[2] hangman, relatives, bridle path

I’ve been keeping a list of phrases that jump out at me: 

a farty ditch, grapplewrapped, yolky rug, stewy air, white chocolate throat, melony sun, sour aunt, moon-gray cat, bubonic zits, Russian-secretary glasses, brown-polish-on-black-suede skins, bad doe eyes, superheated flies grandprixed, tail-chasing wail
(in no particular order.)  

I really like this about Mitchell’s writing-- he uses such strange descriptions!  There are certainly easier, more conventional ways to describe each of these things, but his choices are so eye-catching and perfectly descriptive that they really keep my attention.  I think if I were teaching this book I might make a note of that, for the purposes of a writing lesson: the advantages of creative word choice.  I think this is a great model for that.  


A lot of the food-related descriptors on this list come from around the incident with Dawn Madden on page 85, which I found rather interesting; I’m curious as to whether the white chocolate throat, the melony sun, were meant to foreshadow or lead into the business with the danish somehow.


Also, there’s a lot of sex in this section!  Interesting to see how disconnected it seems from all the sexual innuendo that gets flung around in the first chapter.  Does Jason make a connection between calling someone a “fat orgasm” and seeing someone have an orgasm?  He seems pretty aware of how intensely attracted he is to Dawn, but he generally verbalizes it in strange, indirect ways: “She must use gel.  I’d love to gel her gel in for her.”  It’s interesting that after his very charged, utterly failed experience with her, he watches Tom Yew and Debbie Crombie having sex and feels “Not proud and not pleased and not like I ever wanted to do that.”  There’s a disconnect between feeling and seeing, which I suppose might be why he replied to Dawn the way he did.  I couldn’t help but laugh at that.  He’s clueless and well-informed at the same time.  Paired with all the tension and accusations of homosexuality that fly among the boys, I’m curious to see how all this pans out.  




[I know this isn’t the full set of chapters for Monday, I just wanted to break my posts up a bit more so I didn’t forget anything I’d wanted to talk about.]

January Man

What interests me the most about this book so far is how complex the first chapter is. There is a lot going on in just a handful of pages.

It seems obvious that Jason's parents do not have a happy relationship. When I read the lines about Jason and Julia being forbidden to go into their father's office, I thought very little of it. I suppose I brushed it off because I didn't really know their ages and I just assumed that he didn't want his children meddling with things. The one line that became my oh wow moment was when the family was eating dinner. After Michael presses his children with "Have either of you been in my office," he goes on to explain that they shouldn't be answering the phone even if it rings forever; they are to unplug the telephone cord. This line follows, "Mum was just sitting there. It didn't feel at all right." For me, this was the moment where I realized that something was greatly amiss in the household. Michael is keeping secrets from his family.

Jason is also keeping secrets from his family, but these are the types of white-lies that youth often feel they need to hide from their parents. Jason does not mention that he has been to the lake. What I find interesting about this is that when Jason returns to the lake, he gets hurt and ends up in the sour aunt's house. Because Jason was not forthcoming with information about his whereabouts during dinner, it seems unlikely that his parents will know where to look for him (as, at the end of the first chapter, it seems as though the sour aunt is holding in captive in her home).

Because of these complexities (and the cliffhanger at the end of the first chapter), I feel pushed to read on. It's important for me that the initial chapter of a novel capture my interest and set up some sort of plot complication. I feel Mitchell does this well. I'm not sure where the story is going to head at all, but I'm eager to stick with it and find out.

I do have a few guesses, however. This is a coming-of-age-story and I feel that Jason will eventually have to deal with his home life. I'm certain that the parents will separate at some point. I also feel that Jason will have to deal with some sort of sexual questions. He certainly mentions "sexual intercourse" quite a bit, but I'm also interested in his homophobic speech. For me, that was a red flag that issues of sexuality might be discussed.

Other things (like Jason's inner voices) intrigue me. So does his interest in poetry. I'm not certain what to make of it. Any thoughts?

January Man

I am angry! Why? Because I could not continue to the next chapter until I finished my first blog! I must say, that I love the novel so far. It is somewhat mysterious, weird, and breathtaking all at the same time. Pierre said that the novel was dense and hard to follow. The moment I left my Thursday's class, I immediately went to the NYU bookstore to purchase this novel since they were out of stock for a week. Once I got on the train, I opened the book and was amazed at what David Mitchell started to write and did not agree with Pierre.

