With a partner, discuss your reading of Fugitive Pieces through pg. 121. What is happening
to Jakob? How does the death of Athos affect him? What is it like in Toronto? Please
share a favorite passage (a passage that you admire as a writer) with your partner (be sure to indicate the page number when you post your comments). When you have finished your conversation with your partner, please post a comment/reader response to your readings.
Work on your short stories!
HMWK: Read to pg. 170 for Monday
Jack/Jahmal
ReplyDeleteAs Jakob grows older, adjusting to the changing landscapes, he is also learning of the evils that surround him. He gains, through Athos and history, not only the knowledge of architecture and Greece, but also how the present is becoming history as the war continues. Athos dies, leaving Jakob somewhat confused. There is not a superfluous description of the emotional state of Jakob at this time. Indeed, he does seem to get over it easily enough considering their relationship. Nevertheless, he reflects on the life that he shared with Athos, and all the knowledge and wisdom that Athos had yet to give him (including progress on his book). Toronto is a big city, and Jakob does not totally "love" it yet. Jakob discovers the Jewish market, and a part of him suddenly felt at home. But even so, the stresses of moving to a new place and Athos passing away probably do not allow Jakob to embrace the new setting.
PASSAGE:
”In our cold, dark Canadian flat, I pour fresh water into the sea, recalling not only the Greek lament ‘that the dead may drink’ but also the covenant of the Eskimo hunter, who pours fresh water into the mouth of his quarry. Seals, living in salt water, suffer perpetual thirst. The animal has offered its life in exchange for water. If the hunter does not keep his promise, he will lose all his good fortune; no other animal will allow itself to be captured by him.
The best teacher lodges an intent not in the mind but in the heart.
I know I must honor Athos’s lessons, especially one: to make love necessary. But I do not yet understand that this is also my promise to Bella. And that to honor them both, I must resolve a perpetual thirst.”
Jakob is reaching a coming of age point in his life while living in a strange country. Athos' death causes Jakob to feel lost and cut off from the world. He feels alone. His grasp of the English language is adequate at best. In Toronto, Jakob is suspicious the people and the culture that he doesn't know about. He questions the unknown. With Athos' death, Jakob must do more for himself and is not able to rely on Athos any more. He is forced to come out of his "shell."
ReplyDeleteFavorite passage on page 105. " The afternoon heat was thick with burning flesh. I saw the smoke rising in whorls into the dark sky. Ambushed, memory cracking open. The bitter residue flying up into my face like ash."
Molly, Nahoma, Lauren
In this portion of the novel, Jakob is maturing and trying to find his own identity. While going forward into his future, he is also investigating his past. When Athos dies, he is forced to fend for himself in an unfamiliar country. The death of Athos allows Jakob to delve into the past of his father figure, giving him a more personal connection to Athos, even though he has passed on. Jakob looks through Athos's letters and papers. In the process he discovers Athos's secrets, such as his life with Helen and his search for Bella.
ReplyDeleteIn Toronto, Jakob is more exposed to ethnic diversity and urban life. He and Athos find other Greeks to spend time with and to help them to assimilate into Canadian culture more easily. However, Jakob still remained a loner. He has very few close friends.
Our favorite passage:
"When I sat down to write the news to Kostas and Daphne, and to tell to them I would some day bring Athos's ashes to Zakynthos, I could barely move my pen across the page. 'I will bring Athos home, to land that remembers him.' Koumbaros, how man can write such news with a beautiful hand." (p. 118)
-Mary, Meredith, Amanda
Jacob sees all the bad things in the world and tries to deal with life in Greece with and without Athos. When Athos dies Jacob tries to remember and follow everything that Athos taught. He's bascially trying to get into the life in Toronto, hes doesn't really like Tortonto but wanted to recreate Athos study in Zakynthos. When he sees the market he feels a connection to it but it still doesn't feel right or like "home."He believes it's a city of foresaken worlds; language a kind of farewell.
