Kathy Acker, why are you so damn quotable?
I just finished reading Acker's "My Mother: demonology, a novel". I had forgotten how much power Acker's words have over me, and how she completely changed my life when I was a literature major in college. Before reading Acker, I had always thought my story had to be constructed out of an existing language and infrastructure. But this was counterintuitive to me. I didn't feel like my story was a part of the this world, or of these words that were handed to me--it was other, I was Other, a stranger, and any story I wrote with this language was going to be a lie. Acker's works showed me that in order to tell a true story, I would have to create another language--and that not only was it okay to do this, it was the only way.
No other writer has the power to make me underline, to quote, to cry the way Acker does. Sometimes, I feel like she has written a map of my innards, the most private places. The linings of my stomach, my veins, my heart--reading Acker, I look up, pull my jacket closer around me, panicked that someone knows these spaces that I have kept hidden for so long. But there is nobody watching me, and the world is just the same. It is only myself, forced to know the parts i have been working so hard to neglect.
Acker is my therapist, my sister, my mother, and my mirror.
This particular work of Acker's has quite a few prominent themes. It is the story of a young woman, who morphs across time and space, who has lovers and leaves lovers and has lovers leave her. Ultimately it is not the plot that matters--it is never the plot that matters. It is the ideas of identity, formation of a self, memory, body, and language that keep recurring throughout the book--these are the things that matter.
The protagonist in this story is a lonely woman/girl, and she both revels in this loneliness and simultaneously wants to be close to another body, another soul. She wants to understand/be understood by another, but this is impossible, because she speaks the same language as nobody.
She is clearly inhabiting a female body, and there is a lot in this book regarding the body as a political entity. Acker writes, "Just as I wonder how a bodiless person can go anywhere, so at that time I thought that I could not feel pain without a body. Dead people don't know pain." This is a story about physicality, and the inescapable reality of a physical body. The protagonist is driven by and repelled by sex. She wants/needs sex, and others want/need sex to control her or be controlled by her. The body becomes a means of domination, submission, and control, and thus a means of constructing one's identity. At one point Acker writes, "On the New York City streets, children play with used needles. Therefore, it's the dead who determine how the living act. Mother had taught me to avoid allowing a man to touch me correctly because, as soon as one man would begin to touch me correctly, I would begin to need." Acker's character uses her body like currency. This is the reality of the world we live in: a bargaining process made of skin and bones like dollars and coins.
In one scene the character is raped by her father. Acker writes, "I don't want this consciousness...While my father was raping me, I learned I had to do away with myself. Where could I hide this self? I searched. Decided to hide in the mirror: in memories of my past victimizations, especially sexual abuses and rapes. As father was making love t5o me, whenever my consciousness was bad and wandered into the present,I repeated the sacred laws I had just given myself: the laws of silence and the loss of language. For us, there is no language in this male world." The body, the physical, political body, is also tied to language and who does/does not get to speak. In this world, it is the men who dominate the women's body through rape, and so it is the men who dominate the women's words.
Therefore the protagonist must create an alternate world, where her language can be heard, and where her body can operate unoppressed. Most of the book, then, takes place in a place of dreams, where the female can exist. And yet even this dream-space is not safe from attempts at control. From the contradiction of the self to both yearn for dreams and run away from them. Acker writes, "The hell with dreams because dreams only lead to perversity." The next chapter is titled, " The lack of dreams is disappearance of the heart." She knows that only in this dreamspace, a sort of conflation of memory and reconstruction of memory, can she exist because only here can she create a language of her own. And yet, the way she rejects men who treat her kindly and runs to men who want to control her, she runs away from this space as well.
In the end, we see themes of a reclamation of power through non-existence and non-meaning. These words, this existence, this world--it is constructed and impressed upon her, like male-ness. She both wants it and rejects it. She lives inside of it and yet she cannot live here. She is only human. But there is strength amidst the contradiction: "Scatter, mess up, destroy, throw to the dogs whatever you want, throw everything away in laughter: I'll never bee where you believe you're going to find me." And then: "I'm a woman who's alone, outside the accepted. Outside the Law, which is language. This is the only role that allows me to be as intelligent as I am and avoid persecution...Even when I believed in meaning, when I felt defined by opposition and this opposition between desire and the search for self-knowledge and self-reclamation was tearing me apart, even back then I knew that I was nly lying, that I was lying superbly, disgustingly, triumphally. Life doesn't exist inside language: too bad for me." Ultimately, the contradictory impulses for love and loneliness will continue. The body, words, politics, rape will continue--and she can only survive through non-meaning and non-existence, because there is no existence in this language that has been created for her and not by her.
This is a beautiful, poetic book with so much more to it. I could probably read this 20 times and still not be able to peel away all the layers--of politics, of history, of religion, of slavery in many forms. There is a lot about the life of a writer as well, and the strange world the writer inhabits. Ultimately, I have fallen in love with the way Acker creates a dream-space that is so far beyond this world, and yet is so familiar, that her words make me feel naked, alone, with only a mirror of myself, the loneliness companion of all, and yet the only one we must reconcile, in the end.
