Thoughts from Pearl

Two thoughts:

On names in a story or novel: When a writer chooses to use functional

or meaningful ones, such as Dark and Silver (in LIghthousekeeping by

J. Wintersen), a close reader might note that the writer has

allegorical intentions, as opposed to say the more realistic names of

a realistic novel. This knowledge gives the reader better insight

into what might be going on in the particular novel, what the writer

wants the reader to experience and learn.

On narrative distance: Even in a novel written in third person with

an omniscient narrating voice, there can be more and less intimacy.

Sometimes this changes sentence by sentence: the narrator can bring

you in and send you out to arm's distance (or more). Close (slow or

attentive) reading gives you an opportunity to feel the intimacy and

distance and then you can begin to ask why the writer might be doing

this. For example: Does the writer want to keep you in the fictional

dream or does she want to remind you that you are reading a story.

And how does it affect your take on a given scene or sentence or

character?

Hope this helps. Pearl

The March, Chapter Two And More

Posted by: Zahiruddin Alim
Date: Fri 01/25/2008 03:58 PM

In Chapter 2 we meet Arlyn and young Will, representing a class of
people as yet unmentioned in the story. They are poor white folk,
neither slave owner nor slave, occupying the margins of a society and
economy dominated by the plantation system that had no room in the
middle. In the story they start out as prisoners, Arlyn for having
fallen asleep on sentry duty and Will for deserting because he had to
go see his family. Freed by the Rebels on condition of being drafted
back into the militia, they take part in a futile defensive action.
In the disarray of their defeat, they dress themselves in the
uniforms taken from dead Union soldiers, becoming renegades, the term
for what comes below “deserter” as Will wonders at one point.
They take to following the Union Army, trying to blend in, but not
quite managing to do so.
Will’s reason for deserting is about the only mention of his family
background. His adventures with Arlyn are at best a sideshow, the
closest the story comes to comic relief, to the extent that such a
thing is conceivable in the macabre tale that is The March. The focus
seems to be on the leaders and members of the wealthy class, with
secondary importance given to the stories of the freed slaves. The
bulk of the soldiers, on both sides, are cast in diminutive roles
when they are mentioned. Their actions are treated in broad terms of
drunken looting, raping, plundering and torching, as being motivated
by the nature of the beast that is soldiering. It diminishes the
culpability of the ruling classes in the perpetuation of all the
horrors.
Admittedly, the author must choose what to focus on and elaborate on
some things at the expense of others. So far in the book, the
fascination seems to be with the fall of the classy Southern gentry
and their interaction with the high and mighty on the other side.
Making room for the plight of freed slaves takes up the rest of the
oxygen, leaving none for the bulk of the people who inhabit the
events, and do the bulk of the dying and suffering.
Having pointed out what I see as shortcomings in the book so far in
terms of an objective social analysis, I feel obligated to express my
subjective enjoyment in reading the book and listening to it being
read. The quality of the writing is certainly part of it, but in
terms of being immersed in the happenings, I can identify myself to
some extent with each of the social categories, whether it be the
elite, rising or falling, or the subservient breaking free, or even
the marginalized, middle class mainstream, playing its farcical role
in a great dance of death and destruction.
The way the story is structured works to make me get through the
tale, at least until I confront reality when I am done reading, or
the CD ends.

On With The March!

Posted by: Zahiruddin Alim
Date: Fri 01/25/2008 03:58 PM
New Topic: Starting The March

