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.

The Ash Garden

"But it's true. I felt it in his hand. His hand moves for me. He understands things when I touch him."

This quotation takes place in a Japanese aid hospital several months after the bombing of Hiroshima. Emiko's brother Mitsuo has not regained consciousness since the bombing. The doctors believe that there is no hope for him, but Emiko insists that he can communicate with her by lightly squeezing her hand while she tells him stories. This simple action of Mitsuo squeezing her hand gives Emiko hope that she and Mitsuo will triumph over the obstacles that have been placed in their path. Hope is an important theme in all the despair and pain during those months following the bombing, which is why this quotation appeals to me.

"At night he reminded himself why all this had happened. He'd close his eyes and remember that there had been no alternative. Us or them. The sad fact of the world. A tragic inevitability."

This quotation appeals to me because of the conflicting nature of Anton Böll. Anton was involved in the Manhattan Project. Throughout his work on the atomic bomb, Anton was convinced that the use of the bomb was necessary in order to save lives. After the bomb was dropped, Anton and several of his coworkers traveled to Hiroshima in order to study the effects of the bomb. There he goes through a moral crisis as he sees the pain and suffering that his life's work has caused. Anton never wished to harm anyone, but he knew that the use of the bomb would save many more lives that it destroyed. Nevertheless, Anton struggles with these emotions, humanizing him to the reader, who until now only saw his cold, scientific side.

"He returned the embrace, and as he did so, arms only half raised, half there, it looked as though he was going to be sick. I knew how hard the reverend had worked the last ten years of his life, trying to repair the damage that had been done. Working with people like me. He had lived through the war. He had seen things. But he was not ready for this."

This quotation is one of Emiko's recollections of her stay in America for reconstructive surgery. The children and their caretakers are invited onto an American TV show called This Life in Focus. This quotation reveals the double-sided nature of the American media and government. The show was aired as a public sign of regret to the survivors from the American people. Unofficially, however, the show was also used to promote American patriotism and atomic supremacy. This duality and seemingly opposing viewpoints appeal to me because they provoke new thoughts on the subject of atomic weapons.

After reading The Ash Garden, I would like to ask these questions to Dennis Bock...

1. Do you agree or disagree with the use of atomic weapons?

2. Do you believe that America took advantage of the suffering of the survivors of Hiroshima to promote their own nuclear agenda?

3. Do you think that Anton was justified to follow Emiko's life after the bombing?

We are the Weather Makers

The chapter that I've chosen to precis is the twelfth chapter of We are the Weather Makers, titled, "A Warning from the Golden Toad". In this chapter, Tim Flannery describes in detail the sudden drop off in the amphibious population of the Earth. After the planet passed through its most recent climatic magic gate in 1976, scientists have noticed that an alarming number of frog species that live in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve in Costa Rica have disappeared. Among these species is the Golden Frog, which holds the unfortunate distinction of being the first species to become extinct as a direct result of climate change. The Golden Frog is best known for its bright gold colour and its aggressive mating habits. For most of the year, the frogs are very difficult to find, but for a few weeks each year, they gather together in large numbers. Marty Crump, an amphibian expert, visited the park in 1987 to further study the Golden Toad. In the following two years, however, there was only one Golden Toad sighted in total. To the best of our knowledge, this frog was the last of his species. This extinction is due to the drying up of the ponds that held the toad's tadpoles. Without these pools, which have evaporated due to climate change, the tadpoles could not survive, and quickly died out.

Here are 3 questions associated with this chapter:

1. Do you think that we are directly responsible for the extinction of the Golden Toad due to our reckless use of fossil fuels?

2. How do you think climate change will impact not only amphibians, but all animals in the near future?

3. Is our wasteful lifestyle worth the extinction of many different species?