The next book I will read is called "Call Me By Your Name" by Andre Aciman. I don't know anything about this book other than it's some sort of love story and that it won a bunch of awards in 2007. I look forward to this new story, but I will remain haunted, plagued, and lovingly surrounded by the words of Kathy Acker as I continue.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Living in the Shadow of a Past, (Or refusing to do so)
I just finished Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart", a story about the conversion of African villagers by white Christian missionaries. I say this in the passive tense because somehow it feels right--the African villagers are the central focus of the book, and the missionaries appear on the periphery. But like a sneaking, asymptomatic disease, the missionaries become conquerors, gradually overtaking, overshadowing, and replacing the villagers with all their ancestry, all their culture, all their history.
As always, this story is about more than that, on a micro-level. Particularly, this is a story about a man named Okonkwo who embodies the rise and fall of the Umuofia clan. Okonkwo is once revered for being a prize fighter, and a very brave man. He built himself up. pulling himself up by his bootstraps, because his own father was weak and poor, and he knew from an early age that he would have to fight his own battles. One line in the book that struck a resonant chord with me is this: "Fortunately, among these people, a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father." Growing up with parents who were constantly in debt, I can relate to the notion of having to create one's own future from a rocky foundation, and knowing it is all up to you to ensure your success. In that respect Okonkwo reminds me of my older brother--he saved up, made sure he had good credit, and did not repeat the mistakes of his parents. And yet perhaps I have always felt judged according to the "worth of my father"--and acted accordingly, irresponsibly, and undisciplined with financial and practical matters. Okonkwo develops a very tough exterior, always ready to fight. He is clearly a man who has had to earn his keep.
Okonkwo has it all--and then, one day, in an instant he loses it all when he accidentally shoots a clansman and is exiled from the clan for seven years as is the custom. This is another very interesting and huge theme of the novel--the idea of custom, ancestry, and storytelling that weave throughout the narrative. The spiritual world plays a large role in the everyday lives of the clan. There is a large emphasis on tradition, rites, and respect for a history. Every day the people speak in storytelling language-i.e. "A child's fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother puts into its palm." There is a history based on tradition almost every week, such as the Week of Peace. And anybody who disrespects tradition is punished as is the custom--even when nobody alive can think of any logic for the custom. It is because it was--that seems to be the way the clanspeople think. Growing up in a Jewish household, I can certainly relate to the importance of tradition and culture. The ritual of Passover comes to mind--this year, my father tried to plow quickly through prayers and storytelling while the younger generation continually asked: Yes, but WHY? What is the MEANING? In Okonkwo's world, it is so because the ancestors did the same, and their ancestors before them, and so on.
However, when Christian missionaries appear, white strangers amongst the African clansmen, the younger generation finds a path that does not bind them to the tradition of their ancestors. Something new is offered, and many of the clanspeople cling to this newness, this apparent answer, this apparent otherness that does not seem to answer: just because. The Christians appear less bound to tradition, and in some ways, less bound to violence that many of the clanspeople view as senseless. Okonkwo's own son, Nwame, put off by the traditions of his clan such as the killing of twins just because, and the killing of his own stepbrother at his father's hand just because, joins the Christians, and therefore becomes dead to Oknokwo. He has abandoned his ancestors, and so no longer exists to his father, a man so proud of his clan and who has spent his life fighting for his high rank amongst his people.
And yet with Okonkwo's fall we also see the fall of the clanspeople. The Christian converts become more numerous. Respect for tradition wanes. In the end, Okonkwo does the only thing that he could possibly do in such a situation: he kills himself, rather than allow himself to see the day when his tribe is shattered, rather than allow his life to be usurped by the white man. And yet, tradition goes on, ironically: Oknokwo has committed a huge sin, and cannot be buried with respect. He can only be buried by strangers, the very white missionaries he killed himself to avoid.
This is a very sad and powerful narrative about the loss of a people and all their tradition. Okonkwo is a man of few words, a very gruff man, and yet you cannot help but side with him, despite all his violence. You want him to come out on top, and yet you know he cannot, because you have read the history books, and you know how history goes. Just because.
I will leave you with a line that comes near the end of the story, a thought from the missionaries' commissioner: "One of the most infuriating habits of these people was their love of superfluous words." Somehow I love this line, because it means, in a sense, that the clan is victorious, with their words, and with a spirit that will not die.
Next up: one of my favorite authors of all time, Kathy Acker, and a book I have not read for quite some time--"My Mother: Demonology".
