Think About It

Styling

In many novels, the style isn’t very important. That is not true with several of the novels, short stories, and poems we’ve read for this class. For example, Sherman Alexie using a similar style in each of the stories we’ve read. They include a deep characterization of the protagonist and a rich sense of self and truth. On blackboard almost everything enjoyed the boldness of Alexie for writing in a very honest manner. Elizabeth, for example sparked a discussion on the possibility of over using arousal in The Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

With this in mind, do you believe that style is an important aspect of a story? Do you think style distracts from a story?

Formatting


Though the format of novels changes from author to author, like many other aspects when writing, it can truly add to a work and change it in some ways. Alexie for example, always uses subheadings in his short stories and brief chapters in his novel whereas Erdrich using extremely long chapters with very short openings to those chapters in the form of the two diaries. Naturally, the form of poems change depending on the subject, content, and author’s preference. However, some author’s are known for the format of their poems. Shakespeare, though archaic compared to what we have been reading this semester, developed the Shakespearean sonnet.

Do you think the format of a novel, short story, or poem is able to distract from that piece of writing? Do you think format can add something new to a piece of writing?
What are some examples of formatting that you find distracting? Have any of the things we’ve read so far been difficult for you to read because of their formatting?

Isabel Allende's The Sum of Our Days + Louise Erdrich's Shadow Tag (intro)

Isabel Allende's method of communication largely revolves around her correspondence with family, her "tribe," as she calls it. She repeatedly credits her daily contact with her mother as the initial building blocks for the chapters of her memoir, The Sum of Our Days.

"Thanks to my mother's epistolary talent and my obligation to answer her, I have in my hands a voluminous correspondence in which events are kept fresh. That is how I have been able to write this memoir. The purpose of that methodical correspondence is to keep pulsing the cord that has joined us since the instant of my conception, but it is also an exercise to strengthen memory, that ephemeral mist in which recollections dissipate, change, and blend together; at the end of our days it turns out that we have lived only what we can evoke. What I don't write I forget; it is as if it never happened" (200).

Allende's writing and language primarily revolves around her clan and the life they so vibrantly live each day. She openly writes of her relationship with her husband, both the good times and the bad, ultimately allowing readers to discover just how unique and beautiful their marriage is-- but not without including the years of work and patience that they have tirelessly put forth.

While Allende's experiences leave readers with a beautifully descriptive image of two people who have managed to stand each other long enough to realize that they are soul mates, Louise Erdrich paints a very different scene with her novel's words. Erdrich's novel Shadow Tag is about a woman, Irene America, who is trapped in a loveless marriage. Her husband, an artist whose success stems from paintings of Irene in various poses, exhibits many of the self destructive traits that Sherman Alexie referred to in his texts.


"The portraits were everywhere. By remaining still, in one position or another, for her husband, she had released a double into the world. It was impossible, now, to withdraw that reflection. Gil owned it. He had stepped on her shadow." - Shadow Tag (40)

Irene spills her thoughts onto the pages of two diaries; one she knows her husband reads through when she isn't looking, and another which is locked away in a safety deposit box at the bank. Their bitter relationship and her resentment inspires her to leave entries about elaborate affairs and sexual escapades in her "fake" diary, all carefully designed to enrage him each time he reads it behind her back.

In a 2010 book review, the Washington Post said, "The man [Irene] hates is also the man she loves, and his passionate desperation to win her back is alternately endearing and repellent, eventually threatening. It's a devastating portrayal of the circular insanity of romantic obsession."

Some Discussion Questions to think about as you finish The Sum of Our Days and embark upon Shadow Tag:

1.) Gil seems to think that Irene struggles with reading and making sense of any significant works of literature, yet pours over her diary entries and accepts them at face value. Who (if anyone) is more at fault for the sneaky behavior? What does Irene hope to accomplish in each of her "blue" diary entries?

2.) In addition to Irene and Gil's marriage, consider Allende's "overbearing" personality and involvement in her own family... Is respect for privacy or bold truth more important in relationships?

3.) What kind of affect does this dysfunctional lifestyle seem to have on Gil and Irene's three children? Are they similar or different to Sherman Alexie's characters in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian?

Isabel Allende's The Sum of Our Days

Isabel Allende's The Sum of Our Days is a deeply revealing memoir that recounts all the gritty details of the lives of her extraordinary family. Allende bares her soul after the painful death of her daughter and as she writes, she explores a wide variety of topics in the wake of her loss, including marriage, spirituality, and motherhood. Despite the devastating and often dramatic events that Allende remembers, she bravely encounters each memory and meticulously constructs her thoughts and stories as if she was carrying on an intimate conversation with a close friend.

