Help some sentences

[kmeng]

I'm reading this novel second time in great details and find that some paragraphs are very difficult for me to understand well since I'm not a native English speaker. I need your help. My first one is the last paragraph on page 9. "He lay listening to the water drip in the woods. Bedrock, this. The cold and the silence." What is the meaning here? Especially the "Bedrock, this." Appreciate your help.

[bentley]

---

kmeng wrote:
I'm reading this novel second time in great details and find that some paragraphs are very difficult for me to understand well since I'm not a native English speaker. I need your help. My first one is the last paragraph on page 9. "He lay listening to the water drip in the woods. Bedrock, this. The cold and the silence." What is the meaning here? Especially the "Bedrock, this." Appreciate your help.

---

I am not sure how to approach your question kmeng. The first thing that I would do is to get two books to have beside me when I am reading. First, would be a good English dictionary like Websters and possibly a thesaurus. I would read the sentence and see if there were any words which I did not understand and know the meaning of and I would look up their meaning in the dictionary.

For example, bedrock:

bed·rock (bĕd'rŏk')
n. (this means it is a noun)

The solid rock that underlies loose material, such as soil, sand, clay, or gravel.

The very basis; the foundation: Ownership of land is the bedrock of democracy.
The lowest point: personal finances that were at bedrock.

He was listening to the silence around him and realized that he was left with silence and cold (nothing to warm him or his soul). Humanity being wiped out and the planet dying (if not dead). The book itself is about the love of a father for his son and his son for his father alone in an apocalyptic world. There is only that love for each other that keeps hope alive.

[randomsense]

---

kmeng wrote:
I'm reading this novel second time in great details and find that some paragraphs are very difficult for me to understand well since I'm not a native English speaker. I need your help. My first one is the last paragraph on page 9. "He lay listening to the water drip in the woods. Bedrock, this. The cold and the silence." What is the meaning here? Especially the "Bedrock, this." Appreciate your help.

---

I had to read this for school this summer and do a dialectical notebook on it. This was my first passage that I analyzed, so I've a detailed explanation already prepared.

If you continue to read it says the "ashes of the late world [are] carried on the bleak and temporal winds... Everything uncoupled from its shoring."

This is integral to understanding the significance of the bedrock. This entire passage is an extended metaphor used throughout the novel, and the comparison of bedrock and ash has a double meaning.

First, the literal reading of this shows the fragility of something that once seemed indestructible: modern society and technology. Ironically, this passage shows that the true foundation of the world lies not in society but in nature.

Second, this is a political statement about the necessity of coexistence and codependency between man and nature. One of the important points of the book is to show the consequences of man neglecting nature.

In summation, this passage should be read as such things as the water dripping in the woods being the foundation of the world. The ashes are the modern world, completely torn apart and their fragility revealed at last. The cold and silence are nature's consequences for man.

[If some of that didn't make sense due to the language gap, I'd be glad to clarify.]

Message Edited by randomsense on 08-03-2007 02:23 PM

[bentley]

---

randomsense wrote:

---

kmeng wrote:
I'm reading this novel second time in great details and find that some paragraphs are very difficult for me to understand well since I'm not a native English speaker. I need your help. My first one is the last paragraph on page 9. "He lay listening to the water drip in the woods. Bedrock, this. The cold and the silence." What is the meaning here? Especially the "Bedrock, this." Appreciate your help.

---

I had to read this for school this summer and do a dialectical notebook on it. This was my first passage that I analyzed, so I've a detailed explanation already prepared.

If you continue to read it says the "ashes of the late world [are] carried on the bleak and temporal winds... Everything uncoupled from its shoring."

This is integral to understanding the significance of the bedrock. This entire passage is an extended metaphor used throughout the novel, and the comparison of bedrock and ash has a double meaning.

First, the literal reading of this shows the fragility of something that once seemed indestructible: modern society and technology. Ironically, this passage shows that the true foundation of the world lies not in society but in nature.

Second, this is a political statement about the necessity of coexistence and codependency between man and nature. One of the important points of the book is to show the consequences of man neglecting nature.

In summation, this passage should be read as such things as the water dripping in the woods being the foundation of the world. The ashes are the modern world, completely torn apart and their fragility revealed at last. The cold and silence are nature's consequences for man.

[If some of that didn't make sense due to the language gap, I'd be glad to clarify.]

Message Edited by randomsense on 08-03-2007 02:23 PM

---

Interesting analysis..I am always amazed how many different meanings any passage in the book can have. I came away feeling that this book had a unique interpretation for everybody depending upon their lives circumstances.