Follow-Up

With The History of Love finished, I wanted to start looking for another read. Since I would rate that book highly, maybe even a 9, I wanted to see what other books Nicole Krauss has available. In addition to many short stories, she has also written Man Walks into a Room and Great House. After reading the descriptions of both, I found one to be particularly interesting. Great House seems like another great read by her and it even has some of the same elements of writing and religion that were present in The History of Love. Here is a quick summary from Nicole Krauss's website.

Great House

For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet’s secret police; one day a girl claiming to be the poet’s daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer’s life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father’s study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944.
Connecting these stories is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more and more meaning, and comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared.
Great House is a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change?
Nicole Krauss has written a soaring, powerful novel about memory struggling to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss.

In addition, I thought I would share with you all an article from New York Magazine that I came across about Nicole Krauss. It gives more insight into her as an author and a person, which is something I enjoy doing about after reading a great work. I like to envision what the author might have been relating to or feeling while they were writing, as well as put clues together about any deeper insights that would lead to why they wrote what they did. So, if you would like, take a read! If you do, and if you don't already know, you may be surprised to find out that her husband is also a best-selling writer. That being said, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, may just be next on my list and push Great House until after..

Commonplace Book

Upon finishing a book, I write some of my favorite lines down in what is known as a commonplace book. It is essentially a journal filled with excerpts from books that made an impression on me. These are my favorite quotes from The History of Love that I will soon be adding to it.

“Her kiss was a question I wanted to spend my whole life answering"

“With each day that passes, he’s blinded a little less by the beauty of the world”

“What does a book need with a title unless someone is going to read it”

“The words of our childhood became strangers to us- we couldn’t use them in the same way and so we chose not to use them at all. Life demanded a new language.”

“I know there is a moral to this story but I don’t know what it is”

“To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you’re limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter-of-an-inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky”

“It’s one of those unforgettable moments that happens as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.”

“The oldest emotion in the world may be that of being moved; but to describe it-just to make it-must have been like trying to catch something invisible.”

“Those used to being overheard by everyone were often at a loss for how to make themselves heard by someone.”

“It took seven languages to make me; it would be nice if I could have spoken just one. But I couldn’t, so he leaned down and kissed me.”

The End (kind of)

Does Leo die? Does Leo find out about his book? Does Alma ever meet him? Does Leo reveal the truth about his friend? All of these questions are probably racing through your mind at the moment as you sit on the edge of your chair waiting for me to reveal the last few pages. Well, all I am going to share is that it doesn't read "they lived happily ever after" and that I felt a bittersweet mixture of closure and sorrow. The ending truly is the bow that ties all the pages and stories together. I highly recommend you pick up a copy and experience the heartfelt ride of this novel for yourself. Oh, and boys, don't let the title dissuade you!

If you are still on the fence about whether this book will be worth your while, however, I have one final bit tell you: it will most likely be of help to you on the AP exam. I bet that caught your attention. Question 3 on the exam asks you to select a book of "literary merit" and develop an essay using the novel to support your response. The History of Love is applicable to many free response prompts, here are a few examples.

2010: Select a novel, play, or epic in which a character experiences such a rift and becomes cut off from “home,” whether that home is the character’s birthplace, family, homeland, or other special place. Then write an essay in which you analyze how the character’s experience with exile is both alienating and enriching, and how this experience illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. 

2007: In many works of literature, past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present actions, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a novel or play in which a character must contend with some aspect of the past, either personal or societal. Then write an essay in which you show how the character's relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.  

2007B: Works of literature often depict acts of betrayal. Friends and even family may betray a protagonist; main characters may likewise be guilty of treachery or may betray their own values. Select a novel or play that includes such acts of betrayal. Then, in a well-written essay, analyze the nature of the betrayal and show how it contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.

In addition to the fact that this novel is applicable to many AP prompts, it is also of sufficient "literary merit" due to its various stylistic elements and development of underlying themes. Therefore, I feel this book should be added to the AP curriculum and studied closely in a group setting, because the intricacies may be glanced over if not paid close enough attention to. It would generate a lot of discussion about the way in which the story is written, the major themes of love, loss, and identity, and the unique personalities of the main characters. Even after reading the book, I feel I need to go back and take a second read, the way I have often felt after reading other books included in the AP curriculum. That is a sign that the author carefully crafted the novel, weaving in clues and hints along the way, and making subtle comments that long for more attention. For these various reasons, it is fair to regard this book as "AP worthy".

