My favorite piece from this week was Morrison’s “Recitatif.” It’s sort of devastating to think about how so few encounters with one person throughout your life can still make such a deep impact on you, and when, as these two do, you stand in such clearly opposing positions in life (although you might’ve been best friends as children). She never explicitly mentions race for either girl but plays with the “dark” and “light” and it becomes obvious what the piece implies, even if that deeper meaning continues to be veiled throughout. Although, I feel like I’m going to need to read this about ten more times to really understand it. I thought I knew which one was Black and which was white, and then I reread it again and I was no longer sure. There’s so much to unpack here, that I’m not even really sure where to begin. Morrison was masterful in her manipulation of the rhythm in this piece and the way she removed race from the characters so entirely but also suggestively. I definitely want to talk about this one in class.
Recitatif : I was really impressed with the incorporation of dialogue in this piece. It added an element to the story that brought it to life. Many of these interactions felt like I was right there in the story and it flowed very well. I would like to do more exercises that work with dialogue because this is a tool I would like to get better at in my own writing.
Toni Morrison has appeared twice in my classes this year so far. In my art history class this semester, we’ve analyzed a text of her nonfiction anthropological work, which was enlightening. Recitatif, though, is beautiful, not only in prose but in the content of the work itself. The characters felt real and raw, and the first portion of the text genuinely felt like there was a child narrating. The first time skip resonated with me the most, as someone who’s felt the social anxiety and embarrassment that has come with believing you’ve committed a social blunder; the nuance here, though, is that the narrator really hasn’t done anything wrong in this situation, but feels bulldozed by the attitudes and the behavior of the people she interacts with. It’s an extremely unpleasant position to be in, and the hyper self-awareness in the writing is acutely put. The conflict throughout the story was interesting to me; I didn’t feel like, as a reader, I fully understood the schooling situation problem. I could deduce the racial denotations of the picketing, but felt as though I was missing something deeper. Not to say that was a problem though, as I felt like that added to the emphasis on the narrator’s personal emotions and feelings rather than the sociopolitical issues in the way a history book might try to do. The reconciliation at the end was abrupt, but satisfying.
One thing that stuck out to me about Tall Tales in the Mekong Delta was Braverman’s frequent usage of dialogue. Usually we don’t see so much continuous dialogue, but it makes up a considerable chunk of this piece. It is only through the dialogue that we realize something is wrong. The narrator’s own thoughts never seem to give away how unsettled and unsafe Lenny makes her feel. It’s like she is purposefully ignoring how dangerous and controlling Lenny’s behavior is, so the readers get the “processed” version of her thoughts. The colloquial way that Lenny speaks to the woman paints a vivid picture of the type of sleazy guy that he is and is just plain disturbing to readers (at least it was to me). It just feels like whiplash going between the spoken dialogue and the narrator’s thoughts and actions regarding the stalking and harassment.
Although I had to reread the first page a few times to be able to understand the characters and who each was, my favorite piece was “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor. It was very vivid and descriptive of the characters’ personalities and sometimes, it was confusing trying to figure out which character thought what of the others. Many times, I went back to color-code my annotations. However, that sense of confusion allowed the reader to understand the relationships between the characters. Often, Mrs. Hopewell underestimates characters and assumes things about them because of their background (such as Mrs. Freeman). Mrs. Freeman though, is nosy, curious, and involves herself too much in other people’s lives. I liked how this was emphasized throughout the piece because despite what Mrs. Hopewell thought and knew about Mrs. Freeman (thinking she was under her control), she failed to realize other people were like that too. The last thing said in the piece is, “Some can’t be that simple. I know I never could,” (16). Mrs. Freeman acknowledges that she is not a two-dimensional person, but someone fleshed out and never fails to surprise people, just like Pointer.
I thought that all three of the main fiction stories for this week had incredibly compelling characters, although I was at points confused by the plot/meaning behind the events. In “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, I think I made it about one paragraph in before I had to start over to make sure I had read it right– Mrs. Freeman was almost completely fleshed out as a character before the first paragraph was even over, and the description was genuinely incredible. We also get a sense of her relationship with Mrs. Hopewell in the same paragraph. The amount of detail and characterization present in just the first few lines is impressive: we get that her expression is neutral when she is alone, that she told stories with the focus of someone driving a “heavy truck,” and that she rarely, if ever, retracts a statement. With that, I feel like the reader gets a wholehearted view of Mrs. Freeman immediately. From there, we start seeing their interactions at the breakfast table, and we begin to get a sense of the other characters in the home, namely Joy, Glynese, and Carramae. I think this story does a really good job fleshing out characters while leaving space for them to be elaborated on without repetition. By that, I mean that even though we have a fairly good view of Mrs. Freeman immediately, O’Connor leaves space for her to develop as a character as the story progresses– how she calls Hulga by her chosen name instead of Joy, or how later on she tells a story about her daughter to Mrs. Hopewell, “insisting upon her attention.” I really liked the way O’Connor wrote the characters in this story, and I hope to learn from it.
While reading Recitatif by Toni Morrison, I was on the edge of my seat for most of the time because nothing was clear. I didn’t at first who was what race, I wasn’t sure what exactly happened to their mothers, and I didn’t know who to believe in. This was a good story because it kept me interested and I wanted to finish the story. However, these readings for the week feel too much like fiction and I hope we can explore other parts of nonfiction.
