conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is a description for a book titled Love Among the Ruins about Barsetshire, English, Victorian with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Humor & Satire? End with the sentence ' This is vintage the author, to be welcomed by longtime devotees as well as newcomers to her engaging fiction.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: the author (1890-1961) wrote some 30 highly entertaining novels about life in the imaginary English county of Barsetshire (a setting invented by Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope). Her books achieved enormous popularity for their humorous style, subtle characterization and sympathetic portrayal of a class-conscious society. First published in 1948, the author's ninth Barsetshire novel is, like her other confections, a story of English ladies and gentlemen and their irrepressible children, all of whom live in such fabulous country towns as Winter Overcotes and High Rising, where they talk delightful nonsense, fall acutely but not painfully in love and in general find life worth living despite the shortages and rationing of postwar Britain. The story begins at Beliers Priory, Barsetshire's preparatory school for boys. Prominent in the charming cast of eligible young men and women are Charles Belton, newly hired junior master; his elder brother, Freddy; the Dean sisters, Susan and Jessica; and the elegant young Clarissa Graham. Woven skillfully into the daily rounds of county life, their courtships and comic mishaps culminate at the tradition-shattering fair which for the first time combines the annual meeting of the Barsetshire Pig Breeders Association and a Conservative Party rally. This is vintage the author, to be welcomed by longtime devotees as well as newcomers to her engaging fiction.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is a plot for a book about Barsetshire, English, Victorian with the genre: Literature & Fiction, Humor & Satire?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Love Among the Ruins (film): The story is set in 1911, at the end of the Edwardian period.\nJessica Medlicott (Hepburn) is an aging grande dame, formerly an actress of the London theatre, accused of having met, courted, promised marriage; and then jilted and abandoned, her suitor.\nThe much-younger ex-fiancé then files suit, seeking £50,000 in damages for the breach of promise by her.\nShe retains the services of the greatest barrister in the Empire (Olivier) to defend her.\nHe is incidentally, also a man she seduced and abandoned (40 years earlier); but who has remained hopelessly in love with her ever since.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the first five paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Love Among the Ruins
  We put some pillows behind our back and propped ourselves up on the day bed. We drank warm Rhine wine out of a shared coffee cup and ate slices of bread slathered thick with butter. 'Did you hear,' Friede said excitedly, 'the British have started up Radio Hamburg again. So we can finally listen to jazz and dance music banned by the Nazis.'
  I laughed and sipped back my wine. I thought these moments with her were the closest to paradise I had ever got in my short and squalid life. Lying beside Friede was like a wish come true from Aladdin's lamp. To me, she was as mysterious as the sphinx and as sensual as nightfall in an exotic garden. I clung tightly to the hope that my desire for her was more than physical want, and that her interest in me went beyond food parcels. Perhaps that was all we could demand from each other after a long war. Maybe the best we both could hope for was the shared warmth from our curled-up bodies and to forget the incinerated city waiting outside.
  We finished half a bottle of wine and I sang silly songs. I made extravagant compliments to her eyes, her hair, her body, and her soul. After a while, we undressed each other. We made love on the chaise longue, which was just large enough for us to hold each other tightly, in a selfish and generous longing. For a long time, we remained in Friede's small lair, while outside the thin shuttered door the old man raged against the occupation, his life, and his new lodgings. The din slowly dissipated and faded into the background like a smudge on the wallpaper.
  I must have dozed off because I woke to the nakedness of her back and the curve of her spine. I traced my fingers against her skin and noticed that just below Friede's left shoulder she carried a horrible discoloured scar. 'What are you doing back there?' she asked in a sleepy voice.
  Friede giggled as she explained. 'It was a crazy fantasy world created by Himmler and Goebbels. Every girl in Germany was supposed to like a Rhineland maiden who cooked and cleaned and fucked like a rabbit to make blue-eyed, blonde-haired Aryan babies for the Reich.'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is five more paragraphs? End with the sentence ' Verstehen?''.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Papp got up from his desk and moved towards me, his cigarette hanging from his lip like a birth mark. He stood in front of me, smoke pouring from his homemade fag.
  Papp pulled the wet, yellow cigarette stump from his mouth and began to contemplate the offer. 'How much coffee do you have?'
  With more friendliness in my voice, I said, 'Come on, one worker for two kilos of coffee. That is a fair trade and it's not going to harm your operation. You would never miss one girl, would you?'
