Brother I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat (National Book Award Finalist)
Please comment on Uncle Joseph's observations
p.39 Technological advances could help-- the telephone, the radio, microphones, megaphones, amplifiers. But if you had no voice at all, he thought, you were simply left outof the constant hum of the world, the echo of conversations, the shouts and whispers of everyday life.
p.40 As for permanently losing one's voice, the possibility seemed so remote that it almost appeared to bea curse that, as some of the members of my uncle's congregation declared, only American doctors could cross an ocen to put on you. People were either born mute or not.
Take a moment to consider the themes of technology and superstition jointly. Is a blog a way of amplifying one's voice or cursing someone far away? What do both these observations indicate about Uncle Joseph's understanding of community?
Please comment Edwidge's following reflection
p.44 The best place for me to make my announcement would have been at the family meeting the week before. This is probably what both my parents would have expected, and preferred, rather than my spitting something out and scurrying off. But that night I couldn't look into my father's faceand-- though I knew it would come very naturally tohim and my mother both-- ask they be happy for me.
Danticat returns often to ths theme of communication within families. Do you share her anxieties when you communicate with your family? Are some contexts more awkward than others?
p.55 "Fiercely independent and too proud to seek his involvement or ask for loans when the monthly allowance me father senther ran out, my mother continued my father's work, sewing school uniforms and flags. One Sunday morning when she had no money at all, my mother dropped us on my uncle's lap after church so we could have a proper Sunday meal with him and Tante Denise.
"One day this will stop," my mother told him. Then she ran home, crying.
This episode is one of many that highlight Haitian pride. Danticat prefers a narrative voice that tones down her own uneasiness about growing up in poverty. What is the effect of confronting the burden of poverty through her mother's tears?
p.68 Illness had brought Granme Melina from the mountains of Leogane, where she'd been living since her daughter had moved to Port-au-Prince with Uncle Joseph. Ravaged by arthritis, both her pale, liver-spotted hands were curled into clawlike grips, makingit impossible for her to do anything for herself. She spent most of her days sitting on the front gallery watching people go by. But as soon as the sun went down, shewould be at the center of things as she livened up and told stories. The neighborhood children rushed through their dinner and hastened to learn the next day's lessons so they could sit on the steps beneath Granme Melina's rocking chair and listen to her tales
Danticat regularly mines the wealth of intergenartional interactions around which she constructs her identity. What does the centenarian Granme Melina teach Edwidge and the other children gathered on the porch?
p.73 "Death is a journey we embark on from the moment we are born," he'd say. " an hourglass is turned andthesand starts to slip in a different direction as soon as we emerge from our mother's womb. Thank God those around us are too blinded by joy then to realize it. Otherwise there would be weeping at births as well. But if we weep at a death, it's because we do not understand death. If we saw death as another kind of birth, just as the Gospel exhorts us t, we wouldn't weep, but rejoice, just as we do at the birth of a child."
What is your opinon of uncle's standard funeral homily? Does it bring comfort?
p.83 He should have been more diligent, much more suspicious. Who marries a pregnant girl-- as Leone had asked-- even one as pretty and smart as MarieMicheline, unless there's something else behind it? In Pressoir's case, that something seemed to have been cruelty and madness.
Were you moved by the father's rescue of his abused daughter? Was he to blame for her abuse?
p.93 "New York, like today's Haiti... is a placewhere only the brave survive."
p.106 "You're now free to be with your parents. For better orfor worse."
How does the typewriter that Edwidge receives as a gift solve and exacerbate communication problems?
Danticat describes the torturous ordeal of immigration, specifically family unification. What words and expressions stand out for you?
Please comment on Mira's acerbic rejoinder
p.123" If I could do som,ething else...I'd be either a grocer or an undertaker. Because we all must eat and we all must die."
Compare it to Uncle Joseph's statement on p.131
" Science is God's way of shielding miracles"
and Tante Denise's protest on p.137 " ...she said that no one could convince her of a simpler truth: that watching the bullets fly, the violenceof her neighborhood, the rapid unraveling of her country, Marie Micheline had been frightened to death."
Please comment on the Angel of Death and Father God "folk tale" on pp.143-144. What does it mean to assert that God plays favorites and that Bel Air has suffered in the shadow of God's disfavor?
What does Danticat want the reader to think about the efficacy of prayer in the following passage
p.159 " His prayers were most often about his illness-- "God, if you see it fit to cure me, please do. If not, your will be done"-- but he also prayed for me and for my brothers , for our safety and well-being. He prayed for patience and strength for my mother , who was caring for him. He asked God to bless her for taking care of him. He prayed for a favorable outcome to the American presidential elections, for peace in Haiti and in the world in general.
