Hey there class bloggers,
Another week’s gone by and we’re that much closer to the end of the semester and winter break! This week for ASTU 100 we got to see the UBC archives of Joy Kogawa, author of Obasan. In my last blog I gave a brief summary and a few opinions I have on the book. After finishing the novel and discussing it with my classmates, seeing Joy Kogawa’s first drafts of the book was pretty interesting. Along with drafts of the novel were newspaper clippings she used for research, letters to government officials for access to information, and my favourite part, her personal poetry and letters.
Seeing the archives shone a light on the novel that I really appreciate. Where Obasan is such an emotionally written piece of literature, and seeing all of the documents for research (there were literally boxes and boxes full of files) really showed the devotion that Kogawa invested into this book. It shows that it’s not only a historic fiction novel, but something that Kogawa felt was personal enough to put in so much effort to correctly display the trials and troubles of Japanese Canadians and her own family.
My favourite part about seeing her archives were the more personal bits and pieces among all the technical papers. It was like reading her diary and hearing her thought processes while she put together her novel. As an aspiring writer, I love getting into the minds of other authors and seeing what they see and how they put that into words. I really enjoyed her poetry and it made me appreciate the prose in Obasan even more. You can tell by reading the poems in the archives that she had to make careful selections on what to include in the book.
Seeing Joy Kogawa’s life in a more intimate light also made the characters, especially Naomi, much more real to me. You can really see, especially in a draft of the novel where Kogawa draws Naomi’s family tree and labels herself as Naomi, that these characters aren’t just made up but based on her real experiences. It inspired me to look up a digital archive, an interview she did with CBC sharing her internment experience.
I’ll leave it to this, thanks for reading my blog and I hope everyone’s ready for the end of the term! 🙂
Hi Marina,
I really enjoyed reading your blog post this week, I completely agree with you when you spoke bout how interesting the fonds were when they showed the more personal side to the author. It was very insightful calling her archives “a diary”, it’s almost unthinkable having a diary that immense.
I hope that your aspirations to become a writer become a reality for you someday! You’re writing is already very compelling.
Cheers, Natalie Phillips.
It’s wonderful to see how much you enjoyed being in the archives, Marina! I love how you talked about the drafts of Obasan and how it was like ‘reading her diary’. I read through some of her drafts as well, and I never thought to compare her drafts to a diary, but that’s a good analogy.
I’m glad to see that you were able to find some inspiration whilst in the archives to achieve your aspiration of becoming a writer. Judging by your blog posts, particularly this one, I can already see the potential, and I hope that you will someday reach your goal.
Thank you for the enjoyable read, and I hope you enjoyed your first term at UBC!
Jackie
Hi Marina, I really enjoy reading your blog and I totally agree with you.
Seeing the archives has given us the possibility to better know Joy Kogawa on a more personal point of view.
As you said, you can tell by reading about what she writes that she had to carefully choose what to include in her book.
For example I find two interesting letters, of two different editors, one said that her book was rejected, because it wasn’t a novel, but a sort of historical chronicle. The other said that the draft was great and it’ll going to be an incredible novel.
It was really interesting to see two opposite opinions about such a famous book.
Cheers
Maddalena
I definitely agree with you, “seeing the archives [certainly] shone a light on the novel” for me it made Kogawa more relatable as a person, I remember reading a letter she was writing to one of her friends – it was so cute – she was explaining how she just got a new electronic type writer and how nifty and light it was. Its these small details that the visit allowed us to discover.
You were really fortunate to come across poetry AND the family tree, I really would have liked to see that. I think that the fact she writes “me” where “Naomi” really displays Obasan as a semi- autobiographical novel.
Its so cool to see her handwriting, her scribbles and side notes, that for me really made me see how the characters came to life.
Dina