a magnificent distraction

First impression: Reed's novel reminds me of Gerald Vizenor's writing. It's incredibly complex, dense, and crazy -- and he makes up his own language. Just as Vizenor talks about Postindian survivance and trickster tales, Reed talks about mumbo jumbo and HooDoo culture. I loved it. I can't wait to read more Reed -- he's amazing. A new favorite!

Okay, so my more intelligent-sounding thoughts? Yikes, where do I even begin. I hate to say it, but I feel like I was just skimming the surface with my understanding of what was happening in this book. I mean, I got the basic storyline, but there was so much going on all at once that I felt like I was in a little over my head. But I'll do my best. I think the end of the novel was really the crucial part, as far as what Reed wanted to accomplish here. I mean, the idea that the Jes Grew pandemic was sweeping the nation, making everyone sing and dance and have a good ol' time (and that these longstanding white-based organizations wanted so desperately to stop it that they [plot spoiler!!] enacted the Great Depression just to shut it down) was entertaining and an interesting thought experiment (I don't mean that in a demeaning way). But it was really the end when Papa LaBas and Black Herman went to arrest/apprehend Hinkle Von Vampton and Hubert "Safecracker" Gould that we get the full backstory of Jes Grew and the deeper historical implications of the fight against this "disease." And of course, you know I'm always a fan of this kind of historical rewriting -- Reed takes all these ideas and cultural elements traditionally attributed to European (read: white) progress and turns them on their heads by illustrating how they all stem from African (Egypt, in most cases). This is another move that made me think of Vizenor, just because I think both authors are doing something similar here: the move to claim credit for the invention of these things (and to discredit other things, like Jesus...who I believe they referred to as a charlatan) and to expose the theft of African culture by Europeans is a way of decentering the West and pointing out that western ideas of "civilization" have in fact led to widespread barbarity throughout history, and that there's something wrong with the histories we tell ourselves about the past.

In any case, you have to read this one! It's really quite incredible, and while it's dense and took me a few days to read, it was well worth it! I may end up an IR junkie, adding him to my list of greats like Gerald Vizenor, Karen Tei Yamashita, and JK Rowling (yes, I just lumped all those authors together).

This novel made an interesting statement about history. Ursa's position in life is compressed by the collective histories of her Great Gram, her Grandmama, and her mother and their relationships with men (most significantly, the Portuguese slave owner, Corregidora). Instead of being able to live her own life, Ursa's life is driven by the women in her family and their instructions to her to produce "generations" and pass their histories down to those generations. However, because of this history that is constantly bearing down upon her, she's unable to truly give herself over to love. Granted, I wouldn't really deem the men in her life as being worthy of her love, but it seems like she's unable to love fully even when she thinks she wants to. Jones' decision to (plot spoiler!!) put Ursa in the situation where she is physically incapable of bearing her generations complicates her life by bringing into question not only her purpose in life, but also the way she lived her life up to the point at which Mutt's abuse caused the loss of her womb. By putting this particular character into a situation that prohibits her from passing on her history, her origins, Jones' novel interrogates the significance of history in the lives of contemporary African American people. Ursa's character has been damaged by her history; she lives her life simultaneously attached to the man who enslaved her great-grandmother and her grandmother (Corregidora, whose name she retains even in marriage and whose photograph is one of her few possessions) and also hating him (spreading word of his misdeeds and evil ways to those in her life). However, when Mutt's jealousy results in the loss of her womb (and her unborn baby), she is forced to reevaluate her life and the relationships she's had. She eventually seeks out her mother's history, which has also been buried beneath the Corregidora history, as a means by which to find a way to live her life outside of Corregidora-history. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Ursa's life is a testament to the need to move forward, even though her family history is important and shouldn't necessarily be forgotten or erased.

