Well, here we are again. It seems like the week just flies by so darn fast and once again, I’ve yet to get through this week’s book. Of course my procrastination coupled with dealing with a very sick cat recovering from a major surgery, continued training of a rambunctious 18 week old puppy, and my insane idea to adopt another 6 month old puppy all in this past week has not helped me one bit with getting homework done. But I digress…
As usual I am both intrigued and frustrated with this novel already. I’m intrigued because I think the plot seems very interesting and I’m trying to understand the characters. I’m frustrated because once again, this novel is so darn chaotic and feels so unstructured. I have a hard time telling what time frame we’re in and what’s real, what’s imagined, and what’s a memory from the narrator’s point of view. I started thinking about this style of writing and realized, at least in my opinion, all of the books we’ve read thus far seem to have this in common. They just don’t read like a typical novel. I think we really discussed this in the first week of class, but apparently I’m just now really realizing that this seems to hold true for every book we’ve read so far. Additionally there always seems to be so much anger and confusion in these books. Obviously this relates nicely to the fact that Ireland’s history has followed this theme as well; chaotic, unstructured, angry confusion. Always giving a sense of not really knowing where you belong or fit in and never really having that “good” vibe from a strong sense of “home”.
The narrator states,
“This is all my romance, of course. Everyone had a beautiful grandmother- something to do with sepia and the orange blossom in their hair” (Enright p 21).
What does this mean? I can’t quite tell if what she has said previously about Ada and Nugent really happened or if Veronica is just imagining that this is how it would have been. At some points when discussing her grandmother she seems to adore her while at others she seems to think she was too forward, proud, or flirty.
As I stated before, it also seems that the narrator is very angry and jaded. She almost seemed to get some sort of joy out of being the one to tell her mother about her brother’s death. She remembered her school days and seemed ashamed and angry at her parent’s for their apparently “robust” sex life as indicated by the number of siblings she has. Veronica states,
“There were girls at school whose families grew to a robust five or six. There were even girls with seven or eight – which was thought a little enthusiastic – and then there were the pathetic ones like me, who had parents that were just helpless to it, and bred as naturally as they might shit” (Enright p 25).
The statement made me chuckle, but also made me wonder why Veronica is so annoyed that she has a big family. Hopefully I’ll find this out as I read the rest of the book, but I’m already wondering if it was due to growing up poor because of the number of siblings.
Veronica also seems to be annoyed with everyone in her life, present and past. She is very cynical, especially when discussing her husband and children. The comment,
“There is something wonderful about death, how everything shuts down, and all the ways you thought you were vital are not even vaguely important…- most of the stuff that you do is just stupid, really stupid, most of the stuff you do is just nagging and whining and picking up for people who are too lazy to even love you, even that, let alone find their own shoes under their own bed” (Enright p 27).
This again seems to reflect Veronica’s anger and jaded view of family, even her own. Is this because she just doesn’t feel a sense of actual belonging since she doesn’t seem to think she is really needed? Again, hopefully I’ll get these answers as I read on.
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Jeez, sounds like one hectic week! I think it’s great that you decided to adopt a puppy, there are so many good dogs out there that need a home! Ok, back on the subject of this week’s reading…
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on this novel being quite confusing (what novel have we been assigned that hasn’t been confusing? Darn Irish!) It was difficult like you said to really follow what exactly was going on in the novel. At first I was very confused about if the narrator was painting the picture of the past so to say in her view, or how it actually was. And no, none of the books we have read are like any other novel I have read before. I also like your statement, “Additionally there always seems to be so much anger and confusion in these books. Obviously this relates nicely to the fact that Ireland’s history has followed this theme as well; chaotic, unstructured, angry confusion. Always giving a sense of not really knowing where you belong or fit in and never really having that “good” vibe from a strong sense of “home”.”
This is a point I would not have thought of on my own and was glad that you brought it up. Carmilla housed anger, Dorian Gray housed frustration and unsatisfied wants, and Breakfast with Pussy holding frustration about her lack of real family. When you said that the narrator seemed jaded or angry, I could see how you felt that way. But I think that she was just frustrated about the fact that her brother killed himself, and that she was not told why, even though they were really close.
CD,
ReplyDeleteI'm dealing with a sick kitty, too. :(
I have to echo Lucky's comments on how right on point you are about the similarities between Irish narrative and Irish history. If there is one thing that I hope students will get out of this course about the novel is that art mirrors culture, that the stories we tell about our own society becomes embedded in the stories that we tell our children, the films we go see on Friday night, and the paperbacks we buy from the news stand. We are shifting from the "grand narrative" of English imperial history, to the grand narrative of Irish nationalism in the Free State. THAT "official" history would purport that everything is hunky-dory in contemporary Ireland, yet...underneath that story is one of violence and oppression, specifically against women and, sadly enough, against children. We can see these groups, women and children, as perhaps an extension of the "subaltern" that Lloyd talked about in the essay we read way back in the beginning of the semester:
"If one defines the subaltern not as that which desires the state but as that which is subaltern because it resists or cannot be represented by or in the state formation, its 'episodic and fragmentary' history can be read as the sign of another *mode* of narrative, rather than an incomplete one, of another *principle* of organization, rather than one yet to be unified" (127).
Perhaps the only way Veronica can tell the story of child abuse in the Irish Free State is to tell it in "fragments" and "episodes" rather than in a straight, linear narrative.
