I immediately thought this letter might be from a blackmailer, yet Irene does not seem enough afraid of it, more unwillingly entranced by its "flaunting" nature. Push-pull; it's unwanted and yet I know she's going to respond to it. It seems as though her life, like her mail, is normally "ordinarily and clearly directed". The purple ink made me think sex is involved, but also reads feminine to me. Thus leading me back to blackmail of some kind. Great opener. I'm hooked.
Hi Maryann! So happy to be reading with you again. I love the attention to the "push-pull" energy of this first paragraph. That might be a good theme to track: the push and the pull.
A footnote in my Norton Critical Edition has this to say about the purple ink: "Reflecting on decades of admonishments to black women to wear drab colors such as blue, brown, and grey, Helga Crane of Larsen's Quicksand insists on surrounding herself with brighter, more exotic colors and wonders why 'didn't someone write A Plea for Color.' Alice Walker's The Color Purple takes its title from this long-running debate over which colors are fitting for black women."
I read all of Part One yesterday and was completely flummoxed by what to annotate/flag. Obviously, I know that the novel is about black women passing as white and that the two main characters, Irene and Clare, approach when and why to do so differently, but as we go through the book, I would appreciate any guidance you can give as to (literally) how and what to track in my annotations.
I am sure Haley has tons of advice about annotating, but here is one method that has worked for me before:
In the first chapter of a book (or if the first chapter is long, just the first few pages) underline anything that stands out to you - beautiful prose, peculiar descriptions, interesting plot points. As you go through and do this, you will notice one or several themes/motifs that emerge. If you would like to keep it simple, you can just stick to one theme and then pay attention to how it crops up throughout the novel. Or, if you want to focus on multiple themes, I create a symbol for each theme and then each time I come across the theme I write the symbol into the margin (for example, when I was reading The Age of Innocence, I decided to track: society/class restrictions, money & economics, power, desire/love, and art/music/literature).
Aside from my underlining and symbols, I also write anything in that I feel compelled to write. But there are often pages and pages that go by without any underlining or notes, and that’s ok too!
Different methods work for different people, but hopefully my method was somewhat helpful for you!
Hi Deborah! Will do — more on this later this week!
And as for what the annotate: your precious comment gives you one thing to watch for. The color purple. (Or the idea of color, at all, which in a novel about "black and white" tensions is sure to be rich!)
Another thing you may want to track is each woman's character. What words are used to define her? What descriptors are used?
One thing that stood out to me in the first paragraph was the use of the word "betray" ("no return address to betray the sender"). Betrayal is a very strong word, so for Irene to attach that word to a mere letter implies that a greater betrayal underlies her relationship with the letter's author.
Such a great note!! See: this is why I love closely reading. I had hardly registered that word at all, and there's obviously SO MUCH you can do with it to unpack the tensions in the rest of the chapter.
I haven’t read anything yet apart from your excellent email. But I would highlight the word betrayal in “ A thin sly thing which bore no return address to betray the sender.”
It seems so loaded. Rather than “no return address to *reveal* the sender” we have the word betrayal which immediately gives the sense of treachery. I looked up a dictionary definition and it includes “to lead astray”, “to desert in time of need”, “to reveal unintentionally”. And even “seduction”. All of this adds to the promise you mention. Who leads who astray? Who deserts who? What is revealed! And who is seduce by what?
I love what you said about the first chapter being a map for the novel - interestingly, I’ve read this novel twice now (this will be my third read), and when I picked it up today, I was surprised to see that the first chapter wasn’t what I remembered - somehow in my mind the second chapter was the beginning of the book, but in fact we start with the letter. I’ll save my other comments for the next post!
I just want to contribute to the purple bit because I've been thinking about it for two days now and as a historian, purple immediately calls my mind to royalty and ostentation. I certainly adds to the "strange" quality of the letter while also agreeing with the alien feel of the Italian-paper envelope. It's almost *too* luxurious, which seems to be the whole point, really.
I love this connection to showiness and status. There's something so good about the purple adding to the "flaunting" nature of the letter. And I'm struck by this idea of "luxury" and how that might develop as a theme in the novel...
"As I got deeper into the story, I started recognizing Larsen’s narrative voice: an edge of violence. A dangerous undercurrent. Story that flows like a secret dying to be told." Ooh, Haley, I got chills. I had to stop reading your entry and pace around for a moment, thank you for the tremendous anticipation.
