Throughout the course of the semester, we have studied a number of different works. Finding one text that adequately wraps up all that we’ve been learning is almost impossible. However, The Water Cure by Percival Everett is a novel that encompasses what we’ve been learning in our course and functions well as a final text. The main reason that The Water Cure works so well as our last text is because of the recursion that is evident throughout the novel. Throughout the novel, Percival Everett uses a looping narrative to create a sense of repetition and circularity. This is something that we have been studying and practicing throughout our course. For example, African Fractals. An African Fractal is a pattern that takes on the form of a seed shape. This seed shape pattern is something that will always reoccur. Although the pattern becomes smaller as it grows, the pattern will never stop recurring and is infinite. The Water Cure is a novel that embodies the same concept of recursion as seed shapes. The recursion that happens in the novel and in seed shapes is similar to how our course is structured. Learning how to be able to loop back to concepts and connect them to different works is the biggest way I have grown as a student in this course. This is why The Water Cure serves as a great final text because it symbolizes my semester’s final story by its recursion.
There are many examples of recursion throughout The Water Cure by Percival Everett. The first place that recursion appears is in the narrative format itself. The narrative often circles back to certain elements in the story, giving the reader a sense of recursion. The story is centered around Ishmael Kidder, a man who lost his daughter to murder. Throughout the narrative, we are questioning if Ishmael has who he believes to be his daughter’s killer locked in his basement. The reason we are left to question if Ishmael Kidder has someone locked in his basement is because of the way Percival Everett writes the story. Everett does this by telling multiple story lines at once and shifting between the past and present. For example, there is a flashback that says, “It was cloudless and sunny the day Charlotte and I brought Lane home. Shewa’s small, they said, five pounds, but not that small, they said, but I had never seen anything so small. I took it on faith that those little fingers were completed with nails and the very suggestion that they be trimmed with something sharp sent me into a panic. A nurse had seen me studying them, one nail at a time, especially the little toes, and she, being one of those people who find comfort in nervous chatter, said, ““Just wait until you have to cut them..”” This flashback talks about the day Ishmael brings Lane home from the hospital as a bay. However, as we know Lane dies before the start of the story. The next page of the text says, “Secretary of State: Pull my finger..
President: Okay.
I can do what I like at any moment I like in this document or text or however we name it because this is my world, universe, neighborhood, note ((though I hate seeing the word note in my notes), and I can do what I damn well please and fuck you if you think I’m ignoring rules and fuck you if you think that I’m being indulgent and fuck you if you think that references to archaic philosophical notions are mere erudition, which they are not, but fuck you anyway because this is my world and you’re welcome to it if you want to enter and if you don’t want to enter then fuck you twice anyway and if you do want inside then fuck you trice because you fucking deserve it.”. This shows how in the story the narration changes from flashback to present tense. The page before this it was talking about Lane coming home for the first time and then the story jumps to Ishmael being angry because she is dead. This is an example of the recursion that happens within the story because it is not linear. It goes back and forth between past and present. This is similar to African Fractals because they also reoccur. They keep the same shape going over and over again just as The Water Cure goes from past to present over and over again.
Another example of recursion in The Water Cure is the number of times a word or phrase is repeated within the novel. For example, one page of the text says, “The words on these pages are not the story. The words on these pages are not this story. The words on these pages are the words on these pages, not more, not less, simply the words on these pages, one after another, one at the beginning and one at the end, bearing possibly some but probably no relation to each other, but they can, if you desire to find a connection, need to, or if it irresistibly, axiomatically, ineluctable reveals itself to you. When you leave, desert these words, the words on these pages, you might use words very much like these to report what meaning you have found, but not these very words. You perhaps will leave these pages, the words on these pages, with an idea or two and maybe, just maybe, the order of a few of these words and so it goes.” The repetition of “the words on these pages” reminds me of African Fractals because of how they repeat as well. This relates to how I feel about our course. Repetition is something we have talked about plenty during this semester. For example, rereading texts, going back to look at older texts we have read, and going over assignments with feedback. Repetition is something that I have taken into further consideration after this semester because it is very important to look back on old texts and concepts and be able to connect them to other texts.
The final thing that connects African Fractals and The Water Cure is that both don’t have an ending. African Fractals are mathematical equations that continue in the same pattern without stopping or changing. The Water Cure is also a novel that is left open-ended. The fate of the characters is left up to the interpretation of the reader. Ishmael is still left questioning his life. The final lines of the novel are “I ask only to find the answers I need, but then there are the other questions: Will my daughter grow older in my dreams? Why do reasonable people entertain the ontological l argument? and What kind of dog was it? And the answers are: No, Because they can, and Some kind of retriever.”. This shows that there is no real ending because Ishmael is still left with questions. This is why I think that The Water Cure is a good text to use as our final text for our course. It is left really open ended which I think is how a college course should end because we are never done learning, just as African Fractals never end either.