In a 2008 interview, Allende was asked about the interesting themes and lively stories that are featured in the memoir. Allende responded, "'All stories are interesting if told in the right tone. When I came to live here, friends, publishers asked me, 'What are you going to write about now, in Marin, [with] no more ghosts, premonitions?' I told them, 'It's pretty weird here.'" She continued, "In the 17 years since Paula died, many things happened to the family. I had written about it all: Every day, I write a letter to my mother with the events and the mood of the day. She saves them for me and each year gives me back a year of letters. ... As I sat down Jan. 8, 2006, I was ready to start an historical novel. Then my agent called from Spain. She said, 'Write a memoir, before you forget everything.'"

Allende's writing style is often considered to contain elements of "magic realism." By Wikipedia's definition, "'magic realism' is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements are blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to access a deeper understanding of reality. These magical elements are explained like normal occurrences that are presented in a straightforward manner which allows the 'real' and the 'fantastic' to be accepted in the same stream of thought. It has been widely considered a literary and visual art genre; creative fields that exhibit less significant signs of magic realism include film and music."

Discussion Questions:

1. Some of Allende's family members were/are terrified of being written about. Do you think it's beneficial to release a "tell-all" memoir such as The Sum of Our Days, or were all the elements of her story relevant?

2. Allende's life is almost ridiculously dramatic at times. She has even been quoted as saying, "You can tell the deepest truths with the lies of fiction." Do you think this is "magic realism" at work, or do you think her story can be literally interpreted at face value?

3. Which sub story in Allende's memoir do you think best represented her reputation for being such an influential and inspiring Latin American writer?

Poetry by Louise Erdrich and Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo and Louise Erdrich are authors of Native American descent. Their poetry is full of unique and original metaphors that shape and add intrigue to their writing. Much of their writing also contains Indian dialect and cultural references.

Erdrich’s poem “Family Reunion” is an example of the Indian dialect I mentioned above. I think this poem shows the uniqueness to their way of speaking and introduces to the reader to the customs of the people in terms that are understandable and relate-able.

“Ah punka, you’s my Debby, come and ki me. / …Them’s Indian dogs, Ray says, lookit how they know me.”

I find it interesting that this is Erdrich’s example of dialect. It isn’t that much different from modern-day southern dialects. I hear people say “them’s” and “lookit” quite often. I think the main difference is the italicized words. The words “punka” and “ki” are quite different from modern-day vocabulary.

Both poets master metaphors. Many metaphors are tired and overused, but I found such originality in their metaphors and analogies.

Erdrich examples:

“Captivity” – “After that the birds mocked. / Shadows gaped and roared / and the trees flung down / their sharpened lashes.” Not only is this a beautiful image, but it continues the idea of the poem that the narrator could find no safety. Not even the wilderness warrented a safe return. Instead, it frightened her enough to prevent her from running. It continues that idea that there is no hope or chance of freedom. Nature is pushing closer to her enemy, her captor.

“Indian Boarding School: The Runaways” – “All runaways wear dresses, long green ones, / the color you would think shame was.” In her interviews, Erdrich mentions that Indian children were stripped from parents and forced into boarding schools. I am not surprised to find that many probably tried to run away, to find their homes, their parents. I think the mention of shame is a statement about how the sudden changes in their culture—the forced changes—made young children feel ashamed of their heritage. It made the think that being Indian was a bad thing, a shameful thing.

Harjo examples:

“A Map to the Next World” – The Map analogy continues throughout the entire poem and brings out the overall of theme of “finding” the light. The narrator in this poem is giving someone else instructions on finding the new world and rebuilding their world. The map is his key to completing this task, but it is more than that. It is a lesson in what NOT to do. It’s a key in what went wrong last time. It twists the idea of a map to find your way to the idea of a “treasure” map—the treasure being the new world, the rebuilding.

 “Take note of the proliferation of supermarkets and malls, the / altars of money. They best describe the detour from grace.” This detail about the map sharpens the theme of the work. Their “city,” “heritage,” “language,” etc. has been forgotten and lost due to a fall from grace, due to sin. This quote shows the sinfulness of living materialistically and “in the world” which are the reasons behind the fall in the first place.

