This post is an analysis of the passage titled "Atop the St. Petersburg Dome" from Dance Dance Revolution, by Cathy Park Hong.
The opening stanza sets the reflective theme for the rest of the passage; it focuses on two senses - visual, through its reference to the starry sky, and auditory, through the ending line's echo of "HULLO... hullo...hullo..." (33). The effect of this focus is that the reader becomes engaged in the described scene, with the descriptions engaging directly with his or her senses.
The rest of the passage follows a narrative of the Guide's past - her story begins peacefully, described as "no conflict o war" and "no rat-a-tat per se..." and then escalates to violence, "unrest shatta'd desert horizon to ellipses"(33). The Guide then describes her own journey as a tour guide; "I guided misbegodder fool who vacation in wobegone ruins", but asserts that her job revolves around deception, "To flower-arrange words so sand-piss / ash sounds like Melodious plot of / beechen green" (33). She establishes that in order to earn a living, she must twist the truth and cater to the expectations of her clientele, and laments her need to do so. The end of the passage is somewhat abrupt, as the Guide exclaims "I's leave you be. Mus' exuent." And then "inexplicably abandoned" the Historian (34).
In this passage, one thing that really stood out to me was the ambiguity of perspective - we have to remember that this is a transcription of what the Desert Guide is saying to the Historian. It is easy to forget that we, the readers, are not the ones being directly addressed. Reading the footnote after the entire passage was a jarring reminder that in fact there is a secondary perspective at play (that of the Historian). I'm not sure what to make of this observation, but I think it's an important comment on the complexity of perspective and its function within narratives. As in OSAFS, the narrative within DDR seem to be presented as multi-layered story within a story within a story. Fun stuff.
Couldn't we for once hear someone's story from their point of view? Wouldn't that be nice, simple, and straight-forward? No more guessing the motive of the narrator. No more fear that the narrator is leaving out important details. It would be nice to know simply whether we are hearing the narrator's story or the guide's story, rather then some kind of mix.
ReplyDeleteTerrence, I agree with you that DDR has this ambiguity of perspective that's really key to understanding it. Peder also brings up a really good point - OSAFS was also about an ambiguous narrator. Is this just a coincidence of Mr. Khactu choosing these kinds of books? Does Mr. Khactu have a motive? Are most Asian/Am sci-fi books like this? Maybe the ambiguous perspective is Asian/Am in some way... with Chinese stories passed through oral tradition and stuff?
ReplyDeleteTerrence,
ReplyDeleteI liked your point about how this poem/passage (along with many others in the book) engages the readers auditory senses as well as visual. I felt that as well as I've been reading through this book. One of the coolest aspects of the "Desert Creole" language to me is imagining how it would sound when spoken. We got a taste of this during class last week, when we read aloud some stanzas, but I would love to know what Hong intended for the language to hypothetically sound like. I feel like it would add a lot to how we understand it on paper.
Hey Terrence, I liked what you brought to light about the deception that's intrinsic in the Tour Guide's line of work (I also wrote on this topic in a different way on my blog!). It definitely ties into your thoughts on perspective and such, since we are actually still getting to know the speaker/Tour Guide/??? even though we are practically at the end of the book. It seems that all we know about her are bits and pieces, some facts and figures, all of which we aren't even sure are true because the Historian may be editing things. I'd love to know what was going through Cathy Park Hong's mind as she was crafting this story.
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