On Writing Ch. 32 - 38

It is often thought that substance abuse is directly linked to creative endeavours. Among these creative endeavours is writing. This statement is a common misconception among the general public. Substance abuse is damaging to both a person's physical and mental state, and does not help in the creative process. Steven King argues that substance abuse has no place in writing. In his memoir On Writing, King tells the reader, "Substance abusing writers are just substance abusers-common garden variety drunks and druggies, in other words." One of the writers who is primarily responsible for this misconception is Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was an alcoholic that defended his drinking habits by saying that he needed the alcohol because he was such a sensitive person, yet he could also handle it because he was a man. This became known, according to Steven King, as the Hemingway Defense. King also dispels this claim, saying, "Hemingway and Fitzgerald didn't drink because they were creative, alienated, or morally weak. They drank because it's what alkies are wired up to do"
King should know this. He himself had a problem with substance abuse during his writing career. This problem even went as far as King consuming Scope mouthwash in order to get drunk. King defended his substance abuse problems with all manner of crazy claims, until he finally came to his senses, thanks to his wife. According to King, "It doesn't matter if you're James Jones, John Cheever, or a stewbum snoozing in Penn Station; for an addict, the right to the drink or drug of choice must be preserved at all costs." King doesn't also doesn't like the claim that writers are a special kind of drug addict. He says, "Substance-abusing writers are just substance abusers - common garden-variety drunks and druggies, in other words. Any claims that the drugs and alcohol are necessary to dull a finer sensibility are just the usual self-serving bullshit." King addiction made him believe that he needed drugs and alcohol in order to write. In his own words, "I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to work anymore if I quit drinking and drugging." However, King's wife finally managed to persuade him to kick his habit. King made the decision that given the choice between writing and his family that he would pick his family. This decision to quit is very difficult for drug addicts, but it proves that substance abuse is not necessary for creative writing.

Memoir Reading Blog #10

In their last month in Nairobi, Scott and Krystyne spend most of their time wrapping up loose ends for their departure to Canada. Krystyne plans to spend a week in Paris with a friend, then meet Scott in Tangier. Scott plans to fly across the Sahara and the Atlas Mountains into Morocco, which will allow him to fulfill his planned circumnavigation of Africa. Despite the political instability of West Africa, Scott decides to take the risk and leaves Nairobi, after many heartfelt goodbyes, and heads for Entebbe International Airport in Uganda. As Scott touches down at Entebbe, his tailwheel blows out, leaving his plane stranded at the airport. Eventually, Scott manages to get Jim Heather Hayes to fly down another tail wheel, which is then attached to Scott's plane. Now three days behind schedule, Scott continues onwards, only to run into a violent thunderstorm above the Ruwenzori Mountains. Scott manages to punch through the center of the thunderstorm after being thrown around inside the cockpit like a ragdoll. Once he arrives at the city of Doula in Cameroon, Scott is presented with another problem. The airport has run out of fuel and a new shipment is not expected anytime soon. Already behind schedule, Scott finally manages to find fuel on Malabo Island, and is almost attacked by an angry mob until an airport representative diffuses the situation. Scott also flies over the Sahara Desert without any electrical systems when his plane suffers an electrical failure and starts to drain the power from his single battery, barely making it to Dakar by the skin of his teeth. Finally making it to Tangier, Scott is reunited with Krystyne and begins to prepare to fly the final leg of his voyage back across the Atlantic. Flying back via Greenland and the Canadian north, Scott finally lands in Toronto after flying over twenty three thousand miles.

Their shared experience has changed Scott and Krystyne's view of Africa. While reflecting on his two and a half year stay in Africa, Scott mentions that his longing to return to Africa has never really left him. However, he also expressed joy at finally landing on Canadian soil. Life returns largely to its regular routine for Scott, but he never forgets his experience. He writes beautifully about his experience in Africa when a woman asks him at a dinner party, "Tell me about Africa." Scott simply cannot find the words to describe to her the geographical beauty, the corruption, crime, and poverty of African society, and the steadfast dedication of many of the aid workers stationed there. Finally, he manages to blurt out the words, "My heart is Africa...It's over there in Africa." This simple statement sums up all of the changes that Africa made in Scott's life. Africa captured his imagination, his mind, and his heart in such a way that it made him inseparable from it. This bond between Scott and Africa is expressed several times throughout My Heart is Africa and is arguably the main theme of the novel. More than anything else, Scott wrote the book with the intention of expressing the changes that Africa made in him, and how they've made him a better person.