  Papp laughed like a man who has just seen a child stumble from their bike. 'Me, I wouldn't miss any of these bitches if they fell off the edge of the world. But,' he added, 'the big man who owns this factory might have something to say about it. Especially since those cows out on the floor make him money. The boss likes money and he counts his geld every day. My chief knows what he is worth down to the last pfennig and he's not going to be cheated out of anything that is his.'
  Papp walked past us and opened his door. He pointed towards the factory floor outside. He said: 'Take a look around; the government pays my boss to make those bitches work. He's paid handsomely for the shit those girls make in this factory. One less girl is one less lampshade being produced, which is like stealing a mark from the boss's wallet. Verstehen?'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the last four paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: At first, the move to Britain was a difficult transition for Friede. She was cosmopolitan but Halifax, where we settled after I left the RAF, was provincial, stuffy and riddled with class divisions and ancient prejudice against outsiders and new ideas. Friede was not used to the rough-and-tumble world that Britain's working class took for granted and she was shocked at the deprivations ordinary people endured in our country. Still, it didn't take her long to develop a great and abiding love for England and Yorkshire, which was returned by the many people who befriended Friede during our early married years.
  In many ways Friede found solace in the circle of friends that had been with me since my boyhood.
  Early on, Friede and I met and became fast friends with a Polish refugee who had fought at Dunkirk and on the beaches of D-Day. He was married to a Belgian woman who became like a sister to Friede. The four of us spent endless weekends rambling across Ilkley Moor, cracking jokes, reciting poems and enjoying the moments that matter when one is young.
  Like all young people, newly married, we didn't always understand each other's needs and wants but our love was strong enough to weather the storms of youth and allow us to sail into old age together.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about Many, married.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: At first, the move to Britain was a difficult transition for Friede. She was cosmopolitan but Halifax, where we settled after I left the RAF, was provincial, stuffy and riddled with class divisions and ancient prejudice against outsiders and new ideas. Friede was not used to the rough-and-tumble world that Britain's working class took for granted and she was shocked at the deprivations ordinary people endured in our country. Still, it didn't take her long to develop a great and abiding love for England and Yorkshire, which was returned by the many people who befriended Friede during our early married years. 
  In many ways Friede found solace in the circle of friends that had been with me since my boyhood. Many of them had, like me, married women from different parts of the world and this made our fraternity even stronger. 
  Early on, Friede and I met and became fast friends with a Polish refugee who had fought at Dunkirk and on the beaches of D-Day. He was married to a Belgian woman who became like a sister to Friede. The four of us spent endless weekends rambling across Ilkley Moor, cracking jokes, reciting poems and enjoying the moments that matter when one is young. 
  Like all young people, newly married, we didn't always understand each other's needs and wants but our love was strong enough to weather the storms of youth and allow us to sail into old age together.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the first five paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Love Among the Ruins
  Emily wished she could sit with William. He, after all, knew why they were doing this and where they were going. But as the miles passed, as the fields and farmhouses gave way to mining country and the desolation, after many hours, became studded here and there with pines and birch and finally patches of deep forest, that mattered less. She was afraid, and yet her mood was not unlike what it would be if she had simply been returning to this country again for another session of summer camp: This, she thought, is going to be fun. Why should it not be? The forest was a curtain behind which they might disappear and do exactly what they wanted. And then she felt herself positively excited.
  The bus stopped for lunch some sixty miles south of International Falls, at a roadside café, and it was here that William and Emily got off for good. They ate their lunches at the counter, their bags at their feet, still sitting apart, finishing before most of the others. They left the café, turned into the county road that ran behind it, perpendicular to the highway, walked one hundred yards, and stopped, standing together at last.
  This was the part of their journey that William was most concerned about: the twenty miles to the water, to the end of the road, to Lac La Cache. They were either going to have to walk it (with William dragging the heavy duffel bag behind him) or hitchhike, and perhaps risk questions, suspicion, and discovery. But walking seemed impossible—could they manage even half a mile?—and at the sound of approaching wheels on the gravel, William thrust out his thumb, and the pickup truck stopped.
