Isla McKetta, MFA, Author at A Geography of Reading

Tagalog Words, Filipino Flavor in Dogeaters

April 28, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

I’m thinking a lot about the feel of foreign words on the tongue and in print lately, so I want to talk about Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters. She uses Tagalog and Spanish words throughout this novel set in the Phillipines. Most often these phrases are used in dialogue and consist of exclamations, family designations, or food. Hagedorn sets aside the words for the reader by using italics, but it is clear that the intermingling of these words would occur naturally in the characters’ speech. These words lend the story authenticity, but they can also interfere with the reader’s understanding of the story.

Spanish

The Spanish words Hagedorn uses are easily intelligible and familiar, I imagine, even to many readers who don’t speak Spanish. Words like “abuelita,” “hija,” and “prima” are all family designations and are used with varying regularity in novels set in America. Hagedorn uses the Spanish “abuelita” to differentiate between Rio’s two grandmothers. Both women are Filipina, but one has moved to Spain and considers herself more Spanish. Rio’s Filipina grandmother, Narcisa, is addressed as “Lola” while her grandmother with Spanish pretensions, Socorro, is addressed as “abuelita.”

Tagalog

Some of the Tagalog words Hagedorn uses are easily understandable based on the context clues around them: “[i]t is merienda time at the popular Cafe España.” It is clear that “merienda” has something to do with eating. As the novel progresses, Hagedorn uses the word over and over and the reader’s understanding of the word is enriched. Although I never fully understood the word, I came to understand “merienda” happens in the morning and may be akin to brunch. I was able to substitute “brunch” for “merienda” and at least understand what was going on in the scenes. A similar thing happened with “tsismis.” At first I had no idea what the characters were talking about, but by the time I read Rio’s father saying to her mother: “what do you do all day for exercise, except move your mouth up, down, and sideways, making tsismis with your queers,” I understood it meant gossip.

Defining Words in the Text

There were two instances where the non-English words were described by the characters themselves. In the first, Rio is describing her family and says: “Uncle Cristobal flies a Falangista flag above his front door to show his allegiance to Franco.” While I have no idea what the flag looks like, I completely understand its meaning and how it might pigeonhole Cristobal politically. The second instance is while Rio’s mother and father are discussing the difference between “putok” and “spiritik,” both of which mean fake. Rio’s father says: “Congressman Abad spiritiks when he plays golf, but General Ledesma rewards his army with cases of putok liquor.” I learn the nuance of the connotations of the two words, but Hagedorn also weaves in some of the flavor of local politics at the same time.

There are phrases that I never even quite got the gist of throughout the novel. Many of these seemed like interjections. One of these was “di ba” and another was “puwede ba.” They occurred frequently in conversation, often followed by an exclamation point, but with context clues. I interpreted them as exclamations, and I didn’t feel like I lost a major point of the sentence by not understanding them, but I never did get the full flavor of the sentence.

I am used to understanding even foreign words in novels, and it was a switch for me to not be able to understand exactly what was going on at all times. Hagedorn’s use of Tagalog made me more conscious of my use of Polish in my novel, Polska, 1994. Because Polish is, like Tagalog, not widely spoken outside of its native country (and expat communities), Hagedorn is teaching me to use context clues to help the non-Polish speaker understand the words. These foreign words and phrases need to be at least intelligible to an English-speaking reader, even if they convey a deeper meaning to a Polish-speaking reader.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Dogeaters from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

The Language of Culture in Their Eyes Were Watching God

April 27, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston writes in a language so rich it is sometimes nearly unintelligible. The dialogue is expressed in dialect and the imagery is culturally specific which immerses the reader into a fully-realized world.

Appreciating the Small Things

When the protagonist Janie is leaving the home of her first husband, a man she never loved, to follow smooth-talking Joe, the narrator observes: “The morning road air was like a new dress.” The image is striking in that it pulls together two simple but disparate items, air and a dress. This simile gives the reader a completely fresh image which is difficult to do, and the originality is intoxicating. The image also gives the reader a better understanding of Janie’s world. These are not rich people and a new dress is a fine, rare thing. The newness of the dress also points to the possibility that lies ahead for Janie as she leaves what was a stifling relationship. In passing through that morning road air, she is shedding her old clothes and moving into a new life—maybe even a life where she can have new things.

After Janie has spent years of her life as Joe’s wife working in his store and stifling herself when he wants her to, the narrator comments: “The years took all the fight out of Janie’s face. For a while she thought it was gone from her soul.” This reminds the reader that fight was once in her face and that she was a spirited woman. It also implies that submission is a bad thing and that Janie had to give up a part of herself, even if only temporarily, to be with this man. In Janie’s world submission equals being worn down which means that the fighting spirit is something of value.

Local Vernacular

The characters are African American and large portions of the story are set in Florida during a time when segregation was de rigueur. Most of the people are poor and barely scraping by and they are not by and large educated. This is reflected in their dialogue as in this segment from a conversation between two peripheral characters: “‘Ah’m uh bitch’s baby round lady people.’” For a white, educated, northern ear, it takes a concerted effort to completely understand the meaning behind the sentence. A bitch’s baby would be a puppy. Does that mean the character is lagging around behind women like a puppy? And although this imagery is less fresh that the new dress, it is colorful and descriptive. I didn’t necessarily understand everything the characters spoke of during the dialogue in the novel, but Hurston’s way of rendering speech gives insight into the world Janie lives in. I could hear the characters in their native tongue. Because the diction is unusual, I understood more fully the differences between the world in this novel and my world.

Free Indirect Style

Hurston also uses free indirect style, breaking away from the narrative slightly to slip into a comment that sounds like it is coming from Janie. This happens as Janie is considering Tea Cake’s advances: “Must be around twenty-five and here she was around forty…Fact is, she decided to treat him so cold if he ever did foot the place that he’d be sure not to come hanging around there again.” For a moment we are inside Janie’s head and she is sassy. She is judging herself but she is also intrigued by this young man. The sentences are not complete and the syntax is Southern with the “if he ever did” and the “treat him so cold.” This gives the reader a fresh take on the inner workings of Janie, but it is also a bridge between the dialect of the dialogue and the clearer diction of the narrator.

Language is specific to culture and reveals everything that is important about everything worth talking about. For my novel, Polska, 1994, I worked with the language of my characters to denote their backgrounds and their experiences. Language can also be a barrier to understanding. I used some Polish words in my novel and I thought long and hard about each one. In some cases, the Polish was the best possible word because there is not an English equivalent. In others, I wanted the feeling of the Polish word, as with Jacek. I used more Polish in introducing Jacek than I had with other characters because of his intense nationalism. In either case, I rarely translate the word and some understanding will be lost for the non-Polish reader. Hurston’s rich language easily sucked me into her world, but often, especially during passages of dialogue, I was lost in terms of what was going on. I had to spend additional time looking at the language and it took me out of the story and took away from my experience of it. I personally have difficulty understanding novels written in dialect, but I understand is different for every reader. Some readers will find my novel more difficult too. But I hope even in the difficult reads they can love it as much as I loved Their Eyes Were Watching God.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Paul Verlaine en Français

April 26, 2012 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

Though neither my French nor my understanding of poetry are good enough to honestly rate Poésies by Paul Verlaine, this book, the rhythm of Verlaine’s stanzas and lines, is fantastic and he has created some truly beautiful images. I have a decent enough comprehension of French that I was able to read the book aloud to myself and to capture Verlaine’s incredible cadences. I used his rhyme scheme to learn to pronounce some words I hadn’t encountered before.

Reading Like a Novice

I’m afraid of poetry. I don’t know the structures and the rules and I’m always certain it’s supposed to mean something that I’m missing. But reading poetry in French was freeing. Once I relaxed into the idea that I was not going to understand every word (I refuse to take a dictionary to bed), I was able to also relax into the idea that I would not understand every nuance and reference in the poems. There would be no essay at the end about the Panzer-man signifies.

Inventing a Language

What was most interesting for me is how carefully reading in French made me pay attention to language. Sometimes I made up my own interpretations based on cognates. “Quand le soleil…dorait la vie” does mean “When the sun…gilded life,” but it also made me think of the verb dormir (to sleep) and so I added layers of meaning to the sentence for myself. This made me think harder about the words I am using and their etymologies and homonyms and how all of that enriches the words and the sentences they inhabit.

I picked out the words I knew and fell in love with the sounds of others. I found myself responding to the simplest phrases like “Je fais souvent ce rêve étrange et penetrant” (I have often this strange and penetrating dream) that I would be embarrassed to underline in English because they aren’t deep or new enough. Actually that sentence may be a bad example, because whether or not my translation is accurate, it is kind of beautiful. Sometimes I underlined things simply because of their sound as in “Des violons / De l’automne / Blessent mon coeur / D’une langueur / Monotone.”

I made it all the way through the book, reading each page aloud, and I haven’t picked up the dictionary yet, but I am happy with the meanings I brought to Verlaine and the meanings Verlaine brought to me. I am happy with the way looking at a language from the outside will help me look at my language from the inside.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Poésies from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

In The Law of White Spaces by Giorgio Pressburger, one of the chapters starts with a second person address to the reader. It reads, “Don’t be shocked, dear brother, by the case I’m about to lay before you; don’t be ashamed or disgusted or scandalized, I beg you, by what you are about to learn.” The use of the second person immediately drew me in and made me feel like a part of the story.

Reader as Witness

In this chapter in White Spaces, the reader plays the character of a witness or judge rather than being an active participant in the story. The narrator refers to research the reader has done and the belief system that has created. He then goes on to juxtapose this belief system saying, “my own experience…stands in absolute contradiction to your conception of existence.” Pressburger uses this supposed contradiction as a way to justify fully explaining the narrator’s ideas and how he came by them. Because I, as the reader, am told that the beliefs assigned to me are wrong, Pressburger is bringing me into the story as I try to weigh the evidence.

Pressburger uses an interesting segue between the second person introduction of the story and the first person telling of the action of the story. He writes, “Of course I want to take a little time before telling you about me, but I also want to try and make you understand how much I was influenced by your research.” This statement is the equivalent of the hug and roll where the narrator compliments “my” ideas which endears me to him but then releases me to watch him elucidate how he has expanded on them and found his own way.

The narrator then does not refer to the reader again except in two passing references to the reader’s research and once to ask if I remembered Mrs. Polak and a conspiratorial reference, “We know, dear brother, what really lies behind feeling shy, feeling ashamed, blushing, do we not?” Each of these references keeps the reader in the position of engaged observer and reinforced the supposed relationship. The reader and narrator are supposed to share at least thirty-five years of memories.

Addressing the Reader

It is strange at the end of this chapter when the narrator again addresses the reader. He says, “You can meet me in the market where you’ll find me sweeping up the dirt, moving boxes and wooden cases around.” This made me wonder where the reader was to have encountered the narrator in the first place.

Pressburger has assumed that his reader is willing to give up their own point of view to get this second person narration to work. He also has to create a persona that is compelling enough for the reader to want to assume. When he addresses the reader as “you,” he has a specific character in mind and he is asking the reader to take on the role of that character. In my novel I haven’t yet figured out exactly who the “you” is. By setting up a fuller character for the reader to inhabit, I can assign the reader a more complex role that he or she can then choose to inhabit or not.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of The Law of White Spaces from Powell’s Books. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.