A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, Michael Dorris
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1mirrani
One time I even hung around on the route he was delivering. I cut school and stood on the corner at ten o'clock in the morning, listening for the bark of dogs or the sound of banging porch mailboxes. I had it all pictured in my mind. He would be walking along, his head down sorting the letters, and wouldn't notice me until he looked up to cross the street. Then he'd do a double take, grin, and say he didn't believe it. He'd invite me to share his bologna and cheese under a shade tree, and people passing in cars would smile at us, a father and a daughter who looked so much alike, having their lunch too early in the morning just because they enjoyed being together. p9-10
Does anything ever happen like this? *sigh*
Except for that first afternoon when she held my arms behind my back she hasn't touched me at all, and we don't talk much. She points her fingers at things she wants me to see or do, rolls her eyes when I get it wrong, and shushes me if I interrupt during one of her shows. I'm her duty, she says with her long sigs and banged-down plates, but she doesn't have to like it. p32
I know this feeling too.
"Yes, /sir!/" There's never too much of a good thing. He can no more prevent himself from smiling than he can fly, but he inflates one smooth-shaven cheek to disguise his pleasure. p 77
Liked how the second part took off from where the first one started.
You wonder why I didn't let him ring, why I didn't pretend to be gone, or move, or at least change my number. You wonder why I ran my life by an alarm clock out of my control, why I didn't have the sense to answer his call with good-bye. You wonder why five minutes into his excuses I forgot what the fuss was about, why I stopped his mouth with the tips of my fingers, why I always checked the mirror before I went to the door, why I washed my hair and dressed on Saturday mornings instead of relaxing in my robe. Well, it's no secret: I was a fool for that man. p220-221
Know this feeling too.
The automatic door to the lobby opened, releasing the sharp smell of Lysol. Indians from all over, from Alaska and Idaho, Montana and the Peninsula, hunched in green-and-chrome chairs, not talking, absorbed in their troubles, homesick, scared, prepared to die. Orderlies and visitors rushed by them as if they ween't there. Those sick people sat low, like moss on a rock, waiting for a strange doctor to give them bad news. They wore blue hospital bathrobes and thin seersucker gowns, tied in bows behind their necks. That room was a swampy place you had to cross to get to the elevators, and I poised to make it through as fast as I could. p227
At page 265 they find something out about one of the characters... and I had to think Really? Come on, it was OBVIOUS.
No nice connection between part 2 and 3. I actually felt like part two was sort or dropped.
Part three is awesome, written more eloquently either because it's meant to imitate the change in language or what, I don't know, but I made marks for page after page of writing.. which I won't keep here. It starts with "I never grew up, but I got old." which is the best intro of the bunch by far.
Polly Cree rushed about her spotless kitchen, trying to expand the ingredients of their dinner for three more servings, while the rest of us waited uncomfortably in the living room of her government-built house. Buster Cree, a reformed mixed-blood from Wyoming who had joined the church when he married Polly, demonstrated electricity by switching on and off the ceiling light and twisting the knob of his radio in search of some Sunday religious program he said they never missed. p332
I loved the way this was written. The idea of demonstrating the electricity that most didn't have, because he was turning things on, wasting time with it.
As I listened to my own story, I lost the control of its interpretation. I heard it as a tale on the radio, so sad it deserved applause and a trip to Florida.
Loved this.
Don't know how I liked the end of the book, maybe I missed something that was supposed to tie everything together. Still, this was awesome.
Does anything ever happen like this? *sigh*
Except for that first afternoon when she held my arms behind my back she hasn't touched me at all, and we don't talk much. She points her fingers at things she wants me to see or do, rolls her eyes when I get it wrong, and shushes me if I interrupt during one of her shows. I'm her duty, she says with her long sigs and banged-down plates, but she doesn't have to like it. p32
I know this feeling too.
"Yes, /sir!/" There's never too much of a good thing. He can no more prevent himself from smiling than he can fly, but he inflates one smooth-shaven cheek to disguise his pleasure. p 77
Liked how the second part took off from where the first one started.
You wonder why I didn't let him ring, why I didn't pretend to be gone, or move, or at least change my number. You wonder why I ran my life by an alarm clock out of my control, why I didn't have the sense to answer his call with good-bye. You wonder why five minutes into his excuses I forgot what the fuss was about, why I stopped his mouth with the tips of my fingers, why I always checked the mirror before I went to the door, why I washed my hair and dressed on Saturday mornings instead of relaxing in my robe. Well, it's no secret: I was a fool for that man. p220-221
Know this feeling too.
The automatic door to the lobby opened, releasing the sharp smell of Lysol. Indians from all over, from Alaska and Idaho, Montana and the Peninsula, hunched in green-and-chrome chairs, not talking, absorbed in their troubles, homesick, scared, prepared to die. Orderlies and visitors rushed by them as if they ween't there. Those sick people sat low, like moss on a rock, waiting for a strange doctor to give them bad news. They wore blue hospital bathrobes and thin seersucker gowns, tied in bows behind their necks. That room was a swampy place you had to cross to get to the elevators, and I poised to make it through as fast as I could. p227
At page 265 they find something out about one of the characters... and I had to think Really? Come on, it was OBVIOUS.
No nice connection between part 2 and 3. I actually felt like part two was sort or dropped.
Part three is awesome, written more eloquently either because it's meant to imitate the change in language or what, I don't know, but I made marks for page after page of writing.. which I won't keep here. It starts with "I never grew up, but I got old." which is the best intro of the bunch by far.
Polly Cree rushed about her spotless kitchen, trying to expand the ingredients of their dinner for three more servings, while the rest of us waited uncomfortably in the living room of her government-built house. Buster Cree, a reformed mixed-blood from Wyoming who had joined the church when he married Polly, demonstrated electricity by switching on and off the ceiling light and twisting the knob of his radio in search of some Sunday religious program he said they never missed. p332
I loved the way this was written. The idea of demonstrating the electricity that most didn't have, because he was turning things on, wasting time with it.
As I listened to my own story, I lost the control of its interpretation. I heard it as a tale on the radio, so sad it deserved applause and a trip to Florida.
Loved this.
Don't know how I liked the end of the book, maybe I missed something that was supposed to tie everything together. Still, this was awesome.
