I already spoke about parent-child relationships in this post, but I thought I might talk more in depth about the relationship between Essun and Nassun, since that is what a majority of The Broken Earth’s narrative is built upon on. While we spoke in groups one day, Patrick drew my attention to the parallels between Essun’s stoning of Rennanis and Nassun’s stoning of the Antarctic Fulcrum, and I thought that the similarities between these two places and what Essun and Nassun decided to do to them also illustrated interesting parallels between mother and daughter. The more I considered the series as a whole, the more examples I was able to pick out from the text that exhibited similarities between them. Rennanis and the Antarctic Fulcrum serve as only one example.
Imprisonment
In the prologue of The Obelisk Gate, we are introduced to the world of Syl Anagist from the perspective of Houwha (Hoa, pre-stone eater days) trapped in a “sterile space” that is his prison. In this world, there is simply “no need for guards when you can convince people to collaborate in their own internment. Here is a cell within a pretty prison” (5). Reading this passage, I was immediately struck with the connection to our own modern prison system. At this point in time, according to the Pew Research Center, the United States of America is the country with the highest incarceration rate in the entire world. The United States only represents a fraction of the world’s population at 4.4%, but has an astounding 22% of the world’s prisoners. If these statistics don’t speak volumes of our prison system, I frankly don’t know what does.
Can The Present Shape The Past?
In light of the poem we read recently in class by Yusef Komunyakaa, “Facing It”, I began to contemplate the relevance of the past, present and future, both within Jemisin’s books and within this class as a whole. In his poem, Komunyakaa is giving his experience a voice, as he faces traumatic experiences of the past, being a Vietnam War veteran, during a visit to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., which rekindles past emotions. Continue reading “Can The Present Shape The Past?”
Evil Earth vs. Evil Death
An interesting piece of linguistics in these novels, that I’ve been monitoring for a while, is the use of the phrase Evil Earth. The phrase is said by almost every character that lives in the Stillness, generally in moments of frustration or anger. Something else that I found interesting was the different version of the phrase that was said by the Sylanagistine during their moments of frustration; Evil Death. The two phrases are too similar for it to be a coincidence, so I decided to do some thinkING. Continue reading “Evil Earth vs. Evil Death”
What’s in a Home?
Home. For me, it lies in a yellow house tucked against the woods, smoke curling out of a chimney and yellow lab lolling lazily (she’s a little chunky) in the front yard. I can draw up the image in a moment, the high wooden ceilings, the dark, scratched floors covered with sun-bleached rugs, the sun (or lack thereof) pouring through enormous windows; my mother dances through the kitchen, the feral cat that lives in the backyard curls up on a deck chair, my dad’s glasses are found (found as they are often lost to him) somehow buried under a slightly disheveled copy of the Times on the counter. Continue reading “What’s in a Home?”
The Stillness Free From Chaos
While thinking about this final blog post I began to ask myself the progressive thinkING question of what does it matter that we’ve been doing this? There’s a right answer to that question, but what I found to be more interesting was the entire opposite. There is a level where none of this matters and blog posting is something like a “momentary stay against confusion” (a partial quote from Robert Frost about the function of poetry). To extrapolate from the inherently grim idea that nothing matters, I’d like to add that there is an aspect of chaos that works to complicate the whole situation. This is what I’d like to explore in my final blog post. What does it mean that Jemisin’s characters don’t fully subscribe to nihilism in the face of annihilation? How has humanity survived in the Stillness for so long? I believe the answer lies in a consideration of philosophy and whether or not chaos truly is a force in the Stillness. Continue reading “The Stillness Free From Chaos”
Stone Everlasting
Steel’s conversation with Nassun about living forever, helped me understand why Steel, a stone eater wanted Nassun, an orogene to destroy the world. It wasn’t because he is naturally evil, and wants the world to suffer. He has nothing to live for, it’s a selfish wish, that can only be- for that reason Nassun and Steel are similar. Steel is not naturally cruel, just in pain, and living forever is the cause.
Being a Lorist
So fun fact about me, I work in Milne Library, more specifically down in the TERC section. I do a bunch of different things, from reshelving to labeling new material. However, arguably, my most important duty is recording when books or toys get used. Most people don’t realize this but when you use anything in the library whether it be a book, a game, or even a puppet you’re not supposed to put it back. Which sounds weird because everyone grows up hearing they always have to put away the things they use. But when you do that in the library and especially down in the TERC section you make my life harder in many ways. Continue reading “Being a Lorist”
You Are Here…… Again
In the beginning of the semester I wrote a blog post about my prediction that Essun, Damaya, and Syenite were the same people. I was right, but that’s not what this post is about. After reading two books-worth about the character of Essun, I’ve begun to recognize that she doesn’t even know who she is anymore. She corrects people when they use the wrong name for her and yet questions if she is still Essun anymore. Instead of changing who she is again, she does what most of us tend to do in our real world and proceeds to change as a person without completely changing her identity. Continue reading “You Are Here…… Again”
What Stillness Society Understands About Puberty Ceremonies That We Do Not
Life in the Stillness is flawed. Deeply flawed. As Hoa informs us, it has been so for a long time. Yet when it comes to raising children, there is something they get right: they have puberty ceremonies. This summer, I borrowed Kurt Vonnegut’s If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young from the Brooklyn Public Library. In the book, which is a compilation of speeches, Vonnegut, ever the fan of speaking at colleges, points out the ritual’s absence in modern American society–in his 1998 commencement address at Rice University, he said of the event, “This is a long-delayed puberty ceremony. You are at last officially full-grown men and women — what you were biologically by the age of fifteen or so. I am sorry as I can be that it took so long and cost so much for you to at last receive licenses as grownups.” Jemisin, in her immaculate, historically inspired world-building, informs us that comms in the Stillness have these ceremonies which we lack.
Continue reading “What Stillness Society Understands About Puberty Ceremonies That We Do Not”