English Reading Club - Bookworms

The Reading Club has been having a look at:
TAKING PICTURES BY ANNE ENRIGHT
Pawed, used, loved and lonely
Anne Enright's new stories take Hermione Lee to sad, stifling places - but make her laugh too




"TAKING PICTURES"

"Little Sister". By Anne Enright

The title offers the vacuum of the non –possessive article as it would naturally become in this context, “my little sister.” The hollowness that precedes the title heralds us into an already-established distance between narrator and “little sister” providing her with overtones of the religious. The story starts in “medias res,” little sister has already died, and the narrative voice intones a repetitive “I am not guilty for this” that already makes us suspicious of a likely liability on the part of the narratorial sister. We are offered a systematic happy family background but we are already inquisitive as to why little sister died of anorexia. Only one or two clues strewn through the narrative lead us into some sort of conviction of disaffection on the part of the father. Little sister disappears from the narrative to literally disappear already turned into an emaciated walking body to later die in hospital.

THESE ARE SOME OF THE QUESTIONS WE PULLED AT:

BY LOOKING AT THE TITLE WE CAN ALREADY INFER SOME DISTANCE BETWEEN THE SISTERS: Lack of possessive adjective “MY.” We mentioned that the lack of article could even have religious overtones. The story starts in "medias res", with "little sister" already dead. It opens up with the vagaries of the narratorial voice in a lethanic expiation of her own guilt.

FAMILY SECRETS- APPEASING OUR MINDS- PAYING FOR THE SINS OF OTHERS- NEGATIVE FAMILY CONNECTIONS ENCUMBERED BY BLOOD.

WHO’S TELLING THE STORY? / WHAT PERSPECTIVE ARE WE GIVEN? Limited vision and unreliable narrator


What are the tokens of growing up according to Serena? The drinking, the statutory sex, the high heels, getting into pubs ….

THE TIME OF THE STORY (flashbacks / flashforwards)

The FEELING OF GUILT. The guilt of one generation passing onto the other. Remorse / having a grudge against ../ vengeance


· When we first know about the fact that Serena is dead, the voice of "the other" tries to look for an explanation to see that there were no genetic forces involved in the bifurcated development of Serena and her.

· Family Secrets: When does Serena problem with "anorexia" start? Right after the metioning of the father she stops eating. The moment is graphically appointed in the text after “disaffection” takes place.

· There was no progression towards the illness, but it takes place just as she disappears from the narrative space, her home space, and she turns back, and the word is voiced like a ghostly appearance, as she is gaunt, and her eyes are glaring “anorexia”. According to this story, what is the profile of the Anorectic?

Her physical symptoms: her eye sockets are huge, she resembles a child rather than a woman. The consumptive illness empties her of her being, to turn her into a statuesque-like forever infant in the Dickensian fashion of female being perpetuated into the cast of childhood.


Comments and guidance by Ana María Sánchez Mosquera (PhD)