We can anticipate a cast of thousands, quite literally in terms of
numbers, with a war going on and armies trampling cities and the
whole countryside. Within the space of the first sentence, the focus
changes from the view of Mattie and her familyto that of her Aunt Letitia
taking center stage in the image that is created. The chapter
progresses with Aunt Letitia screaming at Mattie to pack up and flee
right away, and she goes on with a diatribe against General Sherman,
who must surely be a central figure in the events to come.
For the time being, the hasty departure of the plantation owners is
characterized by their frantic decisions about what to take and what
to leave behind. The leitmotif of the “scorched earth” is
prefigured, but in a botched way, as John Jameson, the plantation
owner, makes haste. Three mules are shot in the head, the first of
many gory scenes to come. The fodder is burned, but they leave behind
much of their stores of food. They try to drown the cows but only one
calf actually does drown. In anticipation of events John has sold all
his mature, male, able-bodied slaves, to keep them from being drafted
in to service by the Union army. About a half dozen women, children
and old men are left behind.
The family, which includes two sons, drives away in two coaches
loaded with whatever they can take. Among the slaves, only Roscoe,
driving the second coach, goes with them, and we are left with the
remnants of the plantation population. One of them is Pearl, who is
twelve or thirteen, beautiful, the light complexioned daughter of a
slave, fathered by the plantation owner, and Roscoe throws her two
gold coins, his life’s savings, as he drives off. The first few
chapters tracks Pearl as a central figure in the events.
For a few paragraphs towards the end of the first chapter we get a
lull of uncertain ambiguity. The owners are gone, so those who remain
are not quite slaves but the advancing liberators have not yet
arrived, so they are not quite freed. They occupy themselves by
dressing up in their best clothes, making bundles of there private
possessions and lining up outside the mansion in an orderly fashion.
They seem entranced in their anticipated emancipation, gazing in the
direction of the approaching army, and they don’t fall to looting
the valuables left behind, or occupying the mansion that was built on
their drudgery. Only Pearl goes into the house, and for that brief
and elusive moment projects the image of a rightful successor to the
estate.
The troop that finally does arrive is a foraging unit, and they
quickly go about the business of scavenging whatever will sustain the
army. Sherman’s army lives off the land, which is a strange
bedfellow of the “scorched earth” leitmotif. At Fieldstone, the
takings are a good days work, thanks to John Jameson being in a rush.
We are given a detailed look at the commanding officer, Clarke, a
Northerner from Boston amazed at the wealth of the Southern mansions.
The enlisted men only getting brief mentions, as they take a rest in
the mansion, finding the liquor and playing the piano left behind,
before torching the place. Clarke finds Pearl in the attic, posing in
a gold embroidered red shawl in front of a mirror, and is struck by
her looks and bearing.
When the troop finally leaves, the freed slaves straggle behind them,
but Pearl hangs back. Clark has to go back and ask her to come along.
Again, she projects a special status that reaches Clarke and he
takes her under his protection, raising himself above what he admits
is a brief feeling of an improper sort.

Starting The March

Posted by: Zahiruddin Alim
Date: Fri 01/25/2008 03:58 PM
New Topic: Starting The March

CL201, January 24:
We listened to the first four chapters of “The March”, about
forty pages, played on a DVD. The lights were turned off (we
couldn’t find a dimmer), and the only light came from the graphics
on the monitor. We enjoyed the treat of being read to, without taking
notes, or any interruptions for comments or questions. I had my
coffee and cookies, and it was a short period, but I still felt
myself drifting a little towards the end.
I got hold of a copy of the book to work on some “close reading”,
to follow up on the first week’s teaching, and looked over the
first sentence:
“At five in the morning someone banging on the door and
shouting, her husband, John, leaping out of bed, grabbing a rifle,
and Roscoe at the same time roused from the backhouse, his bare feet
pounding: Mattie hurriedly pulled on her robe, her mind prepared for
the alarm of war, but the heart stricken that it would finally have
come, and down the stairs she flew to see through the open door in
the lamplight, at the steps of the portico, the two horses, steam
rising from their flanks, their heads lifting, their eyes wild, the
driver a young darkie with rounded shoulders, showing stolid patience
even in this, and the woman standing in the carriage no one but her
Aunt Letitia Pettibone of McDonough, her elderly face drawn in
anguish, her hair a straggled mess, this woman of such fine grooming,
this Dowager who practically ruled the season in Atlanta standing up
in the equipage like some hag of doom, which indeed she would prove
to be.”
Phew! There is some meat on that bone for sure, it is a long sentence
indeed. And talk about in media res: We are thrown right into the
action. Even ignoring all our historical foreknowledge we know the
storm is coming. It is a blast before the lull before the storm, so
to speak.
The description is more than solid, it is stark and hard hitting. We
don’t have to imagine anything as the words project a graphic and
dramatic scene. Nothing diaphanous here.
Characters come flying at us. We are seeing things from an omniscient eye:
The anxiety stricken lady of the house, her husband leaping to arms,
their mood infecting one of their slaves, running, as he does,
barefooted, from the backhouse. (The word processor does not
recognize the word “backhouse”). Along with there being a
backhouse and the bedroom being upstairs, there is also a portico,
indicating a substantial building, a plantation mansion, (Named
Fieldstone, we later learn). Standing outside is the harbinger of war
in the description of the horses and the carriage, occupied by a
coachman who is a slave, his stolidity a contrast to his mistress, a
fine lady of regal comport, transformed into an anguished “hag of
doom”.
Already we see the social structure of the time and place beginning
to teeter and totter. Even in the panic, plantation owners are
characterized in cultured language that suggests gentility to the
point of claiming an aristocratic standing, and their distress is
tragical. The underclass of slaves are a counterpoint, of one kind or
another, to the existence of their owners. One class exists because
of the other, occupying polar extremes of their common world, one is
the dominant and the other subservient. This class structure is about
to be brutally annihilated, and that must transform the individual
members of each class traumatically.

