An awkward read...

Jeanette Winterson's The Powerbook left me with two really profound feelings. First, the relationship that exists throughout the story is really messed up. Second, this novel could have easily been half of its length and still accomplished what it did. The main issues I had with this novel was the way it jumped all over hell and back as it progressed. Additionally, I found the dialogue incredibly difficult to follow at times, catching myself rereading entire pages of dialogue just so I could accurately determine who was speaking, and, even then, I wouldn't be entirely sure. However, I wasn't about to read passages three or four times in an effort to completely understand who the hell was talking in line seven of the dialogue.

The relationship between the narrator, Ali, and her lover is the focus of this novel and as a result is the highlight of reading it. However, it is also the deadest, most beaten horse I have ever seen in literature by the end of the novel. In fact, I would catch my eyes glazing over as I realized that the two women were going to have the exact same conversation that they had in their last encounter. This revisiting was a tactic that I could have handled if something new had been said in at least one or two of these encounters. Instead the damn thing just stagnates until the end of the novel, which I reached with relief, despite my discovery that my drink had run dry several chapters earlier. This stagnation is made even more prevalent by an examination of the ending of the novel, which resolves absolutely nothing, a necessary evil in a piece like this, but no less frustrating.

The previous conversation leads me to my second point, this could have been a super long story and would have succeed much more, in my opinion, than it does in its current state. Much of the background and repetitiveness could be cut without feeling in my opinion, and, as such, would improve the quality of the novel. One thing that I feel was developed with a proper pace was the nature of the narrator's lover's bisexuality. Especially when intertwining this with the massive complication of the other woman being married, the bisexuality is held in the foreground just enough to make it a problem for the characters.

The Powerbook left me wishing I had skimmed through the middle third of the novel. However, it did have its good moments, like the focus of the problematic nature of Ali and her lover's relationship. However, this positive turns into a negative by the third time that one reads about it, due to the fact that it never really changes.

Admirable Protagonist

The Heartsong of Charging Elk was a novel that, for me, did a great deal of things. First of all, as a Native American myself, the subject matter of the novel hit rather close to home. When I picked up the novel and just read the back of the book to get a sense of what I was getting myself into, I was immediately intrigued. Wild Bill’s Wild West show has always been something that has interested me and Welch’s take on the sorts of things that could happen has only piqued my interest even more.

The course of events that affect Charging Elk are, by themselves, enough to break any person. First he gets left in a foreign nation that is even more alienating than his home. I mean, after being thrust into the white man’s world, which had to be foreign enough, then he gets abandoned in France, which is twofold more foreign. It would have been so, so easy for Charging Elk to fold up right here and call it quits. Instead he presses on, trying to find his way back to Wild Bill’s show.

The second thing that happens to Charging Elk was the most difficult one for me to read. When he is drugged and raped, I had to actually put the book down and take a bit of a study break before being able to pick the book back up. The fact that he kills the man who was raping him, to me, is a completely understandable, though certainly not commendable, response. The way that Charging Elk could continue living as normal of a life as possible after this event is still more amazing to me.

Third, when Charging Elk finds out that, according to the American Government, he is dead and his last realistic hope of returning to the United States has been snuffed out, he still continues on. The way that Charging Elk makes the most of this bad situation is, at the very least, impressive. The fact that, on his deathbed, one can say that he’s accepted the hand that life dealt him, makes Charging Elk an extremely powerful character in my eyes.

Real Poverty

Lois Ann Yamanaka’s novel Blu’s Hanging left me with a general feeling of unease. Perhaps it was just that I am bothered by the fact that there are people in the world that live in such conditions. It also didn’t help my motivation to sit down and read the novel that I had read the essay by Jamie James prior to the novel itself. So not only was I put off within the first few pages, but I was prepared to be made to feel uncomfortable. In all honesty, maybe I was set up to not enjoy this piece by the James essay.

I guess, due to my suspicion, I should start by exploring my experience with the James essay “This Hawaii Is Not For Tourists”. Well, the one thing that stood out to me about this essay was that it was much more informative than most essays that I have recently read. That is to say, it seemed to me that James set out to tell readers the history of the controversy surrounding Yamanaka’s works, especially Blu’s Hanging. I found this approach to be a refreshing change of pace, though I left the reading of the essay feeling slightly unsatisfied, like I had not been appropriately guided down a line of thinking.

After reading through Blu’s Hanging, however, I realize that James did guide me to a line of thought, which centered around a comment my girlfriend made while reading over my shoulder, “Eww, that doesn’t sound like much fun at all”. Now, admittedly, this could have been directed at the essay in general, but I, being a good boyfriend, asked for clarification and she pointed out some the descriptions from Blu’s Hanging that are intertwined with the history lesson.