Now I know you are dying to read The History of Love, so here are some tools that will help you along the way: a map to keep track of where the characters are and a glossary for all the foreign words. Also, it might be handy for you to have a summary of The Street of Crocodiles and North by Northwest. Trust me, you'll understand. Happy reading!

From Pieces to Picture

It’s time to start putting the puzzle together. We have lots of pieces that all fit, now it’s our job as readers to figure out how.

The book started with three separate stories, each one about love, loss, and self discovery, yet seemingly disconnected from the others. Eventually the stories converged and formed one unified novel. Along the way there were all sorts of clues, hinting at the character connections and plot twists, we just didn't know to search for them. Looking back now as we near the end, it is apparent that all those little clues and hints along the way amounted to the major themes and ideas.

Here is a list (a la Alma Singer) of what we can and should learn from The History of Love:


1. Don’t let other people control your happiness

Mistake number one that Leo makes is back during his childhood. He wrote for the thrill of writing, but then started writing to please the girl he loved. After facing her rejection, he started again, taking her advice. Then one day “the only person whose opinion [he] cared about left on a boat for America, [but he] continued to fill the pages with her name” (Krauss 8). Leo shows how people are not always in your life to stay, they come and go. If you hold on too tight, raising them up on a pedestal, it will only end up hurting you, because you are essentially giving them power over your happiness.


2. Love is more than skin deep

Uncle Julian, Alma’s uncle, takes her out for a birthday dinner one night. He tells her how he met his wife, Frances.”[He] saw her at the zoo in front of the chimpanzee cage, and she was wearing bright blue tights. And [he] thought: That’s the girl I’m going to marry...if it hadn’t been for those tights, [he] [didn’t] think [he] would have ever gone up to her” (178). No wonder Uncle Julian doesn’t have a great marriage and is sending letters to other women. This is a perfect example of how not to pick someone to marry. Love should be built on a foundation of friendship and commonality, not appearances. In the long run, having a solid foundation is what will make a relationship last.


3. Love cannot be forced

It happens naturally, gradually and out of willingness. However, some people, like Alma tried to believe otherwise. She attempted to find a new man for her depressed mother who lost her husband to pancreatic cancer. She tried Dr. Tucci, the veterinarian who visited her school, Jacob Marcus, the man who wanted the translation of The History of Love, Lyle, who was at Oxford at the same time as her mother, and Henry Lavender, the doctor who tended to Bird’s wrist. Yet, none of them worked. Why not? Because, none of them could form a relationship with the mother. The necessary ingredients for love of time, spiritual connection, friendship, and compatibility were not there. When love is meant to be, like David and Charlotte’s, it will happen on its own.


4. Words have the power to create, comfort, and cure

Leo used his stories to develop Bruno, a childhood friend who supposedly “died on a July day in 1941” (249). Bruno’s character provides Leo with comfort in the sense that Leo feels there is someone who cares about him. Bruno also pushes him to be independent. For example, when Leo is getting on the train to go to Isaac’s house in Connecticut, Bruno pretends to trip and stay behind, knowing “[he] wouldn’t have gone alone...and needed to” (161). Bruno’s character, even if only a figment of Leo’s imagination and writing, provides him with comfort and lessening his loneliness.
Alma uses her stories to keep her dad alive. She recounts memories of him camping, planting lemon trees and carrots, and singing. She even makes up some memories about how “he and mom danced all the time” (52) and “he used to call [Bird] Manny” (52). These remembrances of the past give her hope for the future and provide her with comfort for her devastating loss.


5. The truth is never fully the truth

Unfortunately, truth is always clouded by some bias. It is very hard to remember exactly what happened or exactly what was said. Alma and Leo both demonstrate this through their use of storytelling. They both blend together what really happened with that they wish had happened and what they think happened. In some ways, this is the beauty of storytelling. In other ways, it makes for confusion and disbelief and calls into question the credibility of the characters. It becomes hard to believe almost anything Leo says, because he often makes up stories. The fact that he wrote a book titled The History of Love and that is the title of this book means that anything in it could be false. It is all just a story. Also, Alma does a blend of reality and fiction with her memories of her dad. Some are true memories, but others are just stories. It is our job as readers to be aware of this and skeptical of what we are being told.

