"Xuela" is a novel excerpt and reads like one. The pacing is quite different than that of a short story. We will discuss this, but we'll also look at the voice of the narrator, which is fairly unusual. We'll touch on distance vs. intimacy. And absence of dialogue. And preponderance of summary. And, and, I dunno. Up to you.
I was going to note that the story felt like it left things unresolved, but hearing that it's a novel excerpt makes a good deal more sense. The style is... dense. It's convoluted and heavy on detail; it reminds me of packed intestines. The narration is meandering, the paragraphs composed of mostly simple sentences but incredibly long. This supports the notion of the narrator having a perfect, photographic memory, which is mentioned as a seemingly passing detail earlier in the story.
ReplyDeleteThe narrator herself has an incredibly rich internalized perspective. This is earned through the story by explaining the lack of empathy she has for others. Though this is softened slightly in reflection, she still stands aside as a remarkably solitary individual.
This is a very bitter and loveless story, these feelings all conveyed through the mind of the titular character and her photographic memory. The reader can see how each event in her early life, each person to leave her or scorn her or ignore her, shapes her personality and view of her world. And oh boy, is it shaped, shaped and warped and twisted and rolled flat. She sees the people in her life as detached and alien to her, like the cold-blooded snakes slithering on their belies through the yard and striking each other.
ReplyDeleteIt's a self-centered story; there's no dialogue, no alternate perspectives, no close looks at supporting characters. The one figure Xuela desires to encounter and reveal her innermost feelings to is obscured entirely, save for her heels.
I agree with Andrew that there is no sense of compassion in this excerpt. The narrator really has no connection to her father, and even less to her teacher and surrogate mother, which was rather depressing.
ReplyDeleteI really didn't enjoy this excerpt as it seemed a bit out of place, which makes sense, seeing as it's part of a bigger whole. Mainly because of this, the excerpt left me feeling empty and unsatisfied.
I agree with Kyle, this story was icky, but I do admire the intense detail she provides and the voice. The detail level allows the story to really draw you in, and in terms of novelization, it obviously helps pad the length. This also creates very complex characters, by showing everything that made them the way they are.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the voice, which was eloquent and had good flow, though I think Jamaica would have done better to leave out just how she was able to relate all these details of her life. Photographic memory feels like a magical plot device. I simply would have left it blank. Sometimes, things just are.
I agree with what most of the people, if not everyone, has been saying. For one, it is very thick with good imagery but it gets taken too far.
ReplyDeleteAnd for two, It is empty of emotion and love. It's cold. The narrator reminds us multiple times that her mom died and her father doesn't care about her. It affects the way the narrator acts in her life, but it also affects the way she narrates the story, coldly introducing characters. There's no real personality in her voice except that she dislikes everything and everyone
Such a strange story. The setting and scene is eventually painted together quite nicely, but it seems to take an age to do so. I was shocked at how abruptly the story began with deep emotion (mother dying) and then trudged on with such a profound emptiness. Adding to the strangeness were such things as the plate, the narrator's love of her personal grime, The British Empire map, and the letters hidden under a rock. I felt that the plate was never fully explained other than the connection to a Heaven. The narrator's love of her filth is interesting in that it seems to be free her from social norms, but is still just an unusual representation of her failure to assimilate into everyday culture. The map helped to set the scene, I suppose, as well as add to the narrator's feelings of being a stranger in a strange land, when in actuality all of the people she knew were living in a controlled region. Finally, the letters: I still don't understand why the father miraculously shows up wealthy and responsible, yet, he could've taken her from the school for the past 7 years. I understand that the letters had such emotional backing, but still, why did he come running?
ReplyDeleteThe fact that this story is an excerpt from a novel was interesting to learn after the fact of reading it. This made me consider the advice that many of us have been given at workshops, which is that we need to place more focus us when we begin our story. This story does so effectively because it literally, starts in the middle of the larger story.
ReplyDeleteI thought that this story was really rather strange like everyone else said. It took awhile to get through, but at the end of each paragraph I never felt like I was really arriving anywhere except even further inside this little girls mind. She has an extremely strong voice and I felt like she was continually puking out anything and everything that is on her mind onto the page. It really gives the reader a strong perspective of the narrator and only the narrator because we are unable to get a really good grasp of any of the other characters, which may just be the point.
ReplyDeleteThe intense detail is what sucked me swirling down the page in a breathless attempt to describe everything she is feeling about the terrible world around her. I almost couldn’t understand why she had it so bad, although I realize she did grow up in the ideal world, the loss of her mother overpowered the story, but we never got to learn who her mother or her father really were.