To ask what makes a book a "National Bestseller" would be a ridiculous question. Clearly, its all dependent upon sales. But...but...I do wonder if people actually consider the quality of the reading that they work so hard to put on the bestselling lists. Frankly, I was disappointed with Miracle at St. Anna.
For starters, where's the plot? No really. Where is it? What's the story about? Is it about exacting revenge on your mortal enemy? Is it about differenct races transcending the constraints of "civilization" (hah..there's a word that should never be spoken in the same breath as war)? Is it about the strength of the human spirit or about its depravity? Ironically, these questions would seek to analyse the theme of a story, not its subject.
I also had trouble with some of the cliches I read in the story. How often is innocence personified in a frolicking, happy-go-lucky woman wearing white? One time too many.
"She had been a leader among the girls, her beauty having made her the pride of the village, and as a young boy, he had watched her frolic about in bright dresses and lead the other girls past the village walls to gather the purple and white-tipped lilies that abounded in the fields outside Bornacchi. Her beauty had attracted young suitors from other villages...." (97).
Okay, so she's wearing bright dresses, but the point is essentially the same.
As far as the narrative goes, I can appreciate playing with form. A non-linear narrative (one that doesn't go from beginning to end in a straight line) keeps the readers on their toes and gets them more involved with the novel. I think that the narrative structure was the only thing that I did like about the book.
There was this little problem with show and tell, or show vs. tell, rather. McBride shifts his focus from the war to the personal lives of the characters with a lot of depth, which in my mind makes the novel a little too sentimental. However, the focus reveals a lot more than I wanted to know.
"The German wasn't staggering forward in mad desperation like his fellow soldiers. He was jogging downhill slowly far behind them, as if they all were running to an event at the state fair and he was the last of the pack to get there and didn't mind it a bit, a sort of not-too-fast, no-need-to-hurry, the fat-bearded-lady-isn't-going-anywhere kind of trot" (25).
I would like to see what "mad desperation" looks like instead of being told what it is. I felt that in my stead, the book reacted for me. A little more description, a little more imagery, and a little less telling is what this book needs.
All I'm saying is, there's a reason I prefer not to read books that make it to the NY Times Bestseller Lists. Or Oprah's Book Club.
That title's just for fun. There are some serious issues in You're Ugly, Too. For instance, just how far can people push a person who'se trapped in the monotony of life all by herself? Loneliness is a cruel companion. By the time one emerges from it, the line between social contact and starving for company can become hazy.
Zoe falls back and forth between sanity and insanity all the time. When she's conversing with her students, her authority over them seems natural, making her come across as a strong character. That impression gets washed away pretty fast with this little twist:
"'Maybe I sound whiny to you,' said the girl, 'but I simply want my history major to mean something.'
'Well, there's your problem,' said Zoe, and, with a smile, shw showed the student to the door. 'I like your bow,' she said" (655).
It's possible that she's hell bent on changing everyone's world view simply because her own has been distorted for a while.
There's an interesting play on social expectations of a woman here. It's hard not to label a thirty-something woman, who is single/unmarried as a social failure.
"'I'm not married? Oh, my God,' said Zoe, 'I forgot to get married'" (655).
Moore brings Zoe frustratingly close to being a strong character, but takes it away with the whisk of a wind. It's like dangling a carrot in front of a rabbit's nose.
As far as the sexual references go, I do think that her semi-obsession with sex is in fact a result of her loneliness. She's absolutely and completely starved for company, and she visits her sister, who is married in that state of mind. Her depression causes nothing if not pity in the mind of the reader.
"Then, when it [the plane] didn't crash, when you succeeded in keeping it aloft with your own worthlessness, all you had to do was stagger off, locate your luggage, and, by the time a cab arrived, come up with a persuasive reason to go on living" (660).
Here we have a distinct racial tone again. It's interesting that of the six stories we've read in the last two weeks, at least three of them have dealt with the issue of race is some way, shape or form. However, I did feel that the climax of the story was a little predictable. The bull, the car, Mrs. May all alone by herself waiting for Greenleaf all point to the eventual anti-climax.
The title of the story seems to act as a lead in to the plot, as if to imply that the Greenleaf's were responsible for everything that went wrong in Mrs. May's life. In some ways, the story reminds me of Faulkner's novel The Sound and the Fury. Mrs. May, is in many ways, reminiscent of Caroline Compson, a woman who cannot stop pitying her life or stop complaining to her sons about it. Say, now there's an idea for a term paper!
Mrs. Greenleaf struck me as a little more than deranged, which made me think that Flannery O'Connor pushed the envelope a bit as far as acceptable standards go in literature. For that time anyway. There's a distinct sexual reference here.
"'Oh Jesus, stab me in the heart!' Mrs. Greenleaf shrieked. 'Jesus, stab me in the heart!' and she fell back flat in the dirt, a huge human mound, her legs and arms spread out as if she were trying to wrap them around the earth" (353).
I smell scandal. I'd love to know what the critics said of this story when it was first published.
A question I like to ask often when reading texts is whether the author is simply being a story teller, or whether there's a hidden agenda in the subtext. The underlying theme, as we call it. It's ironic that Mrs. May is the one who gets stabbed by the bull at the end since she was the one who least deserved it. Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying anyone deserves to be stabbed by a bull at all, save for the people who run through the streets of Spain every year.
However, my point is that perhaps this story is about come-uppances. It's hard to ignore the racial theme going on in the story. Therefore, to view Mrs. May and the Greenleaf's as representatives of their individual races isn't that much of a far fetched idea. Could it be that through the stabbing of Mrs. May, O'Connor is trying to establish the idea of whites getting what they deserved after repeatedly subjugating the blacks? The story is set in the South after all. What do you think?
It took every bit of strength I had to not title this post "Are We There Yet!" Incidentally, I love satires. Just to reiterate, a satire is a style of expression that points to relevant issues in society through mockery. Thus far, my favourite satirists have been Hector Hugo Munro, pen named Saki, George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde. Satirists, I think, are avid people watchers, even more so than writers of other genres because there's a lot of fun in just sitting back and watching people make fools out of themselves.
It never ceases to amaze me how deeply entrenched people can get in the materialistic world. The showbiz isn't limited just to the stage. We dress up, act "civilized" in public and seek to please ourselves with the "finest luxury" in the world, all for our fifteen minutes of fame under the glaring spotlight of society.
It's interesting to note that the young bride in the story is more concerned about the way her hat looks on her than she is with her wedding that took place not three hours ago.
"'Oh really?' she said. 'Well, that's nice. That's lovely. The first thing you say to me, as soon as you get me off on a train away from my family and everything, is that you don't like my hat. The first thing you say to your wife is you think she has terrible taste in hats. That's nice, isn't it?'" (130)
What a nag! If I was to get married to a man like that, I'd have to shoot myself. And yes, there are plenty of men out there who are just as concerned with their appearances as she is. By the way, if an author can illicit a strong reaction from the audience, then its time to stand up and applaud her skill and depth of understanding of human relations and characters.
Her hat is not just her crowning glory, it is also a symbol of her wealth and prestige. She can't for the life of her comprehend why her husband would like a hat that was considerbaly less expensive than the one she wore.
"'What you don't seem to realize,' she said. 'is this hat cost twenty-two dollars. Twenty-two dollars. And that horrible old blue thing you think you're so crazy about, that cost three ninety-five'" (131).
Pure vanity here. Pure vanity. For all of her vanity, Parker's certainly managed to poke fun at almost everyone who travels in the upper class social circles. Manipulative, conniving, and given to vanity like Cleopatra and Ceaser. Beautiful.
There's something to be said about the awakening of insight in a rustic world. It lies very low, almost slipping by the reader quiet and unnoticed. Jean Toomer points to the changing of a time, perhaps the ending of an era, through the seemingly insignificant events in the setting of the story.
"Chickens woke up, and cackled. Intermittently, all over the country-side dogs barked and roosters crowed as if heralding a weird dawn or some ungodly awakening. The women sang lustily. Their songs were cottonwads to stop their ears. [...] The moon was rising towards a thick cloud-bank which would soon hide it" (61).
There's a strong indication here of "something" finally waking up to see the light. Perhaps Louisa has finally understood who the right man is for her. Perhaps she realizes that she's not attracted or attached to either one. Considering the story was written in 1923, perhaps the author is subtly pointing to a slow building movement against racism. It intrigues me that her descriptions, the language she uses for dialogue, and the short poem is are distinctly racist.
"Red nigger moon. Sinner!
Blood burning moon. Sinner!
Come out that fact'ry door."
Definitely a taboo word up there. It's almost as if she's asking the blacks to rise up against their oppression. There's definitely more than character analysis to the stories we've read. I'd love to hear what the class thought about this.