I was originally going to reflect upon a latter section of Maps to Anywhere, however no matter how hard I tried, I found my brain working back towards a particular section that we had discussed the week before. The larger section is titled The Wind Did It, which is an essay detailing the interactions that Cooper has with his father, but what really stuck with me was one of the final set of paragraphs, where Cooper illustrates a scene of him returning to his father's home while his father is not present, and the only word that I have to describe it is surreal. Just absolutely and utterly surreal. It doesn't seem like it's actually happening, but as if it is some dream of sorts that we're experiencing with Cooper, but this might be able to be attributed to his style; Cooper writes in a very dreamlike manner, with a great deal of commas, short phrases, and appropriately specific details, it makes it too much to take in for the reader as they try to visualize the moment. An example of this is on page 63, where Cooper has entered the house and is gazing upon the plethora of various objects laid about the house, such as "coupons [his father] never use - Scotchguard, Lime Away, Lady Clairol - torn from the Sunday Times. A yellowed brochure for a Mixmaster... a flyer for a missing child. A note that simply says See you soon, signed, Rose - like the flower." All of these elements add up to a sense of mystery as the reader is left to pick up the many pieces Cooper leaves for us to digest.
Perhaps the most interesting moment in this section is that at one point, Cooper himself seems to be stupefied by the sheer amount of detail, "as fragments combine and cohere", he begins to lose himself, and his sentences become more and more abstract and seamless, until he hears "the wind scour the house" which breaks his concentration. After reflecting for a moment, I remember the title of the section, being The Wind Did It. In fact, the header for this particular section under that chapter is also titled The Wind Did It. But, what did the wind do? I found myself without answer until this moment. The wind blew him out of his fragment-laden fervor, bringing him back to reality. But if nonfiction is supposed to be realistic, where was that place that Cooper was before? And can we truly personify the wind as doing something as magical and mystical as that? It's like Impressionistic art brought into word. But that's not something that could be nonfiction.
Again and again, this genre continues to flabbergast me.
No comments:
Post a Comment