Posted by Ritch on October 25, 2002, at 21:19:50
In reply to I must have read this before..., posted by susan C on October 25, 2002, at 15:12:54
> This is a very familiar book. Perhaps it is the setting, like Confederancy of Dunces, it is set in the South. There is also To Kill a Mockingbird, which has the southern setting, racial conflict, a professional main character (in this case, The Heart, it was the Black, or Negro, MD) And, I can't leave out the young girl character...how similar they seem to me. A coming of age book in so many ways...the young girl, the boys (of all ages) the story of Portola, the doctor as he ages, over one brief year, struggling to achieve his goal to influence his people...I guess it keeps coming back to each of the characters having a heart that is a lonely hunter...each hunting for something, then, it changing. Each was solitary. Most poiniently(sp) portrayed by the mute deaf. He was so lonely and had so comfortably developed an enabling relationship with the greek. Then, Mr Singer was thrust in to unending relationships of the same kind...people talking to him, endlessly, no one expecting response, or if so, a minimal one... I don't think Mr Singer ever became aware of the similarity between his relationship to the greek and the later relationships others had with him. Unfortunately, I think this isolation contributed to Mr Singer's suicide. He kept thinking the Greek would get better, that their settled life would continue, or return, to what it had been.
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> I think there is more here that I think about, the almost total absence of the mother, the manic depressive behavior of the short guy, the depressed dad, the economics of the time it was written, the role and responsibilities of men and women and last but not least, how rape scenes are portrayed in literature.
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> mouseI was talking with some coworkers tonight about the Great Depression and I told them about my Mom's family who lived in a remote rural area in the South (northern Arkansas). My grandfather worked for the WPA (Works Progress Administration), and made very little money. My Mom told me there was one winter where they only ate chicken eggs for two weeks. In the story Jake Blount mentioned that 1/3 of the country during parts of the depression-era were malnourished and starving.
poster:Ritch
thread:699
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/books/20020616/msgs/709.html