you I don’t believe in coincidences? By which I mean the idea that coincidences are out of the ordinary, coincidences happen far too often to be considered extraordinary. People are always saying it. My, what a coincidence! [...] A statistician will tell you that you are as likely to get a row of zeros on a winning lottery ticket as a row of different numbers. We should be less surprised when life takes an unexpected turn. Life is disorderly. In certain parts of the world, in the absence of plagues and floods it’s easy to mistake mundanity for normality and therefore to react to what seems extraordinary. But what we call coincidences are merely normal events of low probability." (61–62)
      • The Sherriffs living a few minutes from the Quells (204)
      • "'It's time, I think'" (207)
    • What is the relationship with time for different characters and entities in the novel? Consider, for example, the following description or relations:
      • Rosie and time
      • situation and time
        • How is war or battlefield situation depicted in terms of time experience?
        • How does being on air (ex. radio, TV) affect one's relationship to time?
        • How does being homeless (like Tano or the homeless beggar 35–37) define time for them?
        • How do different emotional states and time interrelate?
      • animals and time
      • plants and time
      • weather and time
      • landscape and time
      • profession and time
      • technology and time
      • "Take time" (288)
    • What is the relationship between past, present and future?
  • Consider Forna's treatment of happiness in the novel.
    • Komba and Rosie (chapter 21)
    • Attila
    • Tano
    • Adama Sherriff
    • "You know, a lot of people nowadays believe they’re owed a happy ending." (39)
  • Death: Consider Forna's treatment of death.
    • the dog on the ground gave a final kick and this sign of life in her brother seemed to spur the bitch, who leapt forward and straight into the line of fire. The wolf whirled around and with his second shot the wolfer took it down. [...] The mangled corpse of the dog testified to the brute strength of the wolf, would make it easier to face the owner who with luck would waive the cost of two dead dogs. People had begun to come out of their houses and the general store to see the wolf. A group of small boys ran behind and aimed kicks at the carcass. In the main square where the gibbet once stood they strung the wolf up by the neck until its eyes bulged and its tongue lolled, and they beat its body with poles. (7)
    •  "Confirmed. The whale has died. The whale is dead." (38)
    • 'Someone die today,’ she said. ‘On a Saturday when they already short-staffed.’ (191)
    • Attila had been witness to many deaths, that moment when a still and silent presence entered the room, revealed only by a change in the air, a knowledge never to be unknown. Would he know, he wondered, standing here, the moment at which Rosie died? Would he feel it? When Maryse died he had been drinking cold beer in the night heat, he had been celebrating, laughing. [...] Attila was woken by Emmanuel's touch on his shoulder. In the now silent room the knowledge formed itself into a fourth presence. (285–86)
    • Dead tree (295)
  • Normality
    • How does Happiness represent different things and how does this representation comment on the idea of normality?
      • Animal kingdom
        • How does the portrayal of foxes (and other animals) with names in this story affect perception of them? Ex.
          • Babe
            Black Aggie
            Jumbo Riley
            Jeremiah
            Missy
            Piper
            Redbone
            Finn.
            Rocky
            Light Bright (26)
          • Digger (37)
        • How does inclusion in multiple scenes not only of insects, but their specific types (ex. ladybug, aphids, bumblebee, ant) define a place and conceptions of space or of events?
      • Plant kingdom
      • Place
      • Weather
      • People
        • Age
        • Gender
        • Nationalities
        • Professions
        • Socio-economic status
        • Abilities
        • Experience; actions
        • Relationships
      • Ecology
      • Death
        • Physical life
        • Digital life
        • Theoretical life, intellectual life
      • War and post-war
  • How do narratives in other genres or media operate compared to that of the book novel? Some episodes to examine:
    • TV (38, 195)
    • Radio (73–76, 82–83, 233–35, 244–46)
    • Twitter (248–51)
  • What is the function of the foxes?
  • What is the relationship between places?
  • What role does laughter play in the novel?
    • One boy of about fifteen bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, pointed his finger at the beggar and his dog and laughed idiotically (36)
    • To her surprise the big man laughed, a deep triple note (39)
    • Jean laughed with her mouth full of food and raised her hand to cover it. (62)
    • Then came the sound of clapping, from Rosie first, who laughed aloud. (124)
    • Another person said: ‘Look at Osman!’ and there was gentle laughter at the sight of Osman, who glowed nacre in the moonlight. (139)

