Period 1: Work on short stories. Due Monday, Oct. 6.
Think about entering writing contests: Hollins, Bennington, Scholastic
Check out Hollins and Bennington websites.
Period 2: Continue reading Fugitive Pieces.
Post a response to 3 of the following questions:
10. What does Fugitive Pieces say about the condition of being an immigrant? Jakob never feels truly at home anywhere, even in Greece. Ben's parents feel that their toehold in their new home is infinitely precarious, an emotion that communicates itself to Ben. Does Michaels imply that real integration is impossible?
11. Can you explain the very different reactions Ben's parents have had to their experience in the Holocaust? What in their characters has determined the differing ways they respond to grief and loss?
12. The relationship between Ben and Naomi is a troubled one. Why is he angry at her for her closeness to his parents and her attention to their graves? Why does he reject her by leaving for Greece without her? How can you explain his intense desire for Petra--is his need purely physical? How do Petra and Naomi differ? What is the significance of their names?
13. Science has as important a role in the novel as poetry and music. Why is geology so important to Athos, meteorology to Ben? Does science represent a standard of disinterested truth, or does it merely symbolize the world's terrifying contingency?
14. Why might Jakob have named his collection of poems Groundwork, and in what way does that title relate to his life? Jakob calls his young self a "bog-boy" [5]. Why does Ben take such an interest in the preserved bog people he reads about [221]?
15. The last line of the novel is Ben's: "I see that I must give what I most need." What does he mean by this? What does he most need, what will he give, and to whom?
16. What is the significance of the novel's title? What do "pieces," or "fragments," mean within Michaels's scheme? Where in the novel can you find references to fragments?
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12.Ben is angry at Naomi for being close to his parents because she's cultivating a relationship with them that he never had. He leaves for Greece to escape his disfunctional marriage and to find the lost puzzle pieces of Jakob Beer's life. His desire for Petra is one of lust and a need of love. He compares her to Naomi, which shows how much he misses the times when his marriage worked. Petra is a hot distraction, and Naomi is a deep and cultured person. Naomi's name is from the bible, and Petra means rock in Greek. Their names are significant because Naomi is who he should be with, and Petra is what he runs to.
14. The title Groundwork relates directly to Jakob's life because when he escaped as a young boy, he hid himself in the ground. This is how he survived. Ben is so fascinated with bog people because of Jakob's references to himself and a "bog-boy". Ben is obsessed with Jakob, in a strange way, because it seems to him that Jakob stole Naomi's heart.
15. Ben's last sentence is "I see that I must give what I most need." What he mosts needs is a love strong enough to last through war and loss. This is what he must either give to Naomi, or what he must give to the next woman.
10. In the case of Micheals’ characters, they have been forced out of their homes. They are trees who have been unceremoniously ripped from the soil of their homeland. This forcible removal from their original home disorients the characters. Their roots have been permanently damaged, preventing them from truly becoming at home elsewhere. Micheals does suggest that real is integration is, if not impossible, then very hard for immigrants to achieve. This is partly because the memories and lingering yearnings for their original home (i.e. Jacob’s tormented memories of his family) will always prevent them from rooting into a new place completely. Instead, Micheals suggests that in new places immigrants form new attachments with the people surrounding them and begin to rely on their relationships with people rather than a physical place: “We were a vine and a fence. But who was the vine? We would both have answered differently.”
14. The title of Jacob’s collection of poems relates directly back to the recurring theme of archeology- digging things up from the past- and to Jacob’s own time in the ground. It relates to his need to recover the past, to dig up the past, to draw memories out of the ground, letting them emerge from the soil, just as he did so many years ago. The title relates to the base off which are built, the same mother earth on which we all depend. Ben takes such an interest in the bog people because he feels obligated to imagine their stories, their histories: “It is my responsibility to imagine who they might be.” Ben’s fascination with the bog people is tied directly to his fascination with Jacob- to uncover Jacob’s stories and journals, to grasp meaning from Jacob’s life and experiences.
