Day 7 Challenge: Find a paragraph in a random book or story and read between the lines. Identify the subtext, emotions, clues and details written.
December 9th, 2020
Title: Dissection Exercise
Today’s exercise was to find a paragraph from a random book or story and to dissect the subtext, emotions and details. This exercise was a lot harder where it was spent dissecting someone else’s work instead of writing my own. Still, it was an interesting exercise to complete.
I was to set a timer for 25 minutes and write. My brain is still a little tired from day 6’s exercise so while I wanted to go beyond the 25 minutes and use the emotions from this quote to create something new, I just didn’t have it in me.
Today’s entry is going to be a simple observation piece and not a story. I think it’s a good exercise to wrap up the week and makes me think a little more about the emotion and subtext I use in my own writing. Words can be packed with hidden meaning or be simply used for the words they are. Thinking back to Pokiki’s story yesterday, we found out that she was wearing black robes with white moon phases stitched into the seams. I could have chosen black and white simply because I like the colours together, or, I could have chosen the black to symbolize the betrayal and white to symbolize hope. No one really knows except for the author themselves. The rest is up to interpretation.
I had wanted to use a random quote from Orson Scott Card’s Songmaster (an amazing read!) but the book is packed away and it’s too late to put the effort into digging it out. I browsed my bookshelves and stumbled upon The Book Thief, opening it’s worn pages and falling upon the paragraph below:
As she watched all of this, Liesel was certain that these were the poorest souls alive. That’s what she wrote about them. Their gaunt faces were stretched with torture. Hunger ate them as they continued forward, some of them watching the ground to avoid the people on the side of the road. Some looked appealingly at those who had come to observe their humiliation, this prelude to their deaths. Others pleaded for someone, anyone, to step forward and catch them in their arms. – The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
It’s hard to not want to write about this powerful paragraph. Markus Zusak is a phenomenal author who illustrates the suffering, torment and desperation in a way that tugs at the reader’s heartstrings. I remember the first time reading The Book Thief and how I felt like I was watching a train wreck in slow motion. Unable to move or act, unable to speak or do anything other than stand by as a passive observer. It isn’t that I wouldn’t want to act, it would be that I couldn’t physically force my body to move in that moment. I imagine this is how Liesel felt in this moment as well, however she was also being crushed by the expectations to be an observer, to partake in the shaming of the Jewish people despite what her heart wanted her to do.
Liesel is a compassionate person who is faced with the trauma of watching people suffer and being stuck without the ability to do anything about it. She isn’t very old in the novel, not yet a woman but no longer a small child. You can feel the power of helplessness if the quote, a situation unlike any many of us have ever been in. Sure, we have all likely been in situations where we stood by as an observer, unwilling or unable to interfere with the situation at hand, but never have we likely been forced to watch passively as others walk to their deaths. It’s hard to know if any of the people in the long line were known to her, or if they would even be recognizable. They could have just as easily have been her neighbours, teachers, shop owners or friends as they could have been complete strangers.
You can feel the desperation of the Jewish people as they are marched to their deaths but first displayed for all to see, as if in warning to any who were hidden. The kind of desperation and fatigue goes beyond the physical. You can feel their anguish on a spiritual level, where the pain and sorrow seep right through to the very center of their soul. At the same time we can see that some almost challenge the onlookers as if to remind them that they are the ones who are allowing this, they are here and adding to the accusations and injustice. The genocide.
I imagine Liesel was feeling a varying degree of guilt during all of this and wishing she could change the outcome. Wishing she could be the arms that the Jewish prisoners could fall into. Wishing she could offer them the comfort and compassion they deserved.
I don’t remember what happens next in the story but reading this quote makes me want to go back and read it again. The Book Thief is hard on the heart, and if you are going to hear Markus’s story I recommend reading the book and avoiding the movie. The movie does not do the novel justice and lacks so much of the emotion that he manages to capture.
With that, I think we’ll say the Day 7 exercise is done! Writer’s HQ has hinted that Day 8 is about waiting, so we’ll wait and see what they have in store!