As always, this story is about more than that, on a micro-level. Particularly, this is a story about a man named Okonkwo who embodies the rise and fall of the Umuofia clan. Okonkwo is once revered for being a prize fighter, and a very brave man. He built himself up. pulling himself up by his bootstraps, because his own father was weak and poor, and he knew from an early age that he would have to fight his own battles. One line in the book that struck a resonant chord with me is this: "Fortunately, among these people, a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father." Growing up with parents who were constantly in debt, I can relate to the notion of having to create one's own future from a rocky foundation, and knowing it is all up to you to ensure your success. In that respect Okonkwo reminds me of my older brother--he saved up, made sure he had good credit, and did not repeat the mistakes of his parents. And yet perhaps I have always felt judged according to the "worth of my father"--and acted accordingly, irresponsibly, and undisciplined with financial and practical matters. Okonkwo develops a very tough exterior, always ready to fight. He is clearly a man who has had to earn his keep.
Okonkwo has it all--and then, one day, in an instant he loses it all when he accidentally shoots a clansman and is exiled from the clan for seven years as is the custom. This is another very interesting and huge theme of the novel--the idea of custom, ancestry, and storytelling that weave throughout the narrative. The spiritual world plays a large role in the everyday lives of the clan. There is a large emphasis on tradition, rites, and respect for a history. Every day the people speak in storytelling language-i.e. "A child's fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother puts into its palm." There is a history based on tradition almost every week, such as the Week of Peace. And anybody who disrespects tradition is punished as is the custom--even when nobody alive can think of any logic for the custom. It is because it was--that seems to be the way the clanspeople think. Growing up in a Jewish household, I can certainly relate to the importance of tradition and culture. The ritual of Passover comes to mind--this year, my father tried to plow quickly through prayers and storytelling while the younger generation continually asked: Yes, but WHY? What is the MEANING? In Okonkwo's world, it is so because the ancestors did the same, and their ancestors before them, and so on.
However, when Christian missionaries appear, white strangers amongst the African clansmen, the younger generation finds a path that does not bind them to the tradition of their ancestors. Something new is offered, and many of the clanspeople cling to this newness, this apparent answer, this apparent otherness that does not seem to answer: just because. The Christians appear less bound to tradition, and in some ways, less bound to violence that many of the clanspeople view as senseless. Okonkwo's own son, Nwame, put off by the traditions of his clan such as the killing of twins just because, and the killing of his own stepbrother at his father's hand just because, joins the Christians, and therefore becomes dead to Oknokwo. He has abandoned his ancestors, and so no longer exists to his father, a man so proud of his clan and who has spent his life fighting for his high rank amongst his people.
And yet with Okonkwo's fall we also see the fall of the clanspeople. The Christian converts become more numerous. Respect for tradition wanes. In the end, Okonkwo does the only thing that he could possibly do in such a situation: he kills himself, rather than allow himself to see the day when his tribe is shattered, rather than allow his life to be usurped by the white man. And yet, tradition goes on, ironically: Oknokwo has committed a huge sin, and cannot be buried with respect. He can only be buried by strangers, the very white missionaries he killed himself to avoid.
This is a very sad and powerful narrative about the loss of a people and all their tradition. Okonkwo is a man of few words, a very gruff man, and yet you cannot help but side with him, despite all his violence. You want him to come out on top, and yet you know he cannot, because you have read the history books, and you know how history goes. Just because.
I will leave you with a line that comes near the end of the story, a thought from the missionaries' commissioner: "One of the most infuriating habits of these people was their love of superfluous words." Somehow I love this line, because it means, in a sense, that the clan is victorious, with their words, and with a spirit that will not die.
Next up: one of my favorite authors of all time, Kathy Acker, and a book I have not read for quite some time--"My Mother: Demonology".
Thursday, March 31, 2011
There Are So Many Words, and Yet I Cannot Hear Even One
So. I have finished "Mornings in Jenin", a book that traces the lives of a Palestinian family through several generations. This book is about similar subject matter as the previous book, and yet it is so very different. First of all, it is much more pro-Palestinian and very religiously influenced. Almost everything comes back to the Islam religion, whereas in the last book the characters were Moslem, but more culturally than religiously. This book is also less about showing "both sides" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and more about showcasing the Palestinian point of view. I have never read a book where Israelis/Jews are shown in such an unabashedly negative light (except for a couple select Jewish characters), and though this produced some discomfort in me, I think it was a very important book for me to read and sit with. I am not going to sit here and say I agree with all the political views of this book, but it was certainly a good thing that I decided to read this book, to be exposed to a personal reflection from the other side of the conflict, to learn of the Palestinian pain and suffering from a more personal account than we see on the news. And I tried to read it without judgment, without anger--it is a personal account, and I know very well, that the heart knows what the heart knows, and a writer cannot bend his/her words to be less "biased", or to appeal to the masses--that a writer can only write from his/her knowledge of pain, suffering, love, and life. And, despite the fact that Abulhawa's novel is written from a Palestinian's point of view, I, a Jewish woman born in Israel, who loves Israel, found this book extremely beautiful, and its characters easy to relate to.
But perhaps I don't want to talk politics. Perhaps that is not what I even care about, despite that being a large focus of the book, or a large presence anyways. Maybe that is why I delayed posting about this book--because I don't really feel like relating what I am "supposed" to talk about. So I am going to talk about what I want instead. The way this book deals with relationships and loneliness, about love found and lost. Secrets that are buried in the darkest of places: the heart. And how sometimes those secrets die with the owner--irretrievable, and unknown.
