Esio Trot...Or: How Lying Can Help You Get Married

I'm starting to wonder if this might have been easier to do when I wasn't on summer vacation. Thinking that I would have plenty of time to read today, I picked out a slightly longer book. Then I went to yoga, went to the pond to go swimming, enjoyed a delicious breakfast (at 2 in the afternoon), took a shower and cleaned my room, then went to dinner for my brother's birthday. I didn't actually read anything until about 8:45 tonight. So I picked a shorter book.

I read Esio Trot, another Roald Dahl book. Also acquired when I was desperate for books at a level N. I'm glad that I've read it. Now I know why my kids think lying is okay.

That's not true, they know lying is bad. But the protagonist in this certainly gets his way by lying. Or rather, by deception.

Mr. Hoppy loves Miss Silver. Miss Silver loves her tortoise, Alfie. (Side note: the author points out that all of this takes place before England put a ban on importing tortoises from North Africa, so all future events are okay, based on their historical context...basically.) Mr. Hoppy has never been able to act on this love because he is too shy to do anything about it. So, to win her affection, he tells her that her tortoise will get bigger if she whispers a little chant to him. He then goes out and buys 140 tortoises of varying sizes -but all with the same shell color - and slowly replaces her tortoise with a slightly bigger tortoise once a week, leading her to believe his chant has made her tortoise grow to just the right size.

At this point, I should add (as a social commentary) that perhaps Dahl is also telling us that women can be duped. Easily.

Anyway, Miss Silver is so thrilled that her tortoise has grown that it finally gives Mr. Hoppy the courage to ask her to marry him. She agrees, and he and her and Replacement Tortoise all live happily ever after.

It was a very cute book, let me preface everything I have to say next with that, lest I appear humorless. It was cute how dumb she is, and cute how he uses deception to get her to love him. I suppose I would know I'm a good teacher if my students pick up on these things. Thus far, since I hadn't read the book before, the biggest inference I've seen my students make is that they realize that Esio Trot is tortoise backwards before they've gotten to the part of the book that explains that. Now I know what direction to lead them in.

A major math class starts for me tomorrow, which leaves me feeling like my summer vacation is over. Additionally, this adds a new level of difficulty in reading everything I want to read. Time management springs to mind. Although I skipped that class at my college's "Life Skills" seminar (yep, an actual class). I might be in big trouble.