(Side note: This is a theme that has been developed by other books as well. In particular, Tim O’brien’s The Things They Carried uses a blend of fiction and nonfiction as well as the concept of storytelling. It has many similarities and should be added to your reading list after this one!)


6. People are like glass
Glass is a motif that came up throughout the novel, especially in the excerpt from The History of Love titled the Age of Glass. It is used as a symbol for people. Although Leo says “[he’s] not made of glass” (84) at one point, he really is. He feels transparent, invisible even, and longs to be seen by people. That is why he spills his popcorn in the movie theater, makes a show of ordering a blended coffee beverage at Starbucks, and poses as a nude model. All people want to be seen. They want to be recognized and their presence to be known, not looked right through like glass. Yet, aren’t all people transparent at times in terms of their emotions? Emotions can only be held back for so long, before coming out. It is at that point that people become transparent and fragile. No longer are they sheltered, hidden by a protective shell. Instead, they are vulnerably exposed to others. It is also at that point that they can shatter, their shards and fragments scattering everywhere like a glass hitting tile.


7. War has devastating repercussions

The majority of the characters are Jewish and were unfortunately impacted during the time of World War II. They dealt with separation from their family, displacement from their homes, and distance from their heritage. Alma Meriminski fled her home in Slonim, Poland to go to America, and years later Leo did the same to escape the “Einsatzgruppen [that] drove deeper east, killing hundreds of thousands of Jews” (12). Both of them lost family members to the brutal camps and felt lost in the unfamiliar new world they had to call home. This provides an explanation for why Leo frequently uses non-Englishwords interspersed throughout his writing: it was his way of holding on to the past. Those words provide him the comfort of his life back in Poland. Other characters, too, were harmed by the war. Zvi Litvinoff moved to Chile and lived a lonely life. He spent his days missing his sister, Miriam and “listen[ing] [to the radio] with horror to the progress of the Nazis” (155). Unfortunately, these character’s stories are factually quite close to the devastation people experienced during the war. In this way, the book serves as a reminder of the repercussions of war.


8. People want to be remembered

What good is it to be alive if you will be forgotten once you are dead? The hard work from your lifetime will vanish if you don’t leave your mark. This is Leo’s mentality. and he does an excellent job of making sure this doesn’t happen. In addition to making disruptive public scenes, he leaves his name wherever he goes. When he is in the limousine on the way to help someone out, he writes his name on the window and whenever he takes care of a lock, he leaves behind his initials. Bird does something similar in that he writes his name “in chalk across [his] front door, across his class photograph...and on the tree in front of [his] house” (37). We, too, should want to leave our mark on the world, however, there are other ways we can go about doing that. We can make an impact on and touch the lives of those around us or we can do something that people will always remember (preferably not using one of Leo’s methods). As Alma’s mom puts it, wherever we go, we should “leav[e] behind [our] trail of sand” (39).


9. Names develop identity

Similar to how Margaret Atwood and Toni Morrison used names to develop the characters in The Handmaid’s Tale and Song of Solomon, Nicole Krauss uses names to develop meaning for two characters in The History of Love, Bird and Alma. Bird’s nickname shows his desire for freedom. Like a bird, he wishes he could fly away. Throughout most of the novel it is pouring rain, which is symbolic of the prevalent grieving and sadness, and he tries to build an ark for shelter. He longs to set sail and move away from the heaviness he is surrounded by. In addition, he got his name from an attempt to fly, which left him with a permanent scar on his forehead and later injuries to his wrists. From this, he can be characterized as a Christ-like figure and his religious beliefs are foreshadowed. Alma’s character, on the other hand, uses her name as a motivating force to discover who she is. Since she was named after the main character from The History of Love, she believes finding that Alma will give her deeper insight into herself. In both cases, names form the basis of the character’s identities and ultimately begin to shape who they are. Our names, too, and their origin, have meaning that characterize our identity and background.


