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International Understanding, or: The Gap-Year Girl

Eric Mace-Tessler

3/5 ( ratings)

'International Understanding, or: The Gap-Year Girl' is an affectionate, full-length parody of Melville’s 'Moby-Dick, or: The Whale'. It takes place, however, not on a 19th-century whaling ship, but at a 21st-century international school in the mountains near where Italy, Austria and Slovenia meet. It is at times an amusing, at times a sobering, examination of the realities of internationalism, education and institutional idealism in general.

In the place of a Captain Ahab obsessed with destroying the white whale responsible for the loss of his leg is Dr Roger Aschambrook, founder-director of the One World School, engaged in a desperate search for the bewitching gap-year student volunteer named International Understanding, who in a previous encounter has somehow robbed Aschambrook of his sight.

To those familiar with 'Moby Dick', the outcome will not be a surprise . Nor is the interspersing of a compelling chase narrative with equally compelling expository chapters, in which, for example, the narrator considers the relative merits of the claims of Dr Faustus, Don Juan, King David, the Dêmiourgos and Satan to be considered early international school teachers.

'International Understanding' may not advance the cause of international understanding, but it should provide interesting reading to anyone with a particular attachment to - or dislike of - 'Moby Dick', globalisation, school, and quixotic idealism of all kinds.

Language: English

Format: Kindle Edition

International Understanding, or: The Gap-Year Girl

Eric Mace-Tessler

3/5 ( ratings)

'International Understanding, or: The Gap-Year Girl' is an affectionate, full-length parody of Melville’s 'Moby-Dick, or: The Whale'. It takes place, however, not on a 19th-century whaling ship, but at a 21st-century international school in the mountains near where Italy, Austria and Slovenia meet. It is at times an amusing, at times a sobering, examination of the realities of internationalism, education and institutional idealism in general.

In the place of a Captain Ahab obsessed with destroying the white whale responsible for the loss of his leg is Dr Roger Aschambrook, founder-director of the One World School, engaged in a desperate search for the bewitching gap-year student volunteer named International Understanding, who in a previous encounter has somehow robbed Aschambrook of his sight.

To those familiar with 'Moby Dick', the outcome will not be a surprise . Nor is the interspersing of a compelling chase narrative with equally compelling expository chapters, in which, for example, the narrator considers the relative merits of the claims of Dr Faustus, Don Juan, King David, the Dêmiourgos and Satan to be considered early international school teachers.

'International Understanding' may not advance the cause of international understanding, but it should provide interesting reading to anyone with a particular attachment to - or dislike of - 'Moby Dick', globalisation, school, and quixotic idealism of all kinds.

Language: English

Format: Kindle Edition

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