Rough Draft Close Reading

The close reading I am going to analyze is from Let the Northern Lights Erase your Name by Vendala Vida. This close reading starts off with the section labeled “Family Portrait about Altar” on page 65, and with the first paragraph on page 67 of Vida’s book. Clarissa is a troubled character whose actions can relate to an overall theme of running away. These problems are deeply rooted in her childhood, and they are even hereditary with her mother having similar life experiences.
In this passage, Clarissa is leaving the hotel room to escape to her next location. Clarissa leaving is not uncommon for her, and is what she learned from her mother. As Clarissa was leaving, she did not bother to wake Kari who was on the ground from the night before. Kari was in need of some help, even if it was just as simple as getting him on a comfy surface. This is similar to the situation that Clarissa’s mom left. She ran off without even bothering taking care of her mentally challenged son who needed her, and leaving Clarissa stranded at a mall. The lack of concern for other people’s well being was passed down to Clarissa from her Mother.
In the next paragraph, where Clarissa’s is explaining her quick hygiene, she refers to it as a “whore’s bath” (67). This is a term that her mother told her about. I am slightly confused of the mothering skills Clarissa’s mom had, because using the term “whore’s bath” does not seem appropriate when talking to your young daughter, let alone explaining it. It is sad that in a sense, Clarissa degrades herself to the status of a prostitute for her actions from the night before. She realizes that what she did was out of character and not appropriate. Her sneaky exit from the hotel room was similar to what her mother did at the mall. She left without a trace, and is exactly what she did to Pankaj.
As Clarissa walked outside, she notices the snow. Vendela Vida uses a lot of similes and metaphors, and this is an example of one. She refers to the snow as “baby powder,” which could be foreshadowing her pregnancy with Pankaj. At the end of this paragraph, Clarissa points out that she “felt comforted by the steady sound of its one good wheel bumping over cobblestones” as she pulled her suitcase (67). This could be mirroring Clarissa’s journey as she tries to find her father. She has only one good wheel left, similar to one hope left, and it was on a bumpy road. It can foreshadow how Clarissa’s future will be.
Then a taxi stopped in front of Clarissa, and she thought it was for her. This resembles the false fathers that she has and soon will encounter. She thinks that the taxi/fathers are hers, yet soon finds out that she is wrong. Clarissa was disappointed in both of those situations. Then, when the couple came out of the car, they set down empty beer bottles, and one fell over and crashed. This could be showing her life, how it is on a quick spiral downwards ever since the death of her “father.” She is trying to organize her life, such as putting the beer bottles in order, but something will fall apart.
Clarissa then goes to the train station to get directions and a ticket. While trying to find a place on a map, she says “[She] hadn’t been looking far enough north” (68). I thought this was very clever of Vida because it incorporates the title of the book, Let the Northern Lights Erase your Name. She reaches her goal by looking north, to the sky, to the northern lights, to eventually get some closure to her situation. She then proceeds on to kick a pigeon away from her foot, and gets some sort of satisfaction from it. This seems odd to want to hurt someone, but she maybe needs to feel in control of a situation and to put harm on someone since she has been hurt so much in the past. She may be displacing her anger, frustration, and sadness onto something that has nothing to do with her experience to make herself feel better and to let out some emotions.
The train is called “The Santa Claus Express.” I thought this was a fitting name because Christmas is all about happiness, presents, and family. Clarissa was trying to find her happiness and regain family by finding her real father. This train was going to lead her to the best present that she could receive, or so she thought at the time.
While on the train, Clarissa meets her sleeper-mates that were smoking right in front of her. She gets very upset to the point of almost tears at these men. This is another example of displacement of feelings that Clarissa has deep inside of her that she expresses to innocent bystanders. The amount of emotion that Clarissa does have is overwhelming, and a breakdown seems inevitable. She then looks out the windows and sees vibrant colors, and relates them to a children’s book. This is relating back to her childhood, because all of her problems with life started there. Her mother left her, and she is now revisiting memories of her and her “father,” because she feels like he was not her legitimate dad. Children’s books also have happy endings, and I feel like Clarissa’s is yearning a happy ending to her own sad story.
The novel then proceeds to say “The farther north we traveled, the darker it grew. By three o’clock, it was already night” (69). This again relates to the title of the book, and can possibly relate to the news she is about to receive about her first fake father, Eero. The closer she gets to him, the darker it gets outside, which is communicates the dimming of her dream to find her father.
In the next section, she is waiting in the train station and lies down. She “slept with [her] purse held close to [her], like an infant. On a nearby bench, a woman slept with her baby held close to her, like a purse” (70).This is again alludes to her pregnancy, even though at this point she is unaware that she is with child. Clarissa brings up motherhood, children, and infants many times throughout the novel because of the constant thought of her mother, and how poor of a mom she was to Clarissa and Jeremy. The childhood reference is again brought up in the next paragraph when Clarissa is watching children go off to school.
Clarissa then looks at a magazine and sees a man on the cover, and fantasizes about how good of a father this man would be. She continually looks at her father that raised her in a bad light because he is not her biological father. She does not appreciate the fact that he was there for her Clarissa’s whole life. She also resents Eero, whom she thinks is her real father, because he was out of her life for so long. Nothing is satisfying Clarissa, and she is searching for happiness in all the wrong ways.

