Farewell

This week is filled with goodbyes. I think this will be my last blog for this class (right?). The reading is also filled with salutations as Bernard watched the death of his brother, Gary. The first part of the book was misleading in a way, since it seemed to be pointing towards Bernard's mother and father. In the end, the focus was his family, but most especially, his brother.

Looking back, the shorter essays from the first part make a lot more sense. Before, "On the Air" did not make much sense to me, but now that I know about his experience with the House of the Future and what it means to fly away. It is as if as an adult, he is still daydreaming about the perfect home and it is unattainable because it is impossible. His home is in his mind, where he is able to cope with the harsh reality that life is temporary and fading. This can be seen on page 101. After his brother died, his mother and father were not able to cope as the usually did but he "was somewhere far in the future, walking into buildings where the climate was controlled, wending my way through lobbies and halls."

Some of the main themes in part two are: Time (control of and lack thereof), flying, home, plastic (artificial & indestructible), mortality, and legacy. Ultimately, everything for Bernard can trace back to death and mortality since it is so intimate to him. After the death of Gary, he realizes what a menace the reaper is and how it can affect everyone's life both before and after the loss of a loved one.

Throughout the part two, Bernard realizes that he is already forgetting things about his brother and knows that he would forget even more once he is dead. Death has a way of stealing many things, one of which is memory, which goes hand in hand with the theme of Time. Most people have children so that they will be remembered. Bernard is so torn by Gary's death that he chose not to contribute more death to the world by having children who will one day die. Perhaps he imagined what it would be like to lose a child, just as his father lost a son. Or maybe he discovered that he is gay..which would be a way for him to be free in one aspect of his life. (Evidence: last chapter, pg. 110, Capiche?)

So long and thanks for all the fish,
Michelle

The Maps Burger

Reading Bernard Cooper's Maps to Anywhere is like eating a large, juicy hamburger. You need to grip it with two hands and devour it. Trying to eat it with one hand while driving or doing some other task is out of the question because the best parts would fall out and end up in your lap. No, you have to give it all of your attention so that every flavor burst into your mouth. It is the kind of savory meal that inspires you to become a cook so that you could make something as delicious for other people. At least, that's what this experience was like for me.

The short essays that make up the first half of this book may seem unattached, but ultimately point to the long essay at the end, "The Wind Did It". The first nine vignettes are written as if random bursts of memories or thoughts that drift through the author's mind. They illustrate how observant and creative Cooper is. An example of this is, "All week long, my mind has been filled with baked potatoes, aluminum-covered ingots, their plumes of steam obscuring everything, except my affection for friends." (pg. 23) The language he uses allows us to feel his unusual desire for potatoes but also reflects his closeness to friends. By looking at passages like this, we can see that one of the main themes of Maps to Anywhere is his relationship with other people.

Cooper's most important relationship in his life is his parents. This is most seen in the long essay which had been foreshadowed in most of the shorter ones. In the first essay we see him struggling with his name which had been picked out by his mother. He writes, "Even my mother had trouble with my name; calling me home at dusk, she's stand in the doorway and shout the name of my older brothers- Richard, Robert, Ronald!- before she remembered mine." (pg. 4) This shows a sort of distance between him and his mother. This distance can be seen on page 62 in the longer essay. "Otherwise she was far away, tanning on a stretch of sand." Because of the hardship she went through raising a dying son, she was often in another world, dreaming of the better places (like the Moulin Rouge). Because of this, she did not give much attention to Bernard. One time that the family was all happily together is when they all ate potatoes together, pointing back to his obsession with potatoes; we understand now that it's like a link to his mother's rare affection. We get an idea of their broken relationship when in the earlier essay he wrote that if he were to write a book about her it would be titled "Beacons Burning Down". The hazel eyes of the woman in Maps to Anywhere also points forward to the hazel eyes of his mother; he feels annoyance yet a strange attachment towards them both.

Cooper's relationship with his father is much deeper. After his father's divorce with Esther, the two spend a lot of bonding time together. At this time, Cooper realizes the similarities between them. He also mentions how they are both starting to look and sound alike. In the short essay, "The Miracle Chicken", we see that his father has a scrap book of all of the bizarre cases that he has ever been a part of. In a way, Cooper is making his own scrapbook (this book) with all of the bizarre stories that fill his life. "Capiche" shows that he has the same fantasies of far away places that his father does (who wanted to go to Machu Picu in the long essay). As he gets older, Cooper recognizes himself in his father and appreciates the love of the bizarre that his father has given him. Overall, that's one juicy burger.

