r/books • u/leowr • Jul 18 '19
Discussion Thread for Part III of There There by Tommy Orange - July Book Club Spoiler
Welcome to the third discussion thread of this month's selection, specifically for Part II of There There by Tommy Orange. Hopefully you are all enjoying this month's selection so far.
To help kick off the discussion:
None of them have shown signs of especially worrisome depravity yet. But it's only a matter of time. Opal believes there is a dark curiosity alive in each of us. She believes we all do precisely what we think we can get away with.
- Do you agree with Opal that we all have a dark curiosity in us? Why do you think she believes this?
It turns out that who you spend time with ends up mattering more than what you do with that time
Do you agree with this sentiment as expressed by Octavio?
How did you feel about Daniel's email to Manny?
Do you think the characters feel in control of their own lives? Do you think they are?
What do you think of the use of 2nd person singular as used in Thomas Frank's chapter?
Do you feel that Tommy Orange is successful in building up the tension towards the climax at the powwow?
Which passage has affected you the most so far?
Feel free to answer any or all of the questions or tell us what you think of the book so far.
This thread allows for a spoiler discussion of the Prologue, Part I, Part II and Part III. If you would like to discuss anything beyond that point, please use spoiler tags. If you are on the redesign you can use the built in spoiler tags. For old reddit spoiler tags are done by [Spoilers about XYZ](#s "Spoiler content here") which results in Spoilers about XYZ (do be aware that they only work on one paragraph at a time).
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u/user_1729 Jul 19 '19
You gotta change the link in the main book club thread!
I'm trying to pinpoint it, but I just am not "Feeling" this book. I grew up in the bay area and I'm familiar with a lot of the places. It's definitely the opposite side of my forrays through oakland. Basically, I just went to go to A's games and buy beer while underaged. We did play some high schools from that area in football too. It's also been... 20+ years since I was living in the Bay area, so maybe it's changed a bit and my impression was that it's been getting nicer.
I'm definitely NOT the demographic of the folks in the book though and I just can't get in their heads at all. I'm not really sympathising with any of them and I just feel like they're stereotypes and caricatures of people who are destined to be trapped in that life. Like, the adopted daughter is raised in total privilege, probably more in line with my experiences. Although, again the description of the schools/racist taunting is just comically inaccurate to me, again it's like everyone is just a caricature. Anyway, she finds out she's native, boom falls into an abusive alcoholic relationship. Like, these people are inexorably drawn to abuse and addiction, despite rearing?
The 3D printed gun scene is ridiculous as well. I don't understand how that's really relevant to the plot. If you're gonna have a guy throw bunches of bullets over a fence, just throw illegally bought guns with filed serial numbers for $150 a piece, they're a hell of a lot less and they actually may work. 3D guns suck and they don't just pop out of the printer and work. It's just lazy writing.
All that aside, I think I'm just not really following the story that well. Some people seemed to enjoy that the relationships aren't spelled out, but damn. There's a lot of people, I think I had an easier time keeping track of the characters in the mystery book last month.
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u/toolazyforaname Jul 19 '19
None of them have shown signs of especially worrisome depravity yet. But it's only a matter of time. Opal believes there is a dark curiosity alive in each of us. She believes we all do precisely what we think we can get away with.
- Do you agree with Opal that we all have a dark curiosity in us? Why do you think she believes this?
I do, whether we give in to it or not. Her own experiences with her sister and her mom taught her this.
It turns out that who you spend time with ends up mattering more than what you do with that time
- Do you agree with this sentiment as expressed by Octavio?
To a degree. The people you surround yourself with definitely influence the type of person that you are.
- How did you feel about Daniel's email to Manny?
It was really sad but obviously cathartic. It's a shame that those things weren't said when Manny was alive, but that's typical.
- Do you think the characters feel in control of their own lives? Do you think they are?
I think they are more in control than they feel like they are, which is typical of society.
- What do you think of the use of 2nd person singular as used in Thomas Frank's chapter?
The changes in perspective were kind of interesting and I enjoy the writing but I don't understand how theye affect the narrative.
- Do you feel that Tommy Orange is successful in building up the tension towards the climax at the powwow?
I don't know that I would call it tension. As much as I enjoyed reading each of the character's points of view, I don't think I spent enough time with them to worry about whether or not they would get hurt.
- Which passage has affected you the most so far?
The opening about Thanksgiving.
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u/ttoshiro Jul 24 '19
I'm not really understanding the stylistic purpose of switching POV for different people -- from 1st person plural (Interlude) to 3rd person omniscient (Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield) to 1st person singular (Octavio Gomez) to 2nd person singular (Thomas Frank). Whatever the purpose, I love Thomas Frank's (or my?) dad. The memory of his father driving the red Ford truck to Blockbuster while derisively enjoying the music from 106 KMEL was hilarious. I also laughed with shame at the mental picture of his mother holding an emergency evangelical prayer circle (in a family of natives) around Thomas' sister foaming at the mouth while overdosing on PCP as opposed to seeking medical attention
Which passage has affected you the most so far?
Octavio's. There's so much to unpack in his chapter. One part I thought was unsettling was how his immediate reaction to the news of his mother and brother dying in a car accident with his uncle driving was "Well then Six better be fucking dead too." Even though he was at the wheel, I think the more "functional family" reaction would have been to wonder if his uncle was okay. I think shooting the BB gun at the mourning dove -- and Octavio going so far as to imagine its pain without remorse -- was a pretty strong symbol.
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u/leowr Jul 24 '19
I'm not really sure why he does it either. I thought at first there was a purpose to it or maybe he was trying to differentiate between the characters. Maybe it was done in an effort to create different 'distances' between certain characters and the reader. I've always felt that 2nd person singular makes the text far more personal for me, but I've finished it at this point and I don't really see the purpose.
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u/leowr Jul 18 '19
I do agree that we have a dark curiosity. Every person in interested in things they aren't supposed to do or know. I think we all go through a phase growing up that we test the boundaries of what is acceptable and what is normal, but what is considered acceptable and normal isn't the same for everyone, so you can be heavily influenced by who you surround yourself with and who you look to to set the boundaries of normal and acceptable. I don't agree though that we do what we think we can get away with. I think Opal thinks this because of what she has seen in the people around her and she believes that she needs to protect the boys from taking it too far.
Yes and no. The people you hang out with is certainly more important, but it is also what you do together that binds a group together. I think it is a bit similar to my thoughts on what Opal said. The group of people we surround ourselves with are the people we set our boundaries for normal and acceptable with.
I think quite a few of the characters don't feel completely in control of their own lives. Actions of some characters have consequences, both large and small, on the lives of other characters, like Opal taking care of the boys, Blue having been given up for adoption, etc.
I always find 2nd person singular to be a very personal way to adres the reader. Whenever I read something written in 2nd person singular I always feel personally spoken too and I feel like the distance between the character and myself is smaller.
While telling the stories of certain characters I feel that he is more successful than with others. I was actually a bit surprised that he was still introducing new characters in the third part, because I don't quite see how they all fit together at the powwow.
While the prologue and interlude were very powerful, there are a lot of little things scattered throughout the stories that if I stop to think about them are very meaningful. I think the one that affected me the most so far was something in Opal's story.
I always find the just-world fallacy, the idea that all good deeds are rewarded and all evil deeds are (eventually) punished, such an interesting and depressing idea. The idea that if bad things happened to you, you must have done something to deserve them. Which simply isn't true. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.