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There There - Parts 2 to 4 and whole book (Spoilers allowed)
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Hugh
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Jan 01, 2020 07:42AM
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I liked the variety of characters, however I felt that there were too many "main characters" and not enough time to connect to any one in particular by the end. I would've enjoyed a little more depth in their connections.
Jessica wrote: "I liked the variety of characters, however I felt that there were too many "main characters" and not enough time to connect to any one in particular by the end. I would've enjoyed a little more dep..."I actually thought he did a good job with character development. Rather than regurgitating my thoughts, this is from my review:
Each character speaks with a distinctive and authentic voice. Depending on who is speaking, the tone varies from resignation, to anger, to rage, to frustration, to a drug-induced or alcohol induced reverie. The sections get progressively shorter to quicken the pace as we hurtle toward the climax.
I also loved what he did with the ending.
After simultaneously introducing the characters and revealing their backstories, he slowly but surely leads them to converge in a climactic finish at the powwow. Orange sets the stage is if directing a play with each character making a separate entrance from a different corner of the stage. He navigates the drama, inching his characters forward until they meet at center-stage in a violent crescendo. The effect is riveting; the pace relentless; the voice explosive; the language breathtaking.
(Also from my review)
My full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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I found the list of characters helpful. I referred to it several times.
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Orange has discussed in interviews how it's necessary to provide a range of voices when you're punching back against stereotypes and writing characters that are underrepresented in fiction. Here's a quote from an interview with NPR:
"Basically, talking about how to write Indian without doing the typically Indian stuff. If you introduce an Indian, do they have to do something Indian? And this is all based on stereotype and authenticity. And the stick we have to measure ourselves by is this old version of what being Indian is. And we need to expand the conversation about how many different things it can mean.”
Hugh wrote: "I have just finished the book, and feel I need to think and process it a little before reviewing it. I liked the variety of characters and voices, but the ending seems very bleak and melodramatic..." The ending seems melodramatic to me, but not bleak, as it ends with the birds, a redemptive closure. The bleakness comes from the degradation, which originates with the genocide and displacement. There is a connection to the melodrama, in the sense that this is not a heavily plotted novel. It consists essentially of a single image of convergence, and the power comes from the moral sense as the blindness of the dominant culture first oppresses and corrupts, and is then dispelled at the end by an act of creativity.
I also used referred to the list of characters several times, specially in the Pow wow chapters. I just wish I had been able to remember more of the characters names to not have the need to look them up.I definitely appreciated the range of characters and the fact that they are not your "typical" Indian, considering I don't know anything about urban Indians or Oakland this was a very interesting and educational book.
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I have now written my review here
What did you guys make of the spider legs?! I felt like I was missing something that explained what they were supposed to mean!
Bretnie wrote: "What did you guys make of the spider legs?! I felt like I was missing something that explained what they were supposed to mean!"I searched online and it seems this happened to Orange in real life! There doesn't seem to be an explanation for it. Here's a video where he talks about it.
https://vimeo.com/299939738
Um, thanks for the link. I think. Eew. Well, I won't expect any more explanation from the story. It looks like the novel's thesis is pretty well summarized by Dene's doco project: to show a breadth of Native lives. After being with Dene and his insecurities when he pitched the project, I was surprised by his competence when working with an informant. He was reassuring and supportive of Calvin.
I finished the book about a week ago and liked it but the more I think about it the more I like it. First of all, the title was very intriguing and I'm still not sure what the author really had in mind. There is the mention of the Radiohead song and there is also the Gertrude Stein quote but the meaning still seems ambiguous to me but that is a good thing in my opinion. I also liked the interwoven stories and the variety of characters each showing a different view of what it is like being Native in today's America. I felt like the story of Dene was somewhat autobiographical of Tommy Orange and that the novel was the result of Dene's project.
Jessica wrote: "Bretnie wrote: "What did you guys make of the spider legs?! I felt like I was missing something that explained what they were supposed to mean!"I searched online and it seems this happened to Ora..."
I can't watch the video because the whole topic is so disgusting. I can't get my head around it and I thought that it happens with parasites such as worms. But still it is yuck.
I enjoyed reading the novel. I liked the way Orange covered such a range of characters and think his point about there not being one type of Indian crucial to an understanding of his project. I agree too that of the characters Orange is probably closest to Dene. I found the way Orange orchestrates the characters coming together at the pow-wow very effective. But I can't help but wonder about the violent ending. The fact that the 3D print-out guns are white strikes me as relevant. It's mentioned a number of times. Of course paper is usually white, but they could have painted the guns. I tend to thinking that it is meant to show how some Natives have been assimilated into American white culture. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.
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I finished it last night and I'm not sure whether it's possible to say that the title definitively represents or means one thing, which I really like. The obvious reference is the Gerturde Stein quote - I've lived in Oakland the past few years and it's definitely a line I've heard many people say when I tell them where I live.
At one point, Dene thinks about how this line almost always seems to be taken out of context and that it's usually the white hipsters who have recently moved into Oakland who quote it to sound philosophical and connected to the city. I believe it's when Dene is waiting to submit his grant proposal that he thinks about Stein's full commentary surrounding the "there there" quote and how it's about the childhood home of her memory no longer existing. The recent hipster arrivals wouldn't be able to connect to that because they don't have the long ties to the city or its land. I am white and a relative newcomer to the area so can't speak to Dene's viewpoint. But as an observer, I see that parts of the city's population have struggled to maintain the city's "roots" and diverse background, while other parts push to gentrify and keep up to speed with the massive tech growth in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
The line could also reflect the "Native" experience of many of the characters, with some of them actively searching to know more about their backgrounds, while others don't feel much connection at all and claim to be more "Oakland" than anything else. I thought the tie in to the Radiohead song was a clever way to modernize the line and to show there can be multiple interpretations to the title. Also, the line from the song, "Just because you feel it, doesn't mean it's there," seems apt for several of the characters struggling to figure out who/what/where they are or come from.
Thanks for the info about the spider legs! Holy cow I was really hoping for a metaphorical answer and not an autobiographical one! I like the multiple ways to interpret the title. I was initially picturing it as a phrase adults use to calm children down. Like as a metaphor for white men or current society trying to pacify natives. But it has so many other interpretations.
Elaine, Yes, I noticed the white plastic also. Paint would have worked, or colored plastic feedstock. I have VERY rarely seen white 3D printing output! I think the point that they WERE white was intentional.Bretnie, Yes, the title was evocative for me as a Berkeley native (just north of Oakland). I'd always thought of it as a self-deprecating comparison to San Francisco ("the City") across the Bay. That mirrors the often self-deprecating self image of many of these characters. By Orange's telling, Gertrude Stein's meaning of a lost childhood home would also reinforce the Natives' sense of loss.
Tamara, I agree with your assessment of the ending. I was anticipating disaster once the 3-D printed guns showed up, so watching it play out, the orchestration of it as you say, was beautiful in its horror.Like Karsten, I enjoy this more after reading it. During I found it a little oppressive--both the subject matter and the sheer number of characters. But after, as it sinks in, I find it so unique and important. And the details of the traditions keep coming back to me--beautiful stuff.
Character list? Are you saying there is a list of characters included? My copy doesn't have one and I sure could have used one. I read it over about 10 days, and was continually flipping back to previous chapters to remind myself.
Excellent point about the white guns, Elaine. I found the interlude very poignant too. Especially the allegory he tells about the people on cruise ships getting hors d'oeuvres and having their pillows fluffed versus the people near them in the water, desperately trying to survive.
Kathleen, Yes, there is a character list. You may read it in the "preview" over at OverDrive:
Overdrive.com
It helps a lot when "getting up to speed" with the plot.
It felt like the actual violent ending wasn't needed after the waterfall of interthreaded lives leading to that day.
Mark wrote: "Kathleen, Yes, there is a character list. You may read it in the "preview" over at OverDrive:
Overdrive.com
It helps a lot when "getting up to speed" with the plot.
It felt like the actual vi..."
Thanks, Mark!
You make a good point about that waterfall, and it would have been interesting to leave it at that. There's lots of controversy over the ending--a good thing perhaps.
After the second Interlude (I don't remember the chapter and I already returned my copy of the book!) where Orange talks about mass shootings, I was expecting the ending to be much more violent with a more vicious shooting at the pow wow. I guess that's life in America now...
What an extremely poignant and harrowing debut novel by Tommy Orange. If at the end we are not reminded of, or realize we are given a more elevated and comprehensive understanding of: their disturbing plight, the penetrating nature of an otherwise invisible existence, the broken trust through the generations with the white guns who stole their lands and committed a mass genocide on the American Indian, then I don’t know if we have read the same book? There, There, is a true work of art with that weaving of tumultuous histories, religious weight and wit peppering the narrative. It’s a little Canterybury Tales-ish, don’t you think? Multiple characters telling their story all on the way to a common place…
I’m left devastated, yet completely enriched by what Orange has given me to think about at the turn of that last page. The burden of unknown personal histories molding and shaping identities already walking on a shaky ground- it really left me speechless. I don’t know what the right thing is to say? Edit: 5/3/20 The depth of oppression ever-present and the shaping of our indigenous cultures by mainly stripping their identity away-it’s the distillation of the imperialist takeover that always leaves me scratching my head in both wonder and recognizing the true nature of genuine savagery. There, There, will be etched in my mind for a long while. As you can see I keep adding to my post. Smh.
I give it 4 golden stars.
Elaine wrote: "I enjoyed reading the novel. I liked the way Orange covered such a range of characters and think his point about there not being one type of Indian crucial to an understanding of his project. I agr..."I tend to thinking that it is meant to show how some Natives have been assimilated into American white culture. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes.
I thought this exactly as well, Elaine.
Kathleen wrote: "Tamara, I agree with your assessment of the ending. I was anticipating disaster once the 3-D printed guns showed up, so watching it play out, the orchestration of it as you say, was beautiful in it..."I found the interlude very poignant too. Especially the allegory he tells about the people on cruise ships getting hors d'oeuvres and having their pillows fluffed versus the people near them in the water, desperately trying to survive.
What a punch in the gut this was for me. Ugh.
I really love how this is a multi-generational, multi-voiced narrative about an ancient culture attempting to survive in present day Oakland gives me an all-encompassing outlook for their lives, versus reading about American Indians living on the reservation in a particular time period. Orange doesn’t miss a single detail delivering his story in this manner. It's a cool little twist that enhances the narrative for me, the tragedy of their plight sowed through the generations.
Ami wrote: "What an extremely poignant and harrowing debut novel by Tommy Orange. If at the end we are not reminded of, or realize we are given a more elevated and comprehensive understanding of: their disturb..."Canterbury Tales-ish--great point, Ami!
I hear he's working on a sequel. Looking forward to that.
Kathleen wrote: "Ami wrote: "What an extremely poignant and harrowing debut novel by Tommy Orange. If at the end we are not reminded of, or realize we are given a more elevated and comprehensive understanding of: t..."I think Orvil makes it. Blue realizing Jacqui is her mother, the way they met, it was a weak story line. The Red Feathers deserve some continuity, maybe the sequel will include them... hopefully?
Jessica wrote: "Bretnie wrote: "What did you guys make of the spider legs?! I felt like I was missing something that explained what they were supposed to mean!"I searched online and it seems this happened to Ora..."
Bretnie wrote: "What did you guys make of the spider legs?! I felt like I was missing something that explained what they were supposed to mean!"
We have the metaphorical explanation, but here is a possible medical reason another GR member had suggested...https://www.mayoclinic.org/morgellons...