After the First Sentence

Posted by: Zahiruddin Alim

Date: Fri 01/25/2008 03:58 PM
New Topic: Starting The March

The first day's handout from Prof. Abraham was entitled Close Reading
Guidelines. I thought I would write it out to help absorb it better.
The first sentence, where it begins, is important as the point of
entry in the story in the way it influences the writing.
How is the story structured?
How does time pass in the story?
How is character presented?
What is the universe of the story?
What kind of sentences does the author write?
What is good about the storybook? Where does it fail?
What is the texture of the work? Is it diaphanous or solid in its
construction?
Do you like the book or hate it? Why?
Does the work bring to mind other readings?
What is the writer’s disposition to scene and narrative? How much
is given in the scene? How expository is it?
Biographical details should only be a supplement, not a substitute
for reading the text.
The names in the story are functional. They define the border of the
story and determine the distance of the characters from the reader.
Narrative distance, e.g., is it a detached observer or one of the
characters in the story?
Leitmotifs are images or themes, returned to again and again.

The First Sentence

After the formalities of going over the syllabus Prof. Abraham
started discussing a handout entitled "Close Reading Guidelines". She
discussed the first point of the handout, called the "point of entry
in the story, i.e, where does it begin, how this influences the
writing, importance of the first line". She used the Latin phrase "in
media res" to describe what the first sentence should be like. It
means "in the thick of things", suggesting jumping right in.

Prof. Abraham went on to say that writing is a process of discovery,
so that the writer does not know exactly where the story will go. It
is like driving in a fog, with only a short distance of visibility.
So the first sentence, the beginning, indicates something about the
story that will guide it, something essential to the story line.

The first example was from Anton Chekhov's "Lady With A Pet Dog":

"A new person, it was said, had appeared on the esplanade: A lady
with a pet dog".

Prof. Abraham teased out a number of insights from the sentence. The
word "esplanade", which means a boardwalk, indicates a resort town.
Noticing a new person in town, along with the phrase "it was said"
suggests a small population of vacationers who are there to relax, so
they have time to notice others and gossip. The time period of the
piece the use of the word "lady" and the presence of a pet dog
suggests an aristocratic presence, indicating something about the
structure of the society. In sum, a great deal of information is
bundled into the first sentence.

The second example was from E.L.Doctorow's "House on the Plain":

"Mama said I was thenceforth to be her nephew, and to call her Aunt
Dora."

It is an attention grabber for a mother to be telling her son to
pretend to be a nephew. We can surmise that family affairs are to be
thematic in the story. We could guess it has something to do with
conditions laid down in a will for an inheritance.

There is a story in the Bible about The patriarch Abraham and his
wife Sara, traveling through a town pretending to be brother and
sister to make it harder for the King to bother them. The story is
used elsewhere in E.L.Doctorow's works. It is easy for Prof. Abraham
to make the connection, because she is obviously a direct descendant.