What parts of the chapters entitled "Hell" and "Limbo" reminded you of our discussion of the Divine Comedy?
Is Hell "whatever you truly fear most?" (p.182)
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
April 17 discussion questions
1. Please read Paul Pillar's review of Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes in the March/April 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080301fareviewessay87211/paul-r-pillar/intelligent-design.html
Please comment on Dr. Pillar's summary of the book in light of your own reading of the Pulitzer Prize winning book
a) Do you agree that "calling for intelligence reform serves psychological and political purposes that have nothing to do with the intelligence agencies' successes or failures. Such calls remain a fixture of public debates because they satisfy Americans' deeply felt need to attribute bad things to a specific , fixable problem..."
b) Pillar also argues that " damning quotations are cherry picked, episodes are chosen to highlight failures and exclude successes, conversations are distorted, presidential desires are misrepresented and sweeping judgments and naked assertions are made with no apparent reference to any ...documents."
2. Weiner spends a great deal of time delving into the psyche of the Dulles brothers, both pious Catholics and virulent anti-Communists. To what extent was the CIA founded on the Johannine verse "and ye shall know the truth , and the truth will make you free" that graces the lobby at Langley?
3. In light of your reading of Legacy of Ashes, how do you assess the political fallout of the latest National Intelligence Estimate http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf
4. Robert Kennedy is portrayed as a hands-on overseer of the agency under his brother's administration, hell-bent on covert operations. How does this portrait mesh with the "Family Jewels" report shared by current CIA director General Michael Hayden last June http://www.salon.com/books/authors/talbot/2007/06/24/family_jewels/ ?
5. Weiner asserts that the CIA played a role in misrepresenting Oswald's background to the Warren Commission. Do you see evidence of this in chapter 7 of the report http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-7.html ?
6. Weiner intends for the reader to draw parallels between the Vietnam "quagmire" and current U.S. foreign policy. Chapter 25 (" We Knew Then that We could Not Win the War") shines a light on then second lieutenant Bob Gates, future director of central intelligence and current Secretary of Defense . The chapter concludes with the statement " never had so much intelligence meant so little." What in your opinion is the value of intelligence (electronic intercepts, overhead reconnaissance, fielld reports, analyses and statistical studies) with regard to the conduct of war? How could General Westmoreland fail "to know the enemy" (p.288) with such intelligence?
7. Weiner describes CIA administration under director Helms as a "house of cards" built on dangerous ground" as the agency sought to "police the world by arming America's third world allies--771,217 foreign military and police officers in 25 nations." Is counterinsurgency practical in your opinion?
8. Secret government surveillance reached its peak under the Nixon presidency. Watergate damaged the agency irreparably. Bill Colby inherited this damaged agency upon Nixon's resignation. Director Colby is described by Weiner as "a deeply devoted Roman Catholic...who believed in the consequences of moratl sin." (p.328) What connection between religious belief and moral action is Weiner trying to make?
9. Weiner intends for Polgar's Saigon Office farewell (p.343) to give the reader pause and force him/her to reflect on the lessons of history. Internecine rivalries sappped the agency of its energy and potential. The Church Committee http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Church_Committee_Created.htm uncovered a number of agendas and competing interests that unmoored the agency. President Carter's human rights agenda one administration later proved just as disastrous. The Desert One debacle in April 1980 is a case in point.
10. Bill Casey's CIA could have been scripted in Hollywood according to Weiner and successfully used disinformation , psychological warfare, sabotage, economic warfare, strategic deception, counterintelligence and cyberwarfare to "destroy a vigorous Soviet espionage team, damage the Soviet economy, and destabilize the Soviet state." (p.387) Weiner names this a form of terrorism. Do you agree?
11. Weiner also point to the Casey era Iran/Contra "neat idea" as the time when the CIA "was corrupted" This corruption undermined Operation Desert Storm (p.427) and set in motion a "tidal wave of history." Weiner indicts the entrepreurial spirit within the agency over the last two decades. Do you believe action or inaction has done the most harm?
12. The Aldrich Ames betrayal triggered an overhaul that shackled the clandestine service.
Bob Gates is quoted as saying the following (p.471) : The CIA [has] become less and less willing to hire"people that are different, people who are eccentric, people who don't look good in a suit and tie, people who don't play well in the sandbox with others. What type of person would you recruit (cf. William Sloane Coffin profile http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week752/profile.html )
13. Intelligence is a form of alchemy. Weiner paraphrases Jim Pavitt, chief of the clandestine service, on the WMD estimate when he writes (p.487) "the agaency produced a ton of analysis from an ounce of intelligence . That might have worked if the ounce had been solid gold and not pure dross."
