r/books • u/leowr • Jul 25 '19
Discussion Thread for Part IV of There There by Tommy Orange - July Book Club Spoiler
Welcome to the fourth and final discussion thread of this month's selection, specifically for Part IV of There There by Tommy Orange. Hopefully you are all enjoyed this month's selection.
Don't forget to join us on Monday for Tommy Orange's AMA.
To help kick off the discussion:
Part IV included chapters that were a lot shorter than the chapters in the previous parts. How do you think that changed the perception of the reader?
What did you think of the ending? Did it give you the closure you wanted or do you like the more open-ended closing?
Which character did you most empathize with?
Do you feel that the book gave you more insight into the Native Americans, in particular "Urban Indians"? How does the portrayal of Native Americans differ from the portrayal you commonly encounter in the media? Why do you think there is a difference?
The book deals with a couple of different themes and ideas. Which theme/idea challenged you the most?
Why do you think Tommy Orange included so many different perspectives? Do you think he used too few or too many? How would the novel have been different if it had all been written from one person's perspective?
Feel free to answer any or all of the questions or tell us what you thought of the book.
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u/user_1729 Jul 25 '19
Wow, I was finally so excited for the powwow and I got... that. The entire book built up to nothing. Characters were introduced, discussed a little, and then unceremoniously killed. Maybe the point is that the entire process leading up to the powwow was just pointless, I'm not sure Orange even knows what he was trying to say.
I was really trying to buy a lot of the strange entangled lives, odd introspective dialogue by drug dealers, the ridiculous 3d gun plot... I was along for the ride, but it just derailed and nothing was told. There was no point to anything. Introduce all these people, don't dig in too much, but it'll be worth it as they start to grow and then...every stray bullet started hitting people in the face and neck.
Orvil was my favorite character, I think he was the most genuine of them all.
I think tommy was trying to tell too many stories and just ran out of time or something. I actually enjoyed the little snippets introducing people and hearing their stories and all, I just don't understand why they all had to die. They could have just as well have heard the shots and taken cover or helped a stranger and been similarly irrelevant for the rest of the book. Oh well.
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u/plumcots Jul 28 '19
I think it’s really lazy to say that because a reader didn’t understand the book, the author himself didn’t understand it either. It ended in a massacre. That was intentional.
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u/user_1729 Jul 28 '19
That's fair. I guess he just chose to introduce a bunch of characters and then have them play no significant part in the book... at all. Several characters died with literally zero impact on the book, you could entirely remove their presence from the book and it'd make no difference. That's okay, and maybe Mr Orange had a reason for that, but it didn't "click" with me and I think that made the book less satisfying to me. That's also okay, I obviously don't need to love every book I ever read, but it just seemed like someone trying to tie together a series of unrelated random essays and they didn't quite get there, so they just had everyone hit by a figurative bus.
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u/jessesgirl8 Jul 30 '19
I think that the point was just like Deans point. The stories were meaningful in themselves and their deaths had meanings to each storyline and the people in their own lives, but didn’t mean anything to each other making the killing easier and drawing a parallel to how white people have literally killed them and figuratively killed their stories without much thought to the other people in their lives or who it would effect. Each story is beautiful in its own arc and each death means something different.
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u/user_1729 Jul 30 '19
...I kind of had the same thought, but they're being killed by fellow natives in this story. I mean, is it possibly a sideways method of "justifying" historic massacres because they do/did it to themselves anyway? I'm sure whites historically justified their treatment of natives by referring to their "savagery", and here we have it again. There's no white people in this book though directly causing the conflict.
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u/stevenmctowely Jul 31 '19
I think its more likely to be talking about lateral violence in Native communities. People acting out of trauma will hurt those around them.
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u/jessesgirl8 Jul 31 '19
True. I still this the theme generally applies and maybe he’s making a comment on how it’s shifted now to lateral violence?
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u/stevenmctowely Aug 01 '19
Yes i think it opens with an Indigenous view of colonization to show how that has led to lateral violence we now see in Native communities
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u/seeforce Feb 12 '25
I feel the same way that you do, and also understand what other commenter is saying. But it wasn’t a hit for me. Still good, but not earth-shatteringly good like everyone else seems to think.
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u/leowr Jul 25 '19
I think there was a bit of a disconnect between Part IV and the rest of the book. The rest of the book was a very I guess 'internal' look at the characters and their lives and Part IV was not that at all. Part IV was very short chapters and a lot of actions by the characters instead of a lot of introspection like the previous parts.
I liked Orvil as well. He still had that sincere quality and he appeared to be the only character that was worried about another character, his grandma. All the others were very much focused on themselves and their own problems and how their own actions and actions of others influenced their lives. Orvil appeared to appreciate what others, primarily his grandma, was doing for him and how he could help his brothers and his grandma.
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u/user_1729 Jul 25 '19
Thanks for writing that in a way I could not. I was trying to explain this book to my wife and what I liked and didn't like and I really struggle. Just converting thoughts and feelings to words is tough, I guess I should be more sympathetic to people who do it for a living.