On another note, I must admit that Ursa's character was a bit difficult to get along with. She reminded me of Alice Walker's character, Celie, in The Color Purple in that both Ursa and Celie often fail to react visibly to the people around them. However, where Celie gave the reader an indication of her emotions, Ursa's character is far more distant and often remains frustratingly impenetrable even to the reader, leaving us as much in the dark about her emotions as the other characters are. While this was somewhat unpleasant to endure (especially as a reader who likes to have a close relationship with the protagonist), it did seem to serve a purpose: the reader had no more insight into Ursa's interior than Mutt or Tadpole or Cat. In fact, while Ursa was relatively likable, she was also somewhat irritating (in a manner similar to Arvay in Zora Neale Hurston's Seraph on the Suwanee) in that she seemed to have some closed-minded views (especially regarding Cat and her sexuality) that were in such stark contradiction to what the other characters deserved that it was sometimes difficult to follow her through her life. Overall, though, I think Ursa's lack of transparency further illustrates the way she was raised to fulfill a singular purpose: make generations, pass on the history of Corregidora. Her emotionless style of living reflects the history she's supposed to rail against, but has actually allowed to become part of her. Just as her Great Gram was forced into prostitution by Corregidora and her Grandmama was forced into concubinage by the same man, so Ursa has -- like her mother before her -- given up the part of her that can allow her to freely give her love and resigned herself to a life of sexual captivity. The men in her life use her sexuality against her, and eventually she comes to realize that she'll have to play their game. This makes me uncertain of what to do with the ending. I'll admit that it seemed...out of place. I didn't think she'd ever (mega plot spoiler!!) go back to Mutt, and I certainly didn't think she'd do it in the way she did. I'm not sure if I should be happy because I think she might have regained control of her own sexuality, or if I should be unhappy because Mutt's still getting her to do what he wants her to, and she's still stuck trying to figure out what it is that will please him. I want to say it's the former, but I think it might actually be the latter.

I can't remember the last time I read this novel, but I know it was nearly a decade ago. It's funny, but I remembered where the title came from (an African American girl who wished for blue eyes) but not the rest of the plot. I found myself very interested in the way Morrison employed the sort of revised Dick-and-Jane narrative throughout the novel. The first two pages of the novel are a brief Dick-and-Jane story that is repeated three times -- the first in its normal format, the second without punctuation, and the third without punctuation or spaces between words. This reading, I realized that when she opens certain chapters with sections from these first two pages, the snatches of Dick-and-Jane narrative she opens the chapters with actually bring something to bear on the plot events of those chapters. In other words, she takes this seemingly-innocent child's story and brings it to bear on the rest of the novel. When she uses an excerpt from it to start a chapter, it highlights one aspect of that chapter and brings the reader's attention into focus around that aspect of the chapter. For example, she includes the following snippet at the beginning of a chapter in which we meet a woman whose relationship with her cat is more important to her and more intimate than her relationship with her husband and that with her son:

SEETHECATITGOESMEOWMEOWCOM
EANDPLAYCOMEPLAYWITHJANETHE
KITTENWILLNOTPLAYPLAYPLAYPLA (81)

Interestingly, she often uses these passages ironically. For instance, the chapter where we learn that (plot spoilers ahead!!) Pecola's mother doesn't really like her children, and that she prefers the little white girl whose family she works for, we get an excerpt that reads:

SEETHEMOTHERMOTHERISVERYNICEMO
THERWILLYOUPLAYWITHJANEMOTH
ERLAUGHSLAUGHMOTHERLAUGHLA (110)

By situating this passage at the beginning of the chapter, Morrison foregrounds the mother-daughter relationship that will become so crucial in this chapter. The fact that Pecola's mother doesn't like her children and resents Pecola for her ugliness from the day she is born becomes extremely ironic in light of this passage that includes a laughing and playful mother. The irony is stronger and harder to deal with in the chapter about Pecola's father, Cholly. The opening excerpt (132) includes a big, strong, smiling father. This portrait of familial happiness is grossly distorted as the chapter leads up to Cholly's rape(s) of his own daughter. The way Morrison writes the passages so that they're bleeding together also lends a certain creepiness to them. The repeated lines, such as "laugh, Mother, laugh" turn into zombie-like commands that make the passages erie instead of cheerful. This mood permeates the entire novel, and really makes the reader see just how wrong things have gone in Pecola's life. The twisting of the Dick-and-Jane narrative underlines the twisting of "normal" family roles (parents as loving protectors of their children) so that the world these children live in becomes distorted -- a minefield of dangers where dangers should not exist.

