Gone

Michael Grant’s Gone is a riveting story of under-15s left alone in a 20-mile-diameter area of coastal California the kids call the FAYZ when everyone over 15 disappears. (Spoiler alert: this review discusses the end of the novel.) Thanks to Shannon for turning me on to this series!

The story is told through the perspectives of a number of different characters including the protagonist Sam Temple, a surfer who once saved a bus-load of kids and has “four bar” psychic powers; Lana Arwen Lazar, who heals herself after her grandpa’s truck runs off the road when he disappears; Albert Hillsborough, who takes over the local McDonald’s and recognizes the coming food scarcity before other kids do; Mary Terrafino, who runs the local daycare; Computer Jack, technology expert; Dahra Baidoo, who tends the hospital; and Caine Soren, who discovers he’s Sam’s twin brother given up for adoption in infancy.

The depiction of the children’s plight is convincing and gripping. Each character has backstory based on which they make decisions in their current situation, and each character has strengths that are tested in the course of the action. I find the depiction of the less savory characters somewhat one-dimensional, although the guilt Captain Orc experiences after his actions lead to a friend’s death is moving. The single-mindedly mean characters--Howard, Drake, and Caine--seem a little less complex, and the “bad girl” Diana, who makes choices based on her own vision of herself as such, also seems a little stilted.

Although I noticed the Christian imagery in the characters’ names--Temple for the hero, Mary for the mother figure who takes care of children, Lazar for the girl brought back from death, and Caine for the antagonist--most of the book seems to treat the religious views of the few religious characters as individual to them. Only in the last few pages does the religious angle become heavy-handed.

The show-down takes place in the church where Caine and his cronies attempt to kill off the kids with psychic powers. As the love-interest Catholic Astrid is hoping to save her brother Little Pete, she launches into a prayer calling upon “St. Michael the Archangel [to] defend us in battle,” and Dekka, who can lift things with her mind, says, “Amen,” and pulls the wreckage off Little Pete (538). The juxtaposition of the prayer at this climactic moment with Dekka’s saving Little Pete seems like an answered prayer, as if the events of the story all build up to confirm God’s presence in the FAYZ.

This sequence is followed by a Thanksgiving sequence where Astrid invokes God again in modeling a speech for Sam, and Sam does the same thing in his actual speech. Although in his speech Sam allows room for non-believers, the combination of these elements and the allegorical names makes the ending seem overly religious, like a Peanuts holiday special. I don’t think I would have minded if the religious aspects were consistent throughout, but because they were not, the emphasis in the end seems like a moral imposed from outside the story. 

Image Source: Gone Cover Image. amazon.com. Web. 26 May 2012. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Gone

Work Cited: Grant, Michael. Gone. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Print. 

Recent Reading

I've read the following books but not had time to write them up:

Tepper, Sheri S. The Awakeners.
Wells, Martha. The Cloud Roads.
McCarthy, Cormac. Blood Meridian.
Steele, Pamela. Greasewood Creek.
Fisher, Catherine. Snow-Walker.
Crews, James. The Book of What Stays.
Krauss, Nicole. The History of Love.
Martel, Yann. Life of Pi.
Sebold, Alice. The Lovely Bones.
Zacharias, Karen Spears. The Silence of Mockingbirds.
Willis, Connie. Passage.
Grant, Michael. Gone.

I guess I'll start with the most recent and work backward...

The Hunger Games Series

Once I finished The Hunger Games, I needed to read the series, and I was not disappointed. The second and third books complicated the fascism and resistance occurring in the first by indicating that individual moments of resistance are good but not enough; the disaster of fascism will not end until the structure is eliminated and replaced not by another kind of fascism but by a political system that respects human rights.

The second novel, Catching Fire, challenges Katniss and Peeta’s victory in the Hunger Games by revealing the ongoing manipulation victors experience at the hands of the Capitol. So, it isn’t enough for Katniss and Peeta to outwit the Gamemakers; they can’t just go home and live a comfortable life in Victor’s Village. They have captured the attention of Panem in an act of resistance against the games and must therefore be used to garner support for the government or be destroyed.

Catching Fire follows Katniss and Peeta on their victory tour as they attempt to meet the Capitol’s expectations for their fictional romance. Once home, Katniss tries to return to her hunting life but faces the imposition of more violent “Peacekeepers” on District 12. This repression combines with evidence of rebellion in the other districts, encouraging Katniss to think of fleeing and of fighting. As the tension escalates throughout Panem, President Snow announces that the Quarter Quell, a celebration of the 75^th anniversary of the Hunger Games, will draw tributes only from prior victors, which throws Katniss and Peeta again into the arena.