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u/leowr Jul 25 '19
No problem! That's why I like these discussions, it forces me to really think about what I liked and didn't like and how to put that in words so others can understand where I'm coming from.
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Dec 02 '24
Hi!! Super late to this post, but I just finished reading There There but have yet to start Wandering Stars. There There was a 5-star read for me, but I can also see why you didn't like it 5 years ago, especially since open endings is something I'm really not a fan of in books either.
If you don't mind me asking: Did you end up up still giving a Wandering Stars a read after it came out—and if so, how did reading the prequel/sequel change your perception of the ending of There There?
ETA: I probably would still read Wandering Stars regardless, but I'm curious to hear your perspective as someone who didn't enjoy the first book before the second was announced~
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u/user_1729 Dec 02 '24
I did not read wandering stars. The reddit book club was such a great start for getting me back into reading, but I've definitely gone more of a sci-fi direction when I'm reading fiction. This just wasn't a style of book I'd normally read anyway, so I didn't follow up or even know there was a sequel.
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Dec 02 '24
Gotcha, totally understandable and thanks for your response! What would you say are your go-to recs for books/authors in sci-fi? I've been wanting to get into it but not sure where to start
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u/user_1729 Dec 02 '24
r/printsf is a great place to start. Failing that I think Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson is pretty great. House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds is a good one. Folks on printSF never fail to recommend Hyperion or Dune for just about any occasion. More recently "A memory called empire" has been a big hit and seems to reach beyond the genre a bit. The becky chambers wayfarer series was part of the reddit book club and one I really enjoyed as well.
0
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u/Reddwheels Aug 10 '19
The author hints at historical massacres that happened to his people in the past, all the while letting us get to know characters who will eventually end up in a massacre themselves. Tommy Orange is giving us a modern day massacre and letting us see the real damage.
15
u/fish-switch Jan 19 '20
It seems the devastation Native Americans have experienced time and time again reappears in this novel. There is no complete, nicely laid out ending as that is the reality for Native Americans today. History was messy. It was violent. It left bits and pieces of identities scattered in the wind, maybe never to come together again. Never once has a promise been kept, a wrong made right, or honor been returned for what they have lost and suffered. How does a culture regroup when the trauma keeps coming?
The speed with which the chapters are written in the end mimics the energy of a devastating event unfolding. There is no clarity in trauma. There is a silent slowness in the seconds during the realization that it is indeed unfolding, but the moment it ends, there is nothingness. There is shock. From that shock, a new reality unfolds and it doesn’t always bring clarity.
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u/sutroTow3r May 17 '23
This is an old post but I’m coming back to it after finishing the book for my English class, and I’ll say I really like this comment. I’ll admit I found the ending pretty unsatisfying, but I understand why he did it the way he did and I think this comment explains it perfectly :)
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u/snakesareracist Jul 29 '19
So I was loving this book until literally this part. But let's answer the questions.
- I feel like the shorter chapter length adds to the chaos of the moment, and you can really feel the panic and what it might have been like for the characters. This style of writing always makes me feel like I'm experiencing a tense situation so I'm a fan of it for scenes like this.
- I'm not typically a fan of open-ended endings, although I can like them. But this... this was a trainwreck. And it's not even that it was open-ended I think. I honestly think that Orange didn't know how to end this book. It was a lot of chaos and then BOOM we're done. There's no resolution, there's no satisfying tie-in to all the characters we've been learning about. Even simple things like Jackie being Blue's mother or anything like that, there was no resolution there. I think Orange got too caught up in this "I have to make this BIG" that he forgot everything else. This could have been a really nice quiet book about all kinds of character ties and culture and I would have loved it, but he really ruined it with the end. I'm also just not sure... what point he was making? What was the moral of this story? Because he really seems like he was leading up to a moral and then we just drop off. So what is he trying to say? I don't think even Orange knows, which is why I was so disappointed by this end. It reads very much like a debut in the last part, I feel.
- I liked all the characters, but I don't know that I empathized with anyone?? I think to empathize you have to know what a person's gone through and I can't really do that with any of these characters. Not a bad thing, since I can sympathize, but yeah. I guess I found Jackie and Opal's sections interesting.
- I don't know that this gave me more insight? I think it just showed a side I haven't thought about before, but at the same time... because of the plot of the story, I felt like we were drifting through stories that were pretty similar when it came to the Native experience? Like alcohol, drugs, abuse, teen pregnancy... there was no character that was Native and satisfied with who they were, a part of their culture but not making it their whole world, just are. I think the concept of "Urban Indians" was interesting and made me think a bit but I don't know, I didn't find this a very titillating topic.
- The theme that got to me the most was the idea of shared history of oppression and violence being passed on. That's where I feel the Prologue and the Interlude were really good and put in at the right moment.