My favorite piece from this week was Morrison’s “Recitatif.” It’s sort of devastating to think about how so few encounters with one person throughout your life can still make such a deep impact on you, and when, as these two do, you stand in such clearly opposing positions in life (although you might’ve been best friends as children). She never explicitly mentions race for either girl but plays with the “dark” and “light” and it becomes obvious what the piece implies, even if that deeper meaning continues to be veiled throughout. Although, I feel like I’m going to need to read this about ten more times to really understand it. I thought I knew which one was Black and which was white, and then I reread it again and I was no longer sure. There’s so much to unpack here, that I’m not even really sure where to begin. Morrison was masterful in her manipulation of the rhythm in this piece and the way she removed race from the characters so entirely but also suggestively. I definitely want to talk about this one in class.
Recitatif : I was really impressed with the incorporation of dialogue in this piece. It added an element to the story that brought it to life. Many of these interactions felt like I was right there in the story and it flowed very well. I would like to do more exercises that work with dialogue because this is a tool I would like to get better at in my own writing.
Toni Morrison has appeared twice in my classes this year so far. In my art history class this semester, we’ve analyzed a text of her nonfiction anthropological work, which was enlightening. Recitatif, though, is beautiful, not only in prose but in the content of the work itself. The characters felt real and raw, and the first portion of the text genuinely felt like there was a child narrating. The first time skip resonated with me the most, as someone who’s felt the social anxiety and embarrassment that has come with believing you’ve committed a social blunder; the nuance here, though, is that the narrator really hasn’t done anything wrong in this situation, but feels bulldozed by the attitudes and the behavior of the people she interacts with. It’s an extremely unpleasant position to be in, and the hyper self-awareness in the writing is acutely put. The conflict throughout the story was interesting to me; I didn’t feel like, as a reader, I fully understood the schooling situation problem. I could deduce the racial denotations of the picketing, but felt as though I was missing something deeper. Not to say that was a problem though, as I felt like that added to the emphasis on the narrator’s personal emotions and feelings rather than the sociopolitical issues in the way a history book might try to do. The reconciliation at the end was abrupt, but satisfying.
One thing that stuck out to me about Tall Tales in the Mekong Delta was Braverman’s frequent usage of dialogue. Usually we don’t see so much continuous dialogue, but it makes up a considerable chunk of this piece. It is only through the dialogue that we realize something is wrong. The narrator’s own thoughts never seem to give away how unsettled and unsafe Lenny makes her feel. It’s like she is purposefully ignoring how dangerous and controlling Lenny’s behavior is, so the readers get the “processed” version of her thoughts. The colloquial way that Lenny speaks to the woman paints a vivid picture of the type of sleazy guy that he is and is just plain disturbing to readers (at least it was to me). It just feels like whiplash going between the spoken dialogue and the narrator’s thoughts and actions regarding the stalking and harassment.
Although I had to reread the first page a few times to be able to understand the characters and who each was, my favorite piece was “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor. It was very vivid and descriptive of the characters’ personalities and sometimes, it was confusing trying to figure out which character thought what of the others. Many times, I went back to color-code my annotations. However, that sense of confusion allowed the reader to understand the relationships between the characters. Often, Mrs. Hopewell underestimates characters and assumes things about them because of their background (such as Mrs. Freeman). Mrs. Freeman though, is nosy, curious, and involves herself too much in other people’s lives. I liked how this was emphasized throughout the piece because despite what Mrs. Hopewell thought and knew about Mrs. Freeman (thinking she was under her control), she failed to realize other people were like that too. The last thing said in the piece is, “Some can’t be that simple. I know I never could,” (16). Mrs. Freeman acknowledges that she is not a two-dimensional person, but someone fleshed out and never fails to surprise people, just like Pointer.
I thought that all three of the main fiction stories for this week had incredibly compelling characters, although I was at points confused by the plot/meaning behind the events. In “Good Country People” by Flannery O’Connor, I think I made it about one paragraph in before I had to start over to make sure I had read it right– Mrs. Freeman was almost completely fleshed out as a character before the first paragraph was even over, and the description was genuinely incredible. We also get a sense of her relationship with Mrs. Hopewell in the same paragraph. The amount of detail and characterization present in just the first few lines is impressive: we get that her expression is neutral when she is alone, that she told stories with the focus of someone driving a “heavy truck,” and that she rarely, if ever, retracts a statement. With that, I feel like the reader gets a wholehearted view of Mrs. Freeman immediately. From there, we start seeing their interactions at the breakfast table, and we begin to get a sense of the other characters in the home, namely Joy, Glynese, and Carramae. I think this story does a really good job fleshing out characters while leaving space for them to be elaborated on without repetition. By that, I mean that even though we have a fairly good view of Mrs. Freeman immediately, O’Connor leaves space for her to develop as a character as the story progresses– how she calls Hulga by her chosen name instead of Joy, or how later on she tells a story about her daughter to Mrs. Hopewell, “insisting upon her attention.” I really liked the way O’Connor wrote the characters in this story, and I hope to learn from it.
While reading Recitatif by Toni Morrison, I was on the edge of my seat for most of the time because nothing was clear. I didn’t at first who was what race, I wasn’t sure what exactly happened to their mothers, and I didn’t know who to believe in. This was a good story because it kept me interested and I wanted to finish the story. However, these readings for the week feel too much like fiction and I hope we can explore other parts of nonfiction.