14. Please comment on Weiner central questions (p.501) " How do you run a secret intelligence service in an open democracy? How do you serve thetruth by lying? How do you spread democracy democracy by deceit? "
Please comment on Dr. Pillar's summary of the book in light of your own reading of the Pulitzer Prize winning book
a) Do you agree that "calling for intelligence reform serves psychological and political purposes that have nothing to do with the intelligence agencies' successes or failures. Such calls remain a fixture of public debates because they satisfy Americans' deeply felt need to attribute bad things to a specific , fixable problem..."
b) Pillar also argues that " damning quotations are cherry picked, episodes are chosen to highlight failures and exclude successes, conversations are distorted, presidential desires are misrepresented and sweeping judgments and naked assertions are made with no apparent reference to any ...documents."
2. Weiner spends a great deal of time delving into the psyche of the Dulles brothers, both pious Catholics and virulent anti-Communists. To what extent was the CIA founded on the Johannine verse "and ye shall know the truth , and the truth will make you free" that graces the lobby at Langley?
3. In light of your reading of Legacy of Ashes, how do you assess the political fallout of the latest National Intelligence Estimate http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf
4. Robert Kennedy is portrayed as a hands-on overseer of the agency under his brother's administration, hell-bent on covert operations. How does this portrait mesh with the "Family Jewels" report shared by current CIA director General Michael Hayden last June http://www.salon.com/books/authors/talbot/2007/06/24/family_jewels/ ?
5. Weiner asserts that the CIA played a role in misrepresenting Oswald's background to the Warren Commission. Do you see evidence of this in chapter 7 of the report http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/chapter-7.html ?
6. Weiner intends for the reader to draw parallels between the Vietnam "quagmire" and current U.S. foreign policy. Chapter 25 (" We Knew Then that We could Not Win the War") shines a light on then second lieutenant Bob Gates, future director of central intelligence and current Secretary of Defense . The chapter concludes with the statement " never had so much intelligence meant so little." What in your opinion is the value of intelligence (electronic intercepts, overhead reconnaissance, fielld reports, analyses and statistical studies) with regard to the conduct of war? How could General Westmoreland fail "to know the enemy" (p.288) with such intelligence?
7. Weiner describes CIA administration under director Helms as a "house of cards" built on dangerous ground" as the agency sought to "police the world by arming America's third world allies--771,217 foreign military and police officers in 25 nations." Is counterinsurgency practical in your opinion?
8. Secret government surveillance reached its peak under the Nixon presidency. Watergate damaged the agency irreparably. Bill Colby inherited this damaged agency upon Nixon's resignation. Director Colby is described by Weiner as "a deeply devoted Roman Catholic...who believed in the consequences of moratl sin." (p.328) What connection between religious belief and moral action is Weiner trying to make?
9. Weiner intends for Polgar's Saigon Office farewell (p.343) to give the reader pause and force him/her to reflect on the lessons of history. Internecine rivalries sappped the agency of its energy and potential. The Church Committee http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Church_Committee_Created.htm uncovered a number of agendas and competing interests that unmoored the agency. President Carter's human rights agenda one administration later proved just as disastrous. The Desert One debacle in April 1980 is a case in point.
10. Bill Casey's CIA could have been scripted in Hollywood according to Weiner and successfully used disinformation , psychological warfare, sabotage, economic warfare, strategic deception, counterintelligence and cyberwarfare to "destroy a vigorous Soviet espionage team, damage the Soviet economy, and destabilize the Soviet state." (p.387) Weiner names this a form of terrorism. Do you agree?
11. Weiner also point to the Casey era Iran/Contra "neat idea" as the time when the CIA "was corrupted" This corruption undermined Operation Desert Storm (p.427) and set in motion a "tidal wave of history." Weiner indicts the entrepreurial spirit within the agency over the last two decades. Do you believe action or inaction has done the most harm?
12. The Aldrich Ames betrayal triggered an overhaul that shackled the clandestine service.
Bob Gates is quoted as saying the following (p.471) : The CIA [has] become less and less willing to hire"people that are different, people who are eccentric, people who don't look good in a suit and tie, people who don't play well in the sandbox with others. What type of person would you recruit (cf. William Sloane Coffin profile http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week752/profile.html )
13. Intelligence is a form of alchemy. Weiner paraphrases Jim Pavitt, chief of the clandestine service, on the WMD estimate when he writes (p.487) "the agaency produced a ton of analysis from an ounce of intelligence . That might have worked if the ounce had been solid gold and not pure dross."
14. Please comment on Weiner central questions (p.501) " How do you run a secret intelligence service in an open democracy? How do you serve thetruth by lying? How do you spread democracy democracy by deceit? "
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