These were awesome. If college kids had the kind of time that allowed them to pick up pleasure books and read them, these two would be on my list (Mostly "Figures in the Distance," but "Poor Visitor" is up there too). I love the first person perspective in "Figures," and how incredibly accurate it was to that of a 10 year old. I'd like to ask Kincaid how much of the story is based in reality, because some of these details are so spot-on, it's tough to imagine her...imagining them. She's got a bunch of these tiny little details like the girl who stopped sucking her thumb because her mom dipped it in the dead person's water, and how she "did not know what someone looked like dead," that I could believe that I was reading a personal essay.
I love also the essay-like way Kincaid takes one thing--the dead-- and examines it from a handful of different perspectives. She goes from the fear of the dead to the symbolism of her house's proximity to the dead, to her relation to the people dying--it's almost exactly like a personal essay on dead people.
A last thing is Kincaid's economy of words-- in the first four short sentences we find out the narrator's age, the season the story takes place in, the streets they live(d) on, and that they were "far out" from other neighborhoods. She writes with a density I think all great short stories should have (even if these aren't short stories).
Like Alex, I was struck by the voice in "Figures in the Distance." I always think it's amazing when adults can get inside the head of a young child, simply because I don't know if it's something I can do. When the main character is talking about the little girl Nalda who died, she says, "Dr. Bailey pronounced her dead, and when I heard that I was so glad he wasn't my doctor." Obviously Dr. Bailey doesn't have anything to do with the death itself, but a ten-year-old does, and that kind of characterization is something that I envy.
In poetry right now I'm kind of fascinated with an outsider's perspective on death and observing how it affects different people, so this first chapter really resonated with me. I wasn't as drawn in by "Poor Visitor" which begins with a sort of rambling long explanation. The first line of "Figures in the Distance" says, "For a short while during the year I was ten, I thought only people I did not know died." That packs a punch, and it makes me want to read more in a way that "Poor Visitor" did not.
I agree with Alex regarding the real-ness of these excerpts, particularly with "Figures in the Distance." I found myself less interested in "Poor Visitor." Jamaica Kincaid has amazed me with her use of significant detail. The way she can come up with these little anecdotes to work toward a greater meaning floor me -- I'm jealous! "Figures in the Distance" made me uncomfortable and queasy, but in the good kind of fiction way. The little girl (Sonia?) whom the narrator would buy candy for and then yank at her arm and leg hair was such a strange and somehow disgusting part, but it's those parts which also somehow adhere me to her story. Mainly, where the hell did she come up with that? I loved the way the narrator later explained looking at a dead person as if you are looking through a View-Master which isn't working properly. That's just pure gold. It's these at these points that I wonder how on earth she pieced these things together. What parts came from experience, from Kincaid's own life or the lives of those familiar to her? Something I really struggle with in fiction is trying to reach past my own experiences to create significant detail and to characterize. I know that it works best when it's some sort of mix between author's experience and imagination, but it's so hard to write something from imagination that your readers will believe.
I do have one complaint about Kincaid, but perhaps my complaint really lies with T. Coraghessan Boyle: I hated that these were novel excerpts. It wasn't anywhere near as easy for me to truly get into the writing because I knew from the get-go that I wasn't going to be able to get the whole story. It was strange to go from one excerpt to the next; I kept looking for similarities. The fact that they were both first-person black women kept blurring the instances in each excerpt. Ultimately, I feel like Jamaica Kincaid just simply can't be excerpt-ed.
I have to agree with everyone so far on this. I was really amazed by the voice and details in "Figures" though I did like "Poor Visitor" as well. I was astounded by the way Kincaid used the language in her stories to really paint us a crystal clear picture of what was happening. I loved the significant details throughout this and would have really loved to see what the rest of these books look like. Although this is a far cry from my normal type of book, I would actually consider reading these just judging by these excerpts. I loved the way that she nails the childlike descriptions of death and ghosts, and the way she talks about the View-Master. Like Charlotte said, that's gold. The only thing that got me in these two pieces was how similar they sounded, and I'm sure if we were to have the entirety of the novel in our hands we would be able to make a clearer distinction but just from these two I felt like I was waiting for them to somehow bleed together.
I found "Figures in the Distance," to strike me in an odd fashion. If I had to guess, I would say that this story was nonfiction. While I was reading, I had to keep reminding myself that it was indeed fiction. I think this really says something positive about Kincaid; The voice of her story is so believable, that it is not difficult to comprehend as nonfiction.