One of the things that strikes me about this book is its focus on the mother-daughter relationship. I have struggled a lot with my own relationship with my mother, and perhaps this is why I honed in on this particular aspect of the book. The main female character in the book has a mother who was once strong, brazen, and untamed. And yet over time this woman becomes subdued because of her arranged marriage, and her children, and because of the terrors of war. At one point in the novel, the girl, who is now a teenager, ultimately denies that she even knows her mother, and allows her to die alone, physically wounded from war and without anybody to help her. This is the ultimate betrayal, and yet this mother has become a non-mother to her, a figure faded in the background. Sadly, I often find myself ashamed of my mother, begrudging her. Why can't she be strong? A healthy role model? Brazen and untamed? I try to deny her, and yet to deny her is also to deny a part of myself. I see a shadow of her strength, a glimmer of wildness. I strain to see her in a good light. I leave her wounded all the time. And I am wounded too. A battle, a war, that extends beyond geographic borders, and beyond time.
There is so much more in this book about secrets, about human relationships, and yes, about politics in the Middle East and religious conflicts, if that is what you are interested in. For me, the battles that cut across borders of skin and soul are what keep me reading. Up next--a book I have been wanting to read for a long, long time--Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart".
But perhaps I don't want to talk politics. Perhaps that is not what I even care about, despite that being a large focus of the book, or a large presence anyways. Maybe that is why I delayed posting about this book--because I don't really feel like relating what I am "supposed" to talk about. So I am going to talk about what I want instead. The way this book deals with relationships and loneliness, about love found and lost. Secrets that are buried in the darkest of places: the heart. And how sometimes those secrets die with the owner--irretrievable, and unknown.
One of the things that strikes me about this book is its focus on the mother-daughter relationship. I have struggled a lot with my own relationship with my mother, and perhaps this is why I honed in on this particular aspect of the book. The main female character in the book has a mother who was once strong, brazen, and untamed. And yet over time this woman becomes subdued because of her arranged marriage, and her children, and because of the terrors of war. At one point in the novel, the girl, who is now a teenager, ultimately denies that she even knows her mother, and allows her to die alone, physically wounded from war and without anybody to help her. This is the ultimate betrayal, and yet this mother has become a non-mother to her, a figure faded in the background. Sadly, I often find myself ashamed of my mother, begrudging her. Why can't she be strong? A healthy role model? Brazen and untamed? I try to deny her, and yet to deny her is also to deny a part of myself. I see a shadow of her strength, a glimmer of wildness. I strain to see her in a good light. I leave her wounded all the time. And I am wounded too. A battle, a war, that extends beyond geographic borders, and beyond time.
There is so much more in this book about secrets, about human relationships, and yes, about politics in the Middle East and religious conflicts, if that is what you are interested in. For me, the battles that cut across borders of skin and soul are what keep me reading. Up next--a book I have been wanting to read for a long, long time--Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart".
Monday, March 14, 2011
On the Flip Side
I am continuing my journey into the Middle East with a book called "Mornings in Jenin" by Susan Abulhawa. I'm about a third of the way through, and can hardly put it down. And I must admit, I was somewhat reluctant to pick up this book to begin with. As an Israeli citizen, and someone with a strong love for Israel and pride in my culture and heritage, I knew it would be hard for me to relate to a book told from the perspective of Palestinian refugees in Jenin. Maybe "relate" is the wrong word. I guess I knew it would be hard for me to swallow. Things would be said that I would definitely have a strong reaction to. You would think in all my time as a Lit major, reading so many books, I'd be exposed to different perspectives and be comfortable with that. And yet that slight hesitation I had in even beginning this book shows me that I have a long way to go. Life is a constant process of learning to deal with discomfort, and deciding what to do with that discomfort. Yes, this book might make me uncomfortable. And yet it is in this discomfort that I'm learning to open up, to truly see through another's perspective and experience, and to question. To try to be on the flip side of a land I love, and understand, without guilt, without judgment,without answers, another's experience of this same land.
And yet I do relate. I relate because of course this book is about Israel but it is also about the core essential humanness that is not bound by any one artificial geographical locale, or culture, or ethnicity, or religion. It is about family and parenting. It is about seeing and witnessing. It is about the secrets we hold and never tell, the sacred and secretive spaces we carve out for ourselves. The private versus the public self. This is a story about the notion of the "enemy", an amorphous term that is often heard but cannot be seen. Or even named. It is about what the brain does when the heart can no longer take it anymore. The way we cope when we feel so much pain our bodies cannot comprehend it. Whether this occurs during war, or peace, in the heart of a young Palestinian girl named Amal or a Jewish woman born in Israel with her own demons to battle, whether it occurs in you or me, is almost of no significance other than the artificiality of plot. Yes, I can relate. And I am so glad this project forced me to pick up this book. There are so many themes I want to explore, as well as comparisons/contrasting with the last book, "A Girl Made of Dust". Next time I hope to address the recurring theme of parenting and the maternal/paternal relationship, and perhaps will touch on some more important themes. Until then...on the flip side...