Memoir Reading Blog #9

Scott and Krystyne finally catch up with Serge again in Windhoek, and the three of them make a short flight to Sossusvlei. Sossusvlei is the site of the largest sand dunes in the world. An Italian couple run a tiny ecological guest lodge there called Kala Kuena. After a few days in the desert, the three of them return to Windhoek and depart for Swankamund. From there, they continue North, passing up the East Coast of Africa. Time becomes important here, as it becomes increasingly difficult for Scott to find fuel to supply their plane. Serveral problems develop along the course of Scott's search for fuel, as he is detained at one airport and forced to buy fuel at roughly triple the average price. His flight path also deviates considerably from his planned route, as he is forced to hop from one airport to another in search of fuel which, when acquired, has to be filtered and hand-pumped into the plane, a laborious and exhausting task. In total, Scott and Krystyne's trip took almost a month and had allowed Scott to almost completely completely circumnavigate Africa in his little Cessna. As they land, they realize that this was their last flight together in Africa, since there was less than a month left in their stay. The realization is hard for them both to take in, and adds a sense of melancholy to the landing.

Scott's near circumnavigation of Africa has allowed him to observe almost all of the differences in African culture. Africa is an extremely diverse continent with many different cultures. These cultures vary from country to country and can sometimes be in complete opposition in countries that share borders. This diversity is one of the difining qualities of Africa and is what makes it worth saving. Human civilization began in Africa, yet most of the countries in the world ignores their heritage and see Africa as a continent to take advantage of for their own personal gain. This attitude has to be stopped in order to stop Africa from tearing itself apart through poverty and intolerance. I think that too many people see Africa simply as a neverending drain of resources from their developed countries. However, it isn't simply the economy of these underdeveloped countries that we're trying to save, it is their people and their way of life that are truly important to save.

Memoir Reading Blog #8

After finally arriving in Johannesburg, South Africa, Scott and Krystyne find that it is very different from the Africa that they know. South Africa is crime-ridden and has a very strong materialist culture., which further isolates the different classes who live there. Scott and Krystyne are introduced to John Battersby, the editor of the Sunday Independent newspaper. John offers to put up Scott and Krystyne for a few days, and they readily accept. They also meet Katrina, the Norwegian daughter of John's wife's best friend. She and her friend Elizabeth are also staying with John on a visit to South Africa. Somehow, Scott is persuaded to take Katrina and Elizabeth along on their trip, much to John's relief, and the four set off for Durban. They continue onwards to Cape Town, where Scott and Krystyne separate from the Norwegian girls, and then fly up to Alexander Bay in Namibia. Alexander Bay has one of the highest concentrations of diamonds in the world, which have been the source of some of the worst human behaviour in the history of the world. Scott quotes John Reader, who explains the treatment of diamond company labourers,

"The Boers and later the British South Africans needed labour to operate the mines and black male Africans were not only deprived of their land and separated from their families but were indentured into slavery. They were forced into heavily guarded compounds that held as many as thirty thousand workers, paid as little as ten shillings a week, and supervised by a brutal police force operating under the Diamond Trade Act of 1882, passed in order to facilitate the mine operators' needs..."

Alexander Bay is literally a private state within a state, controlled by the De Beers diamond company. So protective are they of their land that they have armed guards and patrol boats guarding the coastline with orders to shoot tresspasers on sight. Passing this grim reminder of corporate exploitation, Scott and Krystyne contiue to the city of Windhoek, where they intend to spend a few days in the Kalahari desert.

The difference between the East African and South African cultures are astounding. In Eastern Africa the government, though corrupt, is still composed of black Africans, and all citizens in theory have a say in a democratic process. In South Africa, however, apartheid was enforced legally until the early 1990s, but the lingering resentment and hate left over will probably never dissapear. As a result, South Africa is a crime-ridden and materialist culture, as I've already stated earlier, with the class gap still just as large as it was under apartheid. A special focus must be made by aid organizations and other nations to help restore South Africa into a nation where equal rights and priveledges may be attained by anyone. But first, racial prejudice has to be dealt with in an understanding and reasonable way.

