[0:00]Hi everyone, welcome to Miss Adams Teaches English Language and Literature A-Level. In this video, we're going to be taking a look at Flemich Webb's review of Boxer Handsome by Anna Whitwam. This is part of the Voices in Speech and Writing anthology by Edexcel. I'm going to take you through some aspects of context, we'll focus on genre audience and purpose before we take a look at some key moments of the review, looking at linguistic and literary concepts and how voice is constructed. So let's get started.
[0:33]Okay, little focus on content and context for the Boxer Handsome review. So first off, the person that wrote the review, is a chap called Flemich Webb. Now, he was a journalist, presenter, and a freelance editor, and he worked across the Guardian, the Independent, and the Evening Standard. His specialist area of of writing was actually, uh, the environment. He was environmentalist himself and did a lot of campaigning, um, but obviously he did this particular review of Boxer Handsome, um, for the Independent. Sadly, he's passed away now, he died in 2020 quite suddenly, um, and this was written I think 2014. Um, coinciding with, um, the debut of Anna Whitwam's, uh, book Boxer Handsome. Now this is actually the only book she has so far written, but she also, um, is a university lecturer as well. And she as as well as like talking about her writing and such, she actually, uh, does a course that is all about the kind of concept of masculinity, which is really interesting when you look at the review and the way that it discusses, um, the kind of concept of machismo, uh, in the world of boxing. Another thing that's important to note is that Anna Whitwam is, although writing fiction, she's drawing upon her own knowledge and experiences. Although she is not a boxer herself, her grandfather was, um, and her her grandfather, um, lived quite an impoverished life. He used boxing as a kind of way of of sort of keeping himself out of trouble, uh, and so all of that flavors the book and is touched upon in the review, so all quite helpful stuff. Uh, looking at the gap, obviously this is a review, uh, a review written in the Independent, which is what I mentioned before, which obviously has an impact on the audience. So we're going to have the, um, the readers of the Independent, who are focusing on perhaps the the review section in particular, or might just be browsers of the entire paper. Uh, we're going to get people that are specific fans of web, and then we're going to have the fans or the people that are interested in the world of boxing. You're going to get people that are reading it because it is a debut novel, because it's new literature that is got a little bit of buzz around it. You're also going to have the people that have already read the novel and are interested in what other people say. So it's either going to be about consolidating what they think about the novel, or if it's new readers, then it's going to be a, a kind of encouraging people to go and pick up the book, which obviously takes us into the purpose. Clearly, as a review, it's about informing, entertaining and persuading because ultimately it's saying go read this book or don't read this book. In this case, it is a positive. And so for that reason, yes, of course there's going to be lots of positivity in the voice, um, but there's also going to be a kind of sense of critical, uh, or a kind of critical tone. I don't mean that in a negative way, I mean in in that it's going to be opinionated, it's going to be evaluative, uh, in tone, it's going to be quite descriptive as well, because you're going to get those features of literary non-fiction, so do expect that kind of careful crafting of language. Right, starting at the top as always, right, we're meeting the conventions of the review straight off. We're starting in present tense, we've got the declarative statement, Boxer Handsome is Anna Whitwam's first novel and was inspired by her grandfather, John Poppy, a young featherweight boxer at the Crown & Manor Boys Club in Hoxton. So what we're doing here is we're giving the most important information about the book itself and its roots. And it's straight away popping this book within a context, and that's done through the proper nouns that are to do with her grandfather, John Poppy, and the specific place. So we're being told straight away that there is a real link between fiction and real life here. Uh, continuing with the conventions of the review, we then have a judgment. So this familial connection gives this exciting debut an authenticity, which allied to a confident writing style, suggests Whitwam has a promising future ahead of her. So there's our critical judgment and notice how positive it is. Have a little look at some of these adjectives and noun phrases. So exciting debut, authenticity, confident writing style and the noun phrase, promising future ahead of us, with that adjective promising. Again, all kind of suggesting what potential uh, this writer has, because again, remember, it is Whitwam's first ever novel. Okay, we continue the conventions of the form by going into a kind of summative style, but being careful not to kind of give away too much. You don't want too many spoilers in a review, so the story opens with Bobby, so note the discourse marker here, the story opens, quite narrative in style, and you're going to see as we read through now we've got the semantic field of boxing, so a lot of subject specific lexus. So story opens with Bobby fighting childhood friend Connor over a girl. Both amateur boxers in the same boxing club in East London, they are due to fight each other in the ring in a divisional competition in a week's time, but this flurry of fists takes place by the canal, bare-knuckled and brutal. So all of those underlined words, part of the semantic field, but this flurry of fists takes place by the canal, bare-knuckled and brutal. So we move away from the kind of just declarative factual summary and now we get a little bit of word play, we get a little bit more of Webb style here, through the metaphor, um, flurry of fists, which is obviously also fricative alliteration there, with that sound, which sounds quite kind of aggressive in itself. Uh, flurry, this noun kind of suggests speed and pace, almost like you can't see, uh, like the fists, because they're moving so quickly, and then again, we've got plosive alliteration here, with the bare-knuckled and brutal, all suggesting violence. Now, at the end of this paragraph, Bobby wins, but can't resist a victorious act of brutality that drives subsequent events. So what Webb is doing here is using deliberately vague language, particularly this little noun phrase here, subsequent events. And even the act of brutality, we don't quite know what that is, and so he's very carefully making sure that he doesn't spoil, but it also like works as a narrative hook, because he's encouraging us to to go and read the book, because we want to know, well, what is the victorious act of brutality and then what are the subsequent events that occur. Okay, more evaluative tones here in his voice. So Whitwam acknowledges the value of boxing in society, giving