When I realized the storyline mirrored that of the previous book, I was worried that Catching Fire would be a pale shadow of the first story, like Return of the Jedi was of the 1977 Star Wars, with the goal of both being the destruction of the Death Star, but the differences in context between the Hunger Games and the Quarter Quell made the storylines in the Hunger Game series different enough for the second to be interesting.

In this version of the games, there’s no question that Katniss and Peeta will work together, and they build alliances with other victors in self-preservation. The need for mutuality in the face of oppression is a given. In addition, the context of growing rebellion in the districts makes rebellion in the Quarter Quell more meaningful, as any act could become a symbol contributing to resistance. And the rebellion even penetrates the Quarter Quell when other victors secretly act to ensure Katniss, the symbol of rebellion, survives and can be rescued. These additional complexities expand upon the issues of social justice from the first novel by making collaboration in rebellion necessary. A government that so little values the lives of its citizens must be brought down.

The third volume in the series, Mockingjay, further complicates the issue of fascism and resistance by making the resistance potentially fascist in its own right. At the end of Catching Fire, we discover that District 13 has been destroyed only at the surface. The Capitol has allowed its citizens to dwell underground in a kind of nuclear détente, and since that agreement, District 13 has been preparing to challenge the Capitol in conventional warfare. To survive, District 13 citizens have had to live an exceptionally regimented life. This regimentation and the undoubted necessity of overthrowing the Capitol combine to make it possible for District 13 leadership to excuse violation of human rights, namely Katniss’s rights, in the name of the rebellion. The leadership plans to use Katniss as a rallying symbol of the rebellion, just as the Capitol had planned to use Katniss to encourage loyalty. As in the Hunger Games, Katniss takes things into her own hands, mounting an unapproved expedition to assassinate President Snow.

During and after this expedition, three events occur that determine Katniss’s ultimate decision to assassinate President Coin, the leader of District 13, instead of President Snow. First, District 13 stages the death of children imprisoned in front of President Snow’s mansion, in an effort to frame him for the children’s deaths. Second, Katniss encounters the captive President Snow who comments, “I’m afraid we have both been played for fools” (Mockingjay 357). Third, President Coin proposes holding another Hunger Games using children of the Capitol’s citizens as a means of reparation. These three events, grounded in Katniss’s experience of death for entertainment in the Hunger Games, lead her to see that any power structure risks fascism, even one ostensibly intending to do good. To consolidate her own power, President Coin has engaged in the same oppressive strategies as President Snow has used. To stand on the side of human rights, one must be always aware of the complexity of power dynamics and always alert to such abuses of power.

Works Cited

Collins, Suzanne. Catching Fire. New York: Scholastic, 2009. Print.

---. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print.

---. Mockingjay. New York: Scholastic, 2010. Print.

Image Source:

Catching Fire and Mockingjay. Book Cover Images. Amazon.com. 8 April 2012. <http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Hunger+Games>

The Hunger Games

I gobbled Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games when I was supposed to be reading Life of Pi. This was interesting pairing, given both novels depict characters pushed to extremes and using other potentially deadly characters for survival. Collins’s work is written for a younger audience and is easy to digest quickly while Martel’s Life of Pi is denser, postmodern, and more aesthetically interesting.

The thematic difference between the two, I would argue, surfaces when examining the presentation of violence. The ending of Life of Pi, which retells the castaway story using humans instead of animals, suggests that it’s easier for humans to digest stories of violence when attached to animals than when attached to humans, which assumes humans find violence among humans distasteful. Hunger Games, on the other hand, suggests humans delight in watching other humans torture and kill one another, which assumes humans are comfortable objectifying one another, particularly in the service of entertainment and of maintaining power in the hands of a few. Sadly, I think the latter assumption is more true than the former, as public displays of violence for entertainment have demonstrated from games in the Roman Coliseum to CNN’s capitalization on embedded reporting during the Gulf War.

So, while the Hunger Games series is lighter literary fare than Life of Pi, it does address serious social justice issues. In the first book of the series, the main issue is fascist power structures encouraging the disenfranchised to battle one another instead of overthrowing the oppressive power structure itself. In the novel, Panem represents civilization arising in post-apocalypse America. Due to the thirteen districts rebelling against the Capitol, the Panem government keeps the districts economically dependent on the center and implemented the Hunger Games as a reminder of the price paid for treason. Each year, each of the twelve remaining districts sends two tributes, a boy and a girl, to the Capitol for the Hunger Games, which are televised live. The tributes battle each other until only one is left, and that one is declared the winner. The Hunger Games themselves illustrate the use of media to establish competition among the districts so that they cannot again collaborate to attempt a coup, maintaining power in the hands of a few in the Capitol.