Muted Lenses

The two readings I enjoyed most from the Essay Packet this week are: "Mute Dancers: How to Watch a Hummingbird" and "Lenses".  Both reflect on death in small things that can symbolize the death of people and the transitory nature of life in general. This can be seen in the first sentence of "Mute Dancers" as it states, "A lot of hummingbirds die in their sleep." It goes on to say that a hummingbird's life is a series of vigorous work throughout the day and a zombie-like sleep during the night. They have to fight to wake up in order to live another day. The author admires them for their speed, their steadfastness, their ability to communicate non-verbally. Their beauty has purpose, but to those who observe it, their beauty is like a miracle meant to be admired. Likewise, a human's life is short and fast. We must pull ourselves out of bed every day to carry on with a new day, no matter the hardships involved. Our lives are beautiful. There is probably purpose in what we do, but we do not have to focus so much on the purpose to admire the beauty.

"Lenses" uses two living organisms as an example of sic transit gloria mundi. Both are viewed through lenses: one through a microscope and the other through binoculars. The first are algae, which she would repetitively watch die by the heat of the lamp. She then looked at swans through the lens of the binoculars. Although the death of the swans are much slower than that of the creatures in the microscope, she knows that they are dying just as the tiny creatures in her lab. While looking through these lenses, she is holding up a lens to her own life and mortality.

These two stories weave nicely together, as they both try to reap the beauty of life. To do so means to live in the moment, to embrace every living thing around you and to enjoy what you do. Sometimes we can discover things about ourselves just by bird-watching. When we see a hummingbird or swan fly, we can share in their freedom, knowing that we share this living world together, part of the same universe where things live for a time and then die. It's best to enjoy it while we are still here.

Krik? Krak!

Intrigued by the title of this story, I looked up the meaning after reading it. According to the publisher of this novel, it means "When Haitians tell a story, they say 'Krik?' and the eager listeners answer 'Krak!'". After learning this, I now have the setting in my mind and can reread the text with a better understanding of the culture.

The content of the story is very interesting. "I cringe from the heat of the night on my face." This first sentence sets up the mood and the woman's attitude towards the night. She "cringes", indicating that she dislikes it. This is reaffirmed a few sentences later as she thinks, "The night is the time I dread most in my life." This puts an emphasis on her feelings of the night. The rest of short story shows why she feels this way.

The woman is a prostitute who shares a "one-room house" with her young child. Of course she feels shame in what she does and only wishes to support her son and help him to grow into a fine young man. The language and imagery used makes the story unique and compelling. Although he has the innocent traits of an average young man, he is viewed from a prostitute's point of view- even though she is his mother, even his smallest movements are made sexual. This can be seen in the following passages: "In the morning, he will have tiny blood spots on his forehead, as though he had spent the whole night kissing a woman", "In his sleep he squirms and groans as though he's already discovered that there is pleasure in touching himself", "my lips stroking his cheek", "we are like faraway lovers", "sometimes his tongue slips out of his mouth and he licks my fingernail. He moans and turns away...", "I blow on his long eyelashes", "He licks his lips". I think you get the jist. There is some serious Oedipus Rex stuff going on here. 

I think one of the themes of the story is touch and comfort. The touch between mother and son, and the touch between the lady of the night with men. The touch between mother and son isn't meant to be sexual, but a relationship builder between the two, since they only have each other. She comforts the boy with her hands and lips as he dreams while telling him stories of stars and angels. This takes him away from the real world, away from the world where his mother is doing her work on the other side of the room.

What hides behind a blackened eye?

Usually I like to include some kind of funny .gif or image in my posts, but considering the level of heaviness contained within our reading, I think it's best to go without humor this week. There is nothing light-hearted about abduction, rape, torture or murder. That's probably why so many people opt out of any conversations that include it. It's a difficult subject to talk and think about because it points to the dark side of human nature that is far beyond the line that many would think impossible to cross. To acknowledge that a fellow human being is capable of such heinous crimes takes away a part of our security and peace of mind. This is also why some people choose to ignore it when it is right in front of them. This is what Oates addresses in her work, "The Girl With the Blackened Eye".

Oates' story is a survivor discourse told by a narrator who endured a life-altering trauma. After experiencing such trauma, victims usually have gaps in their memories after repressing unpleasant moments. They experience fragmented memories that might not make sense out of context. The narrator also seems unsure about certain events, like when she wasn't sure who she was: "Weird how your mind works: I was thinking I was that woman, in the front seat wrapped in the blanket, so the rest of it had not yet happened." pg. 206. This shows the state of her psyche at that moment. Was it from the torture or from being malnourished? This confusion can also be seen in her future self in the second paragraph when she says, "Sometimes now I see myself in a mirror, like in the middle of the night getting up to use the bathroom, I see a blurred face, a woman's face I don't recognize. And I see that eye." We can see that this event changed her, in a physical way (which was temporary), and a mental way (which is still with her many years later, and probably for the rest of her life). 