And yet I do relate. I relate because of course this book is about Israel but it is also about the core essential humanness that is not bound by any one artificial geographical locale, or culture, or ethnicity, or religion. It is about family and parenting. It is about seeing and witnessing. It is about the secrets we hold and never tell, the sacred and secretive spaces we carve out for ourselves. The private versus the public self. This is a story about the notion of the "enemy", an amorphous term that is often heard but cannot be seen. Or even named. It is about what the brain does when the heart can no longer take it anymore. The way we cope when we feel so much pain our bodies cannot comprehend it. Whether this occurs during war, or peace, in the heart of a young Palestinian girl named Amal or a Jewish woman born in Israel with her own demons to battle, whether it occurs in you or me, is almost of no significance other than the artificiality of plot. Yes, I can relate. And I am so glad this project forced me to pick up this book. There are so many themes I want to explore, as well as comparisons/contrasting with the last book, "A Girl Made of Dust". Next time I hope to address the recurring theme of parenting and the maternal/paternal relationship, and perhaps will touch on some more important themes. Until then...on the flip side...
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
From Dust to Water, From Part to Whole, Somehow
I just finished "A Girl Made of Dust", and I must say that in the end I became a lot more interested in the book than I had initially thought I would be. That is one reason I love this never-ending project--I am picking up books I would likely never glance at, and am learning about places and people I would have remained ignorant about otherwise.
As I detailed before, "A Girl" continues strong with themes of storytelling. A lot of times stories serve as a coping mechanism in this novel, especially as bombs literally fall on roofs and the children ask for stories to be told. Naji, Ruba's older brother, tells a joke/story about how G-d created Lebanon, and gave the people beautiful land and bountiful crops. When an angel asked G-d if he wasn't giving them too much by giving them everything, G-d started to laugh, and said, "Just wait and see the neighbors I'm going to give them!" There is tense laughter. Stories bring the characters a means to escape, a fairytale route, even if it is filled with dead birds, unrequited love, witches, and a reconstructed creation story full of ultimate doom.
Another theme that emerges in this novel is one of the specificity of history and fate, and the chance or lack of chance to reverse the past once it has happened. Without giving away too much of the plot, I will say that both Uncle and Papi experience major traumatic events in their lives that leave them emotionally scarred. Throughout the novel it is obvious how these painful events in the past haunt them, shaping their present lives with a forceful hand, and never relinquishing their grasp. However, there is always a hope, a what if, that lingers on, that prevents the characters from completely giving up. Is it possible to reverse the past, or make it right again by reliving the present and future a different way? Ruba ponders this question with the innocence of a child, and cannot comprehend how things could be any different than they are now. As a young child she sees the palpable, the physical, and the present, and cannot truly comprehend the adult's mourning for the way things could have been different. Yet with the sharpness only a child can have, she can grasp that the adults are dissatisfied, and that they do believe that things could have been different if only they had acted in another way in the past.
I know the haunting of the past very well, and they way my own childhood shapes my every day life. Probably not a moment goes by when I don't feel the effects of my childhood bearing down on the way I perceive life and act in the present. However I must believe that there is a chance not to shed the past, but to reshape ourselves according to what we want, and to transcend the apparently fixed nature chance has delivered to us. Some of us are rich, some poor, some have suffered abuse, some have unspeakable horrors in our past. But while I can never undo this past, nor would I want it any other way, I must believe that I can choose to use the mistakes of the past to make the present and future more fulfilling. For sure I am haunted. My body, my mind. There are ghosts everywhere. But I must make water out of dust. I must make whole from fragments and pieces. Like war, like history, this is a never-ending and futile cycle, but if I don't continue, I will be trampled by my history. Instead I must reshape my ghosts.
This story tells a lot about children, the way they are so impressionable and innocent, and often victims of war, both emotionally and physically. The story is told from Ruba's point of view, and she often hints at adult emotions and behavior without fully grasping the nuances and complexity. She catches a smile, a wrinkle, a tear, and tries her best to make sense of it with the complete abandon only a child can have. There is also the idea of children as perpetrators. When does the line end/begin? When do children become adults, responsible for violence and acts, or do they remain shadows and puppets of the adults they mimic all around them? Can bombs shatter childhood, or does it take more than that?
Of course this book deals with the complexity of war, of the blurred line between good/evil, of religions, but these are not themes that I wish to flesh out as much as the others I've mentioned. I do know that I know very little about Lebanon in the 1980s, and I'm inspired to do some relearning of history. Next up, I'm reading another book set in the Middle East, called "Mornings in Jenin". Perhaps I will see another point of view, and learn more about the land of so much conflict, a land close to my heart, as I was born in Israel. I'll keep you posted.
