Long break from last update! The new semester started a month ago, and I have been busy with coursework and research. Now I am back to reading notes. Thesedays I am reading To kill a mocking bird by Harper Lee, and I am going to post and share my favorite quotes from the book, planning to update at least 10 sentences each week. Here comes my notes for Chapter 1.

Part ONE

Chapter 1

Descriptive sentences

• He couldn’t have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt.

a vivid description for Jem as a teenage boy by using “couldn’t have cared less”.

• If General Jackson hadn’t run the Creeks up the creek, Simon Finch would never have paddled up the Alabama, and where would we be if he hadn’t?

a witty way to describe the history of Finch family with the phrase “run the Creeks up the creek” and “paddle up”.

• Simon made a pile practicing medicine, but in this pursuit he was unhappy lest he be tempted into doing what he knew was not for the glory of God, as the putting on of gold and costly apparel.

“Make a pile” is a colloquial way to say “make a lot of money”, and the “lest” here means “for fear that”, which is a formal way to express the negative purpose. At the same time, the usage of “the putting on of gold” make the latter part of the sentence more official, in contrast to the former part.

• Simon lived to an impressive age and died rich.

concise but powerful expression.

• In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. … People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything.

a vivid description of the town Maycomb in the summer. “sag” means “sink down to a lower level”, and “sweltering” means “uncomfortably hot”. “amble” means “walk at a slow, relaxed pace”, and “shuffle” means “walk by dragging one’s feet along or without lifting them fully from the ground”.

Verbal collections

• He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.

“began sometime” is correct and concise, avoid using “began in/at sometime”.

• When my father was admitted to the bar, he returned to Maycomb and began his practice.

“be admitted to the bar” is a fixed phrase to say “become a lawyer”.

• an unsullied Code of Alabama

“unsullied” is a usual word to describe the diction of law, which means “not spoiled or made impure”.

Sentence analysis

• Simon would have regarded with impotent fury the disturbance between the North and the South, as it left his descendants stripped of everything but their land, yet the tradition of living on the land remained unbroken until well into the twentieth century, when my father,Atticus Finch, went to Montgomery to read law,and his younger brother went to Boston to study medicine.

“would have done” is used to express a hypothetical situation in the past. Here it is used to express what Simon would have done if he had lived to see the disturbance between the North and the South. The “as” part is used to express the reason why Simon would have done so.

Thoughtful expressions

• Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it.

• But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people:Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.