Winter in the Blood-Chapter 1-PT. 1
The first chapter was a negative beginning: burnt grass, bare gray skeleton, stark as bone, none of them counted, dry, cracked gumbo flats. The location is dry and a prairie opens up for us, bleak and hot, yet with the contrast of the horse and her colt holding life and promise behind the old cabin. It describes the protagonist's difficulty in coming home after being with the white man and his wild wife, his eye swollen, feeling the emptiness in life, not caring about his mother, grandmother and girl "who was thought to be my wife".
The mention of distance in this first chapter - "But the distance I felt came not from country or people; it came from within me." - turns out to be a significant word or theme throughout this book.
The novel's beginning made me sad, but I needed to read on, to find out what the protagonist was feeling, to feel what he felt, to discover why the people treated each other with distance. This might just be a unique literary experience. I was ready.
The mention of distance in this first chapter - "But the distance I felt came not from country or people; it came from within me." - turns out to be a significant word or theme throughout this book.
The novel's beginning made me sad, but I needed to read on, to find out what the protagonist was feeling, to feel what he felt, to discover why the people treated each other with distance. This might just be a unique literary experience. I was ready.
posted by valhalla at
9:57 AM
2 Comments:
Life is tough. Everything is hopeless. I don’t care. I should go to town, get drunk, pick-up some skank, and get punched out in a bar – man, I got a hang-over and a swollen eye just reading this. The environment is so harsh, it makes the inhabitants emotionally distant from each other, still the narrator, whose name is never mentioned, recognizes that his sense of alienation comes from within himself. Well maybe. What about this. He and Theresa, a.k.a. Mom, have the following conversation about First Raise, the deceased absentee husband and father.
The narrator begins, “Why did he stay away so much?”
Theresa responds, “He didn’t. He was around enough. When he was around he got things accomplished.”
The narrator challenges her, “But you yourself said he was never around.”
She replies, “You must have him mixed up with yourself. He always accomplished what he set out to do.” (p15)
A short time later he concludes, “I never expected much of Theresa and I never got it. But neither did anybody else.”
Life is tough. Everything is hopeless. I don’t care. I should go to town…
I hope this is a set-up for a story about one man's quest for self-actualization.
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