Tag: literary criticism

Review of A Wizard of Earthsea

I’d first read Ursula K. LeGuin’s book The Dispossessed several years ago. Though I loved the book, I’d departed from my normal habit – once I’d find an author I like I read all their books – as I’ve never wholly resonated with fantasy literature. Despite my reservations and with some encouragement, I decided to read A Wizard of Earthsea.

The novella is in its essence a variant of the hero’s tale as described by Joseph Campbell as well as a journey story. Le Guin, however, expands upon Campbell’s model by making ingenuity and erudition as components of a heroes’ development. I resonate with this as despite its fantastical setting these are indeed the components required for modern heroes. Super strength, agility and other such brute qualities may make up the majority of the “hero” tales of Hollywood cinema, but such an emphasis in cultural production ignores the greater life conditions win by hard and social scientists.

The plot itself is rather simple. A “special” young boy, who earns the nickname Sparrowhawk, attracts the attention of an older, wiser magician following his use of a simple spell to save his village from invaders. He goes off for training due to a number of “innate qualities” that only the older magician is able to see and despite that latter’s reservations (Star Wars?). After a major accident that disfigures him and kills another, he adopts a new humility and gains a new sense of responsibility (Spiderman?).

This simple distillation of plot, however, ignores the imaginative descriptions of the various places and peoples that live on the archipelago of the Earthsea. Part of my aversion to fantasy in general was the supernatural elements – as I prefer social realism and science fiction – however the magical framework that Le Guin describes has an aura of basic plausibility to it that makes it easy to suspend my normally incredulous disbelief in the bizarre and paranormal.

One of the components that I enjoyed of the book was the good use of foreshadowing. Long before the main confrontation I’d figured out the symbolic meaning behind the evil that Ged had unleashed. Even prior to that specific incident there are many moments where the narrator make a brief assessment of Ged’s potentially problematic characteristics. Once the significance is revealed the prior instances of struggle – between Ged and a dragon, between Ged and another magician under the influence of a devious Old Power – take on more clearly moralistic characteristics that echo other instances of temptation.

I’d read in several reviews of Le Guin’s work that her dragons represent a meaningful divergence and complication of their normal depiction in literature. As I only read one brief exchange between man and dragon here and as I deeply enjoyed the story, the setting and the characters I am now interested in reading the rest of the saga.

Review of Billy Bathgate

E. L. Doctorow’s novel Billy Bathgate is a first person point of view account of a 15 year-old Bronx boy who has been raised by his mother as his father abandoned him. Set in the 1930s, Billy is distinguished from his peers by his cleverness and daring. While juggling one day, a metaphor for his dexterity and speed both physically and mentally, he comes to the attention of the most notorious local gangsters, Mr. Schultz, who is known colloquially as The Dutchman. Billy’s receipt of ten dollars for his skills starts him on a path away from his childhood friends into that gang soon even becomes Mr. Schultz’s protégé. Billy’s fondness for the criminal syndicate that he soon enters is clearly linked to his upbringing in grinding poverty, his lack of father and feelings of distinction from those in his neighborhood.

One of the things that I enjoyed about the book was the manner in which the narrator, Billy, is able to express a complexity of thought that is unlikely for him to have without it seeming unrealistic. It makes for more compelling introspective monologues and makes the other characters increasing reliance upon a child seem more believable. While this is part of his carriage as a character – someone smarter and more able than other – he is not some untouchable character on a wholly upward ascent. It is there, in those moments when Billy’s ego is hurt that allows him access to the greatest insight. He sees what’s going on as an outsider, a child not yet fully involved in the decision making apparatus that he’s attached himself, yet also as an insider for he has greater access to what’s going on than most. This tension is both a sort of anxiety for him and, in the end, a source of security.

If I were to give the book a feminist reading I’d say that the relationships that Billy and the other male characters have with women all fit into the category of plain objectification. But I would also qualify this as endemic to the time and complicated by a variety of circumstances. For instance Drew, the lover of Bo, Mr. Schultz and later Billy, presents a complicated case requiring more depth of analysis. While she does seem to be the typical rich party girl in the mix with the wrong crowd, she is also able to exercise a large degree of autonomy and prescience over her situation. Thus she knows that at times she is in danger, she still continues to stay amongst them out of an affected, privileged boredom until her position there is no longer tenable. Billy’s mother, in contrast, suffers from some mental derangement, is largely absent once he begins this new life and then is someone that needs to be taken care of rather than is able to take care of Billy. The brief “love” between an adolescent prostitute and Billy also bolsters this notion of women as objects but also is complicated enough so as to blur any clear classification.

One of the more interesting aspects of the novel to me is that as I’ve just finished writing my novel’s first part on Jesse, I see so many overlapping plot elements within our two works. Now there’s a number of major differences and the stylistic elements between my and Doctorow’s work is great – but I’m still amused by this. I think in a way it has to do with something that is propounded by Otto Berman in the book. When he is speaking with Billy he tells him how all the number in the books that he has with information related to Dutch Schultz’s various illegal doings could be thrown up into the air and then come back down on the page and tell a whole other story. I’m dealing with many of the same variables so there’s really only a limited number of ways that the interactions can come together. Additionally, that this story can be considered literature while having many of the same elements that I have in mine, though admittedly not in as graphic detail as I use, gives me premature hope against imagined future detractors.

Reading by Roxane Gay

Today I went to see Roxanne Gay read several selections from her books Bad Feminist and An Untamed State at Florida Atlantic University. I enjoyed the readings from the novel very much and intend at some time in the near future to buy and read An Untamed State. The readings from Bad Feminist were compelling and yet light-hearted, playfully witty and yet with an implied gravitas.

I was most amused by her cavalier attitude towards the questions that followed her reading. The MFA students all asked about her writing process, which she was quick to answer dismissively. Another asked about her relation to Haiti, where her parents are from. I was simultaneously pleased and disappointed with her identification as a privileged person unable to speak about the realities there. True she can’t authentically speak as an envoy of some sort as it relates to the conditions of the major underclass there as her family are part of the elite, but this does not mean that she is unable to speak about such realities. Physical location of birth, a point which Gay referred to thrice in her identification as “Haitian-American”, and class do not themselves prevent people from speaking about others realities – otherwise there would be exceptionally prohibitive limits on various academic disciplines such as History, Political Science, Art, etc. They are, however, qualifiers that contextualize the discourse about speech acts made about the region/time.

With this in mind I think it would have been interested to discuss with Roxane about how it is that her novel An Untamed State came into being as Mireile, the novel’s protagonist, seems to be almost a stand in for her own fears from having visited the country repeatedly and being unable to hide from herself that her family was part of the ruling elite. From her reading and my subsequent perusal of articles detailing the plot of the novel, this makes the depiction of Haitians as a people of extreme violence take on an interesting valence. She is telling a story, yes, but perhaps projecting her own fears of location. Perhaps this is why she does not make the effort to learn about events there, it is “that which shall not be named”. At the time, however, I didn’t ask this. Instead I followed up on her comment that she liked the Ying Yang Twins by asking what other rap artists she liked – especially fitting as I was wearing my Run The Trap hat due to the frigid air outside. She said that she liked Common, Lil John and Usher and then proceeded to make multiple humorous comments about the narrative implausibility of Usher’s song “I Don’t Mind”.