Another aspect that struck me in this story as believable, was right at the beginning. I remember being a ten year old, and thinking that yound people did not die, and that only people I didn't know, died.
Something that upset me, was that both of the stories were novel excerpts. I din't realize that until I read the Kincaid synopsis page, which was after I read both stories. I just thought that all the stories in Double-takes were short stories, and reading these, I just feel like I'm left in the dark...
It's funny how well Figures in the Distance, a novel excerpt, works as a short story. The characters are developed, the details are all important—everything seems to point toward a short story. I think that was what intrigued me most about Jamaica Kincaid's piece. As a person who has never wrote anything longer than a short story (or has not even written many short stories), I've wondered what it takes to get in the mindset of writing a large piece. I always assumed you had to click something in your brain and suddenly you were no longer writing short stories, but were writing novels. Through reading Figures in the Distance, I feel like I've seen how to efficiently write in first-person as well. I always tend to write in third because I feel like when I write in first, I let my own voice bleed through it, but Kincaid seems to have such a great idea who the main character is that there is no problem with writing in first-person. This piece has made me really think about getting to know my character better before writing a piece. Perhaps even writing more than one piece on a certain character.
I agree with Nick, that I didn't really feel like I was reading novel excerpts. The characters were really well developed, in both stories, through use of details. Though I didn't know what was going on in them, I didn't feel like I was missing a big part of the story, necessarily, though I would definitely like to read both of the novels that these excerpts come from. It'd be interesting to see the context that each of these excerpts are in. I also liked how Kincaid did seem like she was writing a nonfiction piece. The details that are included in these stories make it hard to believe that they are all made up. They have to have a base in her past experiences. I loved the use of those details, like the View-Master example that Charlotte and Alisha pointed out. I would like to write a story in first-person. It's always been something that's intimidated me, because you have to really get to know your character before you write it. It's easier in nonfiction because you're the character you're writing about, and you already know your mind. However, after reading these two excerpts, I'm interested in seeing what would happen if I tried.
I want to read these novels to see what happens to these characters. I really liked Jamaica Kincaid in that she was different from what we’ve read before and even though these were excepts, they could stand as a short story. The thing that attracted to me was the character of Lucy in “Poor Visitor”. Finally an author who can write a whiny-poor-me character without annoying the reader and still makes the story interesting. I can definitely see myself taking her technique of writing the main character and applying to my own writing so that I can still make the character interesting. I also found the main characters from both stories very relatable in that I saw myself in both of them. I too went to a place foreign to me and I also had a very unique imagination as a ten-year old though I was not obsessed with death. These characters were very developed in that they both had the good and the bad traits. The only thing that I had trouble reading was the amount of detail then again I was reading it after taking a midterm. In anyway case the detail is very specific and helps develop the characters even the minor ones. There is a detail that I remember the most in “Poor Visitor” in which the maid tells the narrator that she didn’t like her based on the way she talked. It gave me a sense of where the narrator came from though it was a little hard to pinpoint where. In any case from that small detail we could tell that the narrator is out of her element, which pulls us in even more in that we need to know why she is far from home other than school. Jamaica Kincaid gave a good example of beginning, middle, and end which can be helpful in turning chapters into short stories or vice versa. She gave me a sense of what a chapter should be like and I’m interested to see what happens to these characters especially Lucy, I felt an intense connection to Lucy for some reason as if I could see a part of myself in her. I also liked how she described the ten-year old in "Figures in the Distance" in that the language seems very realistic.
I enjoyed reading Kincaid. As I was reading I was imagining what the continuations of the novels would be like. They felt a little like short stories in that they both sort of came to conclusions, but I was certainly able to tell a difference between them and short stories. The pharagraphs were a bit longer. I did feel like she gave us information that was only relevent, because there were continuations.
Seeing that the stories didn't come to any conclusions, I think I can apply the idea in my writing that I don't need to conclude a story 100% in these they sort of came to conclusions, but not really. It was as if Kincaid had a bunch of stuff in her head that she wanted to say, but as soon as she was done talking about it she just stopped. I bet I could make that into a fun writing excercise.