Memoir Reading Blog #7

While in Africa, Scott and Krystyne went on a number of so-called "weekend safaris" in which they would pack their plane up and make short sightseeing and camping trips. On one of these escapades, they accidentally land in Tanzania, whose airspace is forbidden to aircraft without clearance, which Scott does not have. They are captured by a group of soldiers, and forced to endure the pitfalls of African bureaucracy. After several days, Scott finally convinces the officer in charge to let them leave, but only after making a show of inspecting the plane while Scott took photos. Scott and Krystyne also get the opportunity to fly down to South Africa in order to discuss arrangement for a future AMREF board meeting. As always, Scott decides to make an adventure out of it. His plan is to fly down the east coast of Tanzania and Mozambique to South Africa, then to pass through Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Malawi back to Kenya. The first stop on Scott and Krystyne's route is the Ilha de Mocambique. The Ilha de Mocambique was originally used as an island fortress by the Portuguese, but was long since abandoned, and is now only inhabited by native Africans. After spending the night there, Scott and Krystyne continue their journey to Bazaruto, which is the complete opposite of Ilha de Mocambique. Bazaruto is an expensive island resort that has a reputation for being a playground for the rich and priviledged. Scott and Krystyne stay on Bazaruto for a night, then continue on to South Africa the next day.

This section shows the gigantic gap between the rich and the poor in Africa. Most Africans are forced to survive on a day-to-day basis, living in abject poverty. On the other hand, there is a fraction of the population of Africa that live in luxurious surroundings, usually at the expense of the grossly underpaid masses. Scott presents an interesting perspective regarding the large class gap in Africa. While walking on the beach with Krystyne, Scott is treated with a view of both mainland Africa and the Bazaruto resort. This is how he describes the view, "Below, we could see the two sides of Africa: the cooking fires of the African village flickering and the electric lights of the Bazaruto Island Resort, side by side each with its human cargo of dreams, each untouched by the other's humanity." Until this financial and social gap is corrected, Africa will never be able to become a stable continent.

Memoir Reading Blog #6

This section of My Heart is Africa continues the theme of aid work from the end of the previous section. Scott and his friend David Huntington meet up for a drink one day during Scott's second year in Kenya. The subject of aid comes up, and the two have an animated discussion about the different types of aid administered. These ranged from effective to downright incompetent. An example on the latter side of the spectrum was the Italian effort to build a fish-processing plant on the shores of Lake Turkana in 1982. The objective of this plant was to provided the Turkana tribe with food and to ship the remaining frozen fish to Nairobi for sale. Unfortunately, the fact that the Turkana are meat eater and do not eat fish, was overlooked by the aid organization. Also overlooked was the fact that Lake Turkana's shoreline is decreasing by an average of eight hundred feet per year. The result of the attempt was an abandoned fish-processing plant located roughly a mile from the lake's shoreline. A more competent example is that of the missionary convent at Wamba. The Consolata nuns who live there train African girls to become nurses. This provides the girls with an education and the chance to break the cycle of poverty that so many nations are stuck in. Also, while Krystyne is visiting her family in Canada, Scott goes on a thirteen-day camel safari over the Chalbi desert. While in the desert, he reflects on how Africa has changed his life and his life's goals.

Again, there is a lot of reflection in this section of the novel. Scott's life goals have been irreversibly reshaped by his experiences in Africa. It is important that we all recognize that there is more to life than the endless pursuit of money and success. While reflecting one night in the desert, Scott tells us, "I realized on that safari, more than any other time during our stay, just how important our time in Africa had been for both Krystyne and me. How stuck we had become in Toronto, how empty the relentless pursuit of a career had become for us." Scott then continues to talk about life in general, saying, "Life has so much to offer. All one ever needs is the imagination and energy to chase down one's dreams.Something I swore I would never lose sight of, no matter the cost." By going out and chasing you're dreams you will end up a much happier person than you could ever hope to be than if you were stuck in a career in the pursuit of money.

Memoir Reading Blog #5

Now confined to Wolfgang's lodge by a barrack of soldiers using the lodge as their base of operations, Scott and Krystyne meet Serge Petillon, a French photographer on a three-month photographic assignment in Kenya for a travel organization. The three quickly become friends, and soon convince the soldiers to allow them to leave the lodge in Serge's battered white Suzuki. Eventually, Serge drops Scott and Krystyne off at Maralal, a small village several hundred miles North of Nairobi, where Serge departs. Scott and Krystyne are then picked up by the Flying Doctors Service and flown back to Nairobi. Scott immediately sets about trying to recover his plane, despite the discouragement of the other pilots. After seemingly exhausting every single possibility of getting his plane off South Island, a young Aircraft Master Engineer named Denis Neylan contacts Scott and volunteers to camp out on the island with two other engineers and repair Scott's plane until it is flyable again. After four days, Denis finally finishes repairing the plane and Scott flies down with Colin Davies to inspect it. Colin goes over the newly repaired plane and brutally assesses that it is not ready to fly. The plane is taken apart and repaired again and is finally deemed safe for flight. Amazingly, Scott manages to take off and land the plane back in Nairobi, thus saving his plane from becoming scrap metal. This section of the novel also elaborates on Scott and Krystyne's experiences in Nairobi. During their two-year stay in Nairobi, Scott and Krystyne explored nearly every part of Nairobi, even the parts that are normally avoided by tourists. As a result, they made many lifelong friends from all parts of Kenyan society.