10. Possessions shouldn't define you

The phrase “you can’t take it with you” is one that Leo has apparently never heard. He believes that “at the end, all that’s left of you are your possessions” (165). This explains why he’s “never been able to throw anything away…[and] hoarded the world” (165). He hoped that “when [he] died, the sum total of [his] things would suggest a life larger than the one [he] lived” (165). Sadly, he doesn’t realize that wrote a book that touched the lives of many. This ties back to the idea about how there is more than one way to leave your mark on the world. Leo left his in the form of literature, yet he still believes he will forever be defined by his possessions. From this, we should recognize that there is more to life than “stuff” and we should strive to be remembered by something more meaningful. Do keep in mind, however, we should not go so far as to put on a showy, fake exterior.

We also learned a bit about love from each character’s unique approach. There is definitely something valuable to be taken from each of their histories of love and applied, perhaps, to our own lives.

Alma showed us what happens when we put self-discovery before love. The other person may get left behind and feel the relationship isn’t worth it. She also showed us how love doesn’t have a place for overanalyzing, it is best left to scientific endeavors.

Zvi demonstrated what happens when you try to use someone as a substitute for love. You will always be left with an emptiness in your heart and a longing for the person you truly love. It is ultimately not fair to the other person and ends up hurting both of you.

Leo exemplified what it means to build up love in your mind. He imagined this beautiful relationship with Alma, but fantasy and imagination do not serve him well when reality hit. He was smacked in the face by the realization that she had started another life without him, while he had been hopefully planning their life together. Though it is good to dream, it is still good to check in with reality every now and again to save yourself a lot of hurt in the end.

Letter to the Character

Dear Alma,

I appreciate your desire to help your mother, but she clearly doesn't want it. It took you long enough to recognize this, but when you finally did, I was very glad. Your decision to focus on discovering who Alma Meriminski is, the woman you are named after from The History of Love, is a much better (and less risky) endeavor. No one ever said it would be easy, but that didn’t stop you. It did hurt my heart that even your best friend, Misha, whom you were developing a relationship with, didn’t support you. But I guess that puts you in good company of the other characters. They, too, have dealt with their fair share of love, loss, and sacrifice. Stay strong! As for your journey of finding Alma, don’t see it as an end. Just because she is no longer alive, doesn’t mean there aren’t still answers for you out there. As you go in search of them, promise me you won’t leave your brother, Bird, behind. He looks us to you. Remember when you read his journal and saw that he took your advice about how he should try to be normal to heart? He needs you to guide him and listen to him and not blow him off when he talks about God. He truly believes he is a figure of Christ, and he has the injuries on his hands and wrists to prove it. Also, don't lie to him about memories of your Dad, it is only a matter of time before the truth becomes revealed.

___________________________________________________________

Dear Zvi,

You are dead, so this letter won’t really do much, but I am going to keep writing anyways. I still cannot believe you plagiarized your childhood friend’s paper. Leo trusted you with it to keep it safe and you turned around and published it. I need not belabor this point, though, because you suffered enough with the amount of guilt you felt each day. I just want you to know that Leo did not actually die like you thought he did. He is still alive and frantically trying to find his book and whether or not it got published. Another thing I want you tell you is that your wife, Rosa, knew all along. Remember the flood in your house? She started it. She put Leo’s manuscript on the floor. She kept your copy dry and safe. In part, I blame her for its publication. Yet, she had good intentions. She wanted you to feel proud of a piece and good about yourself. In many ways, I guess, you had good intentions too. You wanted this piece of work to be able to be read by the world, as you thought Leo would not be around to publish it. With that in mind, I hope you are now able to rest in peace without the burdensome guilt you once carried around.

___________________________________________________________

Dear Leo,

To some people you might come off as being crazy. After all, you practically stalk your own son, disclose unnecessary details about your bodily issues, and make embarrassing public disruptions. However, to me you are just a lonely, old man who desperately wants to love and be loved. I look past your quirks and see the hurt that lies beneath. I wish I could fix your loneliness. In a way, Bruno provides you with this fulfillment, but yet, I have to ask, is he real? Your downstairs neighbor mentioned to a friend of yours how you live on the top floor and you always say Bruno lives upstairs. Also, you have to order for him at Dunkin Donuts. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I find that a bit odd. Anyways, I also wanted to say I am sorry for the loss of your son. Though you two were not formally acquainted, I know he meant a lot to you. You demonstrated this in how you picked the lock to his house, then proceeded to clean his house and try on his clothing. To some this would again seem crazy. To me it wasn’t the least bit crazy, you simply wanted to feel close to your son in a way that his living presence never allowed. Well, to end this on a happier note, I would like to inform you that your book has been published! Yes, you are more than just an author of children’s picture books. The credit just has not yet been given where it is due.