I have recently read other works by Kincaid and she continues to astound me. The voices are so distinct, especially in "Figures in the Distance." I really got caught up into the mentality of a ten-year old that Kindcaid presents to the reader. Also, if I had not known in advance that these were novel excerpts I would have never given "Figures in the Distance" a second thought on being a short story. It kept the same theme of death and there was a resolution. These excerpts show how well, and quickly, Kincaid can establish a character. In "Poor Vistor" we quickly learn about her background and how deeply she had wished to depart from her home and the people there, but in actually she could not separate from them because it was who she was. The maid points how her 'nun like qualities' and I see that as being a direct influence from her background. Granted, we don't learn everything in these few pages but we get enough to know the character and be able to empathize/sympathize with her. In those few pages we see Vistor characterized through various means: through her past, through her actions/reactions and through her observations of others. That is something I want to draw from Kincaid, to have a flawless blending of different characterization to build a character.
I was very pleased to read these pieces. Like others have already mentioned, they could easily pass for short stories on their own, but the gaps they leave behind do allow for some expansion (as the novels no doubt provide in other chapters). The voice of these pieces is excellent. Although I noticed some unnecessary repetition in "Figures in the Distance," I feel that it does not detract as much as it could from the narrative as a whole. Neither of these pieces seems to be specific with time, either (in that readers cannot be absolutely sure of the chronological order of the scenes in the stories), but in this case it adds intrigue to the story, rather than creating a flaw.
"Poor Visitor" is my favorite of the two, mainly because of what I am able to pull out of it. I think the opening section is beautiful, perfectly reflecting the darkness that comes with contrasting idealized thoughts with reality. The other sections are also able to use irony to build the mood, such as in the ways the main character can take aspects from her old life and transplant them to her new one--only to learn that that transplant is not always useful (for instance, the thought that "sunny means warm" in January). The theme of sincerity is also brought up a couple of times, always ironically, such as the assurances of the family that the main character would be "like family," only for the character to take that as a cause for worry rather than extra love. Even the most obvious theme, isolation, is played with, as the main character comes to accept where she lives and who she lives with, but the family whom she lives with does not accept her.
"Figures in the Distance" is quite different. For the most part, this story deals with a theme of the living understanding the dead. The child's perspective adds to the wonder and fear that colors the narrative. The idea that someone who had touched a dead person before was automatically tainted appears in this story as a debilitating problem, as the main character is at first unable to interact with those who had dead family members. Her eventual fascination with funerals appears to be unique in the story, and acts again as a longer-term irony. Like "Poor Visitor," the language is superb and the content is excellent, even if I prefer the first one to the second.
These were awesome. If college kids had the kind of time that allowed them to pick up pleasure books and read them, these two would be on my list (Mostly "Figures in the Distance," but "Poor Visitor" is up there too). I love the first person perspective in "Figures," and how incredibly accurate it was to that of a 10 year old. I'd like to ask Kincaid how much of the story is based in reality, because some of these details are so spot-on, it's tough to imagine her...imagining them. She's got a bunch of these tiny little details like the girl who stopped sucking her thumb because her mom dipped it in the dead person's water, and how she "did not know what someone looked like dead," that I could believe that I was reading a personal essay.
ReplyDeleteI love also the essay-like way Kincaid takes one thing--the dead-- and examines it from a handful of different perspectives. She goes from the fear of the dead to the symbolism of her house's proximity to the dead, to her relation to the people dying--it's almost exactly like a personal essay on dead people.
A last thing is Kincaid's economy of words-- in the first four short sentences we find out the narrator's age, the season the story takes place in, the streets they live(d) on, and that they were "far out" from other neighborhoods. She writes with a density I think all great short stories should have (even if these aren't short stories).
Like Alex, I was struck by the voice in "Figures in the Distance." I always think it's amazing when adults can get inside the head of a young child, simply because I don't know if it's something I can do. When the main character is talking about the little girl Nalda who died, she says, "Dr. Bailey pronounced her dead, and when I heard that I was so glad he wasn't my doctor." Obviously Dr. Bailey doesn't have anything to do with the death itself, but a ten-year-old does, and that kind of characterization is something that I envy.
ReplyDeleteIn poetry right now I'm kind of fascinated with an outsider's perspective on death and observing how it affects different people, so this first chapter really resonated with me. I wasn't as drawn in by "Poor Visitor" which begins with a sort of rambling long explanation. The first line of "Figures in the Distance" says, "For a short while during the year I was ten, I thought only people I did not know died." That packs a punch, and it makes me want to read more in a way that "Poor Visitor" did not.
I agree with Alex regarding the real-ness of these excerpts, particularly with "Figures in the Distance." I found myself less interested in "Poor Visitor."
