Joanne Harris

The Toymaker and his wife

Discussion questions:
1. What does the fact that the main character of the story is a toymaker symbolize? What kind of
toymaker is he?
Person of art. Symbol of idealistic views.
2. What was peculiar about the toys the toymaker was creating?
his works were very real, like alive
3. Why was not the toymaker satisfied with his wife?
4. What became the reason for the first improvement of the toymaker’s wife? One day the toymaker
noticed that his wife’s hair was going grey.
5. What were the other improvements done to the wife by the toymaker?
6. What was wrong with the almost perfect toymaker’s wife? . It was her heart – it was broken.
7. How did the toymaker cope with this last problem? And so he took the broken heart and threw it onto
the rubbish heap
8. This story is a parable. What is the hidden message of it?
Looking for perfection people sacrifice too much
Price of ideal is too high
It’s important to stop in time and take into consideration fillings of the people near you

Translate the whole story

There was a man who married for love, but lived
to repent at leisure. He was a toymaker by trade,
and his passion for precision work was known
across the Nine Worlds. It was said that he’d
made a mechanical bird that sang as sweetly as
a lark, and great battalions of clockwork
Hussars with sabres at the ready. His dolls
looked as if they might draw breath; his engines
blew real steam from their stacks, and were fed
with tiny coals by mechanical stokers wielding
tiny mechanical shovels. His dolls’ houses were
marvels in miniature; with tiny gilt mirrors on
bedroom walls reflecting tiny four-poster beds
and tiny children playing with baby dolls no
bigger than a grain of rice. Everything was
perfect in the toymaker’s world; down to the
smallest detail. Well –
Everything but one thing. His wife.
Of course, they’d been in love, once. But now,
some years later, the craftsman began to see that
his wife was no credit to him. She was no beauty;
her judgement was weak; her housekeeping was
slovenly. She loved her husband, to be sure, and
he loved her too – in his way. But was it enough,
he asked himself? Didn’t he owe himself more
than this?
One day the toymaker noticed that his wife’s hair
was going grey. It displeased him to see it; and
so he made her a new head of hair, spun from
skeins of gleaming gold, and stitched it into place
on her scalp, as he had done so often when he
was making dolls. The wife said nothing, but
looked at herself in her dressing-room mirror,
Жив колись чоловік, який одружився по любові, але
в якийсь момент почав про це жалкувати. Він
професійно виготовляв іграшки, і його пристрасть до
досконалості в роботі була відома по всіх Дев’яти
Світах. Говорили, що він створив механічного птаха,
що співав солодко, мов жайворонок, і великі
батальйони механічних гусар(вершників) з шаблями
напоготові. Його ляльки виглядали так, ніби ось-ось
почнуть дихати, його двигуни випускали справжню
пару зі своїх труб, їх опалювали (заправляли)
дрібним вугіллям механічні кочегарі, що орудували
крихітними механічними лопатами. Його лялькові
будиночки були шедеврами в мініатюрі; з
крихітними позолоченими дзеркалами на стінах
спальні, що віддзеркалюють крихітні ліжка з
балдахіном, і крихітними дітьми, які граються з
ляльками розміром не більше, ніж рисове зернятко. У
світі майстрів іграшок все було ідеально до
найдрібніших деталей. Майже -
Все, крім одного. Його дружина.
Звичайно, колись вони були закохані. Але тепер,
через кілька років, ремісник почав бачити, що
дружина йому не пара (його не достойна). Вона не
була красунею, її судження було тривіальними, вона
неохайно вела господарство. Вона, безперечно,
любила свого чоловіка, і він її теж – по-своєму. Але
чи цього достатньо, запитав він себе? Хіба він не
заслуговує на більше?
Одного разу лялькар помітив, що волосся його
дружини посивіло. Йому було неприємно це бачити і
тому він зробив їй нову шевелюру, сплету з
блискучого золота, і пришив до її черепа. Він дуже
часто робив це з ляльками. Дружина нічого не
and touched the bright, stiff strands of her hair,
and remembered a time when he had thought she
was perfect in every way.
For a while, the toymaker was pleased. But then
he started to notice that his wife often spoke
rashly or out of turn, or said things that he found
unnecessary, or even downright stupid. And so,
as she slept, he cut out her tongue and replaced it
with a mechanical one, sleek as a silverfish, crisp
as a clock. After that, the toymaker’s wife was
always perfectly precise in her speech, and never
said anything stupid, or dull, or bored him with
her chatter.
All was well for a time after that, until the
toymaker noticed that his wife often looked at
him with reproach, and sometimes wept for no
reason. It made him uneasy to look at her, and so
he made her a new pair of blown-glass eyes that
were bright and approving, and never shed tears,
or seemed to express anything but contentment.
He was very proud of his handiwork, and for a
time, he was content.
But soon he noticed his wife’s hands; hands that
were often clumsy and slow, and so he made
mechanical hands for her, and fixed them into
place. His wife’s new hands were as white as
milk, and as clever as any automaton’s, and so he
made a pair of feet, and then a pair of perfect
breasts, so that little by little, over time, he had
replaced every flawed and worn-out part with
clockwork and gleaming porcelain.
“At last, she is perfect,” he told himself, looking
at his beautiful wife. But still, there was
something missing. Still, she wasn’t quite as he’d
hoped. And so the toymaker opened her up to see
what part of her inner workings he might have
neglected to tune or correct. He found everything
in place – except for one thing he had
overlooked. One small, insignificant thing, so
deeply embedded in the intricacies of clockwork
and circuitry that he hadn’t noticed it. It was her
heart – it was broken.
 “I wonder how that could have happened?” he
said, reaching for his watchmaker’s tools, fully
intending to make his wife a new heart to replace
the broken one.
But then he looked at her, lying so still and
beautiful and pale upon the workbench; quiet and
lovely in every way; every part shiny and
gleaming.
“Why, you don’t need a heart at all, do you, my
darling?” he told her.
And so he took the broken heart and threw it
onto the rubbish heap. And then he turned back
сказала, але подивилася на себе в дзеркало у
гардеробній, торкнулась яскравих, жорстких пасм
свого волосся і згадала час, коли він вважав її
ідеальною в усіх відношеннях.
Якийсь час лялькар був задоволений. Але згодом він
почав помічати, що дружина часто говорить
необдумано або перебиває його, або говорить речі,
які він вважав непотрібними або навіть зовсім
дурними. І тому, коли вона спала, він відрізав їй язик
і замінив його механічним, гладким, як срібна рибка,
точним, як годинник. Після цього дружина лялькаря
завжди була ідеально витончена в своїй
висловлюваннях, ніколи не говорила нічого дурного,
нудного, не набридала йому своїми балачками.
Деякий час після цього все було добре, доки він не
помітив, що дружина часто дивиться на нього з
докором, а іноді й плаче без причини. Йому було
неприємно дивитися на неї, і тому він зробив нову
пару очей із дутого скла, які були яскравими й
схвальними, ніколи не проливали сліз, та здавалося,
виражали лише задоволення. Він дуже пишався
своєю роботою, і деякий час був задоволений.
Але незабаром він помітив руки своєї дружини; руки,
які часто були незграбними й повільними, і тому він
зробив для неї механічні й закріпив їх на місце. Нові
руки його дружини були білі, як молоко, і спритні, як
у будь-якого автомата, тому він зробив до них пару
ніг, а потім пару ідеальних грудей. Потроху, з часом,
він замінив усі дефекти та зношені частини на
механізми та блискучу порцеляну.
«Нарешті вона ідеальна», — сказав він, дивлячись на
свою прекрасну дружину. Але все одно чогось не
вистачало. Вона все ще була не зовсім такою, як він
сподівався. І ось лялькар розітнув її, щоб побачити,
які з її внутрішніх органів він міг забути
налаштувати чи виправити. Все було на місцях, за
винятком однієї речі, яку він не помітив. Одна
маленька, незначна річ, настільки глибоко вбудована
в тонкощі механізмів та схем, що він цього не
помітив. Це було її серце – воно було розбите.
«Цікаво, як це могло статися?» — сказав він,
потягнувшись до своїх годинникових інструментів, з
абсолютною рішучістю зробити для дружини нове
серце, яке замінить розбите.
Але потім він подивився на неї, лежачу таку
нерухому, гарну й бліду на верстаку, тиху та милу в
усіх відношеннях, кожна частина тіла якої блискуча
та сяюча.
- «Тобі ж серце зовсім не потрібне, моя люба?»-
сказав він.
І ось він взяв розбите серце і викинув його на
смітник. А потім повернувся до дружини і поцілував
її чудовий, мов срібляста рибка, ротик, подивився в її
 to his wife and kissed her lovely silverfish блискучі очі з дутого скла і сказав: «Нарешті. Ти
mouth, looked into her shining blown-glass eyes досконала.»
and said: “At last. You’re perfect.”

