Going Places

GOING PLACES SUMMARY

“Going Places” follows teenaged Sophie as she uses her vivid imagination to try to escape her dreary home life. On the way home from school, Sophie tells her schoolmate Jansie of her future aspirations to own a boutique or be an actress, and Jansie responds that Sophie’s ambitions are unrealistic and that she needs to be practical. When Sophie arrives home, she announces that if she ever comes into money, she will buy a boutique, but her father, mother, and little brother Derek all ridicule and dismiss this dream, suggesting that Sophie is constantly impractical about money and the future.

Looking at her small house, in which her worn-down mother washes piles of dirty dishes and cooks for her “grimy” husband, Sophie feels a “tightening” in her throat and leaves the room to find her older brother Geoff. She believes that Geoff might free her from the drudgery of her life, as she imagines that he lives an exotic and mysterious life, traveling to unknown parts of the city and meeting interesting people. However, it doesn’t seem that Geoff actually lives the life that Sophie imagines—he appears to be a shy homebody whose passion is the footballer Danny Casey..

To impress Geoff, Sophie tells him that she met Danny Casey and he asked her on a date. While Geoff initially rejects the story, her tale gains some traction as she reiterates it to her father and Jansie. The more she tells this story, the more elaborate it becomes, but still nobody seems to truly believe her—except, perhaps, Sophie herself.

On the night she said they would meet, Sophie waits on a bench for Danny Casey, seemingly believing that he might appear. However, Sophie’s sense of reality is not entirely lost and she briefly comes to terms with the reality of her situation, acknowledging that Danny Casey isn’t coming and that this is upsetting not because she wanted to see him, but because she will have to confess to her family that he never arrived, and they will be able to dismiss her once again. They “doubt me, as they have always doubted me,” she thinks, and there is little she can do to rectify that.

As she walks back home to her dismal life, Sophie sees her father’s bicycle near the pub and she retreats back into fantasy, imagining Danny Casey scoring a goal in front of a roaring crowd. In this fantasy, Casey is much like Sophie—he is “no taller” and “no bolder” than she.

The Interview

The Interview Summary in English by Christopher Silvester

 About the Author

Author Name	Christopher Silvester
Born	1959, London
Education	Lancing College, Sussex, and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he read history
Books	The Pimlico Companion to Parliament: A Literary Anthology
Books edited	The Penguin Book of Interviews: An Anthology from 1859 to the Present Day

Christopher Silvester (1959) was educated at Lancing College Sussex, and Peter House, Cambridge, where he read history. From 1983 to 1994, he worked for Private Eye, initially writing the ‘New Boys’ column. He has written for several newspapers and magazines. He is also the Editor of The Penguin Book of Interviews: An Anthology from 1859 to the Present Day and the author of The Pimlico Companion to Parliament. He currently writes obituaries for the Times (of London) and book reviews. He is writing a three-volume social history of Hollywood for Pantheon Books.

The Interview Theme

The essay is an extract from the Introduction to The Penguin Book of Interviews. It discusses the interview as a communication genre that has come to stay.

Part I gives us two contrasting opinions about interviews—their functions, merits and methods. It also tells us about the importance of interview as a medium of conversation. Our most vivid impressions of our contemporaries are through interviews. Therefore, the interviewer holds a position of power. Part II is an extract from an interview of Umberto Eco. The interview shows the philosopher, academician and novelist.

Short Summary of The Interview in English

The Interview Summary Part I

Interviews are commonplace these days. Those who look at interviews positively consider them a source of truth and an art. Among the negative views on interviews is the opinion that they are an unwanted, unprovoked and unnecessary intrusion and invasion into a man’s private life; they leave people wounded and wrecked. There are some who have even described interviews as an ordeal and a thumbprint on their windpipe.

But, in the modern world, interviews are a supremely serviceable medium of communication and help to create impressions of our contemporaries. The interviewer holds a powerful position and influence.

The Interview Summary Part II

It is an excerpt from an interview of Prof. Umberto Eco. In his interview with Mukund Padmanabhan, Umberto talks about his interests, his style and the success of The Name of the Rose. He says that his chief interests are philosophical and ethical and these are also the dominant themes of his academic work and novels. Even his books for children are about non-violence and peace.

He says that there is a playful and personal quality in his works which is an adopted one. He discovered his style when he submitted his doctoral thesis. His thesis told a story of his research, his trials and errors. He then developed on his taste for narration. Hence his academic works are not dry and boring.

He elaborates how he utilizes even the briefest gaps in-between two different pieces of task that gives fallicious impression to other people that he is doing so many things. He calls these gaps ‘interstices’. Working during these interstices makes him work wonders.

The Name of the Rose was a brilliant success and brought him spectacular fame. Though a murder mystery with a detective yarn, it is essentially a novel about culture and delves into metaphysics, theology and medieval history. Its success could possibly be because of the difficult reading experience and interpretative reading that it offered to the reader who did not always seek easy reading experiences.