Wednesday, July 16, 2008

daddy's girl

Dahila claims (p 69-70) that there are three kinds of people, those who flee from trauma, those who approach but fail to offer comfort and those (the rare kind) who can stare into the lonely, mysterious everlasting right alongside you, who can hold your hand, and who do not flinch from any part of whatever horrendous ordeal is at hand.

She then explains she has all three in her own family. 1.Danny, 2. Margalit who might hang around emoting and whatnot so long as it was mildly entertaining. and 3. One of the rare few; Bruce. God bless him and keep him far away from illness.

Do you think she assessed her father accurately? Why did none of the anger she held at Danny and Margalit spill over onto Bruce? Did he not fail/betray her too in some way?

Did his devotion through her illness somehow make up for his emotional unavailability during the rest of her life?

Posted by at

2 comments:

Erin said...

I don't know if she totally let Bruce off the hook. She does acknowledge that he was totally inept father and that even though he loved her, he couldn't offer her much in the way of guidance and support. He was a sad sack, too wrapped up in his own problems, throwing himself into work rather than dealing with his personal life. His only contribution was offering up his credit card, teaching Dahlia to seek fulfillment at the mall. I think Dahlia pitied him more than anything else.

Bruce's personality, though, seemed to be a good fit for someone dying of cancer. He wasn't afraid or selfish about it, he was caring and indulgent.

11:39 AM, July 16, 2008
kc said...

Yeah, I don't think she let him off the hook either. But he was a fundamentally decent human being, unlike the other two, even though he had many flaws as a parent. I think Dahlia acknowledges that Margalit's abandonment was just as devastating for him as for the kids and that he had the burden, even under the weight of his own loneliness and pain, of providing for the kids. He was the one person who was really a rock for Dahlia. There was no way he was going to let her be unprovided for. And I found it touching that she seemed to have a deep appreciation of his good qualities, unlike Margalit, who just took him for granted and used him for her own purposes.

7:44 PM, July 16, 2008

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)