In response to the “divide and conquer” political strategy that maintains the oppressive power structures, the novel also posits small ways in which individuals can collaborate to resist those structures. When the protagonist, Katniss, volunteers to replace her younger sister as District 12 tribute, her selflessness becomes an act of resistance. Same goes for the mutual support that grows between Katniss and Peeta, the boy tribute from District 12, and between Katniss and the youngest tribute, Rue. Where the games encourage tributes to kill one another, mutuality indicates a refusal to play.

The ultimate moment of resistance that saves both Katniss and Peeta occurs when Katniss and Peeta plan to eat poison berries together and thus rob the Capitol of a victor. In staging this moment, Peeta uses the media coverage that has been used against them. Peeta says, “Hold them out. I want everyone to see” (344). He wants to make sure the Gamemakers and those in the home audiences know they are intentionally eating poison berries so that either the Gamemakers intervene to stop them or so that citizens can hold the Gamemakers accountable for their deaths. Through this act of mutuality, Katniss and Peeta defeat the game, embarrassing the Gamemakers, and situating themselves in rebellious opposition to the Capitol.

It’s important to remember that individuals have power in fascist systems, even if it is only the power to refuse to cooperate. As Michel Foucault writes, “Where there is power, there is resistance” (95). The existence of resistance to domination should give us all hope that we can take action against injustice. The keys to this action are mutuality (we don’t have to work alone) and publicity (one of the few ways small resistances can put pressure on fascism).

When the movie came out, I was worried that Hollywood’s need to reap profit from entertainment would co-opt the social-justice message of the novel, but I was pleased that the film remained closely aligned with the novel. In particular, the Hunger Games were not depicted as brave or fun but as an obscene form of torture perpetrated by a spoiled, comfortable public on oppressed groups. The costuming was particularly effective in making the film consistent with the novel. Never did viewers feel comfortable in the seductive wealth of the Capitol; instead, we remained consistently on edge with the protagonist, horrified at the excess and waste, the foolish obsession with fashion and media, and the willingness of the Capitol audience to enjoy the bystander role in witnessing human-on-human destruction.

Works Cited

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Vol. 1 New York: Vintage, 1978. Print.

Image Source:

The Hunger Games. Book Cover. N.d. Amazon.com. 8 April 2012. <http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Hunger+Games>

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time tells the story of 15-year-old Christopher Boone, a child with Asperger’s Syndrome, a kind of autism. Because the story is told from Christopher’s first-person perspective as an account he is writing with the encouragement of one of his teachers, the story has hallmarks of his perspective, including chapters numbered using prime numbers, accurate sketches that indicate a photographic memory, and the math problems Christopher uses to calm himself. The narration also uses his own stilted phraseology, some that seems to come word-for-word from the science books and videos he enjoys, and some that seems to come from adults having explained things to him, like definitions.

What fascinates me most about this novel is the perspective. It provides a fictional window into alternative perceptions of the world, which aids me in considering the different ways people may need to be treated. For example, not everyone finds touch reassuring, so it might be good to ask or get a sense of whether an individual might like to be touched before doing so. Same goes for eye contact, which also has cultural variations where eye contact can seem insolent or invasive rather than trustworthy. The book also demonstrates that disability may have nothing to do with intelligence, as Christopher is highly intelligent with an exceptional memory and merely puts information together in his own unique way.

Perhaps even more profound is the idea of fiction itself, which Christopher indicates he cannot engage in. He writes, “A lie is when you say something happened which didn’t happen” (24). This seems pretty straightforward: he has difficulty processing lies. But, lying is so much broader and more wound into our daily lives than simple untruths. Christopher goes on to say, “But there is only ever one thing which happened at a particular time and a particular place. And there are an infinite number of things which didn’t happen at that time and that place. And if I think about something which didn’t happen I start thinking about all the other things which didn’t happen” (24). The category of “things which didn’t happen” includes untruths and speculations about the past, ponderings and fantasies regarding the present, and hopes for the future, not to mention aesthetic fictions. For Christopher, admitting any of these into his consciousness opens the door to all of them, which is more than he can stand. His difficulty illustrates the complexity of the average human’s ability to juggle the mix of realities that comprise daily life.

