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From: Nina A Lindsay <NALINDSA>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 97 11:29 CST
I am another reader who was "sucked in" to this book. I found I didn't care whether the slang had any basis in actuality or not (as someone recently questioned) -- I BELIEVED this was how Sura talked -- it was a believable language, consistnet, strong, and original. A while ago, Megan mentioned the coarseness with which Sura talks about girls (Honeys) and "sex poles." This was part of what made the language believable for me, and what made Sura's character so intense and enduring: the way in which he talks and thinks about sex constantly, without ever really visualizing it. Go back an look at the images he associates with sex: the smell of girls and their deodorant, their armpits, their skirts. In his fantasy towards the end with the daughter in the picture, he imagines them riding on a horse, blue light .... Sura's thoughts about sex to me are quintessentially pre-pubescent. He has knowledge of his own, solitary sexuality (his "sex poles"), and of, imagistically and culturally, what makes girls "sexy", but he really has no idea of what a sexual relationship entails. I think that this succesful portrayal of Sura as a "not quite young?ult" is what gives him a perplexing endearingness and tenderness, and lets us hope and believe that he has the power to redeem himself. As much as people will want to call this a YA novel, I'd maintain that this book is for children. Certain children, yes, and children on the brink of young?ulthood.
Just a quick sidebar on the stolen picture at the end -- I took it as very deliberate that we aren't shown the moment that Sura takes the picture. The intensity with which he studies it, the meanings and emotions he loads into it, sitting it the room, clue the reader that this is an important image. Then, at the end, when we discover he HAS taken it, I wnated to shout "Go, Sura!"--this is his symbolic act of agency, of taking control and responsiblity. By not focussing on the mechanics of stealing it, the symbolic meaning of the act is more apparent, I think.
Nina Lindsay Albany Elementary Schools, Albany CA nalindsa at macc.wisc.edu
Received on Tue 26 Aug 1997 12:29:00 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 97 11:29 CST
I am another reader who was "sucked in" to this book. I found I didn't care whether the slang had any basis in actuality or not (as someone recently questioned) -- I BELIEVED this was how Sura talked -- it was a believable language, consistnet, strong, and original. A while ago, Megan mentioned the coarseness with which Sura talks about girls (Honeys) and "sex poles." This was part of what made the language believable for me, and what made Sura's character so intense and enduring: the way in which he talks and thinks about sex constantly, without ever really visualizing it. Go back an look at the images he associates with sex: the smell of girls and their deodorant, their armpits, their skirts. In his fantasy towards the end with the daughter in the picture, he imagines them riding on a horse, blue light .... Sura's thoughts about sex to me are quintessentially pre-pubescent. He has knowledge of his own, solitary sexuality (his "sex poles"), and of, imagistically and culturally, what makes girls "sexy", but he really has no idea of what a sexual relationship entails. I think that this succesful portrayal of Sura as a "not quite young?ult" is what gives him a perplexing endearingness and tenderness, and lets us hope and believe that he has the power to redeem himself. As much as people will want to call this a YA novel, I'd maintain that this book is for children. Certain children, yes, and children on the brink of young?ulthood.
Just a quick sidebar on the stolen picture at the end -- I took it as very deliberate that we aren't shown the moment that Sura takes the picture. The intensity with which he studies it, the meanings and emotions he loads into it, sitting it the room, clue the reader that this is an important image. Then, at the end, when we discover he HAS taken it, I wnated to shout "Go, Sura!"--this is his symbolic act of agency, of taking control and responsiblity. By not focussing on the mechanics of stealing it, the symbolic meaning of the act is more apparent, I think.
Nina Lindsay Albany Elementary Schools, Albany CA nalindsa at macc.wisc.edu
Received on Tue 26 Aug 1997 12:29:00 PM CDT
