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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
I really admire this novel's structure, its intertextuality, its timely subject matter and the way it mirrors and refracts lost-ness obliquely, by creating parallels between historical repetitions of displaced children and by orchestrating this experience for its own characters -- the novel creates circles and connections--a map--around the ongoing family separation crisis--without directly dramatizing / dramatically exploiting that crisis. It's very carefully handled, its own ethical quandaries presented overtly through the female narrator's questioning of her documentary project. There's an interesting tension between urgency and entropy here--the middle of the book sags from the road trip entropy and I grew a bit fatigued of the way in which Luiselli plants incredibly relevant songs and books into the scenes diegetically to motivate conversation and quiet philosophizing. But that is a kind of realism, I guess. The writing is wonderful and there is much to appreciate and absorb. Overall I'm impressed Luiselli was able to get this book out so fast, so smartly. It's brilliantly designed.
A beautiful and thoughtful novel. Too much political discourse, coupled with the mother’s detachment, for where I am in life right now.
Full of astute observations and lyrical prose that will carry you through this family’s journey, all the while reflecting on your own.
Art, justice, loss.
Luiselli covers so many subjects in this book. I read this book for a graduate-level class, so I spent a lot of time thinking about it and how these things relate to our lives.
Like, what makes one person more important than another? How do we assign value to people?
When our own children are lost, anxiety spikes and turns into fear, and we will do anything to get them back. We understand this feeling enough that when we are close to someone, or we know someone that loses a child, we feel that fear and would do most anything to help them find their child.
But as we get more and more removed from any particular situation, while we might feel bad for other people losing their children, that fear quickly fades into, ‰ЫПthank god that‰ЫЄs not me.‰Ыќ
Because losing a child is one of the greatest fears for any parent, I can‰ЫЄt imagine feeling like my world is so dangerous that I would want to send them away by themselves, to another country, even if they were traveling to meet family or someone they knew. Yet, as we learn reading Luiselli‰ЫЄs works, thousands of children are sent over here for better lives, and too many of them are lost forever.
When the loss of children is so far removed to be people that we can‰ЫЄt relate to ‰ЫТ maybe because they are from foreign countries, but primarily because they are a different color from us ‰ЫТ we don‰ЫЄt even care that it‰ЫЄs not on our radar. How many of us care about so many lost immigrant children trying to escape a horrible life?
What makes these children have less valuable lives, or matter less than our children, because they are different from us?
The whole point of #BlackLivesMatter is to say that the lives of people of color do matter just as much as white lives. Trying to push #AllLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter just tries to sweep black lives under the rug, in the hopes that we can continue to force this narrative that black lives don‰ЫЄt really matter.
And we do so many things to keep the idea going that the lives of people of color don‰ЫЄt really matter.
We keep assigning people value. We use religion and law and anything we can to justify these beliefs and decisions. But this injustice, this immorality, this evil is worse than so many things that our culture deems ‰ЫПbad‰Ыќ.
We need to change the paradigm. We need to figure out how to flip the script on this and help our world realize that all lives do truly matter, because until we figure out how to do that, we will continually fight these beliefs. I don‰ЫЄt have any answers. All I know is that we need to stop this injustice.
And Luiselli, in a meta sort of way in this book addresses the role of art in fighting injustice.
As we are learning during the COVID pandemic, art is so much more important in our lives than we give it credit. In a world filled with schools funneling money from arts to sports, attempting to defund PBS, and giving a general derision to the important things that artists are saying, we are seeing a shift during this pandemic. We are starting to understand art is much more important than we realized.
And part of this is about activism.
As Luiselli's main character / narrator puts together her documentary in her mind, I love how she wrestles with art versus activism in her work.
Political concern: How can a radio documentary be useful in helping more undocumented children find asylum?
Aesthetic concern: ‰Ы_why should a sound piece, or any other form of storytelling‰Ы_be a means to a specific end?
Professional hesitance: ‰Ы_isn‰ЫЄt art for art‰ЫЄs sake so often an absolutely ridiculous display of intellectual arrogance?
