Reading comprehension Home Exercise – 07, PASSAGE A

Billie Holiday died a few weeks ago. I have been unable until now to write about her, but since she will survive many who receive longer obituaries, a short delay in one small appreciation will not harm her or us. When she died we, the musicians, critics, all who were ever transfixed by the most heart-rending voice of the past generation, grieved bitterly. There was no reason to. Few people pursued self- destruction more whole- heartedly than she, and when the pursuit was at an end, at the age of forty- four, she had turned herself into a physical and artistic wreck. Some of us tried gallantly to prate otherwise, taking comfort in the occasional moments when she still sounded like a ravaged echo of her greatness. Others had not even the heart to see and listen any more. We preferred to stay home and, if old any lucky enough to own the incomparable records of her heyday from 1937 , many of which are not even available on British LP, to recreate those coarse – textured, sinuous, sensual and unbearable sad noises which gave her a sure corner of immortality. Her physical death called, if anything, for relief rather than sorrow. What sort of middle age would she have faced without the voice to earn money for her  drinks and fixes, without the looks and in her day she was hauntingly beautiful to attract the man she needed, without business sense, without anything but the disinterested worship of ageing men who had heard and seen her in her glory?

And yet, irrational thought it is, our grief expressed Billie Holiday’s art, that of a woman for whom one must be sorry.  The great blues singers, to whom she may be justly compared, played their game from strength. Lionesses, though often wounded or at bay (did not Bessie Smith call herself a tiger, ready to jump) their tragic equivalents were Cleopatra and Phaedra: Holidays’ was an embittered Ophelia. She was the Puccini heroine among blues singers, or rather among jazz singers, for though she sang a cabaret version of the blues incomparably, her natural idiom was the pop song. Her unique achievement was to have twisted this into a genuine expression of the major passions by means of a total disregard of its sugary tunes, or indeed of any tune other than her own few delicately crying elongated notes, phrased like Bessie Smith or Louis Armstrong and sung in a thin, gritty, haunting voice whose natural mood was an undersigned and voluptuous welcome for the pains of love. Nobody has sung, or will sing, Bessie’s songs from porgy as she did. It was this combination of bitterness and physical submission, as of someone lying still while watching his legs amputated which gives such a blood- curding quality to her song, Strange Fruit, the anti-lynching poem which she turned into an unforgettable art song. Suffering was her profession; but she did not accept it.

Little need be said about her horrifying life, which she described with emotional, though hardly with factual, truth in her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues. After an adolescence in which self- respect was measured by a girl’s insistence on picking up the coins thrown to her by clients with her hands she was plainly beyond help. She did not lack, it for she had the flair and scrupulous honesty of John Hammond to launch her, the best musicians of the 1930s to accompany her, notably Teddy Wilson, Frankie Newton and Lester Young, the boundless devotion of all serious connoisseurs, and much public success. It was too late to arrest a career of systematic embittered self- immolation. To be born with both beauty and self- respect in the Negro ghetto of Baltimore in 1915 was too much of a handicap, even without rape at the age of ten and drug- addiction in her teens. But while she destroyed herself, she sang, unmelodious, profound and heartbreaking. It is impossible not to weep for her, or not to hate the world which made her what she was.

1.       What is the main focus of the passage?

A.      To find the reasons behind Billie Holiday’s death.

B.      The passage tells how Billie Holiday’s death is not grieved by anyone.

C.      The passage is an appreciation of Billie Holiday’s life and achievements as a singer.

D.      To describe Billie Holiday’s wrecked life, by giving an account of her rise as well as hger destruction.

2.       What according to the writer was the cause of her death?

A.      She died by committing suicide since she was not happy with her downfall as a singer.

B.      She was forced to death by other singers.

C.      She indulged in ruining her life by giving herself up to drugs and drinks when her carrier as a singer was on a decline.

D.      She had an overdose of drugs, which became toxic.

3.       What cannot be understood from the last paragraph of the passage?

A.      Her career was launched by reliable and accomplished producers.

B.      She was praised for her art equally by expert judges as well as people.

C.      In her autobiography, she described her life with sentimental and passionate truth.

D.      Her style of music was different from other s in terms of the treatment of tunes.

Answer and Explanations

1.       D    The passage revolves around Billie Holiday’s ravaged existence after the decline of her career as a singer and her consequent death. Thus, option D is the most appropriate answer. We reject A since the write mentions her death as a result of self destruction, and does not dwell any further on it. Option B refers to a part of the passage where the writer mentions that no one had the heart to see or listen to her and she had subjected herself to self-destruction. However, the passage moves on to her life and her unique art. Thus, we reject it. Similarly, option C is also a part of the passage and other than her appreciation as a singer; the passage focuses on her ravaged existence as well. 

2.       C    option B is obviously wrong, as there is n mention of her being forced to death. We reject option A on grounds of its referring to her death as a suicide. Although the writer mentions self destruction, he refers to it as an effort to ruin her life by indulging in drinks and drugs, and not by committing suicide. We reject D since it mentions that an overdose of drugs was the reason of her death. However, it was not an overdose, but a result of gradual and persistent habit of drugs and drinks. Thus, we conclude that C is the best answer.

3.       D     option D is  the correct  answer since it is not described in the last paragraph but the second paragraph, where the writer mentions about her unique achievements of twisting the usual tunes and a total disregard of  its sugary tunes. All the other options have a mention in the last paragraph, and thus are rejected.