wayward kids a focus, trainers acting as father figures to young men, through Derek, who runs the Clapton Bow Boys Club and keeps an eye out for Bobby and his other charges. Okay, so what we have here is we're focusing on the broader, the broader context, so value of boxing in society. So this is sort of outside of the text, and then the parenthesiss explains what, uh, he means. So wayward kids have focus, so that kind of draws upon the context of her grandfather, trainers acting as father figures to young men. So this is what, uh, he means by value in society, and then at the end of the parenthesis, it goes back to the content of the book through Derek who runs the Clapton Bow Boys Club. So it links the context into the content of the novel itself. And then we start the next part of the paragraph with a frontal coordinate conjunction, which demonstrates that we're going to have a kind of opposing view or a shift. But she doesn't shy away from its brutal side. Note the fact that that's quite, uh, informal in style, quite chatty, conversational to open with frontal coordinate conjunctions, and that's that kind of engagement with the reader that you get in a review, so again, another convention met. Little kind of idiomatic phrase here, she doesn't shy away from the brutal side. So again, this is a compliment, she's he's saying she doesn't sugarcoat things, it's not just about making everything seem lovely, um, and then you get this real kind of emotive language. Brutal side, the thin line that separates regulated fighting in the ring from unfettered violence outside it. Casualties of this world lay strewn throughout the world Whitwam creates. Um, so note the kind of hyperbole, and again, the emotive nature of that metaphor about the kind of bodies, like being strewn suggests that they're littered everywhere. Um, all, you know, coming in with a semantic field of violence that's really running throughout the whole piece, um, obviously boxing and then, of course, violence. Okay. Now, in this little moment, um, we get the examples of those casualties. It this is, this is taken out of the paragraph, but it makes almost a form of a list of all of the kind of different casualties, but we've got here both Bobby's mom and father just referenced. So Bobby's mother, a victim of domestic abuse at the hands of Joe, sees history repeating itself as her son follows in his dad's footsteps, a slave to the code of honor that this macho world demands. There's something of Shakespeare's emotionally stunted warrior, Coriolanus, in Bobby.
[10:35]Okay, so this metaphor here, the slave to the code of honor that this macho world demands. I just want to remind you of what I said about context, about the kind of lecturing she does, so she's obviously quite interested in the kind of concept of masculinity and and what it what it means, particularly in this world that her grandfather, uh, grew up in of boxing. And then we get this very educated reference here, we've got a literary allusion to Shakespeare. Uh, there's something of Shakespeare's emotionally stunted warrior Coriolanus in Bobby, um, and this is about demonstrating the kind of opposing natures of, um, Bobby, uh, that fits into the idea of the macho world. Because what he's basically saying here is like Coriolanus in this very kind of, um, political, uh, play that was actually again, so a very, very fitting, uh, literary allusion here. Um, this play is about politics and masculinity. Um, so it it's a very, very apt, uh, reference to make, but it's about the idea of the the contrasting factors of being really, really kind of strong and powerful physically, but actually not being able to connect emotionally, um, and so that's this, um, little adjectival phrase emotionally stunted, uh, there is what that's in reference to. Okay. Um, we've got a lovely little bit of language play here as, um, Webb continues critiquing and evaluating, um, Whitwam's work. So we've got a simile here, Whitwam's writing is as sharp as a one-two combination, so boxing lexus there within that simile, uh, short punchy sentences that capture effectively the brooding atmosphere of the East End, the threat of violence at every turn and the savagery of fighting. Note the way we've got this continued semantic field of violence.
[12:47]And then here, again, convention of the form met, um, Webb brings in a quotation. And it's a really judicious quotation, so a well selected quotation because the, the function of this is to back up what he's saying there. Okay. So then he cracked the bridge of his nose wide open, skin split, blood spat, Connor stumbled about headless. So he's just said that all of the sentences are like a one-two combination, that they're really punchy and present that kind of world of violence. And here, we've got an act of violence, we've got a sense of chaos, but we've also got within the quote, these minor, um, sorry, um, simple sentences, minor sentences, depending on how you read them. Skin split, blood spat. Um, so what he's doing there is creating, he's chosen a quote that create that punch-punch kind of sentences, it's very cleverly done. Um, and then the last bit that we're going to just look at right at the end, again, we're going to go back to that evaluative tone, the evaluative voice, but again, we've got a sense of balance here. So another frontal coordinate conjunction, which is demonstrating we're going to have a shift in tone or topic, in this case it's both. But the book is tender, too, a change of pace that deepens the emotional resonance of the characters. So note how we're drawing on some literary lexus here. Um, so it's again a reminder that this is not just about people are interested in boxing, it's people from the kind of literary world, they're interested in in new novels out there. Um, so we we're drawing upon some of the things that people are are wanting from a new book, which is character development. It's not all, you know, one-dimensional violence, violence, violence. And then right at the end, the last sentence, kind of comes full circle, uh, we've almost got like cyclical structure here as we repeat the adjective promising. Uh, this is a promising debut, obviously, we had the promising future, um, in the opening paragraph. Um, and the that sort of sense of balance is is being introduced here, because I've said carefully chosen adjective, where he says, it will be interesting to see how Whitwam handles subject matter in subsequent novels that is more distant from her own experience. So a very, very positive review, but just with this little bit of balance at the end, can she do more, can she do something different? That's it from me. Hope that was useful. Give me a shout if you've got any questions or if you want me to go through any of the parts of the review that I I didn't cover on this, um, video, just drop me a note in the comments and I will get back to you. Uh, if you haven't subscribed, do click that button, um, because then you will, um, get notifications of when the rest of the series are ready as well as some tips on how to tackle it in the exam. And if you have subscribed, thank you so much. Right, thank you again. Happy revising.