I don't have much to add to the already wonderful comments. As a pen and paper aficionado I'll note that the letter in question is larger because the US had standardized its own paper size during WWI, to save up on resources; foreign paper must have felt pretentiously oversized.
I love that note! Do you know: could oversized letters be sent domestically? Or would the foreign letter on Italian paper have to be mailed from abroad? (I'm wondering if someone could, for example, stock up on fancy European stationery and use it back home as a status symbol...)
I'm not 100% sure, but size wouldn't have mattered as much as weight, which was two cents per ounce. She would have been able to send those letters domestically, but it is possible she paid more on stamps, which is rather wasteful.
so many good notes already, so I will add: why did it take two whole years for another letter? someone surely did something. I feel the sass coming from this paragraph, the sense that Irene will not be gotten the best of ("not that she hadnt known immediately"). I MUST KNOW
I'm just catching up with your posts now, but I wanted to quickly add: I kept thinking about the old fashioned art of the calling card. This isn't that--this is a person who has distance or, because of the lack of return address (which wouldn't get very far at our post office any more--at least, not if I went in to mail it), something secretive. That furtiveness, the almost flirtatiousness of it--the purple ink makes me think of royalty, but also, for some reason, that Valentine-ish love, which doesn't quite match up with the historical context of the book (though Valentine's itself was romanticized centuries before, I'm not sure if purple became that heartsy-love sort of thing). I wanted to see the rest of her mail stack. I love letters. <3
I’m just getting around to this one- I’m convinced Summer hung around just so I could read this during the still-hot days! I latched onto “Furtive, but yet… flaunting.” To elaborate on the definitions you already laid out- furtive means “attempting to avoid notice or attention, typically because of guilt or a belief that discovery would lead to trouble.” To flaunt is to “display, especially in order to provoke envy or admiration, or to show defiance.” I read a determined, provocative defiance with abundant hints at sensuality. Someone who perhaps should be avoiding notice but defiantly cannot resist being showy and drawing attention, even if it is likely to lead to trouble.
I immediately thought this letter might be from a blackmailer, yet Irene does not seem enough afraid of it, more unwillingly entranced by its "flaunting" nature. Push-pull; it's unwanted and yet I know she's going to respond to it. It seems as though her life, like her mail, is normally "ordinarily and clearly directed". The purple ink made me think sex is involved, but also reads feminine to me. Thus leading me back to blackmail of some kind. Great opener. I'm hooked.
Hi Maryann! So happy to be reading with you again. I love the attention to the "push-pull" energy of this first paragraph. That might be a good theme to track: the push and the pull.
A footnote in my Norton Critical Edition has this to say about the purple ink: "Reflecting on decades of admonishments to black women to wear drab colors such as blue, brown, and grey, Helga Crane of Larsen's Quicksand insists on surrounding herself with brighter, more exotic colors and wonders why 'didn't someone write A Plea for Color.' Alice Walker's The Color Purple takes its title from this long-running debate over which colors are fitting for black women."
Ooh. Thanks for that Color Purple tidbit.
I read all of Part One yesterday and was completely flummoxed by what to annotate/flag. Obviously, I know that the novel is about black women passing as white and that the two main characters, Irene and Clare, approach when and why to do so differently, but as we go through the book, I would appreciate any guidance you can give as to (literally) how and what to track in my annotations.
I am sure Haley has tons of advice about annotating, but here is one method that has worked for me before:
In the first chapter of a book (or if the first chapter is long, just the first few pages) underline anything that stands out to you - beautiful prose, peculiar descriptions, interesting plot points. As you go through and do this, you will notice one or several themes/motifs that emerge. If you would like to keep it simple, you can just stick to one theme and then pay attention to how it crops up throughout the novel. Or, if you want to focus on multiple themes, I create a symbol for each theme and then each time I come across the theme I write the symbol into the margin (for example, when I was reading The Age of Innocence, I decided to track: society/class restrictions, money & economics, power, desire/love, and art/music/literature).
Aside from my underlining and symbols, I also write anything in that I feel compelled to write. But there are often pages and pages that go by without any underlining or notes, and that’s ok too!
Different methods work for different people, but hopefully my method was somewhat helpful for you!
Hi Deborah! Will do — more on this later this week!
And as for what the annotate: your precious comment gives you one thing to watch for. The color purple. (Or the idea of color, at all, which in a novel about "black and white" tensions is sure to be rich!)
Another thing you may want to track is each woman's character. What words are used to define her? What descriptors are used?