In this section it is clear that the Flying Doctors Service staff have influenced Scott's life in a drastic way. As Scott himself admits,

"The staff was passionate about their mission, with a vocation that went beyond making money for themselves or shareholders. Their attitude had an effect on me over the course of our two years in Kenya and, as a result, I underwent a transformation, a re-ordering of my personal goals. I formed insights on the subject of aid for underdeveloped countries, how it should be administered, and by whom."

The subject of aid is a tricky one in underdeveloped countries. Many aid organizations pour millions of dollars into their operations, but their solutions are only short-term and wasteful. Many aid organizations also provide lavish living quarters for their employees, alienating the aid workers and giving them a false sense of superiority. I disagree with these practices and think that these are all valid points. Aid work should not be about glamorous lifestyle or short-term solutions. The purpose of aid work is to provide long-term, sustainable, and acheivable goals in order to stabilize and develop underdeveloped countries. I think that people like the employees of the Flying Doctors Service have the right idea. They unselfishly risk their lives to provide aid to people who would likely never get any other form of help. Their example is one that should be followed by other aid organizations with significantly larger budgets. If these larger organizations administered aid in the same fashion that the Flying Doctors Service did, then Africa would be a very different place.

Memoir Reading Blog #4

During their first Christmas in Africa (1996), Scott and Krystyne make the decision to fly up to Lake Turkana for a vacation. Considered politically hostile by the Kenyan government due to the actions of the Turkana tribe, Lake Turkana is nevertheless a fascinating from a geographical and sociological point of view. Scott and Krystyne fly into the safari lodge operated by an eccentric German named Wolfgang Dechter, and are soon out exploring the region. At one point a young Samburu warrior named Kipsoi attempts to sell Scott his spear. Scott offers Kipsoi a ride in his plane in exchange for the spear, which Kipsoi eagerly agrees to. Soon enough Scott, Krystyne, and Kipsoi all pile into the plane and head off to South Island. A barren volcanic island located on one end of Lake Turkana. Foolishly, Scott decides to land on the island on a stretch of black lava beach. Scott then describes the ensuing crash, "The plane's wheels sank into the sand. Too late, I realized, I was in trouble. I pulled hard on the stick, trying to hold the plane's tail from rising, but as the front tires dug deeper into the sand, the nose pitched forward, planting itself firmly into the beach." Now stranded in the middle of Lake Turkana, Scott manages to contact Wolfgang, and is eventually rescued by a major in the Kenyan army. The major, unfortunately, is killed shortly after by a rebel attack, during which his helicopter is shot down. Martial law is imposed in the surrounding area, thus prohibiting Scott and Krystyne from leaving Wolfgang's resort. During this time, Scott makes an unsuccessful attempt to rescue his plane, crashing it again in the process.

I admire Scott's determination to rescue his plane in this chapter. He was lucky enough to survive two crashes, and yet he still wants to rescue his plane from South Island. As he lifts off in the major's chopper, Scott think to himself, "As we lurched out over the whitecaps of the lake I cast one final look at my plane, lying broken and sad on the beach. At that moment I made a solemn promise to myself to return and rescue her no matter the cost." Almost every flier in Africa has crashed a plane at least once landing on dangerous landing strips, but for Scott, the struggle to get over losing a plane is much more personal, since he flew all the way across the Atlantic in his plane. The plane represents his own personal endeavor to make a difference in Africa, and he simply cannot bring himself to leave it to fall apart on South Island. Therefore, despite the discouragment of his peers, Scott begins to look for a way to rescue his plane.

