Little Bee

The language and honesty of Little Bee captured me from the very beginning. The personification of the British pound coin was intriguing and kept me turning page after page until suddenly I was listening to a young African girl speak far beyond her years about war in her country and time spent in the detention center in the United Kingdom. Little Bee effortlessly leads us through her life by comparing the UK with Nigeria by way of language. She describes how words mean different things in the UK, and how her sister and friends in Nigeria would never understand these differences. Little Bee also uses language to describe the difference in treatment given to people who are beautiful and people who can speak “the Queen’s English” as opposed to foreigners. Though she speaks the Queen’s English so eloquently that she is not second-guessed by the British, Little Bee feels the strangeness of the language coming from her and knows she is still the same Nigerian refuge she entered the detention center as.

Suicide is another repetitive idea that shows up surprisingly throughout the novel. Little Bee is so afraid of the men coming and taking her that she would rather kill herself than let that happen again. With any change in scenery, she creates an escape route, a quick way to commit suicide no matter where she is. Little Bee always slips her escape route in if the setting changes no matter what else she is talking about. This shows that she never lets her guard down; she is always expecting the worst and is prepared to die at any moment. Just as Little Bee will so easily accept her own death in the event that the men come, the girl with no name quietly takes her own life when she gets out of the detention center and finds she has nowhere to go. Death strikes again when Andrew hangs himself in his own house. Though we know the call from Little Bee was what pushed him to suicide, in the first 100 pages we still do not know the story between Andrew and Little Bee. I found it very interesting that I was so enthralled with the novel without even knowing the relationship between the main characters. I guess this question is what keeps us turning the page.

Final Sunset Park and New Criticism

Upon finishing Sunset Park, I feel very anxious. I thought the point of the novel was for the characters to evolve, find themselves, and move on from their past, but the end does not give closure. Instead, the end takes the closure that you thought you felt and turns it upside down. I thought Miles and his father had reconciled their differences and I thought Miles and Pilar had worked out their future together and things would finally be right between Miles, Pilar, and Morris. The ending seems to undo all of the progress that the characters have made. They have fought through their troubles and overcame their pasts, but in the end they all end up just as worse off as in the beginning. Does Bing get out of jail? Does Miles keep running, go to jail, or does he actually have a future with Pilar? Is Morris angry at his son and angry that he has come into his life just to cause him more grief? I feel like these are questions that seriously need to be answered for me to feel as if the novel is a complete work. Miles worked for 7 years with no idea or hope for a future, but once he moved to New York he gained self-worth and finally grew into a man that could see a future for himself; however, in the last paragraph of the novel, he has the same mentality as he did at the beginning. No future, stop hoping for anything. So did he actually not learn anything from the 7 years he spent in exile? Despite the uneasiness I have about Miles and Bing, I do feel that Ellen and Alice are complete characters. They grew significantly throughout the novel and turned out to be much stronger people than I thought. I am very unhappy with the ending because of Miles and the uncertainty of his future with his parents and Pilar; however, Auster partially comes full circle with Ellen and Alice.

From the vantage point of a new critic, I might argue that Paul Auster does come full circle with the ending of Sunset Park. The ending is not meant to fix each problem the characters encountered; instead, it is used to portray the hopelessness of a depression and the uncertainty of real life. Auster does not lead us to the end of each of the character’s lives; we just have to assess what we have been given. If the ending does anything, it unifies the novel. Miles’ swollen hand is comparable to the wounded soldier from The Best Years of Our Lives. Like the soldier needing assistance for simple tasks, Miles now has to rely on his father to help him escape prison. Miles also returns to his former mindset, “he will stop hoping for anything and live only for now.” While Miles was roaming the country working dead-end jobs he had this same ideology; he did not want to think about the past and he refused to think of the future. Just when Miles seemed to be growing up and creating a real life for himself, the eviction kicked him back to his old ways.

