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Whirligig
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From: lhendr at unm.edu <lhendr>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 12:47:01 -0600 (MDT)
My impression of Whirligig is that the form and content is a perfect match
-- the book is a whirligig and the focus is not so much on one person but on the interaction of the various persons and events -- a holistic story that is not really about the archetypal journey of the hero. Whirligig shows how actions cause other actions, how everything is linked in ways we'll never know. I think Brenda's connection with Aboriginal and Native American kinds of "story" is in the right direction, and I think Marc's comparison of the book to Bach's music also helps to see what the book is rather than what it is not.
Of course, the whirligig maker constructs the whirligig according to a particular pattern and it is all very mechanical with little room for chance. In real life the Great Whirligig maker's skill is such that each of us who is one small part in an incredibly complex whirligig cannot see the entire pattern, or even know whether there is one or whether all is simply random. Fleischman's book certainly provides much to think about, whether we personally believe some great whirligig maker has set everything in motion or not, because when we think about it, every action any of us makes results in some other action, however small, which in turn results is still more actions -- endlessly. The whirligig is a perfect metaphor.
Far from being "a guy thing" this book isn't so much about quests and trials, not so much about an individual, but about a greater pattern. The pattern of narrative is more like what Le Guin calls the "carrier bag" theory of fiction than the "spear-shaped" story. That may be why we don't identify completely with Brent or ever feel we get to know him well. This is not really his story, but the story of all of us and the interaction of individuals. We may think of ourselves as individuals, but actually, we are all parts of a whirligig.
Much of Bach's music -- I'm thinking particularly of the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Two and Three Part Inventions -- also does not have the classic climactic pattern -- but presents intricate intertwining of themes and many small patterns that rise and fall -- completely opposite of Tchaikovsky's 5th, for example. It is not the getting there, but the pleasures and difficulties along the way -- if we are going anywhere at all -- for perhaps we're not going anywhere but around in circles -- or moving while remaining stationary as the whirligig does. This also seems to be the emphasis in some Native American and Aboriginal stories, where time is not seen as linear, and the stories are not either.
How wonderfully ironic that this apparently banal and mundane artifact of the popular culture of middle America is the metaphor for what would at first glance appear to be an antithetical perspective. Or, does this only reniforce the premise of the book that ultimately we cannot know what the true effect of our actions will be, and that we will often find enlightenment when and where we least expect it?
I didn't catch the Labors of Hercules connections in the book, either, but knowing how Paul constructs all his work with the meticulousness of a whirligig-maker and tries to fit in as many connections as possible that will work in multiple ways, I have no doubt it is there somewhere. We expect to read books about the adventures of a hero, but that's not what all books are about, including this one. In fact, some of the peripheral characters in the book that we meet only in brief fragments, including the dead girl -- is she peripheral or central? -- are clearer in my memory than is Brent, and that is likely the way it is intended to be, and part of what makes this an unconventional narrative.
Linnea Hendrickson Lhendr at unm.edu
Received on Wed 14 Oct 1998 01:47:01 PM CDT
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 12:47:01 -0600 (MDT)
My impression of Whirligig is that the form and content is a perfect match
-- the book is a whirligig and the focus is not so much on one person but on the interaction of the various persons and events -- a holistic story that is not really about the archetypal journey of the hero. Whirligig shows how actions cause other actions, how everything is linked in ways we'll never know. I think Brenda's connection with Aboriginal and Native American kinds of "story" is in the right direction, and I think Marc's comparison of the book to Bach's music also helps to see what the book is rather than what it is not.
Of course, the whirligig maker constructs the whirligig according to a particular pattern and it is all very mechanical with little room for chance. In real life the Great Whirligig maker's skill is such that each of us who is one small part in an incredibly complex whirligig cannot see the entire pattern, or even know whether there is one or whether all is simply random. Fleischman's book certainly provides much to think about, whether we personally believe some great whirligig maker has set everything in motion or not, because when we think about it, every action any of us makes results in some other action, however small, which in turn results is still more actions -- endlessly. The whirligig is a perfect metaphor.
Far from being "a guy thing" this book isn't so much about quests and trials, not so much about an individual, but about a greater pattern. The pattern of narrative is more like what Le Guin calls the "carrier bag" theory of fiction than the "spear-shaped" story. That may be why we don't identify completely with Brent or ever feel we get to know him well. This is not really his story, but the story of all of us and the interaction of individuals. We may think of ourselves as individuals, but actually, we are all parts of a whirligig.
Much of Bach's music -- I'm thinking particularly of the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Two and Three Part Inventions -- also does not have the classic climactic pattern -- but presents intricate intertwining of themes and many small patterns that rise and fall -- completely opposite of Tchaikovsky's 5th, for example. It is not the getting there, but the pleasures and difficulties along the way -- if we are going anywhere at all -- for perhaps we're not going anywhere but around in circles -- or moving while remaining stationary as the whirligig does. This also seems to be the emphasis in some Native American and Aboriginal stories, where time is not seen as linear, and the stories are not either.
How wonderfully ironic that this apparently banal and mundane artifact of the popular culture of middle America is the metaphor for what would at first glance appear to be an antithetical perspective. Or, does this only reniforce the premise of the book that ultimately we cannot know what the true effect of our actions will be, and that we will often find enlightenment when and where we least expect it?
I didn't catch the Labors of Hercules connections in the book, either, but knowing how Paul constructs all his work with the meticulousness of a whirligig-maker and tries to fit in as many connections as possible that will work in multiple ways, I have no doubt it is there somewhere. We expect to read books about the adventures of a hero, but that's not what all books are about, including this one. In fact, some of the peripheral characters in the book that we meet only in brief fragments, including the dead girl -- is she peripheral or central? -- are clearer in my memory than is Brent, and that is likely the way it is intended to be, and part of what makes this an unconventional narrative.
Linnea Hendrickson Lhendr at unm.edu
Received on Wed 14 Oct 1998 01:47:01 PM CDT
