ABOUT A BOY

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hyperbole is provocative, because Will grossly exaggerates when he says: "he was a hundred years old." (1.15f., page 109) It also is meant to have a humorous effect, because Marcus is only twelve and Will acts as if Marcus knows everything. The last means, we found in this extract is the enumeration. Marcus lists what different types of people there are at school, when he says: "There were clever ones and thick ones and trendy ones and weird ones." (I 21ff, page 109) This mean give a detailed account of Marcus' school life and also provoke to form one's opinion, because not everyone has this opinion, because even Will responds: "they can't be different sorts of kids there, Kids are kids." (1.22, page 109) Additionally, we analysed the language of the extract, we read out loud. At first, there is a lot colloquial language, for example the phrase "I dunno" (I. 18, page 109), which means "I don't know.", another phrase is "I s'pose so." (1.10, page 109). These phrases are supposed to make the book not so formal. Besides that, it is the writing style of Hornby, who likes to write about everyday things. Moreover, we found a lot of slang, which also is supposed to make the book not so formal and maybe shows, that Will isn't always the formal man, he supposed to be. When he talks to the children, who attacked Marcus, he says things like "Who the fuck are you?" (1.5, page 107) and "Fuck off." (1.7, page 107) INFORMATION ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nick Hornby was born on the 17 April 1957 in Redhill, Great Britain. He grew up in Maidenhead. He is a British writer and screenwriter (Drehbuchautor). His most famous works are about a boy, Fever Pitch and High Fidelity. Hornby studied English at Jesus College, University of Cambridge. After that he first worked as an English teacher. In 1992 Hornby devoted his full-time writing. The author made his breakthrough in 1995 with High Fidelity. Through his autistic son Danny, he is a founding member of TreeHouse, an UK- based organization working to improve the schooling of autistic children. Hornby lives in London and is married in second marriage to film producer Amanda Posey. He has 3 children. Hornby is very interested in football and is an avowed (bekennender) Arsenal fan. His brother-in-law is the British writer Robert Harris. The author Gill Hornby is his sister. Hornby is one of the most important current representatives of pop culture and - literature. He has already been nominated for an Oscar twice: in 2010 for the script for the film "An Education" and in 2016 for the screenplay (Drehbuch) for the film "Brooklyn". Modern media as such as television or sound carries (pop music) play a major role in Hornby's books. Nick Hornby takes the view that people also want to read about everyday things, and that a book lacks something, it is dishonest if the description of the everyday is taken away from it. We think, Hornby's success seems to prove him right. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick Hornby https://www.lovelybooks.de/autor/Nick-Hornby/ http://www.die-biografien.de/biografien/281.php Summary/Plot Ein Film über die tiefe Freundschaft zwischen einem kleinen Jungen und einem Mann, der mit seinem Leben nichts anzufangen weiß. Will Freeman ist der geborene Junggeselle und ein waschechter Faulpelz; er braucht nicht zu arbeiten, da er von dem Nachlass seines Vaters lebt und sieht die meiste Zeit fern. Auf die Frage, ob er Patenonkel des Kindes seiner Freunde Christine und John werden möchte, antwortet Will, er sei zu unzuverlässig für solch eine Aufgabe. Daraufhin versucht er die Gesellschaft von Christine und John zu meiden und kommt auf die Idee, zu einer Selbsthilfegruppe für Single-Mütter zu gehen, um dort Frauen aufzureißen. Für seinen Plan gibt er vor, Vater eines 2 Jahre alten Sohnes (Ned) zu sein und er ist erfolgreich und trifft Suzie, die auf Marcus, den 12-jährigen Sohn ihrer Freundin aufpasst. Will und Suzie verstehen sich gut, doch als sie Marcus nach Hause bringen, finden sie dessen Mutter Fiona im Wohnzimmer liegend auf. Sie hat mit einer Überdosis an Pillen versucht, sich das Leben zu nehmen. Marcus möchte daraufhin nicht alleine mit seiner Mutter wohnen