ReplyDeletePASSAGE:
I know I must honour Athos's lessons, especially one: to make love necessary. But I do not yet understand that this is also my promise to Bella. And that to honour them both, I must resolve a perpetual thirst. (page 121)
Alicia Green and Jerica Torres
Amane Amireh / Jonathan Madison/ Zach Lohouse
ReplyDeleteJacob is being introduced to new places and learning about new things (architecture, wood, science, and the world) the further he goes on with Athos. It seems as though the death of Athos didn’t faze him as much as it would have if he knew him better or longer. It also seems that the death of his parent and the disappearance of his sister still had a bigger affect on him. Jacob doesn’t seem to like it, or probably isn’t used to it yet. He has always known and loved the place he grew up in. Looking at another place the same way might be harder for him. Plus Toronto is huge and probably contains thing Jacob has never seen before.
“ Love makes you see a place differently, just as you hold differently an object belonging to someone you love. If you know one landscape well, you will look at all other landscapes differently. And if you learn to love one landscape, sometimes you can also learn to love another.” Page 82
Jakob is getting all of his learning from the help of Athos. Athos teaches Jakob everythng that he knows. Athos taught Jakob to be more advanced in his language. Now that Jakob had better vocabulay he could carry on a good conversation with anyone. This passage shows that Athos had a big impact on Jakob's life and he got much of his knowledge from the help of Athos. Without Athos made Jakob into the man that he was, and he inspired him and many ways.
ReplyDeletePassage:
Language. The numb tounge attaches itself, orphan, to any sound it can: it sticks, tounge to cold metal. Then, finally, many years later, tears painfully free.
-Shana Harris
Jakob's life begins to change once he moves to Toronto, Canada. It's a new a country and even a new continent he's never been to before. He also meets different people. After Athos dies, everything in Jakob's life has changed. Not only is he in a new place, but will now how have different people watching out for him. This is not the first time in the novel it happens however. As a younger person, Jakob loses his true family and though Athos chooses to look after him, Greece is still a fairly new to him and he meets new people like Daphne.
ReplyDelete"When a man dies, his secrets bond like crystals, like frost on a window. His last breath obscures glass. I sat at Athos's desk. In a small flat in a strange city in a country I did not yet love."
Page 114-115
This is by James.
ReplyDeleteAs the story continues Jakob begins to grow older and cope with the realities of his life. With and without the help of Athos, Jakob kind of begins to define who he is as a person. After Athos dies, things obviously become more complicates. Jakob no longer has someone there to lead him and he has to fend for himself. Being in a foreign country doesn't make this any easier on Jakob. Nonetheless, life in Toronto for Jakob is a big learning experience. Not only does he become more familiar with different cultures, in very interesting ways, but he also is able to identify with his own.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite quote is:
"Seals, living in salt water, suffer perpetual thirst. The animal has offered its life in exchange for water. If the hunter does not keep his promise, he will lose all his good fortune; no other animal will allow itself to be captured by him...
And to honour them both (Athos & Bella), I must resolve a perpetual thirst."
Jacob is growing up and maturing. He is still not normal though, he is very unlike the pther children.
ReplyDeleteJacob may have even reclused more after Athos died. He was left alone and had to fend for himself and find his own way.
Living in Toronto may have been good for Jacob. Being in an unfamiliar city forced him to learn about other cultures and explore them.
"Hold a book in your hand and your a pilgrim at the gates of a new city"
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ReplyDeleteJakob is starting to have dreams, and nightmares about his family and what happened to him. He’s beginning to be afraid of everything (as a child.) As an adult, his marriage is failing. He can’t connect with her. The death of Athos affects him in that, it’s another piece of his life gone away. The last real “family” he had has left, and he is alone. In Toronto, he finds people very much like himself. He finds a woman, even, that comes from the same state of mind and background.
ReplyDelete"When a man dies, his secrets bond like crystals, like frost on a window. His last breath obscures glass. I sat at Athos's desk. In a small flat in a strange city in a country I did not yet love."
Jakob is moving to Toronto, Canada with Athos. However after Athos died he is forced to adjust to a new place on his own. For him Toronto just represents another hardship life has forced him to deal with. Another stage of loniness and grieving. Again Jakob is forced to start a new life on his own.
ReplyDeletePassage: pg. 17
" The shadow-past is shaped by everything that never happened. Invisible, it melts the present lie rain through karst. A biography of longing.It steers us like magnetism, a spirit torque.This is how one becomes undone by a smell, a word, a place, the photo of a mountain of shoes. By love that closes its mouth before calling a name.
I did not witness the most important events of my life.My deepest story told must be told by a blind man, a prisoner of sound.from behing a wall, from underground. From the corner of a small house on a small island that juts like a bone from the skin of sea"