Angelou's poetry is a lot easier for me to follow than other kinds of poetry (ahem, lyric poetry, ahem) because each poem tells a story. I know, I've said this before. I think I might have said it for each and every last one of the poetry collections I've written about in this blog. Well, there it is -- the bare truth. I like narrative poetry. So, back to Maya Angelou.... Of course, her poems are also different in that the stories they tell are not always of a specific individual, but of a somewhat abstract, more general individual. Oftentimes, the poems appear to be about African Americans in general (as opposed to a specific person), which is of course highlighted by Angelou's interest in the African American experience, history, and culture. Take the title poem, "Still I Rise." It's a good example of a lot of the things I've been talking about here. While the narrative "I" appears to be an individual, the poem is general enough that there are no specifics about this person other than their race (African American). The last two stanzas provide a good example of what I'm talking about:

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling adn swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously cear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

This poem also brings up the unique rhythms Angelou uses. Okay, so maybe I can't call them "unique" so much as I can say they're not conforming to any rigid forms of poetry (sonnets, ballads, etc.) but instead have a rhythm all their own. She uses a lot of rhyming in her poems, but she seems to like to play with how she uses rhyme. It's not always coming in the form of rhyming couplets or rigid internal rhyme scheme. Instead, it's (again) a very rhythmic rhyming that is tailored to each specific poem. Within one poem, she might switch up the rhyme scheme from stanza to stanza. She does this in "Life Doesn't Frighten Me" -- some of the end rhymes (the -all sound, for instance) occur throughout the entire poem rather than just one stanza, while other end rhymes come in and out for single instances. The first stanza reads:

Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn't frighten me at all

Obviously, here the rhyme scheme is fairly simple. However, the third stanza is different:

I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won't cry
So they fly
I just smile
They go wild
Life doesn't frighten me at all.

Here, not only is the rhyme scheme different (rhyming couplets, essentially), but the structure is different enough that it could appear to be from a different poem entirely. The 3-words-per-line format is interesting, and reminds me of Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool" in the way it truncates language and makes its own kind of linguistic sense. Suffice it to say, I enjoyed this collection immensely (a true feat for a poetically intimidated reader like myself).

What an interesting premise -- I'm really interested in the conflation of past and present, the active role required by the protagonist to ensure her own existence, the interaction between contemporary life and history. I had a concern that Butler's novel had the potential to turn into a thought experiment with little depth or serious consideration of the matter. However, it definitely was much more than a simple thought experiment. Instead of just asking what might happen if a modern African American woman suddenly found herself in the antebellum South, Butler pushes the novel to get at some much deeper issues. For instance, she interrogates the idea that African Americans accepted their slavery when they could have fought harder and gotten out of it by showing how her characters (even a modern American woman) are coerced into their roles on top of the physical threats and dangers as well as the legal and vigilante repercussions surrounding any "disobedience." By giving Dana a white husband, Butler further complicates the situation by forcing the reader to consider the situation from both sides of the color line. It would have been interesting if she had made her protagonist an African American man who happened to be married to a white woman, but it also would have changed the entire plot (obviously). I did find myself wishing for this at some points just because Kevin's race lent itself so easily and simply to the master/slave structure, and because Dana's role as caretaker sometimes rubbed me the wrong way (to be fair, these are my own anti-domestic issues coming out, not anything Butler did).

I remain fascinated by Butler's decision to have the time shifts come about in moments of near-death. I'm still a bit puzzled by it, but find it interesting that she chose to focus in on these dangerous moments -- these times when the characters feel that they are in mortal peril. It's interesting that Rufus finds himself in these situations as often as (or more often than) Dana (if she were allowed to live her own life without being pulled back into her past). I was also curious about her decision for Dana to never reveal her ancestry to Rufus, even when (plot spoiler!!) he was about to try to rape her. Perhaps it's unreasonable to expect that to have made a difference for him, but it's also something that felt like a loose thread.

