Monday, October 12, 2009
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
Unless a natural disaster affects me or a loved one personally, I'll admit that I usually keep it at arms length. I'll read the headlines on a paper or learn at a distance what's been going on. Hurricane Katrina was one of those. I remember reading the horrible things that were happening there, purely from the storm. The thousands displaced, the thousands injured or dead or missing. I was not at all involved in detail regarding how the government was dealing with it, suffice to say, I did read about how they were not dealing with it.
Zeitoun is one man's account of how he dealt with the floods that ensued from the storm. His wife and children fled the city while he stubbornly stayed put to take care of their numerous rental properties and contracting business. I've read Eggers before. His account Valentino Achak Deng's story of being a Lost Boy of Sudan was harrowing, gripping and inspiring. And Zeitoun does much the same thing. Some can look at reading Eggers as a more an account in sociology, in history, in the importance of narrative. But it reads so well and so easily, that it's impossible not to think of it as a story. Because both those books are stories and they are truly some of the most intimate stories I have read.
It appalled me how many terrible atrocities occurred during and in the aftermath of Katrina. How many liberties were taken away, how many lives were at stake, and how much the goverment failed the people of New Orleans. I suppose it's a reflection of myself that I never read enough of the firsthand Katrina accounts. When earthquakes and natural disasters happen, I actually take a step backwards. Perhaps I fool myself into thinking that if I don't read it, it's not actually happening. But of course that's not true.
Zeitoun is harrowing. There were times I was reading it during a meal that I had to put it down and actually out of the room in order to continue my meal. There were times that tears pricked my eyes because this was reality. And there was anger. I was angry at Zeitoun for acting the martyr, for staying behind to help strangers and people who couldn't help themselves while the rest of his family worried themselves sick a few states away, in the grasp of safety. Mostly, I surprised myself at how emotional I got about this story, because it was a real story and because it was so raw and honest.
I saw that Dave Eggers recently wrote another; his own account of Where the Wild Things are, for adults. I can't wait to gobble it up.
Zeitoun is one man's account of how he dealt with the floods that ensued from the storm. His wife and children fled the city while he stubbornly stayed put to take care of their numerous rental properties and contracting business. I've read Eggers before. His account Valentino Achak Deng's story of being a Lost Boy of Sudan was harrowing, gripping and inspiring. And Zeitoun does much the same thing. Some can look at reading Eggers as a more an account in sociology, in history, in the importance of narrative. But it reads so well and so easily, that it's impossible not to think of it as a story. Because both those books are stories and they are truly some of the most intimate stories I have read.
It appalled me how many terrible atrocities occurred during and in the aftermath of Katrina. How many liberties were taken away, how many lives were at stake, and how much the goverment failed the people of New Orleans. I suppose it's a reflection of myself that I never read enough of the firsthand Katrina accounts. When earthquakes and natural disasters happen, I actually take a step backwards. Perhaps I fool myself into thinking that if I don't read it, it's not actually happening. But of course that's not true.
Zeitoun is harrowing. There were times I was reading it during a meal that I had to put it down and actually out of the room in order to continue my meal. There were times that tears pricked my eyes because this was reality. And there was anger. I was angry at Zeitoun for acting the martyr, for staying behind to help strangers and people who couldn't help themselves while the rest of his family worried themselves sick a few states away, in the grasp of safety. Mostly, I surprised myself at how emotional I got about this story, because it was a real story and because it was so raw and honest.
I saw that Dave Eggers recently wrote another; his own account of Where the Wild Things are, for adults. I can't wait to gobble it up.
# posted by Fat Sister @ 7:48 AM 