These descriptions, which formed the basis of Yamanaka’s critics’ arguments also shaped my reading of the text. They made all of the negative aspects of the novel really stand out to me. Upon reflection, I find this to be quite unfortunate because Blu’s Hanging is certainly a well written piece and one that I could have found a lot more pleasurable had I not been preexposed to the negative aspects of it. I loved the realness of the characters, and definitely sympathized with them in many of their problematic situations.

A scenario that really stood out to me came early on in the novel, when the narrator makes Blu’s lunch for a field trip and the other kids in his class mock him horribly for the sad state of his sandwiches and his reused grocery bag that serves as his lunch bag. This, to me, summarized the horrible poverty that the family was living in. Additionally, I felt that this scene connected me with the characters in a way that simple whining about how horrible it was would not have accomplished.

Connections to the Past?

Junot Diaz’s short story collection Drown left me feeling like my less than easy life has been a walk in the park. Ultimately, what I identified with the most in these stories was the sense of not belonging that feels prevalent throughout the collection. Additionally, the source of the alienation, some sort of awkwardly defining quality, also really helped me to connect to these pieces and to simply fly through the readings. Finally, I was pulled into these stories primarily through the first piece “Ysrael”.

“Ysrael” contained many of the qualities that kept me reading Drown beyond what I normally would have devoted to a narrative written from the perspective of a minority. I suppose that this comment deserves explanation. Well, to put it simply, I have never really respected minority tales for the simple fact that many of them that I have read fall under one of two categories: ‘woe is me and my people’ or ‘this is how I broke free of the oppression that affects my people’. The first problem I have with these two types of narrative is the predictability of the plot. I am a reader that needs to be stimulated in some form or fashion in order to continue reading a work, creative or not. This stimulation doesn’t need to exclusively be from entertainment; for example, if a piece makes me think differently about a certain subject then I will continue reading to see what direction the author takes. In the case of “Ysrael”, in particular, I could draw parallels to my own life and, as a result, kept reading to see if I could find further parallels in other stories in the collection.

The parallels for me in “Ysrael” all center around the title character. Mainly, the parallels are centered more on representative objects than anything else. For example, the mask that Ysrael wears, and eventually loses, felt to me like the shell that I wore all throughout high school and for my first couple of years on campus. There is, of course, a very distinct difference; Ysrael was undoubtedly traumatized by the removal of his mask, whereas I was more than happy to cast aside my shell and allow the real me to finally show through. Secondly, and more directly, the relationship that the two brothers have was not altogether unlike the relationship that my little brother and I had during our younger years. There wasn’t quite as much of an age discrepancy between the two of us, and I wasn’t out sleeping with everything that moved and produced estrogen; but the basic elements of the relationship were there. If there is one area that I didn’t really like the parallels it was here. I mean, I always felt that my brother and I had a fairly stereotypical relationship until recently, and, quite frankly, if I’m going to read about a pair of brothers, I prefer to have the author do something that I haven’t seen before.

An Unusual Narrative

Slave Moth to me was a very awkward read. First of all, I don’t read poetry all that much, so adjusting to the narrative verse form of the book took some time. Second of all, I’ve never been a fan of slave narratives, so, when sitting down to write this post, it took some time for me to separate my distaste for the genre from a moderately, at least, objective look at the book. I suppose that now is also a good time to explain my somewhat juvenile reference to Slave Moth as a book, instead of a novel. Well, in my opinion, this story lands closer to the archaic epic poem than it does to a novel. Yes, it certainly has all of the elements of novel: chronology, characters, plot; but it lacks the prose that I find necessary to label a long story novel.

Now, as for the story itself, I enjoyed Slave Moth quite a lot, once I overcame the difficulties previously mentioned. Once I was able to grasp at the plot of the book then it was quite easy to plow through the story. In fact, I consumed the bulk of the story while having a homework party with my girlfriend. The plot itself is an atypical slave narrative, something that made me inwardly smile, primarily because of my previously mentioned difficulty with the genre. I particularly enjoyed the slaves that didn’t really act all that much like slaves and the “masters” that inexplicably let them enjoy what was apparently the illusion of doing whatever they wanted.

One problem that I had with the above atypicality is that the story really had no other way to end, save Varl running away, becoming Free. First off, the title leads you in that direction, probably intentionally, if you are paying enough attention to realize that moths aren’t the silly bugs that are attracted to light of all kinds right away. No, in fact, they are something much more limiting; like a slave is limited by their forced servitude. Secondly, it is plainly apparent, or it was to me anyways, by about the third to last poem, that once Peter became Master, Varl was shedding her cocoon and preparing to make a break for the North and freedom. Poetry, to me, should, at least, be mildly ambiguous in its conclusion. It is for that reason that I was bothered by the bottlenecked conclusion of Slave Moth. However, that quality of an ending only left me with a mildly sour taste in my mouth. Thankfully, that sour taste did not take away from what I felt was an otherwise enjoyable read.