15. The final line of Fugitive Pieces is highly significant. Ben realizes that he must provide his wife with the love support that he himself craves. He recalls the connection of his parents: “Like a miraculous circuit, each draws strength from the other.” Ben realizes the need for mutual support. From Petra he learns that a solely physical relationship is shallow and unstable, incapable of providing any legitimate comfort or support. When Ben sees his wife Naomi sitting alone at the table, he realizes that she, like he, needs support, needs love, and warmth, connection. He must reach out to her, and in doing so, he will create a support for himself; like Jacob and Athos, Ben and Naomi will become a vine and a fence.
10. What does Fugitive Pieces say about the condition of being an immigrant? Jakob never feels truly at home anywhere, even in Greece. Ben's parents feel that their toehold in their new home is infinitely precarious, an emotion that communicates itself to Ben. Does Michaels imply that real integration is impossible?
I think that Michaels is trying to say that maybe people shouldn’t even try to integrate, that it’s more important to keep some ties to your past (though not too much—Jakob immerses himself in his past and finds himself haunted by Bella), so that you don’t lose yourself. When Jakob learns Greek and English, and begins losing his first languages, it is seen as a negative thing. Also, Michaels twice makes a reference to being buried in “ground that will remember you” as the proper way to go about burial.
12. The relationship between Ben and Naomi is a troubled one. Why is he angry at her for her closeness to his parents and her attention to their graves? Why does he reject her by leaving for Greece without her? How can you explain his intense desire for Petra--is his need purely physical? How do Petra and Naomi differ? What is the significance of their names?
I think that Ben was most angry with Naomi because she had this special relationship with his parents that he did not. She understood their natures, and was given the privilege of learning about their pasts, whereas Ben was kept in the dark (and may not even have wanted to know about his parents’ past). I guess that by leaving for Greece, one of the “homes” of Jakob Beer, he is keeping her out of something that is clearly meant for them to share. Also, I don’t believe that his need for Petra is completely physical. He needs to be with someone who he does not share a past with, who doesn’t remind him of his parents, and his failings as a son. Naomi’s name, I know, is Biblical. Naomi was the mother-in-law of Ruth, and the two had an incredibly close relationship, much like Naomi and Ben’s mother in Fugitive Pieces.
16. What is the significance of the novel's title? What do "pieces," or "fragments," mean within Michaels's scheme? Where in the novel can you find references to fragments?
Michaels refers to fragments and pieces both literally and figuratively. Through archaeology and geology (fragments of artifacts and rocks), and when she is discussing the power of memory. Memory is fragmented and unreliable, but Michaels does not dismiss it because of this—throughout the novel she emphasizes the importance, and even superiority, of memory when compared to history. With regards to Jakob, his memory is in “fragmented pieces”, and, through Athos, he finds a new life, a new future, through fragmented pieces.
14.) I think that jakob named his collection of poems Groundwork because like Ben said "he put everthing into his work that he couldn't put into his life. Also i think he named it that because Jakob basically had to start his life over from ground up and also based off of athos geology. Ben takes interest of bog people because he id fascinated by them and likes the mystery of trying to figure out who these people are.
12) Ben is angry with Naomi because he is annoyed with her because she visits his parents grave too often. He accuses her of not being able to get over her own parents death and needing to live in mourning. I think he leaves her to go to Greece because he got bored with her. I also think that Ben was more physically attractted to Petra the emotionally.
10. Fugitive Pieces is saying that when you’re an immigrant, you take every little thing for what it’s worth. For instance, Jakob finds beauty in almost everything and picks it apart with care and writes about it. Ben’s parents are thankful for all that they have; i.e. when Ben’s father freaks out at Ben for throwing an apple into the garbage because it was rotten and so Ben’s father makes him eat it because he remembers that when he was captive he never got nice food like that. He also ate very often in order to “avoid twists of hunger” and Ben’s mother always kept food in her purse.