“Insomnia and the Seven Steps to Grace” – “though the season before dawn is always winter” This metaphor associates the moments before dawn, the moments before sunrise with the coldest time of the year. I think it correlates well with the theme of the poem. It fits the idea that “insomniacs” or third shifters have a much more difficult time seeing the beauty of the day because they are constantly surrounded by darkness. Coldness is often paired with darkness. The lack of light is the same as the lack of heat.

Discussion Questions

1.      Do you think that language (dialect, metaphor, analogy, etc.) has any effect on the success or failure of writing in general? How does your opinion relate to Erdrich’s and Harjo’s poems?

2.      Many people see certain dialects as a lack of intelligence. Given the example of dialect in “Family Reunion,” do you think that there is a literacy issue in some parts of the country?

3.      What other examples of language (dialect, metaphor, analogy, etc.)  can you find that connects to the themes of these poems?

Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a semi-autobiographical story that partially channels Alexie's own childhood experiences and views on life through the novel’s main character, Junior Spirit.

Junior’s “diary” offers readers a glimpse at the emotional and often entertaining Native American teen’s outlook on life as he is trying to navigate and survive an “all white” high school. Junior chooses to attend this school because he wants to broaden his educational experiences and step outside of the cultural box and destructive cycles his family and people have been accustomed to on the reservation.
“But we reservation Indians don’t get to realize our dreams. We don’t get those chances. Or choices. We’re just poor. That’s all we are.” (p. 13)

Junior soon learns that this new school is full of challenges, but through his experiences and eventually with the help of his new friends, he realizes that he possesses the power to break the cycle of destructive reservation life and rise above it.
“We were supposed to be happy with our limitations. But there was no way Penelope and I were going to sit still. Nope, we both wanted to fly.” (p. 112)
Junior has his own unique way of communicating with the world around him. He doesn’t hesitate to use biting sarcasm, foul words, or even exaggerated cartoon depictions of his family and friends in order to express his thoughts.
While attending his new high school, Junior and his friend discuss the idea of extensively analyzing and reading books, as well as Junior’s drawings and their importance in his life.

Junior tells Gordy, “I draw cartoons…. I take them seriously. I use them to understand the world. I use them to make fun of the world. To make fun of people. And sometimes I draw people because they’re my friends and family. And I want to honor them…”
Gordy reassures Junior that this method of expressing thoughts through a different language technique is nothing to be ashamed of, and points out, “…If you’re good at it, and you love it, and it helps you navigate the river of the world, then it can’t be wrong.” (pg. 95)




Discussion Questions:

1. Why is getting off the reservation so imperative for Junior, and not important for other characters (like Rowdy)?

2. Is it important that Alexie’s life could have been very close to Junior Spirit’s? How does the fact that it’s “semi-autobiographical” affect the language and format of the novel?

3. From the Discussion Guide in the back of the novel (pg. 232):

Cultural outsiders who write young adult fiction tend to romanticize the impoverishment of Indians. Junior is having none of this: “It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you’re poor because you’re stupid and ugly. And then you start believing that you’re stupid and ugly because you’re Indian. And because you’re Indian you start believing that you’re destined to be poor. It’s an ugly circle and there’s nothing you can do about it. Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.”


How does Junior’s direct language address this stereotypical portrayal of Indians? What about his language draws the teen reader into the realities of his life?

Sherman Alexie’s Short Stories


What You Pawn I Will Redeem by Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie’s “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” is about a homeless Indian who attempts to reclaim his grandmother’s regalia. It is out of the goodness of the people he sees throughout the day the reader spends with the author that Jackson is able to accomplish his goal.

War Dances by Sherman Alexie

A Spokane Indian is told that he has a brain tumor. During his troubling time while adjusting to this shocking news, the narrator regales tales of his time with his dead father and learns more about his grandfather’s time in the war.

Smoke Signals screenplay by Sherman Alexie

The tale of an Indian whose father has recently passed away and he must come to terms with his loss while getting to know the father who was a drunk and an abuser.

1. What do you think about the kindness and generosity of the people in Alexie’s “What You Pawn I Redeem?” Do you think it possible for people today to be that kind to a homeless person or someone in general? Have you ever happened upon a person like the police officer or the pawnbroker?

2. In both of Alexie’s stories there are digressions which tell a tale about a past relative of the narrator. In “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” the tale is of Jackson’s grandmother and her dancing in the regalia; “War Dances” contains many digressions about the narrator’s father and the male members of the family’s war-heavy pasts. Do you think these add to or distract from the story as a whole? Is there one digression in particular that you feel helps or hurts the overall story?