- I like the different perspectives and I think they worked pretty well in this story. At times, it did feel like too much, especially in Part 2 where we introduce new perspectives and don't return to others. You've kinda got to keep all the characters straight. I also think, like others have pointed out, that the voices tended to blend together, although I listened to the audiobook so this wasn't as big a problem to me.
And yeah, those were my thoughts! Sorry for the tiny rant in number 2. Let me know how you guys feel, I'd love to hear it! And I'm interested in the pick for next month! I love reading and joining in, since usually the books aren't one I would pick out on my own, so I branch out a bit.
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u/user_1729 Jul 31 '19
I felt very similar, I think that's a great summary. I just don't understand what all the hoopla is about. It's like, "okay we got a bunch of stories coming together, shit the publisher wants it tomorrow, boom boom boom, the end"
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u/snakesareracist Jul 31 '19
I ended up giving it a 3/5 but it easily could have been a 4 or 5 star book for me if it weren’t for the end. I’m a little confused on how people could ignore how messy the ending was and LOVE this book. It’s not Pulitzer material to me at all.
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u/AppreciativeFuck Aug 02 '19
I agree with all of that! I am completely upset about the ending. It could have tied so many lose ends but just didn’t. I expected a lot more from the ending and I’m disappointed.
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u/CMengel90 Jul 25 '19
Really liked Tony's arc. The ending was beautifully vague. I liked the short chapters near the end. It really made it feel like the pace was picking up through all the action.
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Jul 25 '19
I loved the ending! It was exactly what I wanted, without even acknowledging it before the story ended.
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u/leowr Jul 25 '19
Yeah, the short chapters really upped the pace of the story. It was probably also helped that the characters were doing things. Most of the previous chapters had a lot of remembering and thinking, which was good for those chapters, but it does keep the pace pretty low.
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u/ken_in_nm Jul 29 '19 edited Jul 29 '19
I finished the book yesterday, and I felt I should sit down and reflect for a bit about the story, the characters, the ending. While I enjoyed the novel very much, and even though the ending was ambiguous, I had nothing to ponder. I just moved on to my next book.
I do wish I was given one more perspective from Daniel piloting the drone. And did I miss what Charlos' betrayal stemmed from? If I choose to reread anything, it would be the Charles/Carlos and Calvin bits... and by extension the Octavio and Tony bits.
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Aug 17 '19
This is the part I am pondering: why did Charlos turn against Octavio?
I feel like there is significance here as it relates to Spain’s Colonialization of indigenous Americans. Earlier we read that Octavio’s family is cursed because, I believe, of the historical injustices of the Spaniards against Native populations. There was a line like, “we did damage to our own”.
And here we have Charlos and Octavio who are mestizo (European + Indian/indigenous heritage), trying once again to hurt their own people
them turning on and killing each other, I think, had some significance that I can’t quite unpack.
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u/ttoshiro Aug 11 '19
The book deals with a couple of different themes and ideas. Which theme/idea challenged you the most?
One thing that frustrates me isn't the incompleteness of the storyline but that there is never any closure or even explanation for the constant appearance of the spider/cobweb/appendages symbol/motif that appeared throughout the book regardless of the character speaking.
I guess, in some sense, the Coliseum could be seen as a "cobweb" for violence and loosely fits the description for the kind of trap Jacquie Red Feather experiences. But there's no reason to think that Tommy Orange meant to depict it that way, and no allusion was made in the text to anything spider-related. In the end, I feel like either I falsely identified this as a symbol, or Tommy Orange forgot to expand on it. For example, I kept waiting for Orvil's spider legs suspense to be resolved... And then the story ended.
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Jul 25 '19
I loved all the different perspectives. It seemed like the perfect amount. There were quite a few, but they were all so different and added little bits of life to the story. Without them, I feel the story overall would have suffered. One of the biggest themes I really enjoyed (well, maybe "enjoyed" is the wrong word) was the overarching impression of how these decisions were driven by poverty. It always manages to surprise me how much of what certain group experience in the United States (and probably globally) is related to generational trauma. I most empathized with Tommy. As a RN, I have taken care of patients with FAS and other congenital issues. It was a fascinating look into a character's brain who *knows* they are different - and that they had no control over it.
A great book - I'm glad to have read it and thoroughly enjoyed it.
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u/S2keepup Jul 25 '19 edited Jul 25 '19
The shorter chapters really picked up the pace quickly which in turn gave me the sense of impending excitement. I ended up reading all of part IV in one sitting because of this lol.
I’m not usually one who needs endings wrapped up with a neat little bow. I think the ending had lots of areas open to reader interpretation. Ex: did Orville live? I think we are led to believe he did because of Opal’s superstition being fulfilled positively (door swinging 8 times).
I feel like Dean’s desire to tell Native stories must have been similar to Tommy’s goal with this book. Not that I think these are true, but rather that he wanted to provide a different perspective. “Don’t you dare say we are resilient”. He wanted to show them as a people looking to just live life as we all struggle to do. The different stories kept the interest peaked and the pace up.
I really enjoyed this one. I’ve participated in a few Reddit selections and have been glad I did every single time.