end of NL and paper

I really enjoyed this book. It was an easy read and a good story line. I had a hard time putting this novel down and it was actually fun for me. The end of the book was pretty surprising. With Clarissa so set on trying to find her father, or the rapist of her mother, I was shocked to see the book ending without actually talking to the father.
When Clarissa saw her mother, I felt like it was anticlimactic. Vida built up the suspense so much, and then the apathy of Clarissa’s mom made the reuniting of mother and daughter not so interesting. I actually think I got a little angry when I read it. I wanted something else to happen to make the moment more powerful or special. I do not think this moment had to be an embrace or loving relationship to follow and create a happily ever after type storyline. I do not think that a fairy tale ending would fit properly with this book anyway. I feel like more emotion out of the mother, a fight or sudden outburst from Clarissa would have been more exciting from all the rising action that had led to this point. The walking out to the room, the separation and lack of conversation was frustrating to me, and I would assume would be quite frustrating for Clarissa. That is probably what Vida wanted to go for while she was writing this segment, but I am still not sure if I agree with the storyline at that point. I feel like the “falling action” from this climax really was a quick drop off, or at least that is what it felt like to me. The ending wrapped up very quickly, and to be honest, not the way I would like it to. I did not feel any closure with the relationship. I guess there was closure with her mother, but again, I was not very happy with the reunion, which makes that closure not seem good enough for me.
I really wish that she would have had some interaction with the rapist. I know he is insane, but I feel like more information on him would be helpful. The reader only gets little pieces of information, which was fun to put together as the story unfolded, but yet in the end, I still am unsure of this rapist character. That might be a good character to do some back story on for my paper.
The paper is full of possibilities for me. I have a lot of ideas, but I am not sure which one to pick out. I feel like doing a close reading is always interesting, I just would not know which pages to pick out of a whole book. I think the best would be something from the rising action, so I could connect the foreshadowing with actual events, and also have enough background on some of lives of certain characters.
I think doing a narrative of the rapist would be challenging. It is difficult to write, because I would have to make a lot of crucial decisions. Some of these decisions would be if I make him a decent character at first, or was he always a bad man, why he did what he did, what kind of mental problem does he have, and was he always insane, or did certain things in his life make him crazy? There are many unanswered questions because of the lack of knowledge about him. I think this would be difficult in the sense that I am not sure how this character should be since rape is such a sensitive issue. I am not sure I have the knowledge to write something involving such a tragic event.
Another one of my options was to rewrite reunion with the mom, and ultimately rewrite the ending of the book. I think more drama with the meeting would be more interesting and climactic as opposed to how it is now. I would also include a meeting with the father. I would make it brief since we do not know much about him, but to give her closure that she found him and that it is good that he is not in her life. Also more story with Anna Kristine would be interesting because she knew about the situation the whole time and sought Clarissa out. I think that was a very interesting twist, so going into more detail would be a good addition.
Finally I was thinking I could possibly do something involving a narrative with Clarissa’s future. The end of the book quickly skims through Clarissa’s life and how she can forget her past. I personally feel like you cannot escape your past, so I would make her revisit some of the place she has gone before, possibly more interaction with Anna Kristine, who would be an active grandmother in the child’s life, or even running into Pankaj at some point to introduce him to his daughter. Like Clarissa’s father, I feel like there was not much closure on the relationship with Pankaj, she just left like her mother did to many people. I finally would include something with Jeremy. He was left out of the majority of the book, yet he is still should be a big influence on Clarissa. It is difficult for me to understand how people could leave loved ones, let alone the ones that need family the most. I think Jeremy should be revisited in the end of the novel, and possibly Clarissa should include him in her new family. Since I feel like the past cannot be forgotten, I do not feel like Pankaj, Jeremy and all of the other characters can be left without any trace in Clarissa’s new life.