Doris Lessing
Two Potters
Discussion exercises:
1. What do you know about the trade of pottery? What symbolic meaning does it have in different
religions and mythologies?
POTTERY - production of tableware and other products based on natural plastic raw materials (mainly from
clay).
The potter in the myths of many peoples is the image of a god or a cultural hero who creates people, or its
universe (or individual parts) from clay. In Indian mythology, the god Brahma was a Potter in one of his
previous births. The Egyptian god of fertility Khnum creates a man from clay on a potter's wheel. In a
variant of the Sumerian anthropogenic myth, the god of waters Enki calls for help from "good and noble
creators" who must thicken the clay taken by the goddess Nammu, after which the goddesses of birth must
help in sculpting a person and his fate. In this myth, as in the legends of the peoples of the Old and New
World about the creation of man from clay (up to the corresponding biblical story), ideas about the stages of
preparation and molding of clay in the process of pottery are reflected. In some archaic societies, potters
constituted a special sacred group with priestly functions and later became a separate caste (cf. hanibe in
Ancient Japan).
How is it shown in the story?
Process of creating sth alive or animated. Perhaps representation of the talent making not only the pots that
is practical side of the activity but also spiritual one (creativity, improvement of the skill = making a rabbit)
2. How would you interpret the increasing of the settlement from the narrator’s dream?
The narrator knows a potter, Mary Tawnish, who never dreams. The narrator begins to dream about another
potter in a village on a great plain of reddish earth “that looked as if it were hastily moulded by a great hand
out of wet clay, allowed to dry, and left there.” After she writes a letter to Mary about her dream, an
interactive relationship between the dreams and Mary’s work develops. In each successive dream, the
narrator sees the settlement and the potter’s work develop and change. Finally, Mary makes a clay animal
for the potter in the dream world.
3. Mary was surprised that the old potter created such a useless animal. What do you think about his
choice?
Creating an image of something alive, and not just a pot, which can be used practically, but not interpreted
symbolically
He sat motionless, looking at the sky, then at the rabbit, praying: "Lord, please, just once." But nothing happened. I
wrote to Mary that the old man was tired of centuries of making pots, whose life was so short: the rubbish from the
broken pots under the settlement had now risen twenty feet. He wanted God to breathe life into his clay rabbit. He
hoped to see him lift his long, red-veined ears, feel his furry paws, and see him jumping between huge clay pots,
sniffing them and twitching his ears - a living creature among all forms of clay.
Mary said, “Why a rabbit? What is the use of a rabbit? Do you understand that apart from goats (you say they have
milk) and these vultures overhead, they have no animals at all? Isn't a cow better than a rabbit? "I wrote: 'I can't do
anything about this place when I dream about it, but when I wake up, why not? At that moment, the rabbit jumped off
the old man's hand into the dust. He sat, twitching his nose. And throbbing everywhere, like rabbits. ”Then he slowly
jumped back and began to gnaw a straw, and the old man cried with happiness. Now what can you say? If I say it
was a rabbit, the rabbit was there.
4. At the ceremony of the Nobel Prize awarding Doris Lessing was called an “epicist of the female
experience”.
The British author Doris Lessing has won the 2007 Nobel prize for literature. Lessing, who is only the 11th
woman to win literature's most prestigious prize in its 106-year history, is best known for her postmodern
feminist masterpiece, The Golden Notebook.
Announcing the award, the Swedish Academy described Lessing as an "epicist of the female experience,
who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny"- "a
pioneering work" that "belongs to the handful of books that informed the 20th-century view of the male-
female relationship."
Comment the role of a woman in the story.
I think she is afraid to show her talent, her creation from which, in her opinion, there may be no benefit
(hides the rabbit on the shelf, afraid of what her husband will say about this animal)
but still her efforts were appreciated by the potter ебать какой я бред я сама не знаю шо пишу
5. What is the central massage of the story from your point of view?
Тупорылый вопрос, я на такой бред не хочу отвечать даже