Ethical concern: ‰Ы_why would I even think that I can or should make art with someone else‰ЫЄs suffering?
Pragmatic concern: shouldn‰ЫЄt I simply document‰Ы_?
And she adds to these concerns of politicizing the issue, cultural appropriation, identity politics, her perspective, and so many other things.
She continues to struggle between the importance of documenting these issues and turning it into art for people to consume:
Although a valuable archive of the lost children would need to be composed, fundamentally, of a series of testimonies or oral histories that register their own voices telling their stories, it doesn‰ЫЄt seem right to turn those children, their lives, into material for media consumption. Why? What for? So that other can listen to them and feel ‰ЫТ pity? Feel ‰ЫТ rage? And then do what? No one decides not to go to work and start a hunger strike after listening to the radio in the morning. Everyone continues with their normal lives, no matter the severity of the news they hear, unless the severity concerns the weather.
This points to something we struggle in our everyday lives, too ‰ЫТ what do I do about the injustices in the world? Will what I do impact anyone else?
As we make art, we always need to be aware of these things. And ironically, if we are making art that raises awareness of important issues, these topics become even more salient.
Maybe this pandemic will have some positive consequences.
Luiselli covers so many subjects in this book. I read this book for a graduate-level class, so I spent a lot of time thinking about it and how these things relate to our lives.
Like, what makes one person more important than another? How do we assign value to people?
When our own children are lost, anxiety spikes and turns into fear, and we will do anything to get them back. We understand this feeling enough that when we are close to someone, or we know someone that loses a child, we feel that fear and would do most anything to help them find their child.
But as we get more and more removed from any particular situation, while we might feel bad for other people losing their children, that fear quickly fades into, ‰ЫПthank god that‰ЫЄs not me.‰Ыќ
Because losing a child is one of the greatest fears for any parent, I can‰ЫЄt imagine feeling like my world is so dangerous that I would want to send them away by themselves, to another country, even if they were traveling to meet family or someone they knew. Yet, as we learn reading Luiselli‰ЫЄs works, thousands of children are sent over here for better lives, and too many of them are lost forever.
When the loss of children is so far removed to be people that we can‰ЫЄt relate to ‰ЫТ maybe because they are from foreign countries, but primarily because they are a different color from us ‰ЫТ we don‰ЫЄt even care that it‰ЫЄs not on our radar. How many of us care about so many lost immigrant children trying to escape a horrible life?
What makes these children have less valuable lives, or matter less than our children, because they are different from us?
The whole point of #BlackLivesMatter is to say that the lives of people of color do matter just as much as white lives. Trying to push #AllLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter just tries to sweep black lives under the rug, in the hopes that we can continue to force this narrative that black lives don‰ЫЄt really matter.
And we do so many things to keep the idea going that the lives of people of color don‰ЫЄt really matter.
We keep assigning people value. We use religion and law and anything we can to justify these beliefs and decisions. But this injustice, this immorality, this evil is worse than so many things that our culture deems ‰ЫПbad‰Ыќ.
We need to change the paradigm. We need to figure out how to flip the script on this and help our world realize that all lives do truly matter, because until we figure out how to do that, we will continually fight these beliefs. I don‰ЫЄt have any answers. All I know is that we need to stop this injustice.
And Luiselli, in a meta sort of way in this book addresses the role of art in fighting injustice.
As we are learning during the COVID pandemic, art is so much more important in our lives than we give it credit. In a world filled with schools funneling money from arts to sports, attempting to defund PBS, and giving a general derision to the important things that artists are saying, we are seeing a shift during this pandemic. We are starting to understand art is much more important than we realized.
And part of this is about activism.
As Luiselli's main character / narrator puts together her documentary in her mind, I love how she wrestles with art versus activism in her work.
Political concern: How can a radio documentary be useful in helping more undocumented children find asylum?
Aesthetic concern: ‰Ы_why should a sound piece, or any other form of storytelling‰Ы_be a means to a specific end?
Professional hesitance: ‰Ы_isn‰ЫЄt art for art‰ЫЄs sake so often an absolutely ridiculous display of intellectual arrogance?