The novel opens up with, "Do not set foot in my office." As Juna-Willa stated, this also leaves me to think that Jason's father is hiding something. Yet, Jason wanders into the office feeling like a "bride going into Bluebeard's chamber after being told not to" (3). The more I read, the more I envisioned myself being apart of the story. The second character we run into is "Moron" also known as Dean Moran. I immediately thought that his name signifies something. But within the first 23 pages, I am unable to figure out how much of a "moron" he is. I believe that Moran will be a main character in the novel and that I must pay close attention to him.

I predict that "Black Swan Green" will have something to do with money later on throughout the novel. I might be wrong but I predict this because Moran and Jason crossed by the Black Swan and talks about board games and money. Green means money. Hence, Black Swan "Green." Furthermore, I find the novel to be very amusing. There was various times where I would laugh aloud because Jason would tell a story to Moran. I realize that a lot of the dialogue that goes on between Jason and Moran is based upon the past.

Halfway through the first chapter, Jason mentions over six new characters. Rather, they are his friends or people inside/outside his social circle. The significance to these references might be important because they might show up again throughout the novel. I am still trying to figuring out why Mitchell would mention so many new characters.

Jason also seems to be a character with a slick mouth and disrespectful at times. When speaking to the old woman in the woods, he has a negative demeanor in his tone of voice. I suspect that Jason is a person who is rude, does not like to be told what to do, and has no respect for elders. Jason asks questions to his father which suggests that he is curious about the world around him.

When at the house in the woods, Jason discovers that he broke his grandfather's Omega watch. He said, " Grandfather's Omega'd never once gone wrong in four decades. In less than a fortnight, I'd kill it" (22). This may suggest that time is up and Jason might not make it out alive. In reference to the Game of Life game board, I believe that this may be symbolic to the story as a whole.

The old woman in the house in the woods takes her last breath. Or is it really her last breath? I wonder what will happen. I hope my suggestions are accurate. I wonder if Jason will make it out alive. Is he in any harm?

I am enjoying this novel thus far. I hope it continues to be suspenseful!

Unpacking January Man

Chapter 1 starts off with a rule, which sounds more like a command, "Do not set foot in my office." Right away I sense a dark, foreboding nature to the book. This rule is strictly enforced by the protagonist's, Jason Taylor, dad. So, I am lead to believe 3 things. 1 Jason's dad is very neat and doesn't want his children messing up his office. 2 Jason's dad is hiding something. 3 Jason is a disobedient kid. Although this opening chapter doesn't necessarily unravel my suspicions, it does subtly validate my #2 and #3. First, when Jason hears the phone ring in his dad's office and after 50 rings he decides to enter the forbidden room and answer the phone. Second, when the Taylor family are having dinner and Jason's dad asks if anyone has been in his office. Jason, with the help of his sister, Julia (who also had the same experience), explains that he disobeyed the rule because the phone would not stop ringing. Then he claims that when he picked up the phone, he could tell someone was on the other end, but didn't want to say anything, and that there was a baby crying in the background. Jason's mother's cold and silent reaction to this suggests she knows the meaning behind these mysterious phone calls.

I don't know how to feel about Jason's mother yet. For now she seems a bit insignificant, sort of like a prop in the background. If Jason's dad is supposedly having a secret affair, I'm not sure I feel sorry for her just yet because she's not as well developed a character as Jason's dad is, or even Julia is. From the dinner table scene alone, I know that Jason doesn't really have a close relationship with his older sister. Perhaps it's because of the gap in their ages. Or maybe they can't relate to one another because they're members of the opposite sex. Needless to say, Julia calling her brother, "Thing" followed by a nasty comment or two doesn't really evoke the idea affection to me. But their relationship is intriguing and even humorous. In my family my siblings and I are extremely close, so I wonder about why Jason and Julia don't get along well. Is Julia just a mean, older sister, who likes to bully her brother, or does Jason provoke her?

