Wednesday, March 21, 2012
My Humble Thoughts on the First Two Chapters of God's Bits of Wood
Naturally, when God's Bits of Wood was assigned I was a bit skeptical about how interesting it was going to be or how much I was going to take away from the book. After Crime and Punishment I have grown to have a negative outlook for the books this quarter but after the first few chapters, God's Bits of Wood was starting to grow on me. I love books with a complex plot and this one is definitely starting to stir up some complexity. I enjoy having to think about the various plot lines that are going on and sorting out in my head how things went down as opposed to being stuck in one person's objective reality like in Crime and Punishment. I also think that Ad’jibid’ji's character is refreshing. Her quick wit and sparky attitude amuses me. I can relate to the fact that she is intelligent beyond her years and is always questioning authority figures and thinking that she is right. Her character has an interesting dynamic that challenges the cultural norms of her setting, which is normally to respect your wise elders. She defies the typical stereotype of african women which I like. I'm glad to see a strong woman character so early in the book, especially taking into account the setting.
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I understand your appreciation of the changing perspective, but don't you think something is lost in this rapid change of Perspective? When the author does not focus on the thoughts of a character for long, often times that character remains underdeveloped in the novel, at least in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteI would have to agree with you old chap. I think when an author picks the style he is going to write in there are certain trade offs that he will have to think about. That being said I know that this book unlike crime and punishment is not centralized around one main character and develops the story around their interactions with the world, but develops the story based on events and opposing viewpoints of a situation. I find that the external conflict is more entertaining to read than some crazies internal conflicts with himself and society that he really doesn't do much about but complain.
ReplyDeleteI agree Lily! I really haven't enjoyed the books assigned this year at all, to be honest. I also haven't understood the deeper meanings in all of them, but I DO like this one. I feel that we can relate a lot of it to today's society, such as woman's role in society.
ReplyDeleteWell, while I do agree with you on the fact that the rapidly changing perspective offers a more complex view of the characters in a story, the one issue that I took with this was the loss of internal struggle. Now, you addressed this extremely well in your reply to Greg, but I feel as if though there should be some sort of internal struggle that should be emphasized more in the book. The underlying theme of intermixing different cultures, while most definitely developing external conflicts also relates a lot to internal conflict, over culture, belief, and belonging. This is something that would add a great deal to an understanding of the situation and time period. While it is attempted at points in the book, too often does this identity crises take an external nature, and as such detracts from the actual internal struggle that this represents.
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