            

 

Review Sheet

Characters

Attila Asare, Dr. Asare – "The man’s name, the name his mother had given him as though she knew to what size her only son would one day grow, was Attila" (10); "Dr. Asare" (12); "his keynote speech, which though he had delivered it often in the past few years, nevertheless required updating" (13); "Attila possessed the gift of being able to choose when and whether to sleep, one that had served him well on various tours of duty when sleep was impossible, when the environment was too hostile or the victims too many" (13); "He was used to the English, he understood their language of elision, you could say he was a native speaker, had been schooled in Ghana in a British-built establishment, where he had been taught by teachers from this country [...] Attila had a reputation as a plain speaker and a fondness for the trait in others" (83); "He missed Maryse" (90); "A Congolese rumba [...] He heaved himself up from the bed and began to shuffle his feet, swaying his hips and moving his shoulders, clicking his fingers. He danced with his eyes closed and his head back" (103); "She said: ‘Good morning, Talker.’ A pet name she used for him, during the days of Haywards Heath, for his habit of speaking his thoughts aloud. After he was married and when they reunited as colleagues, she never called him Talker again" (190); "He wanted to lie down and put his head on her chest, not of the woman of the same name who had just died, but the Rosie who had lived in this body once" (287–88); "he will deliver the letter to her himself" (309)