As I detailed before, "A Girl" continues strong with themes of storytelling. A lot of times stories serve as a coping mechanism in this novel, especially as bombs literally fall on roofs and the children ask for stories to be told. Naji, Ruba's older brother, tells a joke/story about how G-d created Lebanon, and gave the people beautiful land and bountiful crops. When an angel asked G-d if he wasn't giving them too much by giving them everything, G-d started to laugh, and said, "Just wait and see the neighbors I'm going to give them!" There is tense laughter. Stories bring the characters a means to escape, a fairytale route, even if it is filled with dead birds, unrequited love, witches, and a reconstructed creation story full of ultimate doom.
Another theme that emerges in this novel is one of the specificity of history and fate, and the chance or lack of chance to reverse the past once it has happened. Without giving away too much of the plot, I will say that both Uncle and Papi experience major traumatic events in their lives that leave them emotionally scarred. Throughout the novel it is obvious how these painful events in the past haunt them, shaping their present lives with a forceful hand, and never relinquishing their grasp. However, there is always a hope, a what if, that lingers on, that prevents the characters from completely giving up. Is it possible to reverse the past, or make it right again by reliving the present and future a different way? Ruba ponders this question with the innocence of a child, and cannot comprehend how things could be any different than they are now. As a young child she sees the palpable, the physical, and the present, and cannot truly comprehend the adult's mourning for the way things could have been different. Yet with the sharpness only a child can have, she can grasp that the adults are dissatisfied, and that they do believe that things could have been different if only they had acted in another way in the past.
I know the haunting of the past very well, and they way my own childhood shapes my every day life. Probably not a moment goes by when I don't feel the effects of my childhood bearing down on the way I perceive life and act in the present. However I must believe that there is a chance not to shed the past, but to reshape ourselves according to what we want, and to transcend the apparently fixed nature chance has delivered to us. Some of us are rich, some poor, some have suffered abuse, some have unspeakable horrors in our past. But while I can never undo this past, nor would I want it any other way, I must believe that I can choose to use the mistakes of the past to make the present and future more fulfilling. For sure I am haunted. My body, my mind. There are ghosts everywhere. But I must make water out of dust. I must make whole from fragments and pieces. Like war, like history, this is a never-ending and futile cycle, but if I don't continue, I will be trampled by my history. Instead I must reshape my ghosts.
This story tells a lot about children, the way they are so impressionable and innocent, and often victims of war, both emotionally and physically. The story is told from Ruba's point of view, and she often hints at adult emotions and behavior without fully grasping the nuances and complexity. She catches a smile, a wrinkle, a tear, and tries her best to make sense of it with the complete abandon only a child can have. There is also the idea of children as perpetrators. When does the line end/begin? When do children become adults, responsible for violence and acts, or do they remain shadows and puppets of the adults they mimic all around them? Can bombs shatter childhood, or does it take more than that?
Of course this book deals with the complexity of war, of the blurred line between good/evil, of religions, but these are not themes that I wish to flesh out as much as the others I've mentioned. I do know that I know very little about Lebanon in the 1980s, and I'm inspired to do some relearning of history. Next up, I'm reading another book set in the Middle East, called "Mornings in Jenin". Perhaps I will see another point of view, and learn more about the land of so much conflict, a land close to my heart, as I was born in Israel. I'll keep you posted.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Because Stories Are Not Always Fairytales
To be honest, I didn't think I would really get into the plot of "A Girl Made of Dust", but I am finding myself unable to put it down as of late. And it's not the plot that's really driving my interest,anyways, I suppose, but rather the way I find myself relating to the characters and their relationships, cutting and pasting the archetypes of this small family in a war-torn Lebanon to my own world frame. I find that this is much more a story about the fragility of human relations than anything else. And it is also about how we tell stories. About how much is told and yet untold in every story we choose to speak or write, or hand down in some way, or entrust to some other person, or some other thing, even if it is just a story written in a notebook that nobody will ever see.
In one part of this book, eight year old narrator Ruba's Uncle comes to town, and he tells her a story that I can't get out of my head. It's about a man who loves a woman and spends all his money trying to woo her, to no avail. She marries someone else, and has a son, and then her husband dies. The man who tried to woo her is left poor, and all he has left to his name is a falcon. When the son is playing in the countryside he meets the man and his falcon. One day the son falls sick and asks for the falcon to make him feel better. The woman is determined to make her sick son happy, and goes to meet the man with the falcon to ask for the bird. But when the man sees her coming down the hill, he thinks he must prepare something for her, and he cooks the falcon. They eat is for supper, and then the woman asks for the bird for her son, but there is no more bird. They have eaten it, and the son dies without his wish granted.
I am trying to make sense of this story as it is placed within the narrative of this book. I think it might have something to do with the complete absurdity and senselessness of war, the way in which victims are so random and nothing makes sense. But it is about more than war. It is about a feverish yearning for relationships, touch, and love that make no sense. It is about wanting something so badly, and it always being out of reach. It is about a pain so shocking, so upfront, so deep-seeded, that we can only process it in bits and pieces, in story form. Stories can ease pain, but they can also be a regurgitation for the namelessness of loss. We are so used to the story as fairytale, as band-aid, but sometimes the story is just a festering wound, and we must sit with that.
With every story there is corresponding silence. And this book is filled with silences, where characters move but don't speak. Ruba says, "Uncle said there's no such thing as silence. He said that every silence says something: the silences between words, between notes in music, and between people." Silence is an alternate language, transposed on and between text. In this vein, even the story is a type of silence. Words say one thing, and convey quite another meaning. Like sediment, there are so many layers to the spoken and unspoken. If I could have any superpower, it might be to see every layer of meaning told in every word and (corresponding) un-word. If these layers were color-coded, the world would be a very colorful place.
Of course, the plot of this story is getting more interesting. Ruba finds out the secret behind why her father has pretty much gone insane. There is outright conflict between the Muslims and Christians. Ruba's own brother seems to be involved with military activity. And there is still a lingering sexual tension between Ruba's mother and brother-in-law.
But, the plot, sometimes, is not the story we read. We read fingers, corners of mouths upturned or downturned. We read about birds cooked for dinner, and think about old lovers, estranged mothers, and words we never spoke of, and never will.
In one part of this book, eight year old narrator Ruba's Uncle comes to town, and he tells her a story that I can't get out of my head. It's about a man who loves a woman and spends all his money trying to woo her, to no avail. She marries someone else, and has a son, and then her husband dies. The man who tried to woo her is left poor, and all he has left to his name is a falcon. When the son is playing in the countryside he meets the man and his falcon. One day the son falls sick and asks for the falcon to make him feel better. The woman is determined to make her sick son happy, and goes to meet the man with the falcon to ask for the bird. But when the man sees her coming down the hill, he thinks he must prepare something for her, and he cooks the falcon. They eat is for supper, and then the woman asks for the bird for her son, but there is no more bird. They have eaten it, and the son dies without his wish granted.
I am trying to make sense of this story as it is placed within the narrative of this book. I think it might have something to do with the complete absurdity and senselessness of war, the way in which victims are so random and nothing makes sense. But it is about more than war. It is about a feverish yearning for relationships, touch, and love that make no sense. It is about wanting something so badly, and it always being out of reach. It is about a pain so shocking, so upfront, so deep-seeded, that we can only process it in bits and pieces, in story form. Stories can ease pain, but they can also be a regurgitation for the namelessness of loss. We are so used to the story as fairytale, as band-aid, but sometimes the story is just a festering wound, and we must sit with that.
With every story there is corresponding silence. And this book is filled with silences, where characters move but don't speak. Ruba says, "Uncle said there's no such thing as silence. He said that every silence says something: the silences between words, between notes in music, and between people." Silence is an alternate language, transposed on and between text. In this vein, even the story is a type of silence. Words say one thing, and convey quite another meaning. Like sediment, there are so many layers to the spoken and unspoken. If I could have any superpower, it might be to see every layer of meaning told in every word and (corresponding) un-word. If these layers were color-coded, the world would be a very colorful place.
Of course, the plot of this story is getting more interesting. Ruba finds out the secret behind why her father has pretty much gone insane. There is outright conflict between the Muslims and Christians. Ruba's own brother seems to be involved with military activity. And there is still a lingering sexual tension between Ruba's mother and brother-in-law.
But, the plot, sometimes, is not the story we read. We read fingers, corners of mouths upturned or downturned. We read about birds cooked for dinner, and think about old lovers, estranged mothers, and words we never spoke of, and never will.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Where To Put Our Hands
I know it's been a long time. I wonder if anyone will still want to read this blog. But, like a good book, I'm hoping that though lives change and people change, fundamentally things remain the same, well-worn, predictable, and solid. That just because time has passed doesn't mean we-or should I say I-can't pick up where we left off, dust ourselves off, and try again. Such is life, and so I will try to continue my project to read all the fiction books I can, in alphabetical order.
The title of the post has a lot to do with the book I'm reading now, called "A Girl Made of Dust", by Nathalie Abi-Ezzi. I'm about a quarter way through this book, and so far it's a book about a Christian family living in Lebanon during the war, told from the point of view of eight year old Ruba. Ruba's mother is dissatisfied with her life, exasperated by a husband who seems to have become possessed, withdrawn, and unable to function. He won't even get up in the morning to open the family shop, and Ruba's mother is worried about the family income. Ruba talks about how a nearby witch must have put a spell on her father to weaken him, and in the chapter I just finished, she starts to conspire a plan to cure him, using the "evil eye", a glass eye she found outside and keeps in her pocket. Ruba also lives with her grandmother Teta, and her older brother Naji. One day her uncle comes to town, and he seems to stir things up. There is emotional but unnamed tension between the father and the uncle, and a sort of loose sexual tension between the uncle and his sister-in-law, but all of this still remains somewhat ambiguous.
In fact, it's not even the plot that is really keeping my interest right now, as I have read multiple books about war and children, families, suffering, religion. It's almost as if the plot doesn't matter, the secret about the father is irrelevant, but what is rather special about this book so far is the way it showcases everyday fears, and the smaller minute acts in life, the way in which the slightest of actions, like a hummingbird's wings beating, can convey so much heaviness in the heart.
