This book continues to get more disturbing more and more as I read. It is very unsettling and I find myself often while reading it getting mad at the characters. It makes me mad that Bone’s mom will just stand around while Glen beats her, she gave in too easily and she should not have at all. It also makes me mad that everyone in the family knows that something is going on between them, something awful but no one has done anything, except ask a 10 yr old child who does not understand what is going on. I guess the fact that a book can instill so many feelings in the reader is just a sign of a good writer, whether they are bad or good feelings. In addition, because I see no end in sight to this, and because I know all the sides of the story, well at least what Dorothy Allison has published, it makes me want to go in and fight for her. It frustrates me the way these characters are so careless about themselves, others and the world, and so by this point I need to put down the book.
In chapter six, I do not understand what the mother goes out to do when she comes to the point of feeding her children crackers and ketchup. This may be due to a naïve misunderstanding, but somehow she puts on all these clothes and goes out, and then magically comes home with all sorts of food. So are we supposed to just understand that she did something wrong to get this food, or is it just an unnecessary fact and isn’t worth wondering about?
I think that Glen’s appearance is the most important thing to him. The main reason he wants Anney is because it makes him look good, like a family man, but also like someone that people will automatically be good, because how else would he be able to get a wife and children if he wasn’t at least half decent? You can also see this when they talk about houses that are acceptable. Glen moves them around house-to-house, ones that aren’t nice, and they probably could get nicer ones, except he only wants the ones that if you squint hard enough you could possibly see a resemblance to his brothers houses. Those houses, the ones like his brother would make him look good, and possibly if he owned one would help him gain some respect from his family. When he realizes his houses aren’t nice he blames it on everyone else, saying that no one wants him to have anything nice, everything is always everyone else’s fault. Then with this, he would “get in one of his dangerously quiet moods and refuse to talk to anybody.” I do not think it is fair that because of Glen’s personality, Bone and Reese are forced to walk on eggshells and try and make uncontrollable things perfect for him, just so that he won’t get mad and go crazy.
Another thing I find interesting in this book, are the fantasies that Bone has. They are often either morbid, or messed up and she usually ends up being critical of herself and thinking she is an awful person. One in particular stands out, this is when Glen beat her to the point where she needed to go to the doctors because her tailbone was broken and her arm was injured. She imagined that her mom would leave him and they would not talk to him until he came crawling back begging their forgiveness, and everyone refused to forgive him except for her, and then she said she would die after that. Why would she forgive him? I just cannot understand. I think this is just a result of being so traumatized after all the things that have happened to her, maybe she has these fantasies because it is the only thing in her life that she has control over.
3 comments:
It is very horrible what happens in the book. It is hard to read the scenes that our child abuse. I don't know how Bone makes it through and continues on.
I agree that Glen's appearance is ridiculously important to him. I can understand where having a wife like Anney can make him look good but other than that I still find it hard to figure out what all there is to there relationship. What does Anney see in Glen? The fact that Glen is so critical of the houses each time they move was rather funny. Yes, you want your family to live somewhere safe and in a good home but, Glen was looking out only for his reputation and what others would say about his home. You would think that if this was so important he would work a little harder at keeping a job so that he could make more money to improve their situation in any way he could. It is obvious that the family is not what is most important to him.
i agree that it is hard to read parts of this book. As much as you want to feel bad for some of the characters its so hard i find after reading how they think.
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