we are the books we read

"a literary work is a communal act"

why?

when i first heard this, i sort of brushed it off as just another quote that was trying to get at the backbone of writing. but the more i considered it, the more it began to make sense for a number of reasons. the first one being that, our whole lives we are around other people, creating experiences and interacting with one another. the stories of these events are the basic material of our autobiography (as well as other genres of literature), and they undoubtedly include people other than ourselves. in this way, our writing would not have been possible without the effect of the community we live in. even if your a hermit and havent been in the company of others in 50 years, there would still be fundamental parts of yourself that would have come from the people you were raised by. as humans we learn everything by imitation, and so everything within you essentially comes from someone else.

not only does the society in which we live, influence the matter of our past experiences. they also help to recreate the stories of each literary work. the writer physically scribbles their intangible experiences onto a page, making it concrete between the two covers of the book. but if no ones eyes ever read over those specially arranged symbols - no ones mind ever contemplates each written word into meaning - no ones perception of 'now' is suspended so that they may listen to the 'then' . . . the writers story might have been better off free from the binds of text. without an audience or a receptive community of readers/listeners, the literary work fails to exist anywhere but between the white margins of pages never noticed.

and if no one acknowledges it, does that even exist?

"People often confuse life narrative and fiction. Typically, they call autobiographical texts 'novels' though they rarely call novels 'autobiographies.' A life narrative is not a novel, although calling life narrative 'nonfiction,' which is often done, confuses rather than resolves the issue." (Smith & Watson 7).

Autobiography of My Mother... initial observations

When I first picked up this book, I noticed two things just on quick observation. On the second page of the book (not the second page of the text... the actual second piece of paper behind the cover), there is a quote that says:
"Through subtle, poetic meditations that continually question the boundaries between solitude and family, love and hate, black and white, colonialism and the colonized, Kincaid casts a lucid wash of language over Xuela's tragically barren life." (St. Petersburg Times)
This struck me as interesting because of the phrase "solitude and family." I doubt whether any of us would have asserted that the opposite of solitude is family... but it's true. And especially poignant at a time of year when so many people gather their families together. It seems like a sad point to make, but I was somewhat taken by surprise in finding such a genuine sentiment and idea in a review of the book. I found it interesting, anyway.

Another thing that I noticed before even beginning to read was the simple, and somewhat obvious, visual clues that the book gives us. At the start of each chapter is a piece of the picture on the cover... with each chapter, more of the picture is revealed. I assumed that this meant we would learn more about Xuela's mother in each chapter. Perhaps I won't win a Nobel Prize for that astute piece of observation, but I thought it was worth noting.

And, it held true as I did read. In the first chapter we really learn very little about the mother other than that she was Carib. Not a lot to go on. But, in the second chapter we learn more. We learn that Xuela shares her mother's name: Xuela Claudette. We also learn that she was abandoned at a convent, and that the narrator's father loved her. In each chapter, we learn a little more, and maybe by the end it will add up to a whole person. I guess that's the point...

The Autobiography of my Mother

"I came to feel that for my whole life I had been standing on a precipice, that my loss had made me vulnerable, hard, and helpless; on knowing this I became overwhelmed with sadness and shame and pity for myself."

The impact of family in one's own story, yet again. But, fiction this time...

This book makes me happy...

Sorry I am not in class today to be really excited about this book but I'm trapped in a smelly hockey arena for the afternoon.
I could write my blog post on how hysterical I find this book, but since I wrote my last one on that perhaps I should find another topic..
One of the greatest lines from this text that relates perfectly to the class is on page 138.."It is the kind of event that should have surfaced as the first chapter of an anguished autobiographical novel." Throughout the course we have discussed what we would put into our autobiographies; would the stories be sad, funny, enlightening? I think the way in which Ondaatje writes is beautiful. He writes his autobiography on a lighter note..his family does not seem to live the perfect life, but he is always able to find humor in not so fabulous situations. My favorite character in the text is obviously Lalla. She reminds me so much of my Grandmother in the way that neither of them care at all what anyone else thinks of them. It is also to think about all the references to flowers in the sections on Lalla....

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

..TAXI CAB DRIVER IN BOSTON...

...remind me to tell you about the Haitian taxi cab driver in Boston....

...or a kaleiodoscope?....