___________________________________________________________

Do you remember how I mentioned talking to characters during my first blog post? Well, this is what my imaginary dialogue consisted of during the past few chapters. Hopefully you were able to piece together what took place as well as get some ideas about further character development and my reactions to it all through this quick update. I plan to do a “part 2” to this post soon, so check back for a follow-up analysis.

Warning: Spoilers and Styles Revealed

It's official, I am half-way in! What better way to celebrate than by sharing the readers digest version of the last 80 pages with you? It will give me a chance to wrap my brain around all the events that took place and to synthesize some answers to my lingering questions. So, here it goes, a quick plot update. Yes, there will be spoilers, and yes, you may be left feeling even more confused than when you started. Just hold on, I promise it will all start making sense soon.

ZVI LITVINOFF: Surprise! There is a new character we are introduced to in this section through yet another shift in point of view. Zvi, an immigrant from Poland, lives with his wife, Rosa, and often reads The History of Love. Contrary to what we previously thought, the book displays his name as the author. Interestingly enough, he often reads the book as though the words are not his. We, too, get to read excerpts of The History of Love titled The Age of Silence and The Age of String through his chapters. In addition, he has this “hacking cough that [shakes] his whole body, causing him to bend over double…[but] it [isn’t] so much because he [is] ill, as that there [is] something he wishe[s] to say” (Krauss 110). We begin to get the sense that something strange is up. This feeling only intensifies when he goes to an apartment looking for his childhood friend. He ends up reading this now grown man’s writing, who we later come to find out is Leo through one of the pages titled The Death of Leo Gursky. Zvi’s character begins to create some turmoil and gives readers a glimpse at how the stories intertwine.

ALMA SINGER: Her communication, or rather her “mother’s” communication, with Jacob Marcus continues. They send letter back and forth, each one getting a bit more personal with less focus on business. Through this we continue to see Alma’s desire to help her mother as well as a growing interest in what makes The History of Love so special and who exactly Alma is. Meanwhile, a relationship is also forming in Alma’s world with a Russian boy named Misha who recently moved to the United States. This sparks a discussion between Alma and her mother about cultural backgrounds. Her mother shows her all the possible of ways of classifying her background, but she prefers to think of herself as American. Her brother, Bird, a steadfast believer in God and religion, eventually chimes in and says, “‘no, you’re not. You’re Jewish’” (97).

LEO GURSKY: He tragically finds out about his son’s death while reading the paper at Starbucks. Interestingly enough the obituary is written by Zvi and we yet again see the stories start to come together. We continue to feel sorry for Leo as he recalls painful memories of Bruno and Alma (including her death), and attends his own son’s funeral only to be asked if he is a fan. At the same time, we have become more aware of his quirks, such as how he talks to people’s ghosts and named a bird after Chinese food. Also, we are beginning to question his credibility. With any first person narrative, you always have to keep in mind that bias and untruths may be present. Between the storytelling that Leo does and the number of times he uses the word “maybe” when recalling events, we are starting to think that we cannot believe everything he says.

Now that we have caught up on what’s going on, I want to dig a little deeper and talk about how it’s all going on. In previous posts I have talked about here and there about the style of the book. However, the unique manner in which the book is written demands some attention of its own.
As I mentioned, the book is written as a story-within-a-story and is broken up into chapters, each from one of three characters’ perspectives. Without even reading the first sentence of each chapter, you have a sense of who wrote it based on the tiny image next to the title and the structure of the writing.