While Christopher’s reality might seem alien, his struggles are also struggles of average people, just a little more exaggerated. We all have cognitive activities we do well, and we prefer those activities when we are surprised or challenged by others. We all can get overwhelmed by too many stimuli and employ coping mechanisms under such circumstances. We all live by a set of social rules that tell us how to behave in a variety of social situations. While we may not have Christopher’s limits in dealing with “strangers,” we do have similar kinds of limits that help us balance social interaction with safety. Seeing Christopher wrestle with his challenges reminds us that we are not alone in our own struggles.

Aside from the depiction of Christopher’s perspective, the plot of the novel operates traditionally, hooking the reader by establishing one mystery: who killed the neighbor’s dog with a garden fork? It then intensifies the conflict by revealing a second: that, despite the claims of his father, Christopher’s mother is not dead. Christopher treats himself as a detective seeking clues, and the reader is eager to unravel the adult problems revealed partly through the dramatic irony inherent in Christopher’s youthful perspective. When eventually Christopher embarks on a journey to London in order to find his mother, the reader reads on, hoping Christopher can conquer the anxieties associated with his disability in order to arrive safely at his mother’s apartment. Yet, even after successfully eluding the police and saving his rat Toby from the train tracks, Christopher does not find comfort at the journey’s end, as adult problems again surface to confuse him.

Christopher’s difficulties speak to the challenges of our social system where individual families are often left responsible for family members who cannot care for themselves. Without assistance or training, not to mention adequate funding, these families attempt to rise to the occasion, but the challenges of such care can end relationships, absorb money that would otherwise go to necessities, and, as frustrations escalate, result in violence. Christopher acknowledges that his mother has hit him and retells a scene where his father, frustrated with the questions he asks neighbors as part of his detective work, grabs him, causing Christopher to hit him, and likely resulting in his father’s hitting back, although Christopher’s memory shuts down from the overstimulation (103-04). That loving parents could get so frustrated with their disabled son that they would strike him speaks to the difficulty of these situations and to the need for society to provide more support, such as caregivers to spell family members from the care that saps their energy and humanity and education to assist them in providing better care for their loved ones.

Work Cited

Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. London: Vintage, 2003. Print.

Image Source

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." [Book Cover] amazon.com 26 Feb. 2012. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Curious+Incident+of+the+Dog&x=0&y=0

When the Emperor Was Divine

Julie Otsuka’s When the Emperor Was Divine is a novel treating the experiences of one Japanese-American family during the internment of World War II. Most of the novel is told in the third person without names, perhaps to emphasize that internment happened to thousands of Japanese-Americans, all turned into numbers, all considered to be exactly the same treason risk, no matter the age.

The novel begins with the mother and two children packing to leave Berkeley, California by train. The mother gives away the cat, kills the old White Dog, frees the macaw, buries the silver, and locks up all the family’s precious possessions in one room of the house.

The mother and children spend three years and five months at the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah. Although they are not subjected to physical torture--except wrongful imprisonment, loss of their home and possessions, separation from the father, and the heat and cold in the alkali desert--all three seem to disappear into the despair associated with oppression, inactivity, and waiting. At one point, the boy grows a tulip he names Gloria, but the potential beauty associated with this new life is immediately undercut by his sister’s failure to find the shell of the tortoise they expected to be reborn in the spring. She says, “’He left without us’” (100), which suggests the emptiness of their lives, the loss of the world, passing by without them, and maybe even the failure of a savior to redeem them from this hell.

When the mother and children return to their home, the narrative shifts into the first-person plural from the children’s perspective as they attempt to readjust to life in Berkeley. Because their home has been trashed and all their possessions stolen, because they have no income until their mother takes menial jobs, and because racism in the community still causes a barrier between them and their community, the children have difficult re-acclimating. This sense of alienation is exacerbated when their father returns home an old man, unrecognizable and incapable of providing for his family. The children go seeking their mother’s red rosebush but never find it, as if the promise of life, liberty, and happiness has been utterly denied them.

The end of the novel is told in the first-person singular from the father’s perspective. It reads partly as a transcript of a tortured man admitting to anything that would get his captors to stop and a kind of unified voice of all Japanese-American men who lost their manhood during internment, reacting to the racism with utter bitterness, with irony admitting to all of the crimes believed of them: “And I’ve been living here, quietly, beside you, for years, just waiting for Tojo to flash me the high sign” (143). The deep anger lacing this false admission of guilt is ultimately justified and painfully difficult to read.

