I mentioned before that Doerr's writing seemed more like painting to me than linear narrative — and not just because the big-picture is always informing the details, but because she's a great designer, because she uses careful details to inform the big picture. It's sort of how like Woody Allen's films are visually thought out to the very last detail, like how in "Alice" all the colors are autumnal and imperceptibly build a very certain mood. Or how in the film "Trafffic" all the scenes in Mexico are lit differently. You know you are in Mexico now just because of the light. Doerr's chapter "Christmas Messages" is a good example of this. She writes:
"It began like any other winter day, with the oyster light of dawn ..."
We learn at the end of the chapter that that day would be the first day of snow in 60 years. But she doesn't begin with that dramatic statement. She ends with it. She builds to it:
"..beyond numb December fields ... the eastern light, turned opal by now..." (the light falls on the Evertons' faces ... Doerr sees them like a painter would)
a man's shirt "drying on a cactus under the wan sun."
of winter: "they knew all its dusks and daybreaks"
"Sara believed that the landscape, by its own force, had arrested time."
"at least util a later day, which might dawn warmer, with a yellower sun, and enough light to cast the shadow of a tree."
"Since four o'clock a heavy gray ceiling has strung itself from hilltop to hilltop ..."
And they lay abed that day, while the clouds gathered and the village drama went on around them. Doerr's way of saying they made love is so exquisite: " The Evertons had gone back to bed after the visit of Luis ... The wool robe and pajamas were slipping inch by inch from the foot of the bed to the floor... One hour later they were still in bed, and when Luis returned to knock on the door a second time there was some delay before they answered."
And then the sky falls out and the snow that has been coming all day comes.
(Doerr is fantastic)
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3 comments:
I like this idea of the book as a painting. Your examples are excellent. Some people have said that the main character is Mexico. That Sara and Richard are too thinly drawn, as you said, to be the main characters and that the life of the village is really what the story is about.
Mexico as a character. Yes.
I think I'll read her "Tiger in the Grass" stories or "Consider This, Senora" next.
I noticed in "Stones for Ibarra" that Sara's housekeeper actually said "Consider this, senora" to her once, and then that became the title of Doerr's next book. I wonder whether that's a common phrase in Mexico. I like how it's said to the gringos as if to gently acknowledge that they are deficient somehow and naturally wouldn't consider a situation from all the relevant angles.
I think she used recurring images of sepia and softness, which gave the book some of its gentle narrative feel. If that makes sense.
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