Bing is another character that seems to be left hanging at the end, but the tension from the uncertainty of his life in prison is actually just what Bing would have wanted. Throughout the novel Bing told the others that he would stay in the house and hold his ground until the day the police came and took him to jail. And that’s exactly what happened. In a twisted sort of way, Bing got his happy ending; however, he is still hopeless and homeless in the eyes of society.

Alice and Ellen are also left in hopelessness. In the last few sections, Alice and Ellen really seemed to have turned their lives around. Alice was finished with Jake and her dissertation. She was ready to move out and start her career. Just at that time, the police came. Now she is left without her computer which stores her dissertation and any hope of starting a new life. Ellen showed the most progress in the final pages of the novel. She was dating her old fling, opened up to Bing, had a great collection of drawings, and underwent a full makeover. Just as her confidence is soaring and she is making plans to move out and in with her boyfriend, she is evicted and running from the police. She lost all of her art work and the ability to safely live in the city without worrying if she will be caught. Despite all of the progress they made and the obstacles they overcame, Alice and Ellen have returned to their hopeless and homeless state.

Literary Criticism

I think people write about literature in order to challenge themselves and get a further understanding of what they are reading. Upon a quick first read, it is difficult to take away anything more than the face value of a literary work; however, after carefully rereading and assessing a text, one can pick out key elements and see how various features work together to make a unified plot.

Literary criticism should evaluate and interpret a work of literature. It should show with evidence how a piece does or does not fulfill a certain goal or task. To make a literary criticism, one must determine the overarching theme or goal of the work. Then, symbols, characters and events must be analyzed to see how they add to the work and help the author achieve his goal or establish his theme.

Literary critics must be open minded. They often read other literary criticisms on the same novel. Reading other people's ideas may show them a different point of view or an element of the novel that they missed.

In my opinion, literature is a form of expression. Though it is entertainment, it is also a way for an author to deliver a message or portray an event. Literature connects people and challenges the reader. Personally, I look for literature with which I can connect. Also, I like a story that has a purpose- a moral, a theme, or a goal.

Hopefully after reading more about the different styles of literary criticism I will be better able to form my own opinions of literature and discuss them with other critics.

Strenuously playful fiction?

Mark Lawson of The Guardian provides a bleak review of Sunset Park by Paul Auster. He begins by pointing out that Auster's novels tend to use the same template- most of the characters, despite their occupation, are avid readers or novelists. Lawson finds it monotonous that Auster continuously combines the literary world and real world in his novels. In Lawson's opinion, the only authentic depiction of the economic crisis comes from Miles' father's publishing house.

Further, Lawson scrutinizes the connections Auster makes between characters. He provides an ambiguous analysis of the deaths of two different fathers' children, the two relationships with younger partners, and the two characters watching The Best Years of Our Lives. It is difficult to tell whether Lawson finds these crossovers pleasureful or painful.

As a final stab at Auster, Lawson praises him for his unfaltering control within his novels; however, he follows this up with more criticism of Auster's creativity by stating that his novels are "cold and distanced, almost as if they were a demonstrative exercise for a set of creative writing majors." Lawson argues that despite the fact that Auster creates differing characters, every chapter of the novel is told rhythmically with the same past-tense narration and little dialogue.

Though I have no experience with Auster's earlier novels, I find it difficult to agree with Lawson and other critics who complain that Auster's structure is monotonous and too straightforward for readers to develop their own ideas. The third-person narration in Sunset Park sets the tone for the novel. The scanty dialogue between characters creates a sense of tension that adds realism to the economic depression. Structuring the novel into sections for each character allows the reader to fully grasp the background of each character and develop their own opinions about the action currently taking place.

I hardly find it "painful" when noticing the connections between the various characters. Each action takes place independently and it is up to the reader to interpret the connection between the events. The reoccurance of death and The Best Years of Our Lives reminds me that each of the characters have a certain bond, despite the fact that Auster portrays them independently.

At least for Auster's current novel Sunset Park, I find the structure and point of view complementary to the tone and plot of the novel.