A Geography of Reading

"It is by reading novels, stories, and myths that we come to understand the world in which we live." -Orhan Pamuk

Embodiment and Disembodiment in The Lover

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the lover marguerite duras

Marguerite Duras throws the reader into the memory of her narrator in The Lover. By switching narration between the first person and third person limited, Duras embodies the experiences of a fifteen and a half year-old girl who takes on a Chinese lover in Saigon. She also conveys the sense of the girl as object which allows the reader to both sympathize with the character and subject her to judgment. This mimics the way the narrator is simultaneously reminiscing about a specific period in her adolescence and also judging herself.

Because the narrative voice doesn’t change when the narrative point of view does, the reader has the sense that the same first person narrator is relating the story from two angles. In one section the narrator describes her shoes: “These high heels are the first in my life, they’re beautiful, they’ve eclipsed all the shoes that went before.” This is followed by a section break and then the very next sentence is: “It’s not the shoes, though, that make the girl look so strangely, so weirdly dressed.” Three sentences later in the same section the narrator is back to first person in describing the provenance of the hat she was wearing: “How I came by it I’ve forgotten.” In each of these sections, the narrator is talking about the same girl and her possessions but the reader is encountering her as both separate and part of the narrator.

Switching back and forth between narrative points of view could be maddening for a reader, but the switch is seamless and gives the reader a much fuller picture of the narrator’s recollections than one viewpoint or the other could have done. The ease of transition is accomplished by zooming in to look at one object (here the shoes and the hat) and then zooming back out to show the same object from a different vantage point.

The key to the reasons behind the shift in perspective is in the following passage: “He answers my mother, tells her she’s right to beat the girl…The mother hits her as hard as she can.” I was struck by the poignant disassociation in the shift here as the narrator transitions from “my mother” to “the girl.”  Moments before, the narrator used the first person to describe the beginning of the incident: “My mother has attacks during which she falls on me…punches me.” “Has attacks” is habitual, not of the moment, and not in scene. But as the description progresses, the specificity of the action as the other brother flees and the mother calms down and the girl lies about her relationship with the Chinese man, makes the description seem like one particular instance. The narrator is separating herself from the girl who is the center of this action. She sets herself apart from the chaos and pain of these relationships as though it happened to someone else. This disembodiment is characteristic of someone who has undergone trauma and is particularly poignant because the character is at an age where one internalizes this type of experience and blames oneself for it.

Shifting back and forth between these narrative points of view is tricky, but Duras managed it well. As a reader, I was able to engage with the character on a deeper level and could feel the shift into third person almost as the narrator’s wince. I don’t think this could be prudently imitated except in the rarest of circumstances because it creates a very specific effect. However, it is important to keep in mind that our characters, being the astute little observers that they tend to be, are likely aware of how they are perceived. There are other ways to view even a first person narrator from the outside, e.g. conveying anxiety at how they are being perceived. In my novel, Polska, 1994, being seen and the perceptions of others is an important part of Magda’s world and I work to show this through how she thinks others are seeing her. Duras reminded me that it is important to consider how my character views herself.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of The Lover from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Mr. Rochester, Mr. Rochester

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In Jane Eyre, shows the development of Jane’s feelings for Mr. Rochester by the subtle changes in the way Jane observes him each time they meet.

Tepid Feelings at First Site

The first time Jane ever sees Mr. Rochester he is preceded by a “rude noise” as his horse rushed toward Thornfield. The rude noise turns into a “din” and a dark horse approached. Jane is afraid it may be a spirit and is relieved when there is a man on the back of the horse because that means it is not a spirit. Mr. Rochester and his horse fall and when Jane approaches to offer assistance she remarks, “I think he was swearing” which is a rather coarse activity for a gentleman in front of a lady at the time. He ordered her to stand aside as he inspected himself. When Jane finally remarks on his looks, she sees “stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful” and is not put off, because if he had been heroic looking, Jane fears he could not have borne her presence. Instead, “the frown, the roughness of the traveller set me at my ease.” Jane is not immediately repulsed by this man, though his initial appearance is somewhat frightening. Because he is not handsome, she is able to meet him as an equal and offer him assistance.

A Gentle Warming

When Jane reaches Thornfield, she is as yet unaware that the gentleman she met on the road is her master who she has been anxious to meet during the long time she has already been his employee. She is told that Mr. Rochester has arrived and she comes down to meet him. She sees him “half reclined on a couch.” She observes of his physique, “I suppose it was a good figure in the athletic sense of the term.” He is brusque with her and this intrigues Jane, for “[a] reception of finished politeness would probably have confused me.” Mr. Rochester is now at ease and Jane is more at ease with him than before. Questions have been answered as to who her master is and it appears he may be someone she can relate to. He is not handsome and elegant and all of the other things Jane thinks she is not. But it is not yet love although they engage in amiable banter.

At Last, My Love Has Come Along

Weeks later, Jane retires to her room and re-observes Mr. Rochester and his behavior during the first several weeks of their acquaintance. She thinks about how much more even his temper has become and that “he had always a word and sometimes a smile for me.” As Mr. Rochester is opening up to Jane more, she is opening up to him. She goes on to think, “[T]he friendly frankness…with which he treated me, drew me to him.” More directly she asks the question of whether he was ugly in her eyes and the reply is: “gratitude, and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see.” Jane likes him very much at this point, whether she is yet in love with him or not.