Mami (the mother) is always trying to find something to do with her hands. She is constantly smoothing, cleaning, flitting about. It's an act of nerves, of discontent, and one I think we all know. The author writes, "'Don't bother her,' Naji said to me after lunch, but it was hard not to watch. She must have cleaned every tile in the kitchen: every white one, every blue one, and the ugly spaces where there were no tiles any longer. She had to know every wall and surface and crack in the house, I thought, as I hopped around on one foot. She must know the tassels at the edges of the living room carpet, which was really an island you couldn't step off barefoot or you'd fall into the cold sea of tiles; she must know the swirls in the peach-colored lampshade, which looked like a shell and which she said came from Manila but was really from a shop on the high road, only no one wanted to tell her; and she must know that the metal coat hook on the wall was bent from the weight of Papi's heavy winter coat." This is such an innocent viewpoint of the world, told from such an eight year old, and yet the complete sadness of Mami can be felt so strongly, the way she cleans to forget, but can't help but know all the little secrets, the details, she is undoubtedly trying to forget. Ruba is hopping about, making up stories about the rug as an island, so typical of children in the face of adulthood pain. And yet she understands, she sees her mother moving about, she can read the distraction, the suffering, the unsaid.
I love this passage, and other ones the author writes where plot is not the point: the point is what we do with our hands, the corners of our mouths, the tips of our fingers and toes. The body betrays our mind, always, and we are left moving about in vain, going through the motions of life, cleaning, sorting, but unable to escape our own selves, our own islands that imprison us. But maybe, then, it is only our own selves who can set us free.
I hope to blog more regularly. It will be something to do with my hands, and maybe it will be something you do with your eyes, reading, like a book, the way pages and stories get put away, but still remain there, on the shelf, unchanged.
The title of the post has a lot to do with the book I'm reading now, called "A Girl Made of Dust", by Nathalie Abi-Ezzi. I'm about a quarter way through this book, and so far it's a book about a Christian family living in Lebanon during the war, told from the point of view of eight year old Ruba. Ruba's mother is dissatisfied with her life, exasperated by a husband who seems to have become possessed, withdrawn, and unable to function. He won't even get up in the morning to open the family shop, and Ruba's mother is worried about the family income. Ruba talks about how a nearby witch must have put a spell on her father to weaken him, and in the chapter I just finished, she starts to conspire a plan to cure him, using the "evil eye", a glass eye she found outside and keeps in her pocket. Ruba also lives with her grandmother Teta, and her older brother Naji. One day her uncle comes to town, and he seems to stir things up. There is emotional but unnamed tension between the father and the uncle, and a sort of loose sexual tension between the uncle and his sister-in-law, but all of this still remains somewhat ambiguous.
In fact, it's not even the plot that is really keeping my interest right now, as I have read multiple books about war and children, families, suffering, religion. It's almost as if the plot doesn't matter, the secret about the father is irrelevant, but what is rather special about this book so far is the way it showcases everyday fears, and the smaller minute acts in life, the way in which the slightest of actions, like a hummingbird's wings beating, can convey so much heaviness in the heart.
Mami (the mother) is always trying to find something to do with her hands. She is constantly smoothing, cleaning, flitting about. It's an act of nerves, of discontent, and one I think we all know. The author writes, "'Don't bother her,' Naji said to me after lunch, but it was hard not to watch. She must have cleaned every tile in the kitchen: every white one, every blue one, and the ugly spaces where there were no tiles any longer. She had to know every wall and surface and crack in the house, I thought, as I hopped around on one foot. She must know the tassels at the edges of the living room carpet, which was really an island you couldn't step off barefoot or you'd fall into the cold sea of tiles; she must know the swirls in the peach-colored lampshade, which looked like a shell and which she said came from Manila but was really from a shop on the high road, only no one wanted to tell her; and she must know that the metal coat hook on the wall was bent from the weight of Papi's heavy winter coat." This is such an innocent viewpoint of the world, told from such an eight year old, and yet the complete sadness of Mami can be felt so strongly, the way she cleans to forget, but can't help but know all the little secrets, the details, she is undoubtedly trying to forget. Ruba is hopping about, making up stories about the rug as an island, so typical of children in the face of adulthood pain. And yet she understands, she sees her mother moving about, she can read the distraction, the suffering, the unsaid.
I love this passage, and other ones the author writes where plot is not the point: the point is what we do with our hands, the corners of our mouths, the tips of our fingers and toes. The body betrays our mind, always, and we are left moving about in vain, going through the motions of life, cleaning, sorting, but unable to escape our own selves, our own islands that imprison us. But maybe, then, it is only our own selves who can set us free.
I hope to blog more regularly. It will be something to do with my hands, and maybe it will be something you do with your eyes, reading, like a book, the way pages and stories get put away, but still remain there, on the shelf, unchanged.
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