ReplyDeleteJamaica Kincaid has amazed me with her use of significant detail. The way she can come up with these little anecdotes to work toward a greater meaning floor me -- I'm jealous! "Figures in the Distance" made me uncomfortable and queasy, but in the good kind of fiction way. The little girl (Sonia?) whom the narrator would buy candy for and then yank at her arm and leg hair was such a strange and somehow disgusting part, but it's those parts which also somehow adhere me to her story. Mainly, where the hell did she come up with that?
I loved the way the narrator later explained looking at a dead person as if you are looking through a View-Master which isn't working properly. That's just pure gold. It's these at these points that I wonder how on earth she pieced these things together. What parts came from experience, from Kincaid's own life or the lives of those familiar to her?
Something I really struggle with in fiction is trying to reach past my own experiences to create significant detail and to characterize. I know that it works best when it's some sort of mix between author's experience and imagination, but it's so hard to write something from imagination that your readers will believe.
I do have one complaint about Kincaid, but perhaps my complaint really lies with T. Coraghessan Boyle: I hated that these were novel excerpts. It wasn't anywhere near as easy for me to truly get into the writing because I knew from the get-go that I wasn't going to be able to get the whole story. It was strange to go from one excerpt to the next; I kept looking for similarities. The fact that they were both first-person black women kept blurring the instances in each excerpt. Ultimately, I feel like Jamaica Kincaid just simply can't be excerpt-ed.
I have to agree with everyone so far on this. I was really amazed by the voice and details in "Figures" though I did like "Poor Visitor" as well. I was astounded by the way Kincaid used the language in her stories to really paint us a crystal clear picture of what was happening. I loved the significant details throughout this and would have really loved to see what the rest of these books look like. Although this is a far cry from my normal type of book, I would actually consider reading these just judging by these excerpts. I loved the way that she nails the childlike descriptions of death and ghosts, and the way she talks about the View-Master. Like Charlotte said, that's gold.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that got me in these two pieces was how similar they sounded, and I'm sure if we were to have the entirety of the novel in our hands we would be able to make a clearer distinction but just from these two I felt like I was waiting for them to somehow bleed together.
I found "Figures in the Distance," to strike me in an odd fashion. If I had to guess, I would say that this story was nonfiction. While I was reading, I had to keep reminding myself that it was indeed fiction. I think this really says something positive about Kincaid; The voice of her story is so believable, that it is not difficult to comprehend as nonfiction.
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect that struck me in this story as believable, was right at the beginning. I remember being a ten year old, and thinking that yound people did not die, and that only people I didn't know, died.
Something that upset me, was that both of the stories were novel excerpts. I din't realize that until I read the Kincaid synopsis page, which was after I read both stories. I just thought that all the stories in Double-takes were short stories, and reading these, I just feel like I'm left in the dark...
It's funny how well Figures in the Distance, a novel excerpt, works as a short story. The characters are developed, the details are all important—everything seems to point toward a short story. I think that was what intrigued me most about Jamaica Kincaid's piece. As a person who has never wrote anything longer than a short story (or has not even written many short stories), I've wondered what it takes to get in the mindset of writing a large piece. I always assumed you had to click something in your brain and suddenly you were no longer writing short stories, but were writing novels.
ReplyDeleteThrough reading Figures in the Distance, I feel like I've seen how to efficiently write in first-person as well. I always tend to write in third because I feel like when I write in first, I let my own voice bleed through it, but Kincaid seems to have such a great idea who the main character is that there is no problem with writing in first-person. This piece has made me really think about getting to know my character better before writing a piece. Perhaps even writing more than one piece on a certain character.
I agree with Nick, that I didn't really feel like I was reading novel excerpts. The characters were really well developed, in both stories, through use of details. Though I didn't know what was going on in them, I didn't feel like I was missing a big part of the story, necessarily, though I would definitely like to read both of the novels that these excerpts come from. It'd be interesting to see the context that each of these excerpts are in.
ReplyDeleteI also liked how Kincaid did seem like she was writing a nonfiction piece. The details that are included in these stories make it hard to believe that they are all made up. They have to have a base in her past experiences. I loved the use of those details, like the View-Master example that Charlotte and Alisha pointed out.
I would like to write a story in first-person. It's always been something that's intimidated me, because you have to really get to know your character before you write it. It's easier in nonfiction because you're the character you're writing about, and you already know your mind. However, after reading these two excerpts, I'm interested in seeing what would happen if I tried.
