Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Initial Reaction to Transparent Things

Just finished Transparent Things, and I loved it. Couldn't put it down.
It's late and I just wanted to get some initial thoughts down after my initial reading. Here are some short notes/thoughts/observations.
This was another novel where we have communication from beyond. The narrator is someone who has reached the realm of afterlife according to Annete Wiesner in her review on The International Fiction Review mentioned in a previous blog. I thought it was interesting that Person suffers from somnambulism, sleep walking. An interesting relationship between consciousness/"reality" and sleep/unconsciousness. See the beginning of Chapter 7, "the boy [Person] did not care 'to behave like a ghost' and begged to be locked up in his bedroom" (501). Hugh hated the common grave of sleep, sharing it with his father (494). End of Chapter 24,"We have shown our need for qutoation marks ("reality," "dream") Decidedly, signs with which Hugh Person sill peppers the margins of galleys have a metaphysical or zodiacal import! "Dust to dust" (the dead are good mixers, that's quite certain at least)" (554).
Just a bit more:
-Hugh Person......You Person
-green is a common color throughout the novel
- Looked up Tralatitions and got suggestions for Tralatitious: passed along, handed down, or Metaphorical, figurative, not literal
-Cherubim, not a cute baby angel, actually a composite beast with wings, lion body. Ch. 21, pg 546.

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