I think this blog really inspires us to also look closely at Veronica's anger, especially her anger towards her mother and her ambivalence towards her surrogate mother, Ada. Consider the significance of the term "Mother Ireland." Do you think that maybe Veronica's anger towards her mother is anger directed towards an ideology rather than a "real" person? Perhaps her anger really derives from the way in which women were pretty much given the shaft (sorry, can't help myself!) during the early years of the Irish Free State.
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteI totally understand your frustration. I have felt like that many times throughout this course (mostly with The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man). However, for whatever reason I am really engaged in this new novel.
I think part of the confusion has to do with Veronica’s 12 siblings (Is that number even right?) and having to keep track of who is who. Part of me sort of enjoys this though because my mother comes from a very large family and I always loved hearing stories about her and her thousands of siblings (apparently my Catholic grandparents didn’t believe in birth control)
Anyways, I liked how you analyzed the quote from page 21,
“Everyone had a beautiful grandmother- something to do with sepia and the orange blossom in their hair”
I loved that you noticed this quote because while I read, I also paused to reflect on this description.
The quote made me immediately visualize my own beautiful grandmother in her sepia tone wedding photo with an orange blossom in her hair. I feel like what Veronica (or Enright rather) means is that when you think about your grandmother as young women, there's a certain image of what she looked like in your head. Because photographs weren’t taken very often back in the day, often as children we only see our grandmother’s wedding photo, and that is the only image we have of her being young.
I also loved the other quote you chose,
“There were girls at school whose families grew to a robust five or six. There were even girls with seven or eight – which was thought a little enthusiastic – and then there were the pathetic ones like me, who had parents that were just helpless to it, and bred as naturally as they might shit” (Enright p 25).
I liked your analysis of this quote, you said that perhaps Veronica was trying to insinuate that having so many siblings meant being poor. I also think she is trying to explain that by having so many siblings, she didn’t receive enough individual attention from her parents. Veronica’s mother is also extremely broken by all the deaths of her children.
I also chose your last quote as something to comment on,
“There is something wonderful about death, how everything shuts down, and all the ways you thought you were vital are not even vaguely important…- most of the stuff that you do is just stupid, really stupid, most of the stuff you do is just nagging and whining and picking up for people who are too lazy to even love you, even that, let alone find their own shoes under their own bed” (Enright p 27).
This caught my attention because I’m ashamed to say that when my best friend died I felt exactly as Veronica describes in this passage. Of course I was incredibly depressed but at the same time, life was put on pause. It sounds incredibly selfish. But at the moment, that’s all you can think about.
Great blogging this week!
Hey CD,
ReplyDeleteRegarding your comment on the subject of the book being “unstructured” I could not agree with you more, which you will have found it you read by blog. The whole business of her being unsure as to what was real and was not, combined with the constant time shift, which sometimes appeared to merge the past and present, was an aspect of the novel that I could have done without.
Concerning your confusion about all the Ada flashbacks, they were not real, more like Veronica’s way of marking the fateful moment in time when Ada met Lambert Nugent and her choice to pick Charlie Spillane over him. I think that in Veronica’s mind Ada choosing Charlie over Nugent is what led to Liam’s suicide. In part of your blog you stated, “At some points when discussing her grandmother she seems to adore her while at others she seems to think she was too forward, proud, or flirty.” I think that while Veronica knew that her grandmother was a nice woman who really could not be held responsible for Liam’s death, the bitterness and resentment that consumed her continually led her to seek out flaws in her character that could somehow reveal this horrible woman that was the reason behind so much pain and anguish.
Incidentally, Veronica also blamed her mother and father for the death of Liam. “I do not forgive her the sex. The stupidity of so much humping. Open and blind. Consequences, Mammy. Consequences.” (7) I think that she believed that by them having so many children, which led them to having to send some of them to live with their grandmother, that that is what led to Liam’s death. As you can see, Veronica liked to put the blame on every person that she could.
Ceol,
ReplyDeleteI guess we all got caught up in your comment on the mirror between the narrative and the history of Ireland, because that's the part that stuck with me most. "Additionally there always seems to be so much anger and confusion in these books. Obviously this relates nicely to the fact that Ireland’s history has followed this theme as well; chaotic, unstructured, angry confusion. Always giving a sense of not really knowing where you belong or fit in and never really having that “good” vibe from a strong sense of “home”." That piece right there stole my attention more than anything else in your blog. Not that I'm saying your blog wasn't interesting, but Gathering just wasn't that interesting to me. History usually gets my attention far better.
Well I hope that things get better with the pets and I'm a bit jealous that you have puppies and I can't have any. Hope your kitty gets better!
WS
Just an update...
ReplyDeleteSo now that I'm a bit further in the book and read other people's blogs I have a better understanding of what is going on. As you can probably tell from my comments in other blogs, I have strong feelings about some of the issues discussed in this book. I suspected that something had happened, but wasn't sure what and now I'm putting the pieces of the puzzle together a bit more.
I think Colleen's comment about why this book feels so fragmented being because it's the only way to tell a story about abuse or topics that make people feel "uncomfortable". No one really wants to read a verbatum report of the terrible things that someone has suffered through, especially about a child. People will say...oh that's so sad but then quickly forget about it or just completely ignore the situation instead of trying to make a difference.
So by telling this story in a more fragmented manner it may capture a few more people's attention without being too "in your face".