For me the most important thing I learned was that slum-dwelling people are just the same as the rest of us, but perhaps with a bit more grit. And I think the "grit" part of the equation can be misconstrued by those of a "higher class." Knowing what I know about poor rural people and urban people alike, there's such a common thread of doing what's needed to survive, with so much of everything else being just background noise. For them, it's much more about basic survival than it is about etiquette, morals, "proper" language, and other things that those in the upper echelons of society place such a heavy importance on.
Boo created a true sense of narrative with her stories, which aids in keeping the reader's interest and attention. Her method of weaving in personality traits, habits, and thoughts of the people she studied was very well done. She never made the descriptions of these things very overt, it always felt like it was casually mentioned. But doing this throughout the whole book really got you to know the characters by the end.
She also did a great job of describing the events that took place in the book (Fatima's death, the court trials, Abdul's stint in the juvenile detention center) with the perspective of multiple characters. This helped the reader fully understand the ramifications of the events, and how each character viewed the event and it's consequences. I will admit that at times I felt a little disconnected from the people I was reading about, and I feel that the narrative style may have contributed to that a little. I'm not sure how I would change her method to fix this feeling; perhaps a change in perspective or multiple perspectives, instead of a constant third person?
No comments:
Post a Comment