"No story is ever told just once. Whether a memory of funny hideous scandal, we will return to it later and retell the story with additions and this time a few judgements thrown in. In this way history is organized." (Ondaatje 26)

...fractal....

...could the fractal or scattergram be a way of describing Ondaatje's style in "Running in the Family."

Cheers for Ondaatje

In Michael Ondaatje's Running in the Family, I noticed the involvment of family and stories to tell his story. These are techniques we've seen already, including using family history to tell your own, and splicedness, or the use of other stories to represent the events unfolding in the authors life. Ondaatje also introduces us to humor in his memoir, which we've been slightly deprived of thus far in class. "'Sissy,' Francis' sister, "was always drowning herself because she was an exhibitionist.'" (51) He uses humorous anecdotes about his family and the people around him, and a lot of witty one-liners. We're once again seeing a foreign account of life, but Ondaatje brings his reader into his world. This is one of the more "easy" reads we've had so far, in terms of the enjoyability and fluidity of the memoir.

The Cinnamon Peeler

The poem in Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje entitled "The Cinnamon Peeler" really caught my attention. I can't really explain what it is about this poem that made me so fascinated, but I would like to say that I love the duality of sense and sensuality that occurs throughout. That, and the first lines
"If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow."
drew me in with such an unusual and bluntly put statement

The Photograph

I do believe that the chapter entitled "The Photograph," in Running in the Family, is a reminder of Geoffrey Douglas's "autobiography" The Classmates. Ondaatje looks at a photograph of his parents on their honeymoon and he describes it in full detail, how his parents are posed, what their faces look like, etc. We see the photograph on the following page, and we see that he has done a pretty good job of explaining what the picture looks like to him. His parents are making hysterical faces and his father has written, "What we think of married life," on the back of the photo. In this short chapter, we know exactly what that quotation means. The marriage was doomed.

"Everything is there of course, their good looks behind the tortured faces...The evidence I wanted that they were absolutely perfect for each other. My father's tanned skin, my mother's milk paleness, and this theatre of their own making. It is the only photograph I have found of the two of them together."
(Page 162)

We know right then that they did not take many photographs together, which indicates that the marriage certainly had more downs than it had ups, and I can't blame Doris for leaving Mervyn. He was completely off his rocker and was an alcoholic to boot. However, I am absolutely blown away by Ondaatje's ability to express something so heartbreaking in such a short amount of text. He is clearly still pained by the idea that his parents separated and that his father did not die anywhere near his mother. It seems wrong to him, and he sees in the photograph how right they were for each other. Yet, the last line of the chapter must have been particularly tough for him to write. His parents probably didn't take many photos together, because they were rarely happy with each other toward the end of the marriage. So sad!

Ondaatje's Anecdotes...Are they like scenes?

I think that Michael Ondaatje lays out exactly how is autobiography is going to be set up pretty early on in his book. It's sort of hidden within the text, but I think I figured out exactly why he has set up his autobiography in such a sporadic manner. His sporadicness may not be so sporadic.

"But I love the afternoon hours most. It is now almost a quarter to three. In half an hour the others will waken from their sleep and intricate conversations will begin again. In the heart of this 250-year-old fort we will trade anecdotes and faint memories, trying to swell them with the order of dates and asides, interlocking them all as if assembling the hull of a ship. No story is ever told once. Whether a memory or funny hideous scandal, we will return to it an hour later and retell the story with additions and this time a few judgments throw in. In this way history is organized..."
(Page 26).

Ondaatje's family likes to tell stories to each other, plain and simple. Ondaatje has learned about his family's history in anecdotes and from multiple sources. Why would he not construct his autobiography in a similar fashion? I think his style suits how he grew up and how he took in information as a child and adolescent. I also feel that these anecdotes, especially the vision that he constructs of his grandmother's death, apply directly to the idea of "performance," or a "performative piece." Though I don't think I grasped exactly what "performative" meant in terms of Ondaatje's work, I can clearly see the anecdotes as various scenes in a play or performance piece. Some of the anecdotes could be read on their own and little to no meaning would be lost. Perhaps that is what performative means here?

I think that the last two chapters of the autobiography are particularly representative of this anectdotal style and hearing stories from multiple sources. Ondaatje introduces information about his father's death from the perspective of his sister and his father's two friends, as well as detailing what he was up to the morning his father passed away, or at least that is what I see the last chapter of the text to be. Correct me if I'm wrong?