und sucht Will zu Hause auf, wobei er entdeckt, dass dieser in Wirklichkeit gar keinen kleinen Sohn hat. Marcus erpresst Will damit und möchte von nun an immer nach der Schule Zeit mit Will verbringen, anstatt direkt nach Hause zu seiner Mutter zu gehen. Zunächst wehrt sich Will, doch eines Tages bekommt er mit, wie Marcus von Schulkameraden gehänselt wird. Will fasst den Entschluss, dem Jungen zu helfen, kauft ihm neue Schuhe, hilft ihm selbstbewusster zu werden und die beiden freunden sich immer mehr an. Eines Tages erzählt Marcus, dass er gerne auf dem Schulkonzert singen würde, um seine Mutter, die immer noch unter Depressionen leidet, aufzuheitern. Will vermutet, dass dieses Vorhaben Marcus wieder zum Mobbingopfer seiner Schulkameraden macht und sucht deswegen Fiona auf, um sich von ihr bestätigen zu lassen, dass sie ,,in nächster Zeit" nicht vorhat, Selbstmord zu begehen. Die beiden eilen zu der Schulaufführung, wo Will kurzentschlossen auf die Bühne springt und schafft, dass Marcus sich nicht komplett blamiert, sondern Will selbst die Buhrufe des Publikums erntet. https://freie-referate.de/englisch/zusammenfassung-der-tag-der-toten-ente STRUCTURE ● • information about Nick Hornby • summary • introduction of the main characters ● Will • Marcus ● analysis • good and bad points The international million-copy bestseller NICK HORNBY ABOUT BOY Delightful, observant, funny and good-hearted' Mail on Sunday Referring to our task we want to summarize the novel given by the text at hand. The novel "About A Boy" written by Nick Hornby was taken from the school library and published 1998. In general, the novel is about the deep friendship between a young boy and a man who knows nothing about his life. The story plays in 1994. Will Freeman is a notoriously single. He doesn't have to work because he lives off his father's estate (Nachlass) and watches Tv most of the time. Asked if he wants to become the godfather (Patenonkel) of the children of his friends Christine and John, Will answers that he is too unreliable (unzuverlässig) for such a task. As a result, he tries to avoid the company of Christine and John and comes up with the idea of going to a support group for single mothers (SPAT) in order to pick up women. For his plan he pretends (vorgeben) to be the father of a 2-year-old son, named Ned and he succeeds and meets a woman, who takes care of Marcus, her friend's 12- year-old son. Marcus is acting rather grown up. Will and Suzie get along well, but when they bring Marcus home, they find his mother Fiona lying in the living room. She tried to kill herself with an overdose of pills. Marcus doesn't want to live alone with his mother and visits Will at home, discovering that Will doesn't really have a son at all. Marcus blackmails (erpressen) Will with it and wants to spend time with Will after school instead of going straight home to his mother. At first Will fends off (sich wehren), but one day he hears Marcus being bullied by schoolmates. Will makes the decision to help the boy, buys him shoes, helps him to become more confident and the two become more and more friends. At the same time, Marcus and a girl become more and more friends. Moreover, Will meets another woman and begins to fall in love with her. One day, Marcus father has an accident and Marcus shall go to him. He asks the girl and she go with him. By stupid coincidences the two end up at the police station, where their parents have to pick them up. The end we don't reveal, who wants to know should read the book itself. INFORMATION ABOUT NICK HORNBY ● • born on the 17th April 1957 in Redhill ● British writer and screenwriter • most famous works: "About a boy", "Fever Pitch", "High Fidelity" ● • visited Jesus College and University of Cambridge SUMMARY • about a deep friedship between a young boy and a man ● ● ● Will pretending to be father, meets Marcus. They become more and more friends. Will helps Marcus. INTRODUCTION OF ● ● WILL • cool ● 36 years old independent child-free ● ● ● ● MARCUS 12 years old different to other children shy grown up too early The following week Will's date with Countdown was interrupted by a hail of what sounded like gravel against his sitting-room window, followed quickly by a continuous, urgent-sounding and annoying ring