Memoir Reading Blog #3

After installing Krystyne and himself in Nairobi, Scott begins his task of transforming the Flying Doctors Service into an efficient aid-providing service. Scott's first impression of the Flying Doctor's hanger is very poor. The hangar is an absolute mess, with loose paperwork, spare parts, and office equipment scattered all over the place. As Scott puts it, "It was all an invitation to waste, inefficiency, and loss of money." Scott also meets many of the pilots, engineers, and nurses with whom he'll be working for the next two years. Jim Heather Hayes, Colin Davies, Benoit Wangermez, Trevor Jones, Ahmed Ali, Bettina Vadera, and David Mutava are just some of the employees of the Flying Doctors Service who have given up their livelihood in order to help other people. Scott also has the opportunity to fly with the last active founding member of the Flying Doctors Service, Anne Spoerry. Anne joined the Flying Doctors Service in 1959 and has been flying to remote areas of Kenya to dispense medical aid and advice ever since. Scott flies with her on a routine visit to a remote area in the north of Kenya near Lake Turkana. He is amazed by her efficiency and the attachment she has formed with the most remote tribes in Kenya, who affectionately call her "Mama Daktari".

The dedication of the employees of the Flying Doctors Service stuck both Scott Griffin and myself. Scott commented on the employees,

"What struck me most about working at the hangar was the dedication of the Flying Doctors Service employees. They earned pitifully low wages and could expect no personal gain from their extraordinary efforts, their desire to help others. Somehow, it reawakened my faith in mankind; here was a higher order of morality, one understood and practiced by the African nurses, the mechanics, and the ambulance drivers."

It genuinely puzzles me as to how these people's minds work. What gives a person that overwhelming urge to help others, no matter how great the sacrifice in his or her own life. All of these employees genuinely want to make a difference in the lives of other people, and I commend them for that. Hearing about the situation of some of these tribes was also a shock to me. Most receive absolutely no medical attention other than the Flying Doctors Service, which is grossly underfunded for such a monumental task. In addition to routine checkups, the Flying Doctors Service is also called on to for emergency evacuations. Car crashes, malaria, AIDS, dengue, and falciparum were just some of the situations that the pilots and nurses had to respond to in an average day's work. Their efforts yield an amazingly high success rate for such a disorganized enterprise. It amazes me that they're able to continue to work with such dedication, even when their entire organization is literally imploding around them.

Memoir Reading Blog #2

This section of My Heart is Africa covers the arrival of Scott Griffin and his wife Krystyne in Kenya and their subsequent first few days in Nairobi. After flying to Djbouti from Egypt, Scott finally begins the last leg of his voyage to Kenya. Finally arriving in Nairobi, Scott is immediately befriended by his taxi driver, Michael, whom he keeps on as a chauffeur until he purchases his own car. It is Michael that first suggests that Scott stay at the Nairobi Club, a somewhat shabby hotel founded and built by tradesmen in 1921 as a protest to exclusive up-country white hotels that provided similar services. Michael also offers to show Scott the city, which he does the next day. Scott is shocked when Michael takes him to Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, to visit his brother. Michael's brother, Isaiah, lives in a tiny, sparsly funushed hut with five other men. Unbelievably, more than 55 per cent of Kenyans who occuby Nairobi live in slums like this. This section of the novel also details some of the problems facing the Flying Doctors Service, such as a lack of funding from AMREF and the Flying Doctor's Society, the latter of which raised and controlled the funds meant for the Service. The Society, however, was completely out of touch with the operating requirements of the Flying Doctors Service, leaving the FDS nearly bankrupt.

Scott Griffin does an excellent job of reconstructing the lives of the average Kenyans. Many of them live in slums where, as Scott puts it, "The press of humanity was suffocating to the outsider." However, Scott comments on an interesting phenomenon about African slums. Many of the Kenyans who manage to raise themselves from the mud of slums such as Kibera end up longing to return there. As strange as this sounds, the close quarters of Kiberia give comfort to its residents. Another quotation that caught my interest was when Scott described Kibera by calling it impressive. He says,

"There was something impressive about Kibera. In spite of the dirt, poverty, and unsanitary conditions, there was a social order that I found extraordinary. The intensity and vibrancy of close quarters, shared hardships, and the mix of generations gave Kibera a sense of community. This enormous congregation of people, mired in pollution, without police or government, had a commonality of purpose which focused on day-to-day survival. It was unlike anything else I witnessed in Nairobi during my two-year stay there."

The way that Scott puts it, I think that it is impressive that people manage to survive, and even thrive, in such conditions. The bonds that are formed in such a way are stronger than the allure of material wealth could ever be. This experience changed the way that Scott viewed Africa, and the people that inhabit it. It certainly would have for me.

