I was excited throughout reading this book that it was probably one of the easier and lighter reads of the semester, and given that this is the last book I’ll be reading, that I guess I can say I’m ending it on a good note.
Other than the title itself (and maybe the summary, but I didn’t read it), a couple of pages into the book, I can tell that this was written by a young, innocent, naive girl. She would keep rambling on and repeating things in different sentences, kind of how kids would do to follow their train of thought. It also shows the “i am better than you” mentality that kids would tend to have, as she brags about how her father is the best, has a different car for each time of the day, and a million different Polo-branded shirts to wear, and how she always has the best toys and dresses.
I think all the extravagance in this story definitely tries to mask the lack of emotion and effort papi has towards his daughter, that he would rather shower her with these fancy things in crazy amounts, and show the things she can brag about to her peers. It is definitely quite sad that this is how he would try to soothe her longingness to be with her father. I think this also shows the purity of a child, that no matter how many girlfriends papi has, a different one signing her cards each year or birthing her new sibling, she still doesn’t really take it against papi and pushes it to the side and just thinks of him with all love and admiration at how awesome he is, at least at first.
I admire the writing style of Indiana, and how she so seamlessly put this piece together. She effortlessly made it seem that it was a child writing, in all enthusiasm, without giving any doubt. This also hit close to home due to an fairly less active relationship with my own father, which got me thinking if it would be written the same way, with the same type of enthusiasm, or with the same things to brag about had it been about her and her mother being away.
My question for this week would be: Say you were the narrator of this book, and you were given a chance to rewrite it 20 or 30 years down, would you change anything about it?
“I admire the writing style of Indiana, and how she so seamlessly put this piece together.” I also share the admiration for Rita Indiana. I had read other works of hers and in each of them you can see both her imagination and her ability in her writing. That is why the narrator of this novel is remarkable. Not only because of the large number of stories that appear, but because of Indiana’s awareness of telling “childlike” without it being exactly the voice of a girl. But we have to play to believe him, because otherwise the game is over.
Hi Julienne! I loved your blog post. You pointed out how the extravagant pieces of the story was to “mask lack of emotion and effort papi has towards his daughter”, and I think that is so accurate. To answer your question, I wouldn’t change a thing about the story. There is something so special about it being written from a child’s perspective. Throughout the book nothing was really “sugar-coated”, the narrator said exactly what she saw, which was really remarkable. It would be interesting to see how pieces of the story could be rewritten 20-30 years from now. However, I think everything that was captured then was done beautifully.
If I was the author or narrator I don’t think I would change anything about it even in 20 or 30 years down the road. I think of the book as a kind of morphed time capsule, I don’t think I would want to or even be able to re-write my own childhood journals. If anything I would write down the feelings I had while re-reading it, I think that would be interesting! Especially if you did it every 5 or 10 years or so.
Hey, I really enjoyed your opinion on this weeks reading, to aswer ypur question, i dont think I would re’write it just becase of two reassons, one it was done really well and two because it encapsulates a different time period, it portrays a reality that does not necesarely exist anymore and ven though re’writiing it might be goo it would not be representative of the story it would be a idfferent story.