Odaatje and Danticat - Family and Self

The element of Ondaatje's work (or the strategy he uses) that most caught my attention when I began reading Running in the Family was his examination of his family rather than of himself. Much like Danticat, Odaatje uses his family to identify himself. He examines his family's history to explain the direction of his own life.
I find it interesting that both of these authors have done this, and I find it interesting that these are the two authors who have most engaged me and some others in the class. Maybe this is because they both use this strategy... Maybe we can better understand these authors for the same reason that these authors believe they can better understand themselves: because we understand their histories, there families' histories, their cultural histories.

I found Kazin fairly engaging, too, mostly because he so richly describes and explains his surroundings (and his relationships to those surroundings, like the synagogue, the block, the movie theater, his kitchen, etc.). I think this suggests that one of the most effective strategies in writing an autobiography is to write around yourself, rather than about yourself. Write about where you're from, both physically (as Kazin does) and - I don't have a real word for this - "familially" or historically (as Ondaatje and Danticat do); write about what led up to you; write about the things that were going on around you as you became you, as those things inevitably effected your development.

Perhaps this is a strategy I will employ in my own autobiography...

...post-colonial and performative and post-modern perspectives...

"Perhaps, then, it is more helpful to approach autobiographical telling as a performative act." (Smith & Watson 47)

"A performative view of life narrative theorizes autobiographical occasions as dynamic sites for the performance of identities constitutive of subjectivity. In this view

, identities are not fixed or essentialized attributes of autobiographical subjects, rather they are produced and reiterated through cultural norms, and remain provisional and unstable." (Smith & Watson 145)

why is it that cheese is being wrapped individually, slice by slice?

The Brain -- is wider than the Sky --
For -- put them side by side --
The one the other will contain
With ease -- and You -- beside --

The Brain is deeper than the sea --
For -- hold them -- Blue to Blue --
The one the other will absorb --
As Sponges -- Buckets -- do --

The Brain is just the weight of God --
For -- Heft them -- Pound for Pound --
And they will differ -- if they do --
As Syllable from Sound --

-E.D.

though she's always been my favorite poet, i never appreciated the weight of her work until recent years. she's got hundreds and hundreds of poems to show for all her time spent in this physical state she seemed to be so weary of. and though i could list pick at least a few hundred as being extraordinary, 'the brain is wider than the sky' would definetly be among my top 5.

i find that there is an incredible level truth behind the simply formed letters of this poem. she's talking about infinity and divinity within our brains - what a beautiful truth we so rarely permit ourselves to acknowledge!

i believe the greatest strength and the greatest flaw of our human species, is our incessant instinct to divide things. not just anythings, but EVERYthings. we are constantly separating, labeling, categorizing, organizing, stereotyping, and so on and so on, until everything has its own everything. individuality has become the most important state of being for the world today, and not just for people, but for every aspect of existance, the physical and in the intangible. we are separated by towns, states, political parties, race, religion, the size of our income checks, our GPA's, and even our worth as humans - reflected in the value of life insurance policies. food isn't just food, its brand names! apples aren't apples, they're granny smith or macintosh. sex isn't just sex, its trojan or lifestyle. sleeping is no longer the time you spend mulling around in the unified consciousness of the world within the infinities of your brain. instead, it belongs to Ambien and Lunesta. its crazy what we're doing . . . putting sleep up against sleep!

but . . . . because of this class i've been noticing that in a lot of cases, the separation serves us as a means to better bring things together. the connection-through-division i've read in this course seems prevalent in every autobiography we've discussed this semester. every writer had to separate, in one way or another, in order to get back to that wholeness they were writing to convey.


so - in short!
this poem means a lot to me for many reasons, and i think everyone could benefit from reading it over more than a few times. understanding it is an even sweeter permission.

...attentiveness...

Kazin was attracted to the French philosopher Simone Weil's thought that modern rootlessness as attributable to "a lost contact with the world's recollection of divinity" and compared her definition of prayer - 'attentiveness without object' - to Emily Dickinson's attentiveness in beginning a poem 'without knowing what she was beginning."

Kazin for Jenna

American Reference
"I remember how the checkbones worked in his face and how the gray little Assyrian beard leaped into the air as he threw his arms out in entreaty. The crisp "American" eloquence of his speech bewildered me as I listened to him from the open window of that room, now mine, where our cousin had lived with us for so many years." (140-141)

Kazin makes yet another reference to American culture, as well as the characteristics of Americans.

Descriptive Memory
"There was still another, with a small growth of beard--they called him Ilyich, in honor of Lenin--a boy much older than the rest of us, a strange boy who lived by himself in a furnished room off Dumont Avenue, who had sworn never to shave until the boss class freed Tom Mooney. His long matted hair and beard gave him so archaic a look that I could never take it in that he was really there with me, talking in his gently condescending voice as I stared at the clotheslines."

Here, I can so vividly picture what Kazin is describing. Even as he is recalling this from deep in his memory, Kazin uses descriptive words and phrases that assist the reader to mentally visualize each and every detail he is describing. (147)

Ondaatje Makes Me Chuckle..

I am always a big fan of books that make me laugh, but it is not too often that I find a book I have to read for class that makes me laugh--so I'm pretty excited. The writing style in this text is so descriptive and beautiful I feel as thought I am next to Ondaatje as he is inserting images into his memory. I think it is this ability to be so incredibly descriptive that makes the novel so humorous. I also find this book so wonderful because it describes a dysfunctional family in a positive light.
Here are some of my favorite lines from the text--read and laugh : )
"It was two and a half years later, after several modest letters about his successful academic career, that his parents discovered he had not even passed the entrance exam and was living off their money in England." p. 31
"After a large meal and more drink my father announced that now he must shoot himself because Doris had broken off the engagement. Aelian, especially as he was quite drunk too, had a terrible time trying to hide every gun in the Ceylon Light Infantry building." p. 35
"And poor Wilfred Bartholomeuz who had large teeth was killed while out hunting when one of his companions mistook him for a wild boar." p.40