Jean Turane – "Somebody ran into him [...] her hair was a rather remarkable pale silver and hung to the middle of her back [...] she was tall for a woman" (11); "Jean, an American and resident of the city for a year" (17); "She had dreamed up Wild Spaces to cover the shortfall" (27); "I am an urban wildlife biologist. I study animals in the city and human-animal coexistence" (73); "'Jeannie?' What only he [Ray] ever called her" (106); "Jean ran [...] Faster than she had run in years" (297); "When Jean reached her apartment, when she was alone, she cried" (297)
Maryse Asare – "'The World Congress of Psychiatry [...] Madam was with you on that occasion, sir'" (30); "Maryse was an appreciative reader, who read as she pleased. She liked thrillers, for the reason that reading them relaxed her" (30); "she was a very good mimic" (30); "As often as he could when he was away on assignment Attila would call Maryse [...] He would write knowing he would not post his letters but would give them to Maryse when they were together" (65); "My darling Maryse. Attila had written to Maryse about the Kenyan captain" (67); "Attila realised that Maryse had not slept in their bedroom those days he had been away [...] She could not bear, she told him, to reach across and feel an empty space, a cold sheet beneath her palm" (67); "Maryse, like all people who worked with sick children, had a voice that was measured, clear and patient [...] she was not a small woman" (79); "when Maryse had been dead for a week and the funeral was over, Attila had received a letter from Vivien Quell" (225); "He looked for Maryse and found her in conversation with the Ambassador who had a fondness for her because she spoke German to him" (226); "He woke up twice in the night and reached out for her. The first time she was there, the second time, in the early morning, she was gone" (226); "Madam was a doctor, and so of course was the Doctor, but he only tended to the mad" (267); "The aneurysm that could have taken hold of her when she was at the hospital, but waited instead for when she was alone" (278)
Rose Lennox, Rosie – "'Rose Lennox'" (26); "They had met at the University of Sussex, Rose’s family lived nearby in Haywards Heath and she had volunteered to meet and greet the foreign students at the start of the term" (55); "Young Rosie with her tweed trousers and tasselled shoes and good whisky. Rosie who swore and smoked" (83–84); "Attila and Rosie had been lovers for three years" (190); "She had only ever loved one man, she had told him. She had only ever loved one man knowingly. Innocently she had loved two." (286); "He had closed her eyelids, had bent and kissed them, her cheek, her hair" (287); "He imagined Rosie coming back with all the intellectual alertness of old [...] What, he wondered, would she make of it, the conference? [...] He knew what Rosie would think" (290); "There had been a memorial for Rosie, not at forty days, which had been Attila's first instinct" (307)
Emmanuel – "With his goatee and neatly trimmed hair, Emmanuel looked more like the young Attila than Attila" (123); "He held one of Rosie's hands in both of his" (286)
Tano – "the boy had clearly taken to her [Jean]" (236); "'My birthday's April the 5th'" (242); "the boy comes to visit her with or without his mother, of the rising humour she observes in him and his comfortable way around her" (308)
James – "James the doorman, still wearing his green greatcoat and cap" (126); "" (291); "James saw Jean arrive [...] he told her Attila was not there [...] James watched her, he ran after Jean, he told her of Rosie's death, where Attila could be found [...] directed the driver to the conference hall" (303)
Komba – "Komba the traffic warden" (126); "had helped in the search for Tano" (235); "Komba insisted on calling a cab. 'Let me call my cousin, he drives for a minicab firm right here'" (235); "Komba went on: 'Let me sit with you a while. There's a story I must tell you. You know, there was one time we met, but you don't remember. [...] in those days I was a small boy [...] I saw you at the checkpoint. It was my job to guard the checkpoint" (288)
Adama Sherriff  – "Adama Sherriff was furious" (221); "'I was a seamstress [...] I used to make clothes for that woman and her friends. [...] I have seen her in her underwear'" (222); "'You were a widow and you were barely thirty'" (252)
Luke – "her heavily pixelated son. He was wearing a bathrobe, his unmade bed behind him" (104); "Three months ago Jean had invited Luke to London for Thanksgiving, a month later for Christmas. ‘I’m going to Pops’,’ he’d said at Thanksgiving. Jean hadn’t minded, Thanksgiving meant nothing in Britain anyway. When Luke declined her invitation to Christmas she minded more." (105); "An incoming call from Luke" (297); "He had a new job [...] the pay, the position, were better" (298); "'I don't always tell Pops everything first'" (298); "'I thought I might come over'" (299)
Ray – "how come Ray was still Pops, but she had become Jean?" (105); "He had finished restoring a 1950 Chrysler Town & Country and a Chevy Bel Air" (106–07)
Maurice Quell – "'I keep it [the London snow globe] because she [Quell's daughter] gave it to me and because it reminds me of what I do'" (206); "They had come: Maurice and Vivien Quell" (307)
Vivian Quell, Lady Quell – "'I [Atilla] receive your Christmas cards. Thank you'" (32); "Haywards Heath, where Lady Quell had invited them for drinks and an early supper" (199); "Tano had sat next to her watching and listening to the adults, until Lady Quell addressed a question to him: she possessed a professional’s skill at putting people at their ease" (213)
Kathleen Branagan – "'your [Attila's] colleague, Kathleen Branagan. Competent sort'" (205)
Eddie Hopper – "the tones of Eddie Hopper, that blend of sanctimony and sarcasm, which passed, the first for caring and the second for cleverness, on the media" (233)
Efua – "Efua the cook" (266)
The older man – "The older of the two lived in Kent and liked to get on the job early. Beat the traffic in, beat the traffic out. He had risen sometime after 4 a.m., eaten a bowl of cereal standing at the kitchen counter" (293); "'Sycamore. Big one'" (294)
The younger man – "the job of going up the tree belonged now to the younger man" (293); "The young man looked up at the tree. He knew trees, this tree was solid, would stand another ten years. But it wasn’t his job to argue" (295); "The young man loved his job, loved the view of the world he had from above, the way it made him feel somehow apart from human life, he loved the sheltered world he found in the branches of a tree" (295); "He wasn’t a tree hugger. He loved trees, but he was a practical-minded sort. He didn’t like people who wrecked ancient woodlands, but he’d pollard the big trees in the city and would bring them down when it was required" (295–96); "a parakeet popped its head out of the hole and disappeared again. Cute little buggers, thought the young man" (296)
Alan Julan – "shot and killed his girlfriend" (121); "controlling and cocky, with bright blue eyes and a pinched, handsome face, the kind of liar who delights in telling transparent untruths" (122)and disappeared again. Cute little buggers, thought the young man" (296)
the woman – "the woman had taken a step outside" (299); "she gazed at Jean out of extinguished eyes [...] the woman's hand [...] lay limp, cool and dry in hers [Jean's]" (299); "she [Jean] let the woman look around at the garden, took the fingers of her hand and laid them against the bark of a small cherry tree" (300)
Bruce Townsly – "'I'm a licensed marksman [...] I've taken down seventeen in a night'" (234)


 
 
Setting
Place
North America
    USA, New England
        Massachusetts
            Greenhampton – "I made up Greenhampton" ("The Paradox of Happiness"); "Men began to arrive in Greenhampton, pick-up trucks in camouflage colours, gun racks and roll bars. At the Jolly Tavern and Lucky Lanes business was good, the motels were pleased with the upturn in profit at the season’s end" (238)
 
