Anaphora in Spontaneous

I picked up Spontaneous as a fun read after all the serious books I have been reading lately and it hasn't disappointed. I have been pleasantly surprised with this one. I also have been impressed with Starmer's writing. There are two notable sections where he uses anaphor to wonderful effect. One I will not quote on my blog because of the content of that passage, but the effect makes that moment for the two main characters very special. This other passage is more appropriate for the blog but has less of an impact than the first one. You'll just have to read the novel now to understand what I am talking about.

"Yes, this is what happens when your boyfriend spontaneously combusts in front of you. You fall to your knees. You press your face into the pavement as the blood drips, thick and languorous, off you, as if it were ice cream in the sunlight. You howl like you've never howled before, and the howl confirms that there are things deep inside you. Things darker than the darkest things you've ever imagined. And you believe in those things. Entirely, without question."

The repetition of the "you" does have the effect of placing the reader in the shoes of the main character. The author wants us to feel this moment, which you have to say is an earth shattering one. The metaphor in the second line is all at once beautiful and grotesque. But the repetition and switch to second person point of view is really what makes this paragraph for me. 

Like I said, the other passage was much better in its execution, but there is a lot to like in Spontaneous, by Aaron Starmer.

Charles Dickens in Spontaneous

I've begun reading Spontaneous. It is fun and humorous and interesting and fast paced and the perfect palate cleanser of a book. I really needed to read something like this after the last few books I've read. Especially since Silence was such a disappointment. 

I was interested to find a quote from Dickens' Bleak House at the beginning of the novel:

"Call the death by any name Your Highness will,attribute it to whom you will,or say it might have been prevented how you will.It is the same death eternally--inborn, inbred,engendered in the corrupted humours of the viciousbody itself,and that only--Spontaneous Combustion,and none other of all the deaths that can be died."

I don't know if Stramer is saying that he pulled the title for his novel from Dickens, or if he is just making a connection to more classical literature, but I thought it really set up the novel well when I started.

It is also interesting that Stramer has presented this Dickens quote in a poetic form, even though these lines are prose in chapter 32 of Bleak House. He separates out the words "body itself" so they appear on their own line, thus giving them more emphasis. The repetition of the word "will" on the end of the first three lines is also interesting.

I don't know how much this quote from Bleak House will factor into the novel, but it was nice to see Stramer using this classical lit quote.

P3 Short Story Socratic Seminar

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P1 Short Story Socratic Seminar

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Next Book

I will be reading Spontaneous, by Aaron Stamer next. I needed something a little lighter after than slog through Silence. Feel free to join me in reading this.

Review: Silence

Silence by Shūsaku Endō
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was very excited to read this book. This was the second selection of our Department Book Club and I pushed hard to get this one picked. Unfortunately, I didn't like it. I felt obligated to finish the darn thing because we will be discussing it in a week or so, but I really struggled to read this.

First, the story wasn't original. I kept seeing Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption and Heart of Darkness in this novel. As well as a ton of overt biblical allusions. I get it, Kichijiro is Judas! You don't need to keep harping on that through the last half of the novel. Now, I have read books that are similar to other books, but the problem in this instance is that it wasn't done particularly well. I felt like there were winks and nods through the whole novel as if the author was saying, "See what I did there, see? I'm clever." No, not really.

The first half of the novel just dragged. Lots of sitting in shacks and waiting and hiding. And then the second half of the novel should have picked up because some action actually started happening, but it didn't. I was very disappointed in the entirety of the plot.

Silence wouldn't have been all that bad if it had had some interesting or beautiful sentences/images, but it was very blah writing. Maybe it was the translation and maybe this book is much more beautiful in the Japanese, but I was dying for a beautiful Faulkner-like sentence. Unfortunately, I never got one. Nothing noteworthy in this novel.

The thing that kills me is that the reviews for this book are glowing in many respects. I just don't know why it has 4.5 out of 5 on Amazon and 4.09 here on Goodreads. Maybe I just didn't get it. A major disappointment for me.

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Silence & Heart of Darkness

In Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, Marlow travels through Africa to meet Kurtz--this mysterious figure at the end of his journey. Once he finds Kurtz, the man is a shadow of his former self, twisted and destroyed by the jungle that surrounds him. In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz loses his humanity in the jungle and eventually dies. Marlow is luckier and is able to return to civilization with his sanity, humanity, and the realization of how quickly a man can lose himself if we aren't careful.

In Silence, by Shusaku Endo, Rodrigues travels through Japan looking for Ferreira--a mysterious figure at the end of his journey. Once he finds Ferreira, the man is a shadow of his former self, changed and destroyed by the Japanese that surround him. In Silence, Ferreira loses his faith in Japan and eventually apostatizes. Rodrigues is luckier and is able to retain his faith, although he does "apostatize" by trampling on the fumie. Rodrigues realizes how quickly a man can lose his faith when placed under severe trials. 

I see a lot of similarities. Dang you, Endo! Not cool!