The Critical Beatdown discussion

OK. I don't think i'm the only one who feels like this is the densest opening chapter ever. Mysteries of Pittsburgh in its entirety was a cakewalk compared to this.

So pretty much, this is what I'm getting from the first page.

I'm seeing new york in the summer time. And you know those movies that take place in the ghetto during the summer and you see the sun rising off the street in waves? That's what I'm seeing. Maybe there's one of those old school boomboxes blasting some really ragged latin music (like the kind they put on the putomayo cds) and there are girls dancing on the street and through the waves of heat they look like the flame of a lit match. And on the stoop there are old men in sweat stained wife beaters baring their tobacco stained teeth at each other as a sign of affection.

yes?

and also,

gentrification.

Dense? I dunno, I didn't feel that way. Got through it just fine. Dylan really hooked me, that feeling of time passing too slowly, of play-yard politics, of skirting the edges of understanding and being too short/young/different to quite get it.

yes.

I didn't find it dense in a bad way, but he does pack a lot of information in and doesn't let you settle on one image long before he jumps to another.

And I found myself thinking that the narrator's level of dissection regarding the playground politics and social dynamics was a little overdone for a character of six years old, but that's the author's prerogative.

i noticed the same thing about the narration as well. But i think the disjointedness between dylan and the voice of the narrator creates a good amount of space between the subject and narrator, which allows the narrator to stay put and not get too involved with one character. I think further into the book, it's a choice that will allow the narrator to dive just as deeply into other characters frames of mind.

I was having a hard time getting through the first chapter. I will keep powering through. It did remind me a bit of my youth growing up in East L.A. My mom use to take care of my 12 cousins and how we broke up into different groups depending on age.