14. Jakob probably named his collection of poems Groundwork because for most of his life, he’s being floating around his memory still trying to grab onto his reality of the here and now. He’s been working on getting grounded and starting again. Ben takes such an interest in the bog-people he reads about because they’re not like anything that his father had showed him of the dead and dying. They were staring at him “across the centuries” and he wanted “to imagine who they might be.”
16. “Fugitive Pieces” is in reference to how Jakob’s memories have been plaguing his brain and he just thinks about them in pieces, whether it’s through a dream or he’s reminded of something that ties back to Biskupin or Bella. Within the novel, you can find pieces peppered all over. For instance, the fact that Athos is fascinated with archaeology is a symbol of fragments because when you’re excavating a dig, it’s almost impossible that you’ll find an entire civilization in tact but instead you find pieces of a civilization that can give you clues about the whole thing. As Athos and Jakob are living with different people both in Greece and Toronto (Kostas and Daphne and Maurice and Irena), they only jump into little portions of each other’s lives.
10). Ann Michaels seems to want to convey to the reader that the life of an immigrant is difficult. Jakob is never truly able to conform or settle into his life in Toronto, or in Greece, which are both not originally his homelands. Ben's parents show that there is constant discontentment with living in a place that makes them into outsiders. So while perhaps it is possible to live in a place that is not your home, it is nevertheless not your home.
12). Ben is angry at Naomi for her closeness to his parents because he feels envious and remorseful of it -- he never had the relationship that Naomi has to them. Ben leaves Naomi for Greece so that he can learn more about Jakob's life there, but also because he is resentful of Naomi. Once in Greece, his relationship with Petra is propelled by his own lust. It is not a deep relationship like the one that Ben hold with Naomi. The irony about the two women's names is in that Naomi's name comes from the Bible )she is the one that Ben should turn to), while Petra's name means rock (this is symbolic of Ben's slinging to her, and also ironic because of the empty, "un-rock-like" relationship that they share).
16). Michaels calls this novel "Fugitive Pieces" I think because it is a story of immigrants, who are in a way fugituves (particularly the Jews of Europe, who are trying to escape from the Nazis). The word "pieces" refers to the way in which the story is told; there are constant little breaks in what Michaels calls "linear time". She starts of the novel with the phrase "Time is a blind guide". This explains her writing style. Michaels is trying to get the readers to understand the story in a different way than how it would be interpreted as a "linear" story. She uses pieces of time to make a story out of different events and feelings. When we read a story, we can interpret it defferently, depending on what we have read before it. The entire story is made up of fragments, however long, such as Athos' discovery of Jakob, or Ben's affair with Petra. Sometimes, Michaels will be telling one story, and then switch a paragraph to be part of another; for example, she does this when Jakob is visiting Kostos and Daphne -- one minute he is with them, and the next he is remembering his best friend in Poland. This style is shown all throughout the novel.
14. Why might Jakob have named his collection of poems Groundwork, and in what way does that title relate to his life? Jakob calls his young self a "bog-boy" [5]. Why does Ben take such an interest in the preserved bog people he reads about [221]?
Groundwork could have two meanings, one for Athos’ love of archeology, which was infused in Jakob with the passing of time during their time in Greece; it meant a lot to both of them just like the book would have meant a lot to Athos. It could be directly from in time that he spent buried in the bog after escaping the Nazi’s taking over the place that he had called home. When he was there he submerged himself in memories and came to terms with some things about losing his family; that is also when Bella started to haunt him. He looked back at his time in the bog a few times later in the novel and each time he learns something else that he couldn’t see back then, that time of reflection was the foundation, or groundwork, for setting himself up to become a writer. It was the foundation and the start of his healing process form all the chaos and trauma that he has experienced through out his life.
15. The last line of the novel is Ben's: "I see that I must give what I most need." What does he mean by this? What does he most need, what will he give, and to whom?