I want to read these novels to see what happens to these characters. I really liked Jamaica Kincaid in that she was different from what we’ve read before and even though these were excepts, they could stand as a short story. The thing that attracted to me was the character of Lucy in “Poor Visitor”. Finally an author who can write a whiny-poor-me character without annoying the reader and still makes the story interesting. I can definitely see myself taking her technique of writing the main character and applying to my own writing so that I can still make the character interesting. I also found the main characters from both stories very relatable in that I saw myself in both of them. I too went to a place foreign to me and I also had a very unique imagination as a ten-year old though I was not obsessed with death. These characters were very developed in that they both had the good and the bad traits.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that I had trouble reading was the amount of detail then again I was reading it after taking a midterm. In anyway case the detail is very specific and helps develop the characters even the minor ones. There is a detail that I remember the most in “Poor Visitor” in which the maid tells the narrator that she didn’t like her based on the way she talked. It gave me a sense of where the narrator came from though it was a little hard to pinpoint where. In any case from that small detail we could tell that the narrator is out of her element, which pulls us in even more in that we need to know why she is far from home other than school. Jamaica Kincaid gave a good example of beginning, middle, and end which can be helpful in turning chapters into short stories or vice versa. She gave me a sense of what a chapter should be like and I’m interested to see what happens to these characters especially Lucy, I felt an intense connection to Lucy for some reason as if I could see a part of myself in her. I also liked how she described the ten-year old in "Figures in the Distance" in that the language seems very realistic.
I enjoyed reading Kincaid. As I was reading I was imagining what the continuations of the novels would be like. They felt a little like short stories in that they both sort of came to conclusions, but I was certainly able to tell a difference between them and short stories. The pharagraphs were a bit longer. I did feel like she gave us information that was only relevent, because there were continuations.
ReplyDeleteSeeing that the stories didn't come to any conclusions, I think I can apply the idea in my writing that I don't need to conclude a story 100% in these they sort of came to conclusions, but not really. It was as if Kincaid had a bunch of stuff in her head that she wanted to say, but as soon as she was done talking about it she just stopped. I bet I could make that into a fun writing excercise.
I have recently read other works by Kincaid and she continues to astound me. The voices are so distinct, especially in "Figures in the Distance." I really got caught up into the mentality of a ten-year old that Kindcaid presents to the reader. Also, if I had not known in advance that these were novel excerpts I would have never given "Figures in the Distance" a second thought on being a short story. It kept the same theme of death and there was a resolution.
ReplyDeleteThese excerpts show how well, and quickly, Kincaid can establish a character. In "Poor Vistor" we quickly learn about her background and how deeply she had wished to depart from her home and the people there, but in actually she could not separate from them because it was who she was. The maid points how her 'nun like qualities' and I see that as being a direct influence from her background. Granted, we don't learn everything in these few pages but we get enough to know the character and be able to empathize/sympathize with her. In those few pages we see Vistor characterized through various means: through her past, through her actions/reactions and through her observations of others. That is something I want to draw from Kincaid, to have a flawless blending of different characterization to build a character.
I was very pleased to read these pieces. Like others have already mentioned, they could easily pass for short stories on their own, but the gaps they leave behind do allow for some expansion (as the novels no doubt provide in other chapters). The voice of these pieces is excellent. Although I noticed some unnecessary repetition in "Figures in the Distance," I feel that it does not detract as much as it could from the narrative as a whole. Neither of these pieces seems to be specific with time, either (in that readers cannot be absolutely sure of the chronological order of the scenes in the stories), but in this case it adds intrigue to the story, rather than creating a flaw.
ReplyDelete"Poor Visitor" is my favorite of the two, mainly because of what I am able to pull out of it. I think the opening section is beautiful, perfectly reflecting the darkness that comes with contrasting idealized thoughts with reality. The other sections are also able to use irony to build the mood, such as in the ways the main character can take aspects from her old life and transplant them to her new one--only to learn that that transplant is not always useful (for instance, the thought that "sunny means warm" in January). The theme of sincerity is also brought up a couple of times, always ironically, such as the assurances of the family that the main character would be "like family," only for the character to take that as a cause for worry rather than extra love. Even the most obvious theme, isolation, is played with, as the main character comes to accept where she lives and who she lives with, but the family whom she lives with does not accept her.
"Figures in the Distance" is quite different. For the most part, this story deals with a theme of the living understanding the dead. The child's perspective adds to the wonder and fear that colors the narrative. The idea that someone who had touched a dead person before was automatically tainted appears in this story as a debilitating problem, as the main character is at first unable to interact with those who had dead family members. Her eventual fascination with funerals appears to be unique in the story, and acts again as a longer-term irony. Like "Poor Visitor," the language is superb and the content is excellent, even if I prefer the first one to the second.