One thing that stood out to me in the first paragraph was the use of the word "betray" ("no return address to betray the sender"). Betrayal is a very strong word, so for Irene to attach that word to a mere letter implies that a greater betrayal underlies her relationship with the letter's author.
Yes! I tripped up on that word too.
Such a great note!! See: this is why I love closely reading. I had hardly registered that word at all, and there's obviously SO MUCH you can do with it to unpack the tensions in the rest of the chapter.
Also, this idea of betrayal? Totally a theme you can track and annotate, Deborah!!
I haven’t read anything yet apart from your excellent email. But I would highlight the word betrayal in “ A thin sly thing which bore no return address to betray the sender.”
It seems so loaded. Rather than “no return address to *reveal* the sender” we have the word betrayal which immediately gives the sense of treachery. I looked up a dictionary definition and it includes “to lead astray”, “to desert in time of need”, “to reveal unintentionally”. And even “seduction”. All of this adds to the promise you mention. Who leads who astray? Who deserts who? What is revealed! And who is seduce by what?
Yes! Later on, the word seductive will pop up a couple of times.
I love what you said about the first chapter being a map for the novel - interestingly, I’ve read this novel twice now (this will be my third read), and when I picked it up today, I was surprised to see that the first chapter wasn’t what I remembered - somehow in my mind the second chapter was the beginning of the book, but in fact we start with the letter. I’ll save my other comments for the next post!
I love this — because I thought the second chapter was the opener, too! I was delighted to remember it's all about this curious letter...
I just want to contribute to the purple bit because I've been thinking about it for two days now and as a historian, purple immediately calls my mind to royalty and ostentation. I certainly adds to the "strange" quality of the letter while also agreeing with the alien feel of the Italian-paper envelope. It's almost *too* luxurious, which seems to be the whole point, really.
I love this connection to showiness and status. There's something so good about the purple adding to the "flaunting" nature of the letter. And I'm struck by this idea of "luxury" and how that might develop as a theme in the novel...
"As I got deeper into the story, I started recognizing Larsen’s narrative voice: an edge of violence. A dangerous undercurrent. Story that flows like a secret dying to be told." Ooh, Haley, I got chills. I had to stop reading your entry and pace around for a moment, thank you for the tremendous anticipation.
I don't have much to add to the already wonderful comments. As a pen and paper aficionado I'll note that the letter in question is larger because the US had standardized its own paper size during WWI, to save up on resources; foreign paper must have felt pretentiously oversized.
Thank you for this historical note on paper sizes.
I love that note! Do you know: could oversized letters be sent domestically? Or would the foreign letter on Italian paper have to be mailed from abroad? (I'm wondering if someone could, for example, stock up on fancy European stationery and use it back home as a status symbol...)
I'm not 100% sure, but size wouldn't have mattered as much as weight, which was two cents per ounce. She would have been able to send those letters domestically, but it is possible she paid more on stamps, which is rather wasteful.
so many good notes already, so I will add: why did it take two whole years for another letter? someone surely did something. I feel the sass coming from this paragraph, the sense that Irene will not be gotten the best of ("not that she hadnt known immediately"). I MUST KNOW
The sass is so real in this book! There's so much unspoken tension and anger and it literally makes me squirm in my chair while I read!
Excited to hear your thoughts on why it took 2 years for another letter after reading Part 1...!!
I'm just catching up with your posts now, but I wanted to quickly add: I kept thinking about the old fashioned art of the calling card. This isn't that--this is a person who has distance or, because of the lack of return address (which wouldn't get very far at our post office any more--at least, not if I went in to mail it), something secretive. That furtiveness, the almost flirtatiousness of it--the purple ink makes me think of royalty, but also, for some reason, that Valentine-ish love, which doesn't quite match up with the historical context of the book (though Valentine's itself was romanticized centuries before, I'm not sure if purple became that heartsy-love sort of thing). I wanted to see the rest of her mail stack. I love letters. <3
I’m just getting around to this one- I’m convinced Summer hung around just so I could read this during the still-hot days! I latched onto “Furtive, but yet… flaunting.” To elaborate on the definitions you already laid out- furtive means “attempting to avoid notice or attention, typically because of guilt or a belief that discovery would lead to trouble.” To flaunt is to “display, especially in order to provoke envy or admiration, or to show defiance.” I read a determined, provocative defiance with abundant hints at sensuality. Someone who perhaps should be avoiding notice but defiantly cannot resist being showy and drawing attention, even if it is likely to lead to trouble.