Ethical concern: ‰Ы_why would I even think that I can or should make art with someone else‰ЫЄs suffering?
Pragmatic concern: shouldn‰ЫЄt I simply document‰Ы_?
And she adds to these concerns of politicizing the issue, cultural appropriation, identity politics, her perspective, and so many other things.
She continues to struggle between the importance of documenting these issues and turning it into art for people to consume:
Although a valuable archive of the lost children would need to be composed, fundamentally, of a series of testimonies or oral histories that register their own voices telling their stories, it doesn‰ЫЄt seem right to turn those children, their lives, into material for media consumption. Why? What for? So that other can listen to them and feel ‰ЫТ pity? Feel ‰ЫТ rage? And then do what? No one decides not to go to work and start a hunger strike after listening to the radio in the morning. Everyone continues with their normal lives, no matter the severity of the news they hear, unless the severity concerns the weather.
This points to something we struggle in our everyday lives, too ‰ЫТ what do I do about the injustices in the world? Will what I do impact anyone else?
As we make art, we always need to be aware of these things. And ironically, if we are making art that raises awareness of important issues, these topics become even more salient.
Maybe this pandemic will have some positive consequences.
adventurous
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
It's clear that this book was meticulously researched and drew from real life accounts. But for the most part, it didn't have a soul. Given how tragic the subject matter can be, it is pretty strange how there really wasn't a heart pulsing within the book. Oftentimes it felt like this was a journalist trying on the clothes of a novelist, a nonfiction book trying to pass off as fiction. The author is an intelligent writer but oddly antiseptic and prone to stilted word choice, compounding the soul-less problem - it was hard for me to find a scene with a close-knit family laughing so hard they're snorting as tender, charming, or infectious as it could be when it's described as "porcine laughter".
The only times the book came somewhat alive were when the author really leaned in on their own imagination - describing the events of a book within a book, when the boy began narrating from his perspective. Those were the best parts, and truthfully the only sections I found interesting.
The only times the book came somewhat alive were when the author really leaned in on their own imagination - describing the events of a book within a book, when the boy began narrating from his perspective. Those were the best parts, and truthfully the only sections I found interesting.
A family, fraying apart, on a road trip to the southwest. Both adults have specific reasons for wanting to go; the children -- aged 5 and 10 -- are pulled along in their wake, absorbing bits of myth, history, and current sociopolitical upheaval. How much they've absorbed, the reader doesn't realize until the narrator shifts from the woman to the 10-year old boy, who decides to take his 5-year old half-sister on a journey that interweaves the stories taken in from both parents.
I read this for University and I have to write a paper on it.
Its a book everyone should read, it talks about the importance of having an archive for everyone, to register echos, movements, sounds, voices, stories. The main focus of the book it's migrants, specifically Mexican children who want to escape violence and reach freedom in the US, but more often then not they are either killed, sent back, or get lost in the desert trying to reach the borders. It's a very moving book that moves slowly, lets you get attached to the characters and then crushes you, hurts you, moves you, and then finally breaks you. Valeria Luiselli does all of this in a real, authentic way, using different materials, like boxes and documents, but also sounds and echos. It's definitely a peculiar book, one that you don't expect, but definitely one that everyone should get into.
(I might add a bit tomorrow when I've slept on it, but this is my raw review)
Its a book everyone should read, it talks about the importance of having an archive for everyone, to register echos, movements, sounds, voices, stories. The main focus of the book it's migrants, specifically Mexican children who want to escape violence and reach freedom in the US, but more often then not they are either killed, sent back, or get lost in the desert trying to reach the borders. It's a very moving book that moves slowly, lets you get attached to the characters and then crushes you, hurts you, moves you, and then finally breaks you. Valeria Luiselli does all of this in a real, authentic way, using different materials, like boxes and documents, but also sounds and echos. It's definitely a peculiar book, one that you don't expect, but definitely one that everyone should get into.
(I might add a bit tomorrow when I've slept on it, but this is my raw review)
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix