coconut house

 I have been seeing a common thread of facade in Sag Harbor, a difference between the surface-level interactions between people and what they truly think inside. I will examine a few examples of this thread and what they add to each respective arc of the story. One of the first big examples I will address is Benji's father's relationship to the rest of his family and the neighborhood. I think it was very telling that his father was "known up and down the beach as a master griller, the wind itself in service to his legend, bearing the exquisite smell of caramelizing meat through the developments" (178), but at the end of the chapter Benji describes the meat tasting like sand. Also important is the fact that after tasting the meat, Benji tells his Dad that it tastes great, putting up a facade to please him. It has been obvious that pleasing their father is important to the family, as they have a lot of unpleasant interactions with him when he's not happy. Here the ...

In my opinion, one of David Mitchell's biggest strengths in  Black Swan Green  is the ability to draw us into a moment by including the quick, raw, and allusive thoughts of Jason that let us know what's happening under the surface. The title of this blog is just a roundabout way of saying I like how Mitchell includes parentheses (sometimes mid-sentence, like the first example below,) to let us know what Jason's thinking. Let me bring up some examples to explain. A scene that stuck out to me in this way in the final chapter was when Jason finally meets Cynthia. The conversation is extremely tense, and I admire Mitchell's tense writing in this segment once again.  ‘So how—’ I began, suddenly scared of having nothing to say.  ‘If you—’ she began in the same second.  ‘After you—’  ‘No, after you. Really. You go ahead.’  ‘How long’ (no grown-up’s ever made me go first) ‘have you known Dad?’ (Mitchell 278) In this scene the "no grown-up's ever made me go fir...