Serpents, Angels, and the End Time

Hey y'all. I'm only on pg 55. Hoping to catch mostly up this weekend. But I told Victoria I'd blog, so here I am.

I am really struck by the character of Buzzworm. The sleepless, philosophizing, tree loving altruist, and walking, 24/7 social service center. I wondered immediately about his watches, and his habit of giving watches away to people who need them. Time is an invented concept, and its only use is to allow us - people - to coordinate with one another more efficiently. I wonder if the author intended that for Buzzworm - who cares so much for homless, junkies, and other downtrodden and disenfranchized people - to give them watches, might be a symbol of their regained humanity. Or that Buzzworm is encouraging them to rejoin the "real world" and human collective. Then I thought, maybe I'm making too much of it. I later found out about Buzzworm's deal with Gabriel, to supply him with information about the unseen and unsung city residents - and Gabriel's attempt in his writing to "humanize the homeless" (43). Also share half of his prize money if he wins the Pulitzer. I wonder what noble purpose Buzzworm has in mind. I wonder if he'll surprise us by using it selfishly, haha.

I get the same feeling from Buzzworm, that I got about Transito Soto in House. I think he is going to play a very important role in this story. I was thinking about his name, in the context of some of the other names in the book. And here, I really might be making too much of things, but I'll say it anyway: "worm" derives from the Anglo-Saxon "wyrm," which means snake or dragon. Then of course we've got Quetzal (Arcangel), old as time, and named for the beautiful tropical bird, which was associated by the Aztecs with their Quetzalcoatl - who was the winged serpent god. This was also the god that the Aztecs took Cortéz to be when he showed up on their shores. Speaking of which, I really like the idea of a prophesy of doom, and the prophet is sure it's going to happen, but just doesn't have the date down for sure . . . and doesn't know which reference year to use . . . but it will be in your lifetime! He just needs to recalculate.

This brings me to something totally unrelated to the book (or is it? I guess I'll know when I read more). I hear a lot of talk about 2012, and doomsday prophesied by the end of the Mayan calender. I heard from an Anthropology professor once (and never checked to confirm), that the Aztecs had also calculated the year in which the world would end. Their calculation correlated with the Gregorian year 1519 - the year Cortéz landed. Their calculation also had specifically to do with their belief in 52 year cycles, which cycles are mentioned (a lot) in chapter 7. Just something to think about.

Back to things more relevant to the book: does anyone else think their might be a connection to the fact that Arcangel appears possibly to be a real angel, and that there is another important character in the book named Gabriel?

See you all at the meeting, if I don't post again first.

Politics of Class and Snakes

        Out of the last two days (Wednesday & Thursday) that I have finished reading I want to go back to the very beginning of Wednesday and talk about Rafaela's experience in her chapter 18:Daylight- The Cornfield. I highlighted many things I wanted to mention or talk about but this particular inner thought moment of Rafaela I thought stuck out most to me. She left Bobby because she was tired of working hard for everyone as a housekeeper and cleaner "without benefits" (which she never really specifies what those benefits might be). She goes on to talk about how Bobby would tv's and electronic, the newest and best, for her and their son Sol. They had health insurance and a good home. She was tired of being on the bottom and working for others, but when she is in the cornfield with Dona Maria (before she heard Hernado the baby parts harvester in the kitchen) she has a moment of realization I would say and I feel like it makes a statement about the class system and the working class in particular. I think Rafaela, for a moment, discovers that if you are proud of what you do and work hard at does it really matter?  I know she does not necesarrily want to clean house, but Bobby does. He likes to do all the jobs he does and he works hard so she should respect that and get used to it. Here is the passage to which I am referring,

          "What will you do with so much corn?"

   "Eat it, of course. As much as you want. The rest, Lupe will take to market for cash." Rafaela knew Lupe did everything on Dona Maria's place. Lupe cleaned, cooked, gardened, planted, and harvested. She fed the chickens, collected eggs, fattened the pigs, and slaughtered them when the time came. Rafaela thought about her argument with Bobby, about how she and Bobby did all the work without benefits, about exploitation. Now she had crossed the border and forgotten her anger. Lupe did all the work. Someone was always at the bottom. As long as she was not, did it matter?" 117

        Yamashita is smart by having Rafaela come to this conclusion that is both a little selfish and a little eye opening. Yamashita is saying that the problem with class exploitation is a national problem, global problem, not just the Bobby's and Rafaela's in L.A. And she leaves it at that for the chapter. There is no conclusion to the thought. She goes right into baby harvester. I like that we are left to ponder, "Does it matter?".

        On a different note in the same chapter I found something very poetic about the snake trying to meander the bulging brick wall that was beginning to take on a life of its own outside of Gabriel's place. The one that Rodriguez was building. "Rodriguez did not move to kill the snake as he might have because, she thought, the snake's path seemed oddly straight. If only the snake could define the nature of a straight line..." 115. Again we are left to ponder ourselves, what is the nature of a straight line?