Movie Trailer: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

      Naturally, the teenage years are awkward for everybody. Our surroundings change, sometimes our friends change, but perhaps most importantly, our perceptions change. Now, to address the book: this is a story of a high school boy, Junior Spirit, who lives in an Indian reservation near Spokane, Washington. Junior was born with too much brain fluid, making him prone to seizure. He does not let this stop him; however, as he decides to join the nearby school off the reservation in Reardan, where he will be the only Native American student there. Once transferred, he encounters difficulty finding a place to fit in at his new high school. He also encounters a weird mix of white stereotypes about Native Americans, as well as certain types of fetishization of Native American/Native American culture, namely with his love interest.
      That said, Junior is not a perfect human being, either. Doubtless, he is sensitive, intelligent, and creative, but he also learns about white culture, and also increases ability in being able to examine his own culture, and self!  Throughout the book, you can notice how his perception becomes more honed, and how the us/them binaries that used to guide his thinking turns into a more nuanced, mature way of seeing the world.
     Okay, another important theme in the book would have to be the value of taking things with a grain of salt. Even during Junior's grandmother's funeral, the Spirit family finds a way to laugh. Junior eventually finds a friend who can provide an  intellectual challenge, but this does not take away from Junior's ability to laugh at a fart. He addresses some very real problems facing the Native American community, as well as its relationship with white society. However, Junior also a teenager with the same hormones and goofy antics. In other words, Junior becomes adept at navigating different, even contradicting social codes.
      Finally, this book is fun to read. Just like Junior, it mixes the serious with the fun and delightful. This, believe it or not, is an valuable thing to keep in mind in life. It is important to try and improve your station in life and plow your own course, but it is also important to step back and remember where you came from.
    Check out this book! It even has comic pictures! Yay!

Ender's Game

      In Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game a serious ethical dilemma is addressed: Does the ends justify the means? Or, is it ethically justifiable to use someone for reasons of war without their knowledge or consent? To be fair, the stakes in the book may have been the survival of the human race, but it is intriguing the speculate to what ends are we willing to compromise our humanity in favor of a basic animal instinct to survive? To backtrack, this novel is centered around its protagonist, a young child named Ender who performs the best at a war game at the fleet school. This game is one wherein Ender must defend his civilization from an alien attack from the Buggers. Later on, on top of the strain from being singled out to train for this game at the cost of his personal relationships, the game itself is revealed to not be what it had once seemed.
    Ender finds out that his fleet commander school had been tricking him and taking advantage of his skills for the war games. They even resort to emotional extortion in order to get what they want out of Ender. Of course, one could argue that the stakes were high, but to what extent does this argument hold up? It seems that this fear-based politics can serve as a comment on various waves of xenophobic behavior that have occurred within human history.
    In retrospect, I think one of the main themes in Ender’s Game is the abuse of power, as well as being a survey into different types of power. In his fleet commander school, Ender’s teachers abuse their power by depriving Ender of knowledge so that they can exploit his skills. They also force Ender into a difficult social situation so that they can isolate him from his peers. Ender, once proficient in the war games, gains a power over his fleets that he won’t fully realize until later, and finally, Ender’s brother gains power through personality on Earth which contrasts Ender’s leadership via his proficiency in the war games. Ultimately, so much of this book occurs with an element of manipulation that it makes you wonder how a sense of human superiority can be justified.
    Card seems to have made the decision that it will always be necessary to break a few eggs in order to make an omelet. One can argue this position, but it is certainly a dilemma that will come to mind while reading this book: is it better to dogmatically sacrifice a few for the greater good, or to have everyone confront adversity together and equally, but perhaps without strong leadership?

The Outsiders

    In S.E. Hinton’s young adult novel The Outsiders, set in the middle of a feud between the Greaser and the Social “gangs” in Tulsa, Oklahoma, young Ponyboy Curtis gets involved in a gang rivalry, yet ends up becoming more empathetic towards those who he once thought of as enemies. I had read Hinton’s That Was Then, This is Now before, and I thought that this book was similar in theme and characterization to The Outsiders. Both books, for example, center around intelligent young boys  involved with rough crowds comprised of characters of varying degrees of delinquency. These main characters, however, manage to stay afloat in their surroundings thanks to their use of intelligence and common sense.
    Also, I thought that the way Hinton addressed the ending of the novel was revealing about student psychology in terms of traumatic experience, especially revealing for us future teachers: After Ponyboy loses two of his friends, he becomes withdrawn from his brothers, and his formerly good grades in school begin to take a plunge as a result of not being able to concentrate. Furthermore, Ponyboy’s teacher assigns him a paper with a topic of Ponyboy’s own choice, knowing that this assignment would help him sort through his  feelings and ideas, thus helping give him a sense of closure. I could envision trying this technique in a real classroom setting with a student who appears to be having trouble outside of the classroom, and who appears to need a way to vent their feelings and frustrations. Writing, after all, can be very cathartic.
    Another aspect of the book I consider worth discussing is the amount of age-inappropriate actions that take place. Ponyboy, though 14 years old, smokes cigarettes and gets into gang brawls. He also hangs out with convicted criminals. Clearly he is not the perfect young adult role model. However, he does use his head well and tends to avoid trouble whenever possible. I feel that this was ultimately a more productive characterization of the main protagonist than if Ponyboy were “too good” and therefore unable to relate to the reader. After all, I think that providing Ponyboy with some personal areas that could be improved upon gives the  reader a chance to think about what Ponyboy is doing wrong, perhaps providing a way that the reader can be self critical regarding their own actions. Furthermore, the fact that Ponyboy is also surrounded by a crew of characters of different degrees of delinquency also provides the reader with a reference for the actions that take place in the book and what kind of results one might expect from these behaviors. In Dally’s case, for example, his recklessness lead to his early “downfall.”
    Of course, Ponyboy analyzes the personalities of each of these characters, including their faults, as well as their hidden strengths. Perhaps the most poignant example is how he comes to empathize with the Socs as a result of this consideration of others’ lives. This is a repeated theme throughout the book, and I think a valuable lesson to take from it. We all need people who we can be honest with, and who will listen and understand us. Mostly, these people are family members, but not always. Johnny, Danny, Bob all have absent familial relationships, and each of these characters suffered as a result of this emptiness in their lives. Other times, friends can provide this sort of support, but even then sometimes things get overlooked as us humans tend get preoccupied with our own lives. In summary, then, The Outsiders provides a valuable lesson in the importance of empathy in our lives and how this may prevent some from feeling like outsiders themselves, thus increasing the likelihood that they will seek help rather than take brash actions into their own hands.