on the doorbell. Will knew it was trouble - you didn't get gravel smashing into your windows and frantic doorbell-ringing without trouble, he imagined and his first instinct was to turn the volume on the TV up and ignore it all. But in the end some sense of self-respect drove the cowardice away, and he propelled him- self off the sofa towards the front door. Marcus was standing on the step being bombarded with some kind of confectionery, rock-shaped and rock-hard lumps that could easily do as much damage as rocks. Will knew this because he took several direct hits himself. He ushered Marcus 106 in and managed to locate the bombardiers, two mean-looking french-cropped teenage boys. 'What do you think you're doing?' 'Who are you?' 'Never mind who I am. Who the fuck are you?' Will couldn't remember the last time he felt like thumping someone, but he felt like thumping these two. 'Fuck off.' 'Ooo-er,' said one of them obscurely. Will presumed it was intended to indicate their lack of fear, but their bravado was somewhat undercut by their immediate and rapid disappear- ance. This was a surprise and a relief. Will would never have run away from Will in a million years (or rather, in the admit- tedly unlikely event that Will should meet himself down a dark alley, both Wills would have run away at equal and very fast speeds in opposite directions). But he was an adult now, and though it was of course true that teenagers had lost all respect, bring back National Service and so on and so forth, only the very bad or very armed were likely to risk a confron- tation with someone bigger and older than them. Will went back into the flat feeling bigger and older, and not altogether displeased with himself. Marcus had helped himself to a biscuit, and was sat on the sofa watching TV. He looked just as he normally looked, absorbed in the programme, the biscuit poised halfway to the mouth; there was no visible sign of distress at all. If this boy, the one on the sofa watching Countdown, had ever been bullied, it was ages ago, and he had long since forgotten all about it. 'Who were they, then?' 'Who?' 'Who? Those kids who were just trying to embed sweets into your skull.' 'Oh, them,' said Marcus, his eyes still on the screen. 'I don't know their names. They're in year nine.' 107 ANALYSIS ● • simile: • ,,as much damage as rocks" Marcus was standing on the step being bombarded with some kind of confectionery, rock shaped and rock-hard lumps that could easily do as much damage as rocks. Will knew this because he took several direct hits himself. He ushered Marcus 106 ANALYSIS • direct speech: ● . ,,Who were they, then?" 'Who were they, then?' 'Who?' 'And you don't know their names?' 'No. They just started following me home after school. So I thought I'd better not go home, so they wouldn't find out where I lived. I thought I'd come round here.' "Thanks a lot.' "They won't chuck sweets at you. They were after me.' 'And does this happen often?' "They've never chucked sweets before. They thought of that today. Just now.' 'I'm not talking about the sweets. I'm talking about ... older kids trying to kill you.' Marcus looked at him. 'Yeah. I told you before.' 'You didn't make it sound so dramatic before.' 'What do you mean?' 'You said a couple of kids gave you a hard time. You didn't say that people you don't even know follow you around and chuck things at you.' "They hadn't done it then,' said Marcus patiently. "They've only just invented it.' Will was beginning to lose his temper; if he'd had any sweets to hand he would have started flinging them at Marcus himself. 'Marcus, for Christ's sake, I'm not talking about the bloody sweets. Are you always this bloody literal-minded? I under- stand that they've never done that before. But they've been giving you a hard time for ages.' 'Oh yeah. Not those two...' 'No, OK, OK, not those two. But others like them.' 'Yeah. Loads.' 'Right. That's all I've been trying to find out.' 'You could have just asked.' Will walked into the kitchen and put the kettle on, if only to give himself something to do which wouldn't result in a prison sentence, but he couldn't let it drop. 108 'So what are you going to do about it?' 'How do you mean?' 'Are you going to let it go on like this for the next however many years?" 