CCBC-Net Archives
Buffalo Tree
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Mactycho at aol.com <Mactycho>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:36:22 -0400 (EDT)
Gulp! I will wade in again.
I found one of the most profoundly affecting parts of _Buffalo Tree_ was Coly Jo's death. It read like "magical realism" to me. The references to dream, to the treehand, the palpable silence... as though the literal story trajectory has been suspended in a dream because of this powerful and significant event. The reader is not aware when Sura actually leaves Coly Jo's side and returns to his patch. Three times after he sees his friend in the dead tree, Sura says that he and Coly Jo are watching each other; they "stay still like that and talk to each other with our eyes." It is a formal leave-taking. In this elegiac, blue freeze-frame, Coly Jo's death is heartstoppingly foreshadowed for the reader.The next chapter comes shockingly and abruptly alive with the blasting of the aurora horn and the yelling of Mr Rose. Sura and the reader are both jolted into the moments when Coly Jo's body is discovered. As a reader, I did not look for more specifics of Coly Jo's death... in fact careful specifics would have detracted from the hold which the author and these two characters had on me.
I also reread the ending because I could not remember the detail of Sura's stealing the picture. I did not find evidence that he did actually, but I felt it was more confirmation of Sura's "quickness" which the author shows us through incident again and again. I was convinced that Sura would be capable of this clever sleight of hand. I know that had we been in Dean Petty's office ourselves, we *never* would have seen the picture disappear. Symbolically, it was the ultimate quickness... a revenge which did not hurt anyone but which was a satisfying triumph for Sura and the reader... a sort of literary flipping the bird, and very appropriate to Sura's character. Because the novel seems so beautifully and carefully crafted, I find it inconceiveable that the lack of specifics surrounding the theft of the picture was an unintentional omission.
I believe Megan best articulated my own vsiceral connection to this book when she expressed the vulnerability and the unexpected tenderness which she found in the characters. I am glad to be thinking/talking about _Buffalo Tree_ with you. Kate McClelland Perrot Memorial Library Old Greenwich, CT
Received on Thu 21 Aug 1997 11:36:22 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 12:36:22 -0400 (EDT)
Gulp! I will wade in again.
I found one of the most profoundly affecting parts of _Buffalo Tree_ was Coly Jo's death. It read like "magical realism" to me. The references to dream, to the treehand, the palpable silence... as though the literal story trajectory has been suspended in a dream because of this powerful and significant event. The reader is not aware when Sura actually leaves Coly Jo's side and returns to his patch. Three times after he sees his friend in the dead tree, Sura says that he and Coly Jo are watching each other; they "stay still like that and talk to each other with our eyes." It is a formal leave-taking. In this elegiac, blue freeze-frame, Coly Jo's death is heartstoppingly foreshadowed for the reader.The next chapter comes shockingly and abruptly alive with the blasting of the aurora horn and the yelling of Mr Rose. Sura and the reader are both jolted into the moments when Coly Jo's body is discovered. As a reader, I did not look for more specifics of Coly Jo's death... in fact careful specifics would have detracted from the hold which the author and these two characters had on me.
I also reread the ending because I could not remember the detail of Sura's stealing the picture. I did not find evidence that he did actually, but I felt it was more confirmation of Sura's "quickness" which the author shows us through incident again and again. I was convinced that Sura would be capable of this clever sleight of hand. I know that had we been in Dean Petty's office ourselves, we *never* would have seen the picture disappear. Symbolically, it was the ultimate quickness... a revenge which did not hurt anyone but which was a satisfying triumph for Sura and the reader... a sort of literary flipping the bird, and very appropriate to Sura's character. Because the novel seems so beautifully and carefully crafted, I find it inconceiveable that the lack of specifics surrounding the theft of the picture was an unintentional omission.
I believe Megan best articulated my own vsiceral connection to this book when she expressed the vulnerability and the unexpected tenderness which she found in the characters. I am glad to be thinking/talking about _Buffalo Tree_ with you. Kate McClelland Perrot Memorial Library Old Greenwich, CT
Received on Thu 21 Aug 1997 11:36:22 AM CDT
