It wasn't until I got through almost the first 200 pages that I started to feel fully engaged by Mattie and when I read pages 218-221 (the chapter titled malediction, which means "bad speaking, like a curse" pp. 220-2201) that I was FINALLY HOOKED as a reader.
This is a great example of why an adept reader's repertoire of reading practices must include the disposition of perseverance. Whether the reader is reading expository (informational) texts or narrative texts, the task sometimes requires patience and fortitude as well as remaining attentive to the information/story even if not naturally engaged by some sort of intrinsic motivation to read.
I certainly felt more obligated than interested in reading this book (for almost two-thirds of the reading). But once I got hooked, it was "hook, line, and sinker." I even got teary as I read pages 357-358 -- but I won't tell you why! You'll have to wait and see for yourself. :-)
It's interesting reading Groenke and Schreff's (pp. 36-37) rationale for why this is a book worthy of whole class instruction. Even though my appreciation and admiration for Mattie as the story progressed, I am still not sure if I would say without equivocation that "Donnelly's writing is breathtaking. Mattie's voice rings true to the time and her age." (Criterion 1 review, p. 36).
I do agree with Groenke and Schreff that the lines on p. 191 are heart-wrenching and deeply effected me as a reader. However, I am still wondering whether or not her voice "rings true." I certainly believe there are moments -- and again, I would argue that the evidence to support this claim comes more readily from the second half of the book -- but I guess I wasn't sure who Mattie was at the beginning and I didn't immediately believe that her voice/her character "rang true."
On the other hand, like I said, once I fell head over heels INTO the book and the story, I absolutely LOVED making the connections Mattie was making between her own voice/her own life, the lives of the characters in the novels/poetry she was reading, and the lives of those around her (including Grace -- whose life unfolds for us in the letters she gave to Mattie shortly before her death). At one point when I was reading, there was a line in the story that reminded me of a poem, by Marge Piercy, who was considered a radical feminist poem in the 50s and 60s -- one of the lesser known beat poets.
I went back to try and find the line and as I was re-reading those last 100 pages, I realized there were many passages that might have caused me to think about a stanza from a Marge Piercy poem, called For Strong Women. [click here to read the entire poem by Piercy] I've included one particular passage from A Northern Light alongside the stanza from Marge Piercy's poem:
A Northern Light | For Strong Women by Marge Piercy |
…A farmer an put an evener on his team’s yoke to compensate for the weaker horse by shifting some of the lad to the stronger one. But you can’t put an evener on two people’s hearts or their souls. I wished I could just up and go to New York City. I wished I was as strong as Weaver was. I wished I was as fearless. But I was not. (Donnelly, p. 313) | A strong woman is a woman determined to do something others are determined not to be done. She is pushing up on the bottom of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise a manhole cover with her head, she is trying to butt her way through a steel wall. Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole to be made say, hurry, you’re so strong. (M. Piercy, 1989, Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy, p. 257) by Marge Piercy |
I remember the first time I read Marge Piercy's poetry and I do think it affected me much like Mattie was affected by Elizabeth Baxter's first collection of poetry and by Emily Dickinson's poetry. The feminist awakening Mattie experiences -- when realizing what it means to own her own destiny, to refuse to give up her own dreams -- As Mattie says, "I wanted books and words, but I wanted someone to hold me too..." (p. 312) this was certainly an internal dilemma I struggled with earlier in life. I do think young women have moments where they ask themselves what does it mean to be a woman. Who am I, as a woman?
And, now, of course, I'm hearing Sojourner Truth in my head... "And Ain't I a Woman?"
It's funny, but through writing this reflection and reconsidering the fact that Groenke and Schreff profile A Northern Light in their chapter where they introduce critical theory, specifically feminist criticism, I think I have FINALLY pinpointed what was bothering me about this book. It wasn't the fact that Mattie wasn't a real character or that her voice didn't "ring true." Rather it was because I went into the book expecting Mattie to already have a feminist voice from the start of the novel. But, that (obviously! "duh, Dr. Jones!") wasn't the case. Donnelly used the traditional coming of age plot line to illustrate what a young woman in this time period would need to face, confront, and overcome in order to become a self-actualized individual or, as Miss Wilcox would say, "to find her real voice." (pp. 361-362).
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