Jason is undoubtedly the most complex and interesting character so far. I'm curious about his poems that get published in the Black Swan Green Parish Magazine. Nice reference to the title! But mostly, I like reading about him and his relationship with the rest of the characters, starting with his friend, Dean aka Moron, then with his schoolmates and the strange hierarchy they have that spring from their names and ultimately with Sour Aunt. I have a lot of questions about Jason. I'm perplexed about Hangman, Maggot and Unborn Twin. Hangman seems to be the term is he says when referring to his stammer, which actually reminded me of the author W. Somerset Maugham. He was an English writer, whose first language was French, so as a young student he developed a stammer. I wonder about how Jason developed his stammer. And why he names it Hangman. Also, I'm eager to find out more about Maggot and Unborn Twin. And I'm still trying to rack my brain over the last few scenes in chapter 1, where Jason has a strange encounter with a boy he assumes is the butcher's son, Ralph Bredon. Was this imaginary or a hallucination? And the part with Sour Aunt dying is so eery yet compelling, but also such a cliff hanger!

I have to say I'm enjoying the book so far. I like that I'm at the edge of my seat, trying to decipher all these mysterious events. I can't wait to read what happens next!

[1] january man

Black Swan Green starts out simply enough-- there’s the occasional bit of slang too foreign for me to figure out on the first try (“pongs of gravy,” for example) and the occasional detail that makes no sense; but all of that is the sort of thing one can easily brush aside, assuming an answer will be forthcoming.  

Then it gets weird. 

No, actually?  I’m wrong.  It starts weird, with the story of the mysteriously ringing office phone, but that episode is overshadowed by the relatively solid, mundane picture it paints of life as a young boy in the village.  There’s a complex, rigid, and (if not for the narrator’s explanation) baffling social hierarchy upon the girls, one that imposes a mock-military structure on their games.  There’s the borrowed adult language of sexuality, tossed around by kids who don’t always understand it, who only know that it’s gravely important not to be on the receiving end of the insults.  There are small mysteries-- the ‘odd’ children of the village, the House in the Woods.  

But then, slowly and subtly, it gets very strange.  The first reference to Hangman seemed incidental, and after a while I got the sense that this was the narrator’s way of personifying his problems with stammering.  I thought it a bit odd, but not completely an irrational way of dealing with such a condition.  Then, all of a sudden, there are these casual internal references to “My Unborn Twin” and “Maggot,” apparently other internal voices he’s accustomed to recognizing.  It gave me the sense that maybe Jason isn’t quite as mundane as he seems; and the fact that these internal conversations were so unremarkable in his own estimation (which, of course, makes perfect sense,) was a little chilling.  In a good way.

There’s also a certain pervasive air of mystery-- there’s the repetition of “It didn’t feel at all right” about both the Sour Aunt in the woods, and his own family in light of the phone incidents.  It’s hard to tell, though, how much of the strangeness occurs because he’s looking for it-- like his offhanded observation that he ought to take down the license number of an unfamiliar car, just in case it should show up on a police show.  I think asides like that help to link the usual incidents to the unusual ones-- they remind us that we’re perceiving reality through one character’s particular lens. 

As for what might happen next... I honestly have no idea.  Personally, I like that in a first chapter-- it sets up some mysteries I’d like to see resolved, but doesn’t entirely explain where it’s headed.  I expect we’ll get a bit more explanation of Hangman, Maggot and Unborn Twin, but I’m also hoping to see some more of the other village boys.  I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them turned out to be important to the story-- particularly Squelch, since he’s treading the line between the “normal” (village) and “unusual” (the House in the Woods).  

I’m assuming that ultimately this isn’t a supernatural story, though I have to confess that assumption is partially informed by circumstantial cues; the tastes of people who’ve recommended it to me, the sorts of reviews quoted on the cover, and so forth-- even the publishing imprint.  I know not to judge a book by it’s cover, but covers are informative! 

All in all, I have to say I really enjoyed it, and I was a bit frustrated when I realized I had to stop reading until I had a chance to sit down and write about it.  Blogging done, I’m looking forward to picking it back up.

Testing

Hi,

I am just testing to see if it works. I signed in with my NYU e-mail and password...so I guess that I did not have to create a gmail account.

Rochelle