  With some effort, William shouldered the duffel bag into the cargo box of the pickup, and pitched in Emily's somewhat lighter bag after it. Emily climbed into the cab and then William, although William wished it were he and not she who was sitting next to the driver. He felt, correctly, that Emily's youth and sex were more likely to attract notice. So when the driver, having released the clutch and set off, spoke, William was sure to preempt any reply from Emily.
  William felt himself in a dilemma. There was nothing so odd in this corner of the world as a man indifferent to fishing (or at least to discoursing about fish—their psychology, habits, and lore—and fishing), yet he in no way wanted to encourage this man to entangle himself in their affairs. Then he stumbled across a brilliant parry.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: THEY DID NOT SETTLE EASILY INTO THE COTTAGE. Despite William's assurances, Emily could not help continuing to feel that occupying it was wrong and that they might get caught. "Suppose that guy that looks after these places in the winter comes around?" she said as they began to haul their things up the bank.
  Once inside, William dragged the duffel and their sleeping bag towards the parents' room and its double bed.
  William turned around and looked at her. "You're afraid this is like Goldilocks or something? Like 'Who's been sleeping in my bed?' "
  Then they went in the kitchen to eat. William looked through a stack of papers on the kitchen counter. "Their name is Jorgensen," he said, "these people you're so worried about."
  Emily made herself a cup of boiled rice from the last of her supply. William munched from a can of chow mein noodles taken from the Jorgensen's larder. They said nothing to each other for most of the afternoon, and that evening William laid himself down with an ostentatious sigh onto the sleeping bag on the floor. It was the first night they had ever spent together that they did not make love. They said good night woodenly, and rolled away from each other and feigned sleep.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: They said good night woodenly, and rolled away from each other and feigned sleep. Despite William's assurances, Emily could not help continuing to feel that occupying it was wrong and that they might get caught. "Suppose that guy that looks after these places in the winter comes around?" she said as they began to haul their things up the bank.
  Once inside, William dragged the duffel and their sleeping bag towards the parents' room and its double bed.
  William turned around and looked at her. "You're afraid this is like Goldilocks or something? Like 'Who's been sleeping in my bed?' "
  Then they went in the kitchen to eat. William looked through a stack of papers on the kitchen counter. "Their name is Jorgensen," he said, "these people you're so worried about."
  Emily made herself a cup of boiled rice from the last of her supply. William munched from a can of chow mein noodles taken from the Jorgensen's larder. They said nothing to each other for most of the afternoon, and that evening William laid himself down with an ostentatious sigh onto the sleeping bag on the floor. It was the first night they had ever spent together that they did not make love.THEY DID NOT SETTLE EASILY INTO THE COTTAGE.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Edward said, "It wasn't that long after... the other. Not that there was a connection. They said the cancer would have started way before that."
  There was another silence, nearly as long as the very first one. "I know you are." Edward paused again. "I'm not going to say anything beyond that. Not 'apology accepted.' Or anything about forgiveness. I'm not holding back. It's just taken so long to get here. And it's good enough."
  For Jane, not a great deal changed in all those years. She was not entirely surprised that she never heard from Edward, even after his wife was gone. She pretty much gave up politics, commiserated with her friend Frances, and went on living at 475 Laurel Avenue, where she still lives today. And if you pass by her apartment (as people are wont to do so as to have a peek at F. Scott Fitzgerald's birthplace, which is right next door) on a summer day when the windows are open and the air is thick and resonant, you may well hear a snatch of Mahler or Candide.
  William had been told, and knew full well, that he remained a prisoner of certain beliefs which would remain the primary obstacles to his recovery. He believes a little too strongly in romantic love or at least holds an unsophisticated view of its powers and importance in human affairs. But the fact remains for him that he only saw how very much God loved Emily, and could not but love her too.
  His mother lives as if it were always 1966 or thereabouts; and for William (for whom at the best of times Emily lives, in California, with her children, near the tennis courts) it is always just now. In this way, they keep the intervening years—the history, the ruins among which their loves transpired—at bay.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the first four paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Love Among the Ruins
  Despite their promises at the last Election, the politicians had not changed the climate. The State Meteorological Institute had so far produced only an unseasonable fall of snow and two little thunderbolts no larger than apricots. The weather varied from day to day and from county to county as it had done of old, most anomalously.