Central America
    Cuba – "Attila had visited Cuba a number of times for training and conferences, for their health service was second to none" (); "Attila had been in Cuba attending a world meeting of psychiatrists to address the question of the rise in young male suicides in industrialising nations" (186); "He stopped in a small town in the centre of the country to find something to eat but he found his dollars quite useless, for as it turned out no street vendor wished to accept them" (186)
 
West Africa
    Sierra Leone –
    Ghana, Accra –
 
Middle East
    Iraq –
 
Europe
    Eastern Bosnia –
    England – "much of England beyond the M25" (13)
        Greater London
            London – "When he [Attila] was away, in the places where he worked, places lost in the moral darkness, London seemed unreal and distant. Even street lighting struck him as an improbable luxury, lights left burning so the population of a city could walk home without fear of injury or crime. When he was in London, going to see plays and eating in fine restaurants, the city itself began to feel like a stage set, whose denizens enacted their lives against its magnificent backdrop. A theatre of delights, where nothing surely could go wrong, and if it did, all would be put right by the end of the third act" (14); "a city of eight million people" (103)
                Waterloo Bridge – "That time of day Waterloo Bridge is busy with shoppers and weekend workers" (9)
                Aldwych Hotel –
                Three Valleys Rest Home – "On arrival at Three Valleys Rest Home he had gone to the residents’ day room bearing a box of New Berry Fruits to find Rosie was not there, had returned to reception to be redirected to the dining room where a tea dance was taking place"; (122); "At Three Valleys Attila, after a search of the common rooms, found Rosie still in her bedroom" (189)
                Nunhead Cemetery – "Wednesday, an hour before dawn, two men sat in a van outside the gates of Nunhead Cemetery" (293); "The two men trudged up the main path, past the ruined chapel, past the burial place for Muslims and other non-Christians, and turned right at the fork just before the consecrated ground where the newer graves lay" (293–94)
        Sussex –
            Haywards Heath –
                The Quells' – "It had been easier to see them in Sussex, without the lights of the city. Perseus. Andromeda. Gemini. Taurus. Cetus. Cassiopeia. Ursa Major. Canis Major" (236)
            Cuckfield – "an arrest in connection with a fire in the town of Cuckfield in Sussex" ()
 

Time
April 1834 – "Spring snow [...] The wolfer gazed upon the lights of the town" (1)
    morning – "Dawn saw the wolfer high on the ridge with two dogs" (6)
 
1995
    winter –
 
2000
    Sierra Leone – "Attila waited for the Kenyan in the ground-floor room of the guest house" (143)

2004
    winter –

2009
    Iraq – "Attila asked what the kidnap victim had been doing in Iraq. 'Working as a driver for a security firm'" (208)
    Greenhampton – "Men began to arrive in Greenhampton" (238)

2014
Sunday, February 2, 2014
    evening – "At that time of day Waterloo Bridge is busy with shoppers and weekend workers" (9)
    night – "Despite the late hour the restaurant was full" (12); "Following dinner, when it was by then after midnight, Attila walked briskly back in the direction of the bridge" (13); "But the moon was good that night and Attila bent and traced the skyline with his forefinger" (14)

Monday, February 3, 2014
    morning – "Morning. Attila faced the window of his hotel room" (14)

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Wednesday, February 5, 2014
    evening –

Thursday, February 6, 2014
    evening –

Friday, February 7, 2014
    3 a.m. –

Saturday, February 8, 2014
    afternoon –

Sunday, February 9, 2014
    evening –

Monday, February 10, 2014
    morning – "Jean came back from her run to find the Mayor on the morning news" (241); "We'll see the cubs probably [...] It was February now. Fifty-two days. 'Probably the beginning of April'" (242)
    late afternoon –
    evening –

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Wednesday, February 12, 2014
    morning – "This was the final day of the conference. [...] This morning he would give his speech [...] In five hours." (287); "Wednesday, an hour before dawn, two men sat in a van outside the gates of Nunhead Cemetery" (293)
 
March 2014 – "March the 1st comes and goes, the crows begin to nest" (307)


Vocabulary

setting
plot
linearity
mystery
clues
origins; causes
revelation
resolution
character; characterization
dialogue
diction
ambiguity
irony
imagery
tone
theme
habitat
nature
plants
animals
the city
London
time
experience
love

war 

theory and practice
technology         

media
language



 

FAQ and Discussion
Q: What is the function of the foxes?