Too Bad About Mrs. Ferri

When he was only eight, August Kleinzahler's neighbour was shot as a result of a mob hit. This would seem like a terrifying experience to most of us, but Kleinzahler seems to have taken it quite well. There seems to have been a great many interesting characters in Kleinzahler's childhood neighbourhood. Indeed, he is able to remember much about these various people, but only from an eight-year-old's perspective, which is somewhat different than that of an adult. Kleinzahler succeeds in retelling stories about his neighbours by telling the story as an adult, but at the same time inserting the emotions and feelings that he had in those stories as an eight-year-old. For example, he comments on his school antics, saying, "Other popular terms of abuse were "faggot" and "douche." The use of the latter is somewhat mysterious; it was directed exclusively at other males and no one had any idea what a douche bag was." Kleinzahler is retelling us the story as an adult, but at the same time he acknowledges the fact that at the age of eight he had no idea what calling someone a douche bag meant. This melding of maturity and first-hand experience make it much easier for us to associate with Kleinzahler as an young child.

Memoir Reading Blog #1

The novel that I've selected for my Memoir Reading Blog is called My Heart is Africa. The novel retells the experience of Scott Griffin, a successful businessman and pilot. Griffin signed on with the Flying Doctors Service in 1996 for a two-year term. The Flying Doctors Service is a branch of AMREF that provides routine and emergency medical aid to remote African communities. The beginning of the memoir recounts Griffin's flight from Canada to Nairobi in his single-engine Cessna 180, named Charlie Foxtrot Whisky Mike Juliet. Departing from St. John's, Newfoundland, Griffin flies to the Azores, refuels there, then passes through Portugal, Algeria, Malta, and Cyprus on his way to Luxor, Egypt. From Luxor, Griffin is poised to enter Africa. After several in flight malfunctions and roughly 50 hours of flight time, Africa is within his reach.

From the beginning of the memoir I enjoyed Griffin's descriptive detail. Since this part of the novel takes place mostly in his plane, the descriptions that he can give of scenery are unbelievable. Griffin's bird's eye view of scenery as he made his way to Africa must have been phenomenal to have compelled him to write with such detail.

"Even more impressive is the night sky over the desert at Luxor. It fires the imagination. The sun sinks below the western hills of Luxor in a conflagration of red and orange, burning the desert. Suddenly, a fall of midnight blue ushers in the first magnitude stars - the early arrivals. A curtain of darkness spreads over the desert, hosting a crowd of lesser stars., the smaller stitches of heaven."

Examples of descriptive detail such as this are frequent in My Heart is Africa. They are a great addition to the novel, as they give you a sense of perspective and an image of the beauty of the natural world.

The Dog, the Family: A Household Tale

August Kleinzahler has had a very unique childhood. How many people can claim that they were brought up by the family dog? Kleinzahler's entire family also have very unique and interesting personalities. This uniqueness can be seen in the form of his father's obsession with bodhisattvas, or the slave-like behaviour of his mother to his grandfather. Kleinzahler's clever use of diction in Cutty, One Rock set a light and slightly humorous tone to the novel. The antics of Kleinzahler's dog, Granny, are especially important in establishing a joking undertone to the memoir. Such trivial antics, while they appear lighthearted, have obviously made enough of an impression on Kleinzahler to have stayed with him throughout his life. Kleinzahler also does a fantastic job of describing his family. His descriptions include vivid images of his family. A perfect example of this is his sister's so-called "pixie hairdo". Kleinzahler seems to have led an interesting and eventful life, and I look forward to finishing his memoir.

The Glass Castle

The Glass Castle is a memoir of the life of Jeannette Walls. The use of diction in this novel is impressive. Jeannette Walls has a very detailed way of describing things that appeals to me. Not even the smallest detail escapes her observation. An example of this precision can be seen in the first chapter, in which she describes her mother's behaviour while picking through garbage. "Mom's gestures were all familiar - the way she tilted her head and thrust out her lower lip when studying items of potential value...the way her eyes widened with childish glee when she found something she liked." The tone of Walsh's writing is also interesting. While Walsh's family was raised in abject poverty, she still grew up with supportive and loving parents. She also had a very stable household life, which is somewhat unusual for families as poor as her. When she grows up she is a bit embarrassed by her parents' financial state, but she was never bothered by their poverty while she was a kid. An example of this could be her parents refusal to let her believe in Santa Claus. They tell her that other kids are fooled by their parents into believing in Santa, and that she must, "try not to look down on those other children. It's not their fault that they've been brainwashed into believing silly myths." These creative explanations add a suprisingly brighter tone to the memoir. You would expect that Walsh wouldn't want to relive the memories of her childhood poverty, but she seems to recall those early years with fondness. This creative use of tone and diction results in a very interesting and inventive memoir.