3. In the movie Smoke Signals, Victor says, “like throwing things away when they have no more use.” He is referencing throwing his father’s ashes into a river in Spokane. Do you believe that this is a true statement, that people have no use after they have passed away?

I don’t think that people who are gone have no use as Victor stated near the end of Smoke Signals. If anything people are even more useful after death for the knowledge they have passed on to us and on to others. Abraham Lincoln for example, is still useful many decades after his death because of the influence he had over the change in United States. Our parents, no matter how good or bad will be useful after their deaths because they teach us and have taught us what we should and should not be and do. Without the life and sometimes the specific death of a person, the future can have no chance of being different from the past. Learning from those who have passed away is how we change the future and make it a future and not just a reoccurring event.

To find out more about Native American traditional dress visit: http://www.native-languages.org/clothing.htm

Dream Homes by Joyce Zonana

In Joyce Zonana’s Dream Homes, the author recalls her experiences with literacy and language. Even from an early age Zonana knew that language separated her parents and family from mainstream America. The first example of this occurs on page 8 of her memoir, when her mother recounts their experience with being quarantined shortly after they first immigrated:


“Tu etais tre malade,” my mother tells me. “You were very sick. You had a high fever, and they told us we had to stay in our room.”

“We were quarantined?” The idea is exotic, simultaneously romantic and frightening, evoking scenes of turn-of the-century immigration, the long lines and cold examination rooms at Ellis Island. Where were we? On the boat? In New York Harbour? My mother’s focus drifts.

“Yes, quarantined,” she repeats. “That’s the word. On etai si bite. We were so stupid. I stayed with you in the hotel for three days while Felix went out. No one ever checked.”

Her parents knew so little of the new language that they had a hard time communicating with border officials and people they came in contact with. They settled in a neighborhood where most people spoke their language; they felt comfortable there. Her mother felt most at home in the market, because it reminded her of her old home. This idea reinforces the salad bowl metaphor. In opposition to the melting pot theory, immigrants actually merge together in groups; though they are part of the whole, they function as separate independent communities. Zonana’s family functioned that way: they were part of the community, yet they were isolated by their differences. Their neighbors might have been united in some ways, but her family was Egyptian Jewish, and that set them apart.

Throughout her life Zonana searches for where she belongs. The older generation of her family connects through their old homestead, but Zonana was too young to remember it. She questions adults all the time, and asks them how something made them feel, what they saw, what they remember. She gets short, sharp answers, like the one quoted above. Her family either doesn’t want to speak about their pain or do not have the words to express it. She experiences Diaspora without really remembering the land that she lost. The younger generation of the family conforms better with the American culture because that is all they have known and they don’t miss the difference.

She recalls being at the airport when her mother’s parents were going through customs. Her mother was so excited. She banged on the glass separating the arrivals from the waiting families. Zonana wrote that, “In those days, I hated to be out with my mother in public. There she would be, obviously attached to me, speaking in her awkward, accented English, asking questions that embarrassed me, acting so unmistakably foreign, while I ached to be like everyone else.” When Zonana learns that neither grandparent knows English and sees how they stand helpless and speechless with the customs man ordering them to open bags and answer questions, she wants to help; she “wanted to run down to those old people trapped behind that glass wall, unable to speak the language, lost. I wanted to take their hands, to talk to the customs officer in my perfect, unaccented English, to lead them proudly from the chaos of the airport… (pg. 14).”

Throughout the entire book she searches for where she belongs and what it means to be Jewish. She wanted her dad to teach her Arabic so she can understand the older generation and therefore belong to that group, but he won’t. Her parents want her to connect to the American culture. When she grows up she hires a tutor to teach her the ancient language, and struggles with it because she is not learning it as a first language. She struggles throughout her entire life to belong to one culture or another, eager to fit into at least one.

Written by: Amanda Walker (NOTE: We are still working on how to pull in more than one author.)

Discussion Questions

1. What scene do you think shows Zonana’s desire to belong most? Do you think the desire is stronger to fit in with her family or her new friends?

2. Do you think a difference in language is the strongest divide between those immigrating to America and those born here? Does the scene of Zonana’s grandparents at customs influence your position?

3. Why was her mother ashamed of her ignorance? Do you think Zonana shared her mother’s sense of shame or did she pity her mother for her circumstance?