An untamed life (novel)
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An Unfinished Life (Half Broke Horses) is a novel by Jeannette Walls on the life of her grandmother Lily Casey Smith in the 20th century. It was published in 2009 and complements the autobiography Schloss aus Glas about Walls' extraordinary childhood. An untamed life occupied a place on the SPIEGEL bestseller list for a total of 115 weeks. From high school in 2015 to high school in 2018, the novel was required reading in Baden-Württemberg in English.
Emergence
Since readers asked many questions about her mother's life as a result of Wall's novel Castle of Glass , she decided to write a novel about her grandmother, who, contrary to the readers' expectations, was very different from her mother. She wrote the novel in the first person , from Lily's point of view, to better reflect her resolute voice.
content
action
An Untamed Life tells the story of Lily Casey Smith (née Casey ), the grandmother of the author Jeannette Walls. She is portrayed as a strong, spirited and resourceful woman who overcomes poverty and disasters, always with the positive attitude “When God closes a window, he opens a door.” As a child, she grew up on the Texas border, where she learned horses tame. At the age of fifteen she was already riding five hundred miles on horseback, in order to pursue her temporary profession as a teacher for the first time. Lily later runs a large cattle ranch in Arizona with her husband Big Jim and their two children. As a talented woman, she earns money on the side by playing poker, illegal distilling and horse racing and continues to fight against prejudice and injustice against women, which occasionally gets her into trouble. An untamed life also describes the freedoms of life in the country, as well as the joys and efforts; it shows the protagonist's courage and spirit. Jeannette Walls describes her work as a retelling of stories that have been passed down by her family over the years and that she revisits in a novel in the style of an oral tradition.
construction
The original of the novel is divided into the following ten chapters:
- I. Salt Draw
- II. The Miraculous Staircase
- III. Promises ("Promises")
- IV. The Red Silk Shirt ("The Red Silk Shirt")
- V. Lammchen ("Lambs")
- VI. Mrs. Teacher ("Teacher Lady")
- VII. The Garden of Eden ("The Garden of Eden")
- VIII. Snoopers ("Gumshoes")
- IX. Der Flieger ("The Flyboy")
- Epilogue. The Little Crab ("The Little Critter")
people
- Lily Casey Smith: main character and first -person narrator . 10 years old at the beginning.
- Daisy Mae Peacock: mother of Lily.
- Robert Adam Casey: father of Lily. Grew up on a ranch in the Hondo Valley, New Mexico .
- Buster: Lily's younger brother.
- Helen: Lily's younger sister, killed herself after finding out she was pregnant
- Robert Casey: paternal grandfather. Was one of the first Anglos to settle in the Hondo Valley, and died fighting over property lines and water rights when his son was 14 years old.
- Ted Conover: Lily's first husband, in Chicago.
- James Holloman Smith "Big Jim": Lily's second husband.
- James Robert Smith "Little Jim": Son of Lily
- Rosemary: Lily's daughter
- Minnie Hanagan: Lily's friend. Dies in an occupational accident in the bottling plant.
- Rex Walls: Lily's son-in-law
- Mother Albertina: nun and headmistress in Santa Fe.
- Rooster: Good friend that Lily met in Red Lake.
literature
Text output
English
- Jeannette Walls: Half broke horses . Simon & Schuster, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-84737-675-6 .
- Jeannette Walls: Half broke horses: a true-life novel . ed. by Sylvia Loh; Eva-Maria Schmitt; Andreas Sedlatschek. Cornelsen, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-06-033251-9 .
- Jeannette Walls: Half broke horses: a true-life novel . ed. by Ulrike Klein; Gabriele Kugler-Euerle. Schöningh, Paderborn 2013, ISBN 978-3-14-041164-6 .
- Jeannette Walls: Half broke horses: a true-life novel . Edited by Ernst Kemmner. Reclam, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-15-019866-7 .
German
- Jeannette Walls: An untamed life . From the American. by Ulrike Wasel and Klaus Timmermann. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-455-40250-6 .
- Jeannette Walls: An untamed life . From the American. by Ulrike Wasel and Klaus Timmermann. Diana-Verl., Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-453-35562-0 .
Secondary literature
- Sarah Nowotny: Reading aids Jeanette Walls, Half broke horses . including Abitur questions with solutions, detailed table of contents with interpretation. Klett learning training, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-12-923082-4 .
- Michael Thürwächter: Half broke horses: Jeannette Walls . Contents and interpretations, topics and vocabulary, sample exam. Cornelsen, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-06-033254-0 .
swell
- ↑ http://www.schule-bw.de/faecher-und-schularten/sprach-und-literatur/englisch/unterrichtsmaterial-nach-kompetenzen/interkulturelle-kommunikative-kompetenz/halfbrokehorses
- ^ Author Jeannette Walls: Half Broke Horses on YouTube
- ↑ http://www.buchhexe.com/buch/ein-ungezahmenes-leben
- ↑ Jeannette Walls ~ An Untamed Life. (No longer available online.) WordPress , August 21, 2010, archived from the original ; accessed on July 18, 2018 .