The black eye is symbolic for the damage she received after the eight days with the unnamed abductor. It was ignored by people. At first it was a physical mark that people ignored. Eventually it faded, but it seemed a black eye developed within her, that people are just as ignorant about. Only she can see it as she looks in a mirror. She hides it so that she doesn't have to wonder what people think when they look at her. The girl that she was when she was tortured is still within her, suffering inside the cabin of isolation that is absent of time and thoughts.

The author uses detail to evoke emotion and understanding of the ordeal. One example of this is the motif of the man's rings. By bringing up the rings several times throughout the reading, this shows that the girl looked at his hands a lot. She did this because they were the objects attached to the things that grabbed her, inflicted pain on her, and ironically, nourished her with chicken. She even refers to him as "The man with the rings on his fingers" (203). She uses this also to show the fear the narrator had in looking at his face. She would rather look at his hands then into his eyes, where she would get a good description of him, possibly leading to her death. It was survival and terror, which same a central theme in the story.

Today is August 23, 1983.

Fiction packet 3 probably should have been called Death Fiction 3.0. Actually, this .gif could very well replace most of the text and relay the same message.

(Just kidding, the text is much deeper. Also, the death motif isn't so much in the first story which has something to do with...brothers and burning fish? Still working on understanding that one. I think it has something to do with perception and metaphysics/reality/etc. Or maybe it is about death...)

Anyway, I decided to focus on the short story, "August 23, 1983" by Jorge Lois Borges. Talk about perception, metaphysics, reality, and death. Oh boy, this story was filled with all kinds of philosophical goodies. Not only does the author put himself in the story as the narrator, but as a character outside of himself. This brings a new meaning to man vs. self and man vs. man.

The interaction between the two shows a sort of introspection for Borges as he explores what his meaning in life is and if it is worth living. While the older Borges says to live on to the younger, he indeed intends to kill himself. While this would seem like a contradiction, the older reassures himself with prophecy that he will fulfill many more things- that life is worth living a little bit more, not because he will be successful, but because he will try to succeed something great. Ultimately, he seems to be just delaying the inevitable, but the younger Borges learns from this experience. He says, "I won't forget it and tomorrow I'll write it down", referring to the dream. The last sentence is, "Outside were other dreams, waiting for me." This shows that he lives to dream and to write about them. As long as they are waiting for him, he has purpose. The older Borges seemed to be out of dreams, as he attempted his masterpiece and failed and had no further to go.

The dream setting makes us question the reality of what we're reading. Is it truly a prophecy for the writer or a divine vision to stop him from killing himself? Is the older dreaming of the younger, reminiscing of times past? Is there some kind of supernatural visitation; time travel through dreams? By making the setting so questionable and transitory, Borges is reflecting this into our own world, making us question the validity of our lives as we think about our mortality.

The Burro Way

I have to admit....there was a lot of reading for this week. Halfway through I found myself doing this to let my eyeballs take a break:

  

Then when it came time to write something down, I found myself doing this:

 

Needless, to say, my mind is ready for Spring Break. BUT since school is still session, I best get my writing cap on and get to work. There is a lot I got out of the Janet Burroway's readings. Writer's block is nothing new for me. I thought Burroway had an interesting way of explaining why these things happen. According to her, either 1) the piece has a hairline fracture, or 2) the book will explode if you continue. (pg. 23)

The way she talks about the latter is almost like an act of Wyrd. Fate says no, shuts the brain down and aborts whatever you had in mind to create. I never really thought of it that way. Maybe it was my destiny to write this and that. I'll have to keep this in mind when I'm banging my head against my desk, trying to slam the words out onto the page. "Calm down and try something different. You don't want this book to explode, do you?"

Another thing, mentioned on the previous page is Burroway's advice to revise. The example she uses of the aspiring photographer is very relatable to me. When someone tells me to revise a piece that I have worked very hard on, I sometimes get distraught. I climbed my mountain to take this picture and want others to see the value of my struggle to get it, even if it isn't perfect. But Burroway encourages me. Every artist has to go through it, leaving behind the bareness of the rough draft and revise, reshape, and re-imagine something better for a story. She writes, "In those early pages and chapters anyone may find bold leaps to nowhere, read the brave beginnings of dropped themes, hear a tone since abandoned, discover blind alleys, track red herrings, and laboriously learn a setting now false." Hard truths to admit, but in order to go to the next level of writing, I have to accept this and move on.

In the chapter on "The Active Voice" on page 64, she also teaches me the importance of using active verbs vs. passive verbs. I've never really paid too much attention to these things but after reading through her examples, I see the importance of paying attention to diction while writing. "Be aware of the of the vigor and variety of available verbs." (Nice alliteration, Burroway!) Using linking verbs like, "was" and "just" make a story bump along rather than flow smoothly.

Alright, that's all for now. Peace, love, and a happy white dove,

~Michelle