I don't know how it is possible to just read the first 100 pages of this novel. I was immediately enthralled and moved by it and didn't stop reading until I realized just how far past the assigned amount I had read. Cleave immediately draws the reader into the story. I felt an immediate connection to both Little Bee and Sarah and genuinely care about what happens to them. Even the less significant characters like Yevette and the girl in the yellow sari are given a very real human significance that forces the reader to empathize with them. I was also drawn in by the way the story is constructed with the characters having to expose and deal with the past in order to move into the future. As the story progresses I am left with more and more questions that motivate me to read further.
I think the italicized sections in which Little Bee imagines what the Queen would say or what the girls from her village would say is a very clever way of both emphasizing the extreme cultural differences and tying the two completely different cultures together. It creates a sense of unity throughout the book and ensures that the reader does not forget the internal struggle in Little Bee, a girl who no longer has a home or a country, yet misses that home that no longer exists, but cannot truly or legally be a part of the home she now has the opportunity to have.
I also found it interesting that Little Bee initially mentions and contacts Andrew when she is attempting to find the O'Rourkes instead of Sarah who is the one who actually saved her life. Andrew, however, is too scared to do the same for her sister and therefore is a contributor to her death. I am excited to read more of the book as I have many more questions that I hope will be addressed and am already invested in the lives of the characters.
I agree about the use of what the Queen would say, I thought that was a very interesting way to compare and contrast the behavior and personality of someone like the Queen of England and someone with so little like Little Bee. I also thought that the differences in language that were brought up were intriguing as well, and the way that they bring up the failures of language, as well as their intricacies.
ReplyDeleteI think that you hit on something big when you said that Little Bee's language "creates a sense of unity throughout the book, and ensures that the reader does not forget the internal struggle in Little Bee." Observations like this are things that you pick up in the text, but don't necessarily notice. I also could not stop reading.
ReplyDeleteIt's very interesting how Bee imagines herself as the Queen's playmate. It seems that because she doesn't know her she can imagine the qualities in a person wants. Furthermore, when she mentions how she and the queen would kill themselves if the men came, it seems to say that no matter what your status is, you are not exempt of experiencing horrors.
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