I'm going to respond
a little differently to your responses to Full Body Burden than I did to Parable of the Sower. I'll bring up some issues and common
discussion threads, but the greatest hits will be reserved for a few blog posts
that I feel raise points of contention that demand our response.
ISSUES
Firstly, let me
remind you all that this is NOT a novel (please, please, please do not refer to
it as a novel in future posts!); it is a work of nonfiction, and even more
precisely it is a memoir. This means that what you are reading actually
occurred. Alex is spot on, when she exclaims that this book is so different
from Butler's because it is not just a story. Secondly, the plant in question
is a plutonium plant.
POINTS
Chad reads and
analyzes Iversen's text brilliantly. He proposes that what ties together the
two narrative threads (the power plant and the author's family memories) is the
shroud of secrecy and all the fall-out such secrecy entails: "...you would
presume that Iversen’s parents would have been disturbed or at the very least
unsettled by the [house] fire. However they seemed strangely imperturbable and
simply brushed off the incident. It is apparent from this incident, and her
parent’s clandestine alcohol use, that Iversen’s parents are masters of
deception. Frequently throughout the first chapter Iversen admits there are
certain topics which no one discusses or mentions in her parent’s household. In
addition throughout the chapter Iversen shifts the story from what is
essentially her memoir to the nearby nuclear plant. Specifically the veil of
secrecy [at the plant regards]... what is truly produced at the plant (which
most of the employees are even unaware of) and the implications of its toxic
waste on the surrounding communities."
In class tomorrow
I'd like us to really think about comparing the opening of Parable of the Sower to the opening
of Full Body Burden, as
well as noting what the difference of genre does to our reading experience.
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