La Línea

Per Kelly Klieforth’s suggestion, I decided to pick up Ann Jaramillo’s La Línea and give it a whirl. The story is based around Miguel, a fifteen-year-old boy in Mexico who has been waiting at his grandmother’s house along with his sister, Elena, for seven years in order to join his dad who lives and works in the U.S. Life in San Jacinto has few employment prospects and as a result most of the younger men have already moved away in search of work in order to support respective their families. Eventually, Miguel receives his own opportunity to leave for the U.s. when his dad sends him a letter and money, telling Miguel that it is time and to seek for help of a coyote. Naturally, Miguel’s plans fall apart and he is forced to adapt and struggle to survive while in search of his goal. Along this trip, Jaramillo presents the reader with a series of snapshots encapsulating the dangerous journey of an undocumented immigrant who has little to no protection from others along the way looking to take advantage of anyone’s vulnerability. These moments are the novel are poignant in that though many here in the U.S. are at least vaguely aware of the journey many take across the U.S.-Mexico border, many do not know much about what particular dangers they face.

I believe that the novel also draws in readers with Hispanic heritage in the way that it implements various Spanish phrases and dichos (sayings) throughout. Frequently, I came across a turn of phrase written in Spanish that sounded familiar, or perhaps a character description that reminded me of one of my family members and the way they act. One example was during Miguel’s goodbye party the day before he left on his journey. The way that Jaramillo described how the family would self-sacrifice -if only by slaughtering the goat that they should have probably saved- in order to honor a family member made me think of the way my family has gone above and beyond in order to celebrate another’s special moment. I think that Jaramillo’s depth of description is meant to engage the memory of these readers, as well as to introduce those not as familiar with Hispanic customs to a new world and experience for many. However, this length and frequency of description can also lead to some somewhat awkward writing.


-Robert

The Giver: A Didactic Journey

As most of you guys probably do, I remember having read this book in grade school. I think that I read it twice, actually, and yet....still that unresolved ending! Nonetheless, this book was the one that was used in class to introduce us to the unresolved ending. Was Lois  Lowry’s choice to have Jonas’ escape from the Community “fade-out” merely a cop-out? I don’t think so. Now I think that this book was designed as a lesson in unresolved endings. Even a lesson within itself.

As a receiver, Jonas is exposed to all the joys and sorrows that the rest of the Community is deprived of lieu of “sameness.” His world becomes filled with options, discovery, and uncertainty. If this sounds familiar, maybe you’re thinking about the class activity that followed reading this book where you and your classmates came up with alternate endings where you resolved Jonas’ attempted escape. My class did this, and we also discussed the ups and downs of leaving the reader hanging...but you don’t need a class activity to reflect on these things. The book naturally leads the reader to consider them. Maybe we end up deciding that we prefer consistency and predictable endings, or maybe we decide that we like endings without a solid conclusion and a “to be continued........”

For those of you who may not be familiar with The Giver it is a dystopian novel in the vein of Farenheight 451 and 1983 wherein a society appears to live in an ignorant bliss, but then this later turns out to not be the case. The protagonist is named Jonas who lives in a “Community” wherein everyone’s senses have been dulled to complete, bland consistency. No one sees colors, tastes flavors, everyone takes pills to squelch their libido as birthing is done á la the production line model by a selected crew of birthmothers. Babies who don’t meet standards are given a lethal injection, and so this safe community turns out to not be so humanitarian after all, but actually awfully dictatorial. Jonas, when he turns eleven receives his designation for his role within the community and he is chosen to be the next ‘Receiver of Memories’ from the last. As the receiver, then, he gains the knowledge of human past including the range of sensations both good and bad, and suddenly his bland world is filled with color and depth. Naturally, his distaste for this forced limitation of human experience leads him to become at odds with the philosophy of the Community and this gives rise to the main conflict within the novel.

So, as I saw it, this novel takes its reader through a didactic journey reminiscent of Jonas’ journey within the novel.  In both cases, the predictable structure is taken away and the individual most confront a mysterious new world.

I think that The Giver is also a great novel to introduce students to other books that address dystopian themes, even books that take on a real issue/threat to our own society within a fictional context. Some may believe that this book is too “classic” to appeal to today’s readers, but to me, this book’s setting and main theme is perpetually contemporary.

Thank you,
Robert