D1: The foxes begin the story, don’t they?

D2: Yes, the foxes that supposedly no longer exist since they have all been shot decades ago.

D3: “The Last Fox” that isn’t.

D1: Actually, also not a singular fox but plural foxes—“He decided against finishing off the pups” (8, emphasis mine), remember?

D4: You are confusing wolves and foxes; those are wolf pups who were “affectionate creatures, full of trust and play” that even the (hardened?) wolfer couldn’t bring himself to “finish off” (8).

D5: And the “prelude” chapter is “The Last Wolf,” not the last fox!

D3: So the fox is really cunning, isn’t it. It slides into our consciousness and takes the place of so many other things.

D2: Unlike the wolf who are straightforward “trusting” creatures.

D4: Perhaps we’re speaking too stereotypically about noble wolves and cunning foxes.

D1: There’s the passage where Forna describes the wolfer grudgingly admiring the wolf:
Now the wolfer did not think wolves especially cunning or clever, he just liked to pander to other folks’ fancies. But when he tried in the days that followed to piece together the events of the morning, it came to be his belief that the wolf had led the dogs into a trap of its own making. Here’s how it happened. (6)

D4: You see, the novel’s own language makes a link between wolves and “cunning or clever,” usually the stereotype description for foxes.

D5: No wonder we were fooled into conflating the two.

D2: Let’s get back to the foxes in the chapter 8 excerpt then. It’s the news article description of foxes, and that’s maybe different from the novel’s narrative description of foxes.

D3: Or Jean’s description of foxes.

D1: Or what’s-his-name’s description of foxes who gives food regularly to one of them?

D5: So wolves begin the story and foxes continue it?

D4: Doesn’t wolf existence imply fox existence as well? They are part of the same ecosystem.

D2: The novel continues to mention wolves and other animals too, not only foxes. So the theory that wolves start and other creatures continue the story doesn’t really work.

D3: Well, we were tricked once already by the false declaration and prediction of “The Last Wolf”—I got it right this time—so we shouldn’t be too hasty and make pronouncements that will be false again like the wolfer who expects “These pups, fatherless and now motherless, would never make it through to spring” (8).

D1: And chapter 1 begins on February 2, almost the start of spring, with “The fox wend[ing] its way through the pedestrians” that “many people didn’t see…those who did thought it was perhaps a loose dog” (9).

D4: There’s something to be said about the misidentification of animals in this novel. And people not being able to see something right in front of them in plain sight.

D2: There is misperception of many things, of vegetarians (that they’re annoyingly เรื่องมาก 113), of the silver man (who Abdul thinks needs a slap 111), of Jean’s son (who Jean thinks doesn’t love her 104–06).





Sample Student Responses to Aminatta Forna's Happiness


Response 1: 

 

           



 

Reference

 

Link
Issues

 

 
Media
  • "Entretien avec Aminatta Forna," Bibliotopia 2020, Fondation Jan Michalski (2019; 59:13 min.)
Forna VPRO Boeken interview
  • Jeroen van Kan, "Aminatta Forna and Igma Heytze," VPRO Boeken (2018; Forna's interview begins at 17:33 min.)

  • The Ladies' Bridge, directed by Karen Livesey, Concrete History (2015 documentary; 30 min.)

  • The Death of Yugoslavia, BBC (1995 documentary; 4 hr. 54:30 min.; 5 episodes)

  • The Empire in Africa, directed by Philippe Diaz, Sceneries Europe (2005 documentary; 1 hr. 27:33 min.; graphic depictions)

  • The Year Earth Changed, directed by Tom Beard, Apple TV+ (2021 documentary; 48 min.)

 

 

Aminatta Forna
Articles
Interviews

 


Reference

Forna, Aminatta. Happiness. 2018. Bloomsbury, 2019.



Further Reading

Forna, Aminatta. Ancestor Stones. Bloomsbury, 2006.

Forna, Aminatta. The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Memoir of Her Father, Her Family, Her Country and a Continent. HarperCollins, 2002.

Forna, Aminatta. The Hired Man. Bloomsbury, 2013.

Forna, Aminatta. The Memory of Love. Bloomsbury, 2010.



 

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Last updated May 18, 2022