Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Black Rainbow

I really enjoyed how this author kept the reader thinking about Maungakiekie and the open possibility of what it could be. When the author did tell the reader what it was he acted like it was a mistake, but the inner English major in me tells me that the author did this on purpose. So many little details, like the smell of the woman's shampoo were told, that we were sort of distracted from Maungakiekie at times. Maybe these little details are building suspense so when the author goes deeper into a message in the novel he has a more powerful impact on the reader. As a writer and reader, I love the little details and to me they stand out quite well. As I read about the Tribunal I instantly thought about 1984 and how controlling society can be. The man also seems to be conformed to the society because when he didn't know where his wife was and he asked John, he said that she was fine, and the man believed him without further questioning simply because John had never disappointed him before. I found this particularly odd, because usually when someone is missing you pace around and worry constantly until they are found! The author's ability to write about significant small details comes to mean more when he tells the reader about the portrait of the president. The author could have just said, "there's an oil painting on the wall," but instead he expanded it, and said, "with an out of focus face and a mouth like a wound slit open by a scalpel and just starting to bleed." The statement "since we came to Auckland" has been repeated a couple times and I believe this is significant because it means that some big changes have been happening in his life since he moved. This makes the reader wander what he was doing before he came to Auckland.

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