Remnants of Orange

           What a great discussion of Tropic of Orange we had at the meeting yesterday! Thank you to all who showed up to chat: Tanya, Chris, Aryana, Alyssa, and Me. We each picked a character to discuss individual and from there the discussion took on a dimension of its own. Alyssa got Bobby, and good thing because he was her favorite character. He was strong, comfortable in his identity, and seeming to hold everything together at the end. Aryrana got Arcangel. What stood out the most was his building the wall around Gabriel's house with Rodriguez. Arcangel has a philosophical moment about Rodriguez's life while placing the bricks one by one into the wall as they represent different parts of this simple man. Chris got Gabriel, our main character (?). The observation was that he was the one character that was connected to the other seven characters in one way or another. He was lost in his identity and perhaps exploiting people close to him to regain a historical identity of what he thought he should be.Tanya got Raefela, which she started with, "Where do I begin..." What stood out most was her great transformation into the mythical serpent while her attacker took on the image of a jaguar (also the car he was driving). She put up a hell of a fight, waking up with black fur in her mouth, a pocket knife in one hand and a man's ear in the other. I got Manzanar. We were split in the group about what his outcome was but it was clear to all that he was indeed the conductor of the mayhem throughout the story. Did he help save his granddaughter Emi and return to a "normal" life or did he comfort his granddaughter in her dying hour and then return to be a transient once more? As a group we discusses Buzzworm and Emi since we were missing two members. Emi was a firecracker that spoke the truth with a sharp tongue and like Gabriel was not entirely comfortable or aware of her true identity. Buzzworm was the swizzle stick in the drink that was Orange. He was proud of who he was and was a product of his neighborhood. He spent his time trying to fix the problems with L.A. and by the end found out that it was time to start opening up himself.
        I look forward to our next discussion and I really hope to see a blog from everyone once a week. Enjoy The Palace of Illusions and keep an eye out for any "realism"  that you want to suggest. Email me with your ideas and I will put them into a ballot for the next meeting.