'You're like the teachers at school.' 'What do they say?' 'Oh, you know. "Keep out of their way." I mean, I don't try to get in their way.' 'But it must make you unhappy.' 'I s'pose so. I just don't think about it. Like when I broke my wrist falling off that climbing-frame thing.' 'You've lost me.' 'I tried not to think about that. It happened and I wished it hadn't, but it's just life, isn't it?' Sometimes Marcus sounded as though he were a hundred years old, and it broke Will's heart. 'It doesn't have to be life, though, does it?' 'I dunno. You tell me. I haven't done anything. I just started at a new school and then I got all this. I don't know why.' 'What about your old school?' 'It was different there. Not every kid was the same. There were clever ones and thick ones and trendy ones and weird ones. I didn't feel different there. Here I feel different.' 'They can't be different sorts of kids here. Kids are kids.' 'So where are all the weird ones, then?' 'Maybe they start off weird, and then they get their act together. They're still weird but you just can't see them. The trouble is, these kids can see you. You make yourself obvious.' 'So I've got to make myself invisible?' Marcus snorted at the magnitude of the task. 'How do I do that? Is one of the machines in your kitchen an invisible machine?' 'You don't have to make yourself invisible. You just have to go in disguise.' 'What, with a moustache and stuff?' 109 ANALYSIS • hyperbole: • ,,he were a hundred years old." ● 'I tried not to think about that. It happened and I wished it hadn't, but it's just life, isn't it?' Sometimes Marcus sounded as though he were a hundred years old, and it broke Will's heart. 'It doesn't have to be life, though, does it?' ANALYSIS enumeration: • ,,There were clever ones and thick ones and trendy ones and weird ones." 'It was different there. Not every kid was the same There were clever ones and thick ones and trendy ones and weird ones. I didn't feel different there. Here I feel different.' "They can't be different sorts of kids here. Kids are kids.' 'So where are all the weird ones, then?' EXTRACT OF THE NOVEL 'Yeah, right, with a moustache. Nobody would notice a twelve-year-old boy with a moustache, would they?' Marcus looked at him. 'You're joking. Everyone would notice. I'd be the only one in the whole school.' Will had forgotten about the sarcasm thing. 'OK, no mous- tache, then. Bad idea. But how about if you wore the same clothes and haircut and glasses as everyone else? You can be as weird as you want on the inside. Just do something about the outside.' LANGUAGE colloquial language: „I dunno." ● ,,I s'pose so." ● slang: • ,,Who the fuck are you?" ● • ,,Fuck off." GOOD AND BAD POINTS GOOD POINTS ● • topics like bullying, drugs, love ● real-life story well described characters BAD POINTS • too boring towards the end • a bit unreal ● ● IMAGE SOURCES Picture 1: https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/1/51ED09ES3ZL._SX305_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg Picture 2: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.faz.net%2Fa ktuell%2Fstil%2Fleib-seele%2Fnick-hornby-im-stil-fragebogen- 16681607.html&psig=AOvVaw2s760mCQ- En7G5Snk3GidN&ust=1610221418104000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0C AlQjRxqFwoTCKjn-a6Mje4CFQAAAAADAAAAABAF Picture 3: https://www.cinema.de/sites/default/files/styles/cin_landscape_510/p ublic/sync/cms3.cinema.de/imgdb/import/dreams2/1001/021/3/100102 1385.jpg?h=e7c891e8&itok=N57-1rUH • Picture 4: https://programm.ard.de/sendungsbilder/original/847/6229490847.bbcf f0d6-aaa8-4312-ac4b-226703083a7a.jpeg LITERATURE SOURCES ● • (0.A.) (2005): About a boy - Nick Hornby, https://www.mimersbrunn.se/article?id=5329, (08.01.21) ● Knobel, Petra (2002): About a boy, http://www.filmzentrale.com/rezis/aboutaboyphk.htm, (08.01.21) ● Wikipedia (2020): Nick Hornby, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Hornby, (08.01.21) Aboutbooks GmbH (o.A.): Nick Horby, https://www.lovelybooks.de/autor/Nick- Hornby/, (08.01.21) • (0.A.) (0.A.): Nick Hornby, http://www.die-biografien.de/biografien/281.php, (08.01.21) (0.A.) (0.A.): About a Boy: kurze Zusammenfassung (Film), https://freie- referate.de/englisch/zusammenfassung-der-tag-der-toten-ente, (08.01.21)