  Strains of a string quartet floated out from the drawing-room windows and were lost amid the splash and murmur of the gardens. In the basin the folded lilies had left a brooding sweetness over the water. No gold fin winked in the porphyry font and any peacock which seemed to be milkily drooping in the moon-shadows was indeed a ghost, for the whole flock of them had been found mysteriously and rudely slaughtered a day or two ago in the first disturbing flush of this sudden summer.
  Miles, sauntering among the sleeping flowers, was suffused with melancholy. He did not much care for music and this was his last evening at Mountjoy. Never again, perhaps, would he be free to roam these walks.
  Mountjoy had been planned and planted in the years of which he knew nothing; generations of skilled and patient husbandmen had weeded and dunged and pruned; generations of dilettanti had watered it with cascades and jets; generations of collectors had lugged statuary here; all, it seemed, for his enjoyment this very night under this huge moon. Miles knew nothing of such periods and processes, but he felt an incomprehensible tidal pull towards the circumjacent splendours.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is five more paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Miles went to the room reserved for patients of importance. All one wall was of glass. Pressed to it a girl was standing, turned away from him, looking out at the glum queue below. Miles stood, the light in his eyes, conscious only of a shadow which stirred at the sound of the latch and turned, still a shadow merely but of exquisite grace, to meet him. He stood at the door, momentarily struck silent at this blind glance of beauty. Then he said: 'We're quite ready for you now, miss.'
  The girl came nearer. Miles's eyes adjusted themselves to the light. The shadow took form. The full vision was all that the first glance had hinted; more than all, for every slight movement revealed perfection. One feature only broke the canon of pure beauty; a long, silken, corn-gold beard.
  Dr Beamish was so deeply interested that he forgot Miles's presence. 'Klugmann's Operation, I suppose?'
  While she spoke, Dr Beamish's geniality froze. He looked at her with hatred, not speaking. Then he picked up the pink form. 'Then this no longer applies?'
  Miles led her into the public waiting-room. 'What an old beast,' she said. 'What a perfect beast. I've never been spoken to like that before even in the ballet-school. He seemed so nice at first.'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: '. All one wall was of glass. Pressed to it a girl was standing, turned away from him, looking out at the glum queue below. Miles stood, the light in his eyes, conscious only of a shadow which stirred at the sound of the latch and turned, still a shadow merely but of exquisite grace, to meet him. He stood at the door, momentarily struck silent at this blind glance of beauty. Then he said: 'We're quite ready for you now, miss.'
  The girl came nearer. Miles's eyes adjusted themselves to the light. The shadow took form. The full vision was all that the first glance had hinted; more than all, for every slight movement revealed perfection. One feature only broke the canon of pure beauty; a long, silken, corn-gold beard.
  Dr Beamish was so deeply interested that he forgot Miles's presence. 'Klugmann's Operation, I suppose?'
  While she spoke, Dr Beamish's geniality froze. He looked at her with hatred, not speaking. Then he picked up the pink form. 'Then this no longer applies?'
  Miles led her into the public waiting-room. 'What an old beast,' she said. 'What a perfect beast. I've never been spoken to like that before even in the ballet-school. He seemed so nice at first.Miles went to the room reserved for patients of importance.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What is the last five paragraphs? End with the sentence ' He pressed the catch and instantly, surprisingly, there burst out a tiny flame – gemlike, hymeneal, auspicious.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Miles looked from the waiting-room window at the slow streams of traffic. Just below him stood a strange, purposeless obstruction of stone. A very old man, walking by, removed his hat to it as though saluting an acquaintance. Why? Miles wondered. Then he was summoned to the politicians.
  They were alone in their office save for a gruesome young woman. The Minister of Rest and Culture said: 'Ease your feet, lad' and indicated a large leatherette armchair.
  All the time they had been speaking Miles had been aware of a bulky sheeted object on a table in the window. Miss Flower now unveiled it. Miles gazed in awe.
  It fitted. It fell into place precisely in the void of his mind, satisfying all the needs for which his education had prepared him. The conditioned personality recognized its proper preordained environment. All else was insubstantial; the gardens of Mountjoy, Clara's cracked Crown Derby and her enveloping beard were trophies of a fading dream.
  Miles felt ill at ease during the ceremony and fidgeted with something small and hard which he found in his pocket. It proved to be his cigarette-lighter, a most uncertain apparatus. He pressed the catch and instantly, surprisingly, there burst out a tiny flame – gemlike, hymeneal, auspicious.