Translation tasks:
1. Translate these expressions:
baked red-dust bareness, запечена пильно-червона нагота/скудність
out of whack, не в порядку
torment of writhing self-consciousness, мучения извивающегося/корчущегося самосознания
to use one’s loaf, шевелити мізками
to come to one’s senses, прийти в себе
to be in keeping with sth, бути відповідним до чогось
in a whirlwind of quarrelling energy, у вихорі сварливої енергії
to be beside oneself, бути у нестямі
to heave with sobs, ридати, схлипувати
in a frenzy of sth. оскаженіти від чогось, збожеволіти (у сказі)
2. Translate the following sentences:
1) I saw how the water shaken from the old fingers on the whirling pot flew past it and spattered the
small intent poverty-shaped face with its narrowed watching eyes.
Я бачив, як вода, стряхнута старими пальцями на горщику, що вертівся (по колу), пролетіла
повз нього і забризкала маленьке пильне/уважне/повне рішучості бідне обличчя з
примруженими очима.
2) The settlements, looked at from the height of the mountain tops seemed like patches of slightly raised
surface on the plain.
Поселення, розглянуті з висоти гірських вершин, здавалися клаптиками трохи припіднятої
поверхні на рівнині.
3) A man passed me, with a low slinking movement of the hips, holding his sacklike garment in position
at his side with the pressure of an elbow, staring in front of him over the pink fruit which he pressed
against sharp yellow teeth.
Чоловік пройшов повз мене, слабо похитуючи стегнами, тримаючи на боці свій схожий на
мішок одяг, стискаючи лікоть, дивлячись перед собою на рожевий фрукт, який він притискав
до гострих жовтих зубів.
4) I wrote Mary that the old man was tired with long centuries of making pots whose life was so short:
the litter of broken pots under the settlement had raised its level twenty feet by now, and every pot
had come off his wheel.
Я написав Мері, що старий втомився від довгих віків виготовлення горщиків, життя яких було
таке коротке: сміття з розбитих горщиків під поселенням до цього часу піднялося на двадцять
футів, і кожен горщик зійшов з його гончарного кола.