1、Unit 23Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta _Kate BravermanKate Braverman(born 1950 Philadelphia)is an American novelist,short story writer,and poet.She was raised in Los Angeles,which is the focus for much of her writing.Kate Braverman is a poet and experimental writer of a singular and ruthless breed.
2、She is author of four books of poetry,the novels:Lithium for Medea,Palm Latitudes,Wonders of the West,and The Incantation of Frida K.Her Graywolf Prize for Creative Non-Fiction award winning memoir,Frantic Transmissions to and from Los Angeles:An Accidental Memoir was published in Feb.2006.LifeAward
3、sWorksAuthor InterviewLife Braverman has a BA in Anthropology from University of California,Berkeley and an MA in English from Sonoma State University.She was a member of the Venice Poetry Workshop,Professor of Creative Writing at California State University,Los Angeles,staff faculty of the UCLA Wri
4、ters Program and taught privately a workshop which included Janet Fitch,Cristina Garcia and Donald Rawley.She currently lives in Santa Fe,New Mexico.Kate has also received a Recongition Award from the California Legislature Assembly,and a San Francisco Public Library Honoree.Her certificate reads:Fo
5、r your success as an influential novelist,short story writer,and poet,and for your literary acheivements that have garnered great acclaim,numerous awards and a Pushcart Prize,thereby making California a better place to live.WorksNovelsNovelsLithium for Medea(1979).Kate Palm Latitudes(1988).The Incan
6、tation of Frida K(2001).Short StoriesShort StoriesSquandering the Blue(1990).Small Craft Warnings.(1998).PoetryPoetryLullaby for sinners(1981).Postcard from August(1990).MemoirMemoirFrantic Transmissions to and from Los Angeles:An Accidental Memoir(2006).Author InterviewpLooking back was there somet
7、hing in particular that helped you to decide to become a writer?Growing up as a marginalized girl child of the secret dirty city of Los Angeles,as slippage deep within a colossus of yellow hibiscus,in a region that didnt exist in literature,I was,in complex ways,as described in my new“Frantic Transm
8、issions to and from Los Angeles:An Accidental Memoir”alienated and only comfortable alone and writing.I knew words were sacred and books revered.I was writing at college workshops when I was 13.I never wasnt a writer.p When it comes to plotting,do you write freely or plan everything in advance?Plot
9、is not a strong suit for me.No writer does it all,possesses a full repertoire of tools.Description.Style.Dialogue.Architecture.One identifies ones strengths as a writer and uses them extravagantly,recognize weaknesses and avoid them.My gift is innovation,experimentation,accessing my emotions,my inte
10、rnal intellectual dialogue and language,the sound and rhythm of words.I can also write dialogue.Im a poet who can write dialogue and I want to inhabit the page as a female.I want grandeur and elegance,danger and chaos.I can make words ignite.Thats whats in my toolbox.pWhat inspires you?I work as man
11、y painters do,landscapes,portraits,collages,still lifes.I also work on multiple aspects of a long project or sequences of shorter pieces,so there is always an area Im working on.I learned this living with a painter,something always on the walls drying or not finished or fully realized,some reason wh
12、y a brush was always required.Inspiration and motivation are entirely different issues.1 Squandering the Blue2 Characters3 Theme4 Analysis 5 QuestionsSquandering the BlueBelow,the whales are passing south,swelling the ocean with intelligence.Kate Braverman There are many such surprising images in th
13、is collection.Her stories are autobiographical;she does not seem to know how to write any other way.Most deal with women on the verge of a nervous breakdown who are fighting a losing battle against chemical dependency of one kind or another.CharactersThe unnamed woman A thirty-eight-year-old Califor
14、nia woman who is divorced and raising a young daughter,has been a recovering alcoholic for five months,and is currently seeing an analyst.She is a bored,upper-middle-class Beverly Hills woman who,at the age of thirty-eight,has fallen prey to the conventional twentieth century modes of self-destructi
15、ondivorce,alcoholism,and drugsand is trying to patch things back together through Alcoholics Anonymous and psychotherapy.She is,however,a woman of intelligence and rich imagination;she teaches creative writing and is a writer herself.It is precisely this inner life that makes her vulnerable.Lenny A
16、short,fat,pale man with bad teeth.He invites the woman for coffee,inquires about her life,and tells her that he will show her the other side and give her the ride of her life.He is the rebel,the outlaw,who offers her a glimpse of the forbidden,the dangerous,and the deadly.He knows exotic places such
17、 as Vietnam,Colombia,and Thailand;has experienced war and adventure;has been in prison and smuggled drugs;and has access to luxurious homes,cars,and diamonds.Theme Lenny proves to be no better than the alcohol that once removed her from the painful reality of her life,however,and after she has a far
18、ewell drink with him,there is every indication that she will return once again to the bottle for her fantasies.The color blue,used throughout the story,has become an infected blue at the end,a kind of contagion that fills up the protagonist.Her dreams of a richer,fuller life depart with Lenny,and th
19、e emptiness within her is still there.He has become just a tall tale to tell her friends,like his own tall tales of the Mekong Delta,and although she may have gotten a glimpse of the other side,she knows she will never reach it.The China blue sky of possibility will always be inside her,never lettin
20、g her forget.Analysis Kate Braverman wrote“Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta”as a series of dramatized encounters between the protagonist and Lenny,each involving them more deeply in their relationship with each other.After the initial meeting in the parking lot,there are encounters in the meeting ro
21、om of the community center,in the basement of a church,in a public park,and in a Bel Air mansion.The more open settingsthe park,the mansions swimming poolare appropriate for the fantasies of the protagonist,who envisions skies,rivers,sunsets,and flowers.The dramatic encounters also point up the diff
22、erences between the woman and Lenny.Lennys speech is crude,profane,bullying,and selfish;the protagonists is direct,defensive,apologetic,and spare.The most poetic passages are the protagonists fantasies,gracefully written passages that are full of color and beauty,a stark contrast to her simple speec
23、h.Braverman places the final scene on Christmas Eve.Although there are other religious references in the story,such as an AA meeting that takes place in the basement of a church,the final encounter between the protagonist and Lenny suggests the Christian virtues that are lacking between them:love,ch
24、arity,and selflessness.Lennys departure takes place on an evening of tall tales about Santa Claus and flying reindeer,an appropriate setting for his final appearance in the womans life and for the tall tales he leaves behind.Questions1 Talk bout the complicated relationship between Lenny and the woman.2 Do you like the style of Kate Bravermans language?Can you image the“the china blue sky”?3 Whats the meaning of the meets between them?The EndThank you!