For Leo, there is a picture of a heart, which reveals his emotional nature and the heart condition he has. His chapters contain very short, simple sentences and almost a stream-of-conscious style of writing. There are never quotations, only italics, except for when he is recalling a conversation with Alma in which he uses quotations, but they are separated by parenthesis. This symbolizes the distance he tries to put between himself and these painful memories of his past. Another way he shows himself trying to move on from the past is by his frequent use of abrupt transition phrases such as “And yet.” or “But.” His loneliness is also evident through his writing in how he sometimes addresses readers using “you” while employing a storytelling-like writing style

For Alma, there is a picture of a compass, which reveals her love for nature and the outdoors as well as exploration. Her chapters contain information that is revealed through a numbered list. This shows her organized, logical mentality and also separates her from the other two who are characterized by a more free form writing structure. Alma also frequently uses flashbacks in her sections, but they are much more cohesive than when some of the other characters use them.

For Zvi, there is a picture of a book, which reveals his love of writing and the book that he (supposedly) wrote. His chapters are often filled with longer sentences and lists along with excerpts from The History of Love. Most importantly, his chapters are written in the third person, though they do reveal his thoughts and give insight into his character. This puts the reader in the position of glimpsing at him without becoming too attached. If my hunch that I have alluded to throughout this post is accurate, then this style is carefully chosen for his character.

Finally, I want to note a few prominent devices that have been used throughout the novel. Allusions are prevalent in the form of names, especially in Alma Singer’s family, literary references such as Kafka, and historical connections, as in to Europe during World War II. Each one provides a basis for the themes of the novel. Since they are still in the developmental stages, I will save their analysis for a later post when I am closer to the end of the book.

In addition, there is repetition throughout of certain elements that may tend toward motifs. These include birds, glass, locks, names, language, and writing. Again, I will have more insight into these as the novel comes to a close. For now, I will just simply acknowledge their potential significance and leave you wanting to know more...

Morrison and Atwood and Krauss, Oh My!

While reading, I came across this passage that instantly reminded me of two novels I recently finished, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. I couldn't wait until my next post to share this with you, so I figured I'd do a quick one now specifically dedicated to it.

"When I was born my mother named me after every girl in a book my father gave her called The History of Love. She named my brother Emanuel Chaim after the Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum, who buried milk cans filled with testimony in the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Jewish cellist Emanuel Feuermann, who was one of the great musical prodigies of the twentieth century, and also the Jewish writer of genius Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel, and her uncle Chaim, who was a joker, a real clown, made everyone laugh like crazy, and who died by the Nazis. But my brother refused to answer to it. When people asked his name, he made something up. He went through fifteen or twenty names. For a month he referred to himself in the third person as Mr. Fruit. On his sixth birthday he took a running leap out of a second-floor window and tried to fly. He broke his arm and got a permanent scar on his forehead, but from then on nobody ever called him anything but Bird."  (Krauss 35)

First off, here is a little background on those two novels. In The Handmaid's Tale, the Handmaid's are named according to who they belong to.The main characters name, for example, is Offred, like "Of Fred," because Fred is the man who has her. In this way, names establish a sense of identity for the characters. Similarly, in Song of Solomon, character's names range from Guitar to Sing to Solomon. Each one has a different story behind how it came to be and provides deeper understanding of each character. This passage from The History of Love echoes this recurrent element from both stories. It reveals how Alma, Emanuel, and Bird got their names, and ultimately develops a sense of identity for each character.

This wasn't the first time in the book that naming was referenced either. This leads me to believe it may develop into a theme or motif. We saw naming back when Leo wrote his on the limousine window. We also saw it when Bird started to write his name "in chalk across our front door, across his class photograph, on the bathroom wall, and.... carved it with [Alma's] Swiss Army knife as high as he could reach on the tree in front of [their] house" (37). In this way, names are used as a means of being seen and remembered.

Another way this passage reminded me of Song of Solomon was through the character of Bird. In Toni Morrison's novel, flight is a motif used throughout as a symbol of independence and freedom. When I read how Bird tried to fly, I flashed back to reading about how Robert Smith tried to fly off Mercy Hospital in the opening scene. Maybe this is just a coincidental similarity. Maybe I am reading too much into it, and he is just a kid who wanted to see if he could fly. However, I couldn't write off the possibility that this could be meaningful and reveal more about Bird's character.

Time will tell, and I will check back in soon to hopefully provide answers to these questions. In the meantime, if you too found yourself amazed by the parallels, don't be shy to comment with your thoughts and ideas! :)