First Required Post on Kincaid's _My Brother_
As you read Jamaica Kincaid's My Brother, (pgs 50-120) what stood out for you most? Are there any passages that you found particularly intriguing or puzzling? What, if any, questions do you have so far about the book?
As the story goes on - do you feel more or less sympathy for the narrator, for the mother, and the brother? And why? (There is no right or wrong answer here. I want to know your personal opinion).
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posted by Erin @ 6:42 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
What sticks out most for me is much Kincaid is stretching the so-called story out to make a whole book. Simply put, her personal thoughts during the time of her brother's demise are just not that interesting and I believe she knows that, but somehow thinks that ultra-repetitive, whispery, Readers' Digest-like prose will make up for a lack of substance. It doesn't. It just doesn't. It just doesn't do that. It hasn't done that. It won't do it. It just won't do that. And my brother's father (who isn't my father but the man who raised me) is the man who raised me (but isn't my father).
As the story goes, my interest and sympathy in everyone decreases, especially the narrator. Kincaid doesn't like anybody except her perfect Vermont family and Canadians (who she thinks have a natural urge to save the planet and therefore caused me to vomit). She hates her brother, her mother, and won't tell us anything about her other brother because she expects us to buy her next book for that. And most of all, she seems only interested in her own special little thoughts which just aren't interesting. But you gotta hand Kincaid credit for using AIDS to profit off her self-indulgence. If the word "AIDS" wasn't on the back of the book, nobody would buy it unless Oprah told them to (which she may have. I'll Google it).
I wholeheartedly agree with Ray. I cannot say that this book holds together for me as more than a bunch of repetition and thus the writer has come across as somewhat whiny. I lost interest in trying to empathize with the narrator.
Confusion, as I said in class, is a natural reaction to mortality and the loss of family. Family, in itself, can be quite confounding. However, her disdain for everything outside of "her own" that even shaped her identity was quite drastic and hasty. It is hard for me to understand someone so dismissive. Someone told me just today that love is generative. Maybe instead of thinking of this book as one of a memorable character, I should just be focused on the quality of the writing, however it is hard to separate the two in my mind.
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I agree with my fellow classmates. Kincaid is just repeating the same story over and over again. is like reading an e-mail that all of your friends send you at the same time.I agrre with you carynfroh. It is meant to be a short story not a story full of the same story repeated severals times just to fill up the pages of the book. I read these pages and nothing really got my attention because is like I already seen this happening. I do have a question about this book, What is the reasons for all the repetitions?
As I kept on reading the story i felt less sympathy for the narrator, the mother, and the brother. Is ok to read about something once and ok I understand that her brother has AIDS but I really didn't like the story. Is too easy to read and all i'm reading page after page is the same story being told once again. Maybe if the story was not so repetitive i would have liked it more, but to be honest I lost all the interest in it.
I don't really think Kincaid is trying to be as repetitve as she is. The reason why she does it is to put more emotion in her writing (well thats why i think). Anyway, none of these passages really confused me because the story is pretty much straight-foward.
I feel less sympathy for The narrator as the story goes on because she seems like she dosent really care at all about her family or brother. She seems to just be focusing on going back home and getting this over with. Even though she has some feelings, she still cant come to terms with them so i dont really feel bad for her. On the other hand i feel bad for her brother, i mean hes young, he hes dying of AIDS and all the narraitor talks about is how he bought it upon himself i think thats pretty cold for a sister.