When Mr. Rochester brings guests into the house, Jane compares him to his company and finds a certain kind of handsomeness in the softening of his demeanor that is much more attractive to her than the easily seen handsomeness of Lord Ingram or Colonel Dent. I would posit that Jane is now fully in love with him.

It is true to this character that Jane only gradually warms up to Mr. Rochester, because she has been treated harshly in life. It is also consistent that she takes comfort in the unconventional nature of his looks. Jane could not have fallen in love with a conventionally handsome man. Because this book is narrated in a retrospective first person voice, the reader is allowed to see the unfolding of Jane’s feelings from inside her mind and it is natural to experience her observations of other characters. The reader is allowed to fall in love with Mr. Rochester at the same time as Jane does because we are privy only to her view of the world.

I worked with something similar in my novel, Polska, 1994, with Szymon. I also have a first person narrator. Magda encounters Szymon several times throughout the story and because initially he is someone she has never met, Magda examines him and reexamines him each time she meets him. The reader will get to feel what Magda is feeling without me having to explain whether she now likes him.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of Jane Eyre from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

The Structure of Secrets in The Informers

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’s novel, The Informers, is a collection of three stories wrapped together in a brilliant structure. Rather than three consecutive books forming a trilogy, the action of the second book (the one we are reading) takes place after the first has been published. Vasquez reveals little of the text of the first book, the story of the exile of a family friend from Germany in Colombia during and after World War II, to the reader. Instead, its action is revealed in counterpoint to the action of the second book, which deals with the reaction of the narrator’s father to his first book and the aftermath of this reaction.

It is this reaction by Gabriel Santoro Sr. to his son’s book that hints at the underlying link between these three stories. Without revealing too much of the plot, it is enough to say a theme of informing develops and it is not until the third book, which forms a postscript to the second, that I truly understood the nature of the writer as informer.

I highly recommend this book to anyone writing memoir or anyone grappling with the ways in which writing reveals greater truths about its author than we sometimes intend. It is also a good book for anyone looking for a completely fresh way of looking at World War II and how it affected more than just Europe.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of The Informers from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Myriad Voices in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse

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I don’t know whether it was that the idea of going to the lighthouse was first proposed to six-year-old James, because the first sentence of To the Lighthouse was in dialogue, or because describes James’s “extraordinary joy” at the news, but when his father breaks in with the news (again in dialogue) that the weather will not be good enough, my heart broke for James. And then when James’s mother insists, despite the fact that James has declared his father incapable of untruth, that the possibility still remains of their going, my heart soared for him again.

Shifting Omniscient Perspective

The way the omniscient perspective in the novel dips into the mind of one character and then another with only a paragraph break for separation gives the narration an almost choral effect as character after character muses through their own thoughts and then comments on the action of the novel. The muse, comment, muse pattern in the first chapter opens up space within the novel where the characters come to life even though the action is sparse and takes place over a short period of time. On page 64, the narrator tells us Mrs. Ramsay is knitting and then gives us her thoughts as they wander to “How could any Lord have made this world….With her mind she had always seized the fact that there is no reason, order, justice: but suffering, death, the poor” and then the narrator returns us to the image of her as she “knitted with firm composure.”  Then back to musing and back to knitting. As a reader I feel like I know Mrs. Ramsay in a way I would not if I were to see her knitting in a chair. Because the narrator consistently brings the reader back to the action, the piece still feels grounded. This is something I explored in my novel Polska, 1994. I worked to open up spaces inside the narrative where characters can be and show more of themselves.

The Voice of the House

Whereas the first chapter of To the Lighthouse is populated with the various perspectives and internal voices of characters, the second chapter is nearly devoid of them. The narration focuses on the house itself (its rooms, its furnishings, and its environment) and a result the house and the story feel empty and sad. The reader feels that the Ramsay family and in particular Mrs. Ramsay was the soul of the house. The reader feels the loss of Mrs. Ramsay to the extent that the magic of the house cannot be regained even when the Ramsay family returns in the third chapter.

Repetition

Woolf uses repetition as Lily frequently mentally notes something that Mrs. Ramsey has just noted (e.g. that Paul and Minta are engaged). Lily also comes back to the image of the tree in her painting over and over again as dinner progresses and she decides to move it more to the middle. As the tree comes up again and again, the image is more concrete in the reader’s mind. These things that are repeated take on a greater significance than if they were merely mentioned once, and Lily’s echo of Mrs. Ramsay not only enforces the general understanding of the group but it also shows the similarity in character between Mrs. Ramsay and Lily. I worked with repetition in Murmur of the River. There are a few key scenes that happen twice but in two different ways and this repetition shows how the world around Magda is changing and also how Magda’s interaction with her world is changing.

If this review made you want to read the book, pick up a copy of To the Lighthouse from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Paul Verlaine en Français

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poesies - verlaineThough neither my French nor my understanding of poetry are good enough to honestly rate Poésies by , 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 Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.