Ben, when he was growing up was not an open person. His parents had parts of them shut down, they cut of most of the parts that let them feel, this was a trait that he picked up and carried into adulthood. In his relationship with Naomi he didn’t have enough walls down to let her in and create a mutual healthy relationship that he was desperately in need of. After his experience in Greece, the affair with Petra along with his discovery of what Jakob and gone through and his process of getting through it, living in his thoughts; he saw that he was hiding himself and he was afraid that if he let a wall down it would backfire and he would be more damaged, so to speak, than he already was. He needs compassion, love, acceptance and understanding; yet he himself wasn’t giving any of that to Naomi. Reality hit him when he was on the plane going back to life that he had left, when he was thinking about the small things that his parents did do that showed that they cared about him and they did experience emotions, they just not have might shown them in the obvious manner that Ben was looking for. He would have to let one of his walls down in order for Naomi to let of hers down, again.
16. What is the significance of the novel's title? What do "pieces," or "fragments," mean within Michaels's scheme? Where in the novel can you find references to fragments?
The title for Fugitive Pieces was a combination of both Ben and Jakob’s stories. Jakob in some ways like a fugitive for most of his life, he was running away form his memories he never felt at peace, just as if he was a fugitive running from the law. He was always on some sort of edge whither it was he was afraid of every step that he made, second guessing his decisions and always wondering about the “what ifs.” Or if it was in fact him running from the memories and dreams that stayed with him for majority of his life. Ben maybe wasn’t part of the fugitive part but he was for the pieces, he was looking over his life like it was a puzzle that needed to be put together. He wasn’t as fragmented as Jakob but enough to see different side of him and how he thinks, deeper than you would if it was traditionally written. For me the most vivid passage of the fragmented style was when Kostas, Athos and Daphne were talking when Jakob and Athos were visiting, he went form the modern conversation about the war to his childhood when he use to skip rocks with Mones. Michaels writes in a manner where it flows but his thoughts were in two different worlds.
10. I think that Fugitive Pieces is saying that being an immigrant is very hard to do; it is something that is not easy. No matter where an immigrant moves they will never feel as comfortable as they did at home; they will almost always feel nostalgic. No matter where Jakob moved he never seemed to feel at ease and happy as he once did with his family before he was forcefully removed from his home; and Ben’s family are discontented with their new living conditions and they also feel like they are different from those whom surround them. They never really “fit in.” Not fitting in and feeling different are two main things that immigrants have to face when moving into a new territory that is occupied with people that don’t know who they are and where they are from. So Anne Michaels is not implying that real integration is impossible but it is difficult and with time maybe adjustable. People like Ben and Jakob were forced from their homes therefore it made it harder for them to let go of what was left behind and so it was uneasy and difficult for them to title another place home.
15. Ben’s last line was, “I see that I must give what I most need.” By this he means that in order to save what is left of Naomi and himself he must give her what he most needs. He says this line after remember his parents, his father crying and his mother standing behind him; their heads were leaning against one another. Ben mostly needs love; he will give love; he will give love to Naomi. Being an immigrant, a person leaves behind and loses many loved ones and many of their possessions that they cared for. Therefore, it in a way seems like they stop loving and forget what the term love means. Ben realizes that in order to save his and Naomi’s relationship together he must give her what he most desires and that is love.
16. The significance of the novel’s title, Fugitive Pieces is that the novel revolves around two major characters Jakob and Ben and their lives which seem to be broken up into pieces. “Pieces” or “Fragments” within Anne Michael’s scheme pretty much mean moments in time. They are moments in which seem relevant and important to the lives of Ben and Jakob, and like a puzzle when the pieces are put together, a bigger picture is completed and eventually what is surfaces allows the world to step back and take a look for what is really trying to be said. A Fugitive is someone who flees or escapes from prosecution or intolerable circumstances. Although they were both forced from their homes, Jakob and Ben are still in a way fugitives due to the fact that they left intolerable circumstances at home. Michaels wrote