I think this is an important book. It’s not long, a quick read, but it’s weighty and disturbing. It’s difficult to imagine Americans putting up with such treatment of other human beings, but we’re surprisingly passive today with the continued existence of Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. Maybe each generation has its horrible secret, like the child locked away in Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” whose mistreatment makes happiness possible for the rest of the townspeople. And, then, there are all the poor and disenfranchised who live in our towns, on the edge of our awareness. Sadly, we don’t really see them either and would rather blame them for their condition.

Works Cited

Otsuka, Julie. When the Emperor Was Divine. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. Print.

Image Source

"When the Emperor Was Divine." Book Cover. amazon.com. 16 Feb. 2012. http://www.amazon.com/When-Emperor-Divine-Julie-Otsuka/dp/B005EOZ7VO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1329450260&sr=8-4

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

I read William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind in preparation for selecting the Common Read book at Eastern Oregon University for 2012-13. Essentially, we look for a book that is first of all engaging and is also accessible for first-year students, relates to a variety of disciplines, and provides a springboard for discussing issues of difference and discrimination. Once selected, the book will be assigned in all first-year experience courses, which serve incoming students with fewer than 30 college credits, and may be used in a variety of other courses serving first-year students.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind certainly fulfills expectations for a Common Read book. Kamkwamba’s story is engaging. While I found some of the discussion of the famine depressing, I really enjoyed reading of William’s cleverness in building and revamping his windmill, supported by photos and diagrams. I especially liked the pride with which William’s father responded to his efforts. When William pretends to be a radio reporter asking his father about the electric lights in his home, William’s father says that he enjoys the lights “’more than a city person.’” When William asks whether this pleasure comes from the fact that there are “’no blackouts,’” Williams father says, “’Well, yes’ [. . .] But also, because my own son made it’” (203). Such a strong father-son bond makes up for all of the difficulty the family experienced and reminds me of the heart-warming moment in the recent film Hugo where filmmaker Georges Melies claims Hugo as belonging to him.

I think Kamkwamba and Mealer’s book would be good for first-year students because it acquaints them with part of the world, Malawi, about which they may not before have learned. I think the drama of the famine followed by the success of the windmill would keep students reading, and the language is not difficult. Moreover, reading about William’s life puts the reader into his experiences, almost as if the reader had traveled there to meet him. Kamkwamba’s voice is inviting in its enthusiasm and the way it is not quite as polished as one might find in other creative non-fiction. For example, when William first goes away to school, he shares a bed with a student who doesn’t wash his feet. When he attends the African Leadership Academy, he jokes about his Kenyan roommate. “But Githiora isn’t forced to share my bed, and anyway, I’m pretty sure he washes his feet more frequently than my previous roommate” (270). That gentle joke represents Kamkwamba’s charming voice throughout, as if he is smiling while he writes, even through his difficult times. Finally, rural Oregon students may connect easily with rural Malawi’s dependence on harvest and distance from urban centers of political power.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind represents a good choice in terms of disciplinary breadth. It addresses anthropology, sociology, physics, political science, education, economics, business, agriculture, history, and global culture. The exploration of difference and discrimination would also be attractive, as William’s experiences might be examined in terms of nationality and ethnicity, of class within Malawian culture, and of masculinity and gender roles.

I can think of only a few potential weaknesses for the EOU first-year student population:

1) Malawi might be too distant for students to feel the story to be relevant. Moreover, the truth of the famine and lack of modern conveniences might simply reinforce the stereotype of Africa as underdeveloped and suffering.

2) The other potential weakness for the EOU student population is the focus on windmills, which represent a strenuously debated local topic. Because I’m from California and have grown up with wind farms on the horizon, I think they’re kind of pretty, and I’m interested in the potential for wind to provide more environmentally sustainable renewable energy than dams. However, students sensitive to the arguments against windmills published repeatedly in the local newspaper by their own neighbors may feel the assignment of a book on windmills represents a liberal plot to advocate for windmills and, worse, convert good conservatives to the liberal agenda.

On the other hand, the dialogue about windmills might prove energetic and provide an opportunity for all to get further educated on the topic.

Work Cited

Kamkwamba, William and Bryan Mealer. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. New York: William Morrow, 2009. Print.

Image Source

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. Book Cover Image. amazon.com. 14 Feb. 2012. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=The+Boy+Who+Harnessed+the+Wind&x=0&y=0