Like all literary works that I am currently in the process of reading and have not yet finished, I try not to be overly critical or fully supportive of the writer’s independent style and of the work itself. However, although there seems to be a constant repetitiveness in terms of the way Kincaid describes the biological and fraternal relationships her and her family share, this distinction can be vital in Kincaid’s storytelling. At times, the summaries of the relationships found in-between the parenthesis are tiring, but without the consistent reminders, readers may not fully comprehend just how divided the family has become and the origin surrounding its love and hate relationship. While perhaps unintentionally, the story dominantly revolves around these clashing relationships while portraying the death of Devon Drew, whom the author herself, has so many mixed feelings towards, that the only way to convey such difficult tides are for Kincaid to literally state such bold things as “my brother’s mother, not my mother.” Confused about her own feelings for her mother and dying brother, Kincaid’s puzzlement is reflected in the novel which starts and continues at different points and often uses her own memories to fill in the missing gaps, thus the stretching of the story. Although tedious at times, the expansion of a simple story is necessary in the journey to finding understanding and a sound, peace of mind so there are many ongoing shifts in the amount of sympathy readers have for her and the characters. In one perspective, many may find Kincaid’s bitter feelings towards her family as childish and mean-spirited, but on the other hand, others may find it perfectly understandable –a young girl growing up in poverty and forced to drop out of school to take care of her stepbrothers only to leave her family to find her calling in life. Some may even agree that her actions are admirable, although highly questionable because even with the distance in time from when she left and came back to Antigua, she has been trying to support and alleviate the family’s suffering whether out of guilt, pity, or love. As for Kincaid’s mother, she is portrayed as a woman who wants what is best for her children, but her rigid, unwillingness to compromise, fails in such a way that she ultimately ends up doing just the opposite. However, in light of the mother’s poor attempts to learn to understand her children, Kincaid also describes the loving nature of her mother when she was much younger and how even at times of helplessness, like when Devon was diagnosed as HIV positive, her mother came through like no other mother. Similarly portrayed as both a mixture of angelic and devilish traits, Kincaid’s brother is described as a sexual, beautiful, and charismatic youth, but also as a good-for-nothing, lying, manipulative thief who never learns his lesson, even the life threatening ones.
I also agree with all of the above said about the repetitions and the lack of interest to keep reading on. Kincaid seems to be living in her own world and basically complaining or holding this lifetime grudge against her ethnic backround and anything that could possibly represent her as an Antiguan woman. I'm not sure if this is in any way justified. Her story is one big hostile view on things except her own family and Vermont.
It seems that the death of her brother provoked her to write this long, hate and anger driven monologue about her own feelings that don't necessarily interest the reader.
Her book is overall a stream of consciousness as Erin said in class. This style of writing can be effective to portray a certain type of topic, and I think it has been used effectively in Kincaid's case.
The overall mush of ideas, feelings and repeated anecdotes and lines of dialogue simply represent the state of the human mind. The mind is such a complex unit. As a writer, she used this style of writing to perhaps show how uncertain one can be, whether it is when someone is dying or whether one is trying to figure oneself in a world that is already so complicated. Snails wrote about a certain type of confusion that I agree with.
When I look at the story as a bigger picture, rather than focus on the details that seem to be annoying us, I see it as song, a piece of artwork, a composition that represents feelings and complex ideas of the human mind.
Well...although I can't fully agree with the first couple of comments I do understand how her writting style may seem boring.My question is,are we forgetting the message that Kincaid is trying to point out?That life is repetitive,and that we all experience confusion with out family bonds. I understand her emotional instability and I even empathize because I myself have experienced this before.Yes, her way of writting can be misleading and may even appear to be unprofessional but I do believe she is successful at conveying the complexity of human emotions.
I disagree with the people who say that she doesn't care about her family, if she didn't care then she wouldn't have gotten all that medication for her brother or have gone back to see him all those times that she did. I mean she even bought her children to meet their uncle and their grandmother. I think that she is afraid to admit that she loves them and is afraid to admit that mthey are her family. She worked so hard to make something of herself that she doesn't even want to let herself go back to that part of her life. Oh and going back to the part that if she didn't care about her brother why would she put so much effort into his sickness, she says that she spent or owes hundreds even thousands of dollars on medicines that were supposed to ease the pain and suffering of her brother. She changes her attitude about her brother so many times throughout the book, I think that the minute she feels she is starting to like or maybe even love her brother she changes to the fact that she hates him and is so angry at him. Hate and anger are most associated with love, hate just means you care too much.
I seem to agree with the concept that Kincaid uses alot of repitition. Many authors in the past have done this, and it hasnt worked to well. But in this particular peice, I believe that she uses repition to put emphasis on her emotions. As John stated before that, she's not doing it for the hell of it, but rather to exemplify her emotions
I was actually confused not while rading the book, but about Kincaid's feelings towards her brother. At moments I would feel that she did care for him, but then it seemed like she didnt. Yes, she did things that demonstrated either love or sympathy for her brother. For instance, she made sure that he received the pills (AZT), and she also called a Doctor for him who specialized on people who had contracted AIDS or the virus.
Yet, to me it seemed like she contradicted herself because she would say that she does not love her brother the way she loves her husband and children. I think that she just prolly felt that she had to love him because that was her brother.
Well that's what I think
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