One last thing: Butler selected Rufus and Dana with great care, and the results are this complex novel filled with moral gray moments. By beginning with Rufus as a boy -- a boy who clearly has the potential to be kind and treat people fairly -- Butler emphasizes the deep structural racism of American culture in the antebellum South and the ways that even kind-hearted white people might ultimately be nurtured out of their natures (if that makes sense). Also, but thrusting a strong contemporary African American woman back into the past and gradually forcing her into slavery, she confronts certain notions (as discussed above) that attempt to justify slavery (to an extent). Also, by illustrating the many physical and emotional forms of coercion placed upon each slave (as recognized by the increasingly helpless Dana -- made more and more helpless as she comes to care deeply for the other African Americans on the plantation), she brings the reader to an understanding of the many pressures and dangers facing all of them.

It's been almost a decade since I first read this book, and I remember it being a lot more confusing than it was this time around (it's really weird to read something that you know confused and eluded you at one point in time, but to enjoy it and find it a doable read). Guess that means I've picked up some knowledge and maybe even some skills over the years. :)

Okay, so what I was really intrigued by in this book was the symbolism. Josiah's cattle -- a tough, smart breed of animal that will survive the toughest conditions; a breed native to the land and adaptable to boot -- have so many ties to the Native Americans in the novel that the connection is impossible not to make. Silko presents a very specific perspective on the situation: Native Americans must be willing and able to adapt, and must not forget their culture (which also must remain adaptable) if they are going to find a way to survive in this nightmare world created by the white people. In other words, she maintains the point of view that the culture is essential, but that the world has changed and the culture must change to survive in that world. She's not assimilationist by any means, but she's not preservationist either. The characters, especially Tayo, have to come to terms with the way things have changed, and to find ways to make the culture continue to be relevant to their lives.

Okay, so there's also this odd thing with blue going on here. I feel like I'm missing something after having recently read Vizenor (whose two novels I've read are saturated with blue) and now coming across these female characters in blue dresses with blue shawls and blue shoes and blue doors and blue blankets. Is there any kind of cultural significance with regards to this color, or is this just a coincidence? I mean, Vizenor and Silko are not affiliated with the same tribes, so this seems a bit of a stretch. Well, it's something for me to look into in the future, and to puzzle over in the present.

Finally, this novel (like Momaday's House Made of Dawn) focuses on a Native American man who has just returned from fighting in World War II, and is struggling to find a way to live again. While Momaday's Abel, like Silko's Tayo, is initially unable to find a niche and turns to alcohol as a quick fix, both characters find some degree of hope for their futures -- Tayo more so than Abel. Silko's novel is much more openly critical of the social and historical role American colonizers played (and continue to play) with regards to Native American life and culture. In fact, there are moments in Ceremony where the narrative becomes almost hostile toward white people, explaining their existence as the result of witchery and likening them to a destructive plague or force that is running its course but will ultimately be forced to recede once again.

This collection consists of three of Geiogamah's plays: The Body Indian, Foghorn, and 49. This was my second reading of the collection, and it was a very different experience.

The first time I read The Body Indian, I had a really strong reaction against it. I remember being quite horrified at the way Bobby was repeatedly "rolled" by these people who claim to be his friends and/or kin...so horrified that I'm not sure I picked up on some of the other aspects of the play. This time around, I was a lot more interested by Geiogamah's stage directions, and his focus on the hodgepodge of relationships between the characters...as well as what these relationships mean with regards to the characters' actions. The strongest example of this is Howard's order (plot spoiler!!) that Bobby's leg be removed and pawned for money to buy wine with. The action is abhorrent...but the words are tender. Howard reminds everyone else that Bobby gets the DTs when he goes without drink for too long, and actually quotes Bobby's words from a previous incident where he talked about how horrible he felt during that process. The first time I read it, I was full of incriminating anger against Howard...but this time, I wasn't so sure. James is the only one who expresses disgust at Howard's actions, but he goes along with it anyway -- not to mention, James is a pretty despicable character himself, and unlike the others who seem unaware of what they've done, James is very conscious of having robbed Bobby so he could go out for a night on the town. There was much more "gray" in my reading this time around, and Geiogamah's plays left me with a lot more to ponder.

When it comes to Foghorn, Geiogamah was undeniably heavy-handed in his politicking. Of course, the first time I read it I was upset by The Body Indian and Foghorn gave me the perfect way to vent my anger. This time, I was a little disappointed by the aggression of Geiogamah's critique because I thought his message was weakened a bit by scenes such as the one where the bull is wiping his butt with the broken treaties. Interesting, certainly, but so over-the-top mildly-tasteless in its comedy that it's hard to take it seriously (this without having seen it in person, to be fair). At the same time, I still enjoyed most of the scenes, and found it an interesting and important play for what it has to say about the history of Native American relations in the good ol' US of A.

Finally, there's 49. Similar to the first time I read this, I struggled to figure out what Geiogamah was trying to say. This time around, however, I was really struck by the contradictions inherent in the policemen's actions: they're working really hard to surround these kids and set up a flawless sting-style operation, but when a group of teenagers gets in an accident on one of the country roads very close to the 49, there's no response from law enforcement. Of course, it could be argued that nobody called it in, these were the days before cell phones, etc., but since the police had the location completely surrounded from all directions it opens up some questions about whether or not they knew, why they didn't respond, and what their true purposes are (they continue to let on that they're doing this for the good of the kids and the public, but they simultaneously rattle off numbers of jailed Indians like a sleezeball counting up the notches on his bed). In other words, I left with a lot more to think about this time around.

*Note: While the book that includes these three plays was published in 1980, I've categorized the text under the 1970's because of the original performance dates of the plays. The Body Indian was first performed in 1972, Foghorn was performed in 1973, and 49 in 1975.

The structure of this novel is really interesting -- it's divided into six chapters (kind of), but each "chapter" also has one or two shorter sections attached to it that are more abstract and often tell the stories of fabled and/or historical Chinese figures. These shorter sections aside, the six main chapters revolve around the story of different male relations in the narrator's life, and each of those men lives through some of the historically famous events of Chinese American men and of Chinese men in America. Through them, we experience the planting and farming of the sugar cane fields in Hawai'i, the building of the transcontintental railroad, the process of immigration and Angel Island, the Vietnam War, and the experience of trying to get by in America while family members who remained in China continue to ask for help (especially during the Cultural Revolution). It's interesting that Kingston doesn't give us these chapters in order, but instead begins with the story of the narrator's father when he first came to America and ends with her brother upon his return from the Vietnam War. In between these two narratives, she also gives us a second narrative about the narrator's father -- one that picks up after the first one left off -- as well as the stories of several of the narrator's male ancestors. But it's the shorter pieces that are more interesting. These shorter pieces present the reader with folk heroes, but also with the history of Chinese immigration to America ("The Laws") and a rewriting of Robinson Crusoe (in "The Adventures of Lo Bun Sun") with a Chinese man as the main character. While there's a possibility that Kingston's use of myths could have gone awry and exoticized or mysticized Chinese people as "others," I don't think she did. I think she successfully used these in-between stories as a means by which to rethink the history of Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans.

Another aspect of the novel that I thought was really interesting is evident in the title: China Men. That is, this novel's focus revolves around men, even though the narrator appears to be a woman. It takes a close look at the narrator's father (twice), grandfather, great-grandfather, brother, and (in the chapter called "The Making of More Americans") several different men in her life (another uncle, a non-blood uncle, etc.). Women, therefore, are portrayed as obligations most of the time -- someone the men have to return to, report to, send money to -- but are rarely heard from. Even the in-between chapters, the main characters are men. This is not to say that Kingston is failing to represent women, or that she's portraying them negatively -- it's simply to say that she's not interested in them for the purposes of this novel, and so we only see/hear them through the men. I'll have to reread The Woman Warrior before I can comment further on this.

This play was much more abstract than I originally expected. I'll admit that I'm still puzzled by the idea of the "Chickencoop Chinaman." Chin introduces this character in the very first scene, when Tam says that he is "THE NOTORIOUS ONE AND ONLY CHICKENCOOP CHINAMAN HIMSELF" -- the "result of a pile of pork chop suey thrown up into the chickencoop in the dead of night and the riot of dark birds, night cocks and insomniac nympho hens running after strange food that followed" (7). He says that "in the beginning there was the Word! Then there was me! And the Word was CHINAMAN. And there was me. [...] I lived the Word! The Word is my heritage" (6). He goes on to say that he was not born: "Created! Not born. No more born than the heaven and earth. No more born than nylon or acrylic. For I am a Chinaman! A miracle synthetic" (8). So I get that he's supposed to be more a product of his environment than the result of generations of cultural history -- he's born of a word, the product of a mad night in an Oakland chickencoop. But is that it? It hardly seems like Chin would continue bringing up this Chickencoop Chinaman thing throughout the entire play if there wasn't more to it than that. I'm stuck, though. What else could it mean? What is the deeper meaning? Maybe there isn't one??

Okay, so on to something I have more conclusions about. There's this whole idea of cultural blending that continues to plague the play. Tam's speech is described as jumping "between black and white rhythms and accents" (6), and when he meets Charley Popcorn, the old man is thoroughly confused. Popcorn tells Tam, "The way you talked, why, I took you for colored over the phone. [...] Why would a Chinese talk like a colored man?" (40) -- a question that Kenji understands more thoroughly. Kenji's nickname is "BlackJap Kenji" because he "hated yellow-people" (20) and also talks like Tam does. But Tam's nickname was "Tampax" -- a nickname that grew out of another nickname: "Ragmouth" for his "fancy yakity yak" (26). The speech patters aren't the only indication of different cultures rubbing off on each other. Kenji's apartment itself is a visual indication of the influences that informed him: "Tatami on the floor. The walls are covered with posters of black country, blues and jazz musicians that clash with the few Japanese prints and art objects" (9). And of course, there's Lee herself -- a woman who's at least part Chinese, but has been passing as white. In fact, even her ex-husband thinks she's entirely white -- Tam is the only one who realizes she's not. Despite that, she's supposedly on her way to Africa and gets offended when other people try to criticize Blacks. Chin makes an interesting statement about what it means to be American, what it means to be Asian American, African American, etc. -- and how these different identities relate to and rub against each other.

Finally, how can I pass over the Lone Ranger and Tonto? Here's Tonto, played by the same actor who plays Tom. But when he was growing up, Tam was certain that the Lone Ranger was Chinese. He surfed the radio waves listening for a Chinese presence, and he thought he'd found it in the Lone Ranger: "I heard of the masked man. And I listened to him. And in the Sunday funnies he had black hair, and Chinatown was nothing but black hair, and for years, listen, years! I grew blind looking hard through the holes of his funnypaper mask for slanty eyes. Slanty eyes, boys! You see, I knew, children, I knew with all my heart's insight [...] he wore that mask to hide his Asian eyes! And that made sense of me. I knew he wore a red shirt for good luck. I knew he rode a white horse named Silver cuz white be our color of death. [...] And he was lucky Chinaman vengeance on the West...and silver bullets cuz death for a Chinaman is always expensive. [...] I knew the Lone Ranger was the CHINESE AMERICAN BOY of the radio I'd looked for" (32). But when the Lone Ranger turns out to be an old, white racist and Tonto is willing to butcher his perfectly good English to speak in the broken English the Lone Ranger insists he use, Tam is deeply injured (as symbolized by the gunshot to his hand -- a significant choice of places on the body since Tam is an aspiring author).

Murayama's novel(la) may be a short one, but it's not lacking in substance. One aspect I am very interested in is the way Murayama uses language. The novel is written in English...but...the English used is often pidgin English, incorporating Hawaiian words, phrases, and slang in addition to words and sentences in Japanese (with translations following in parenthesis). This doesn't alienate the reader, but it definitely makes them aware of their relationship to this story and its characters -- for myself, not being from Hawaii or of Japanese descent, I was reminded that this was someone else's world, someone else's culture. For someone who is from Hawaii and/or of Japanese descent, the experience of reading this novel would be much different. Since one of the novel's primary themes revolves around issues of nationality vs. cultural heritage, the use of language creates a kind of tension that helps complicate this idea. The protagonist is an American citizen, but the language he uses is a medley representing different heritages (one of which is Hawaiian -- something he doesn't have in his blood). This subtly brings up the idea of America as melting pot, and serves as a nice counterbalance to the post-Pearl Harbor view of anyone of Japanese ancestry (regardless of nationality or citizenship) is unable to assimilate and is actually incapable of learning English.

I was also really interested by the motif of the body in this novel. There is a struggle between the mind and the body throughout the story, as Tosh and Kiyo are both highly intelligent, but are unable to pursue an education and are forced to do manual labor instead. The title itself brings up Tosh's argument about how he just wants to be in control of his own body, his own life. Tosh's and Kiyo's attempts to become successful boxers (relying on their bodies without the accompaniment of their minds) indicate their reliance on their bodies to free them from their situation. At one point, Kiyo even says that he has no other option -- schooling won't get him a good enough job, and neither will anything else he could do. Most of the other eldest sons in the camp have given up on their minds (never enjoyed school, gave into their parents' pressure to be filial without questioning the system, etc.) and labored in the fields solely with their bodies. When Kiyo joins the military, he makes a trade: he signs his body over to the military in order to release it from the bonds of his filial duty. It is only by bartering with his physical self that he is able to simultaneously escape and fulfill his filial duties. But the specific means by which he gets the money -- learning to "padroll" (a method of cheating by knowing the odds and learning to throw the dice a certain way) -- revolves around physical prowess combined with mental proficiency. He has to be able to train himself to throw in a particular manner, relying on his movements and his brain to win the money his family needs. Murayama represents the body and the mind as being two great but different powers: the body is the physical embodiment of self that cannot be separated from the intellect (which Tosh and Kiyo have in abundance, but are never able to capitalize on). It is only by using BOTH the body and the mind that Kiyo is able to move forward with his life.

This book had a lot of things going on. It took up politics on so many levels (Chávez and his unions, immigration, loyalty, family, etc.), and there were times when this did stretch the story a little thin for me. However, I think that for the most part, it makes a really strong point about these things by using its characters to illustrate various points. The main character, Roberto, is (for the most part) very likable. Because of this, when Roberto struggles to understand certain things (like why illegal Mexican farm workers might support Chávez and his cause intellectually, but are unable to support it in any other way) the reader comes to an understanding with him.

Villaseñor also uses an interesting formal technique: after each chapter, there is a page that has an italicized passage on it. These italicized passages relate to the story in different ways (at times, thematically; at other times, they connect directly with the plot), but they appear to be entirely nonfictional. They are certainly not related to the main characters, and are often quoting news sources, interviews, and other such narratives. These are the most overtly political passages of the novel, and the way they interact with the bulk of the novel (the fictional chapters) is really interesting. I wonder how much of the politics would have gotten through without these italicized blurbs. Because the narrative scope pulls away from Ricardo in these passages, they push the reader to really see a larger picture instead of focusing on Ricardo's unique (and fictional) experience. In some ways, they pull the reader out of the "dream" and hit them over the head with the fact that the rest of the book is simply inspired by these realities, but not real.

Overall, I thought the book was very enjoyable. The back cover tells me that some critics have compared Villaseñor's style to Steinbeck's, and while I agree that it is deceptive in that it appears very simple when in fact the story itself is very complex, I also couldn't help but wonder if someone just said that because at one point the characters end up in the Salinas Valley. At the same time, I enjoy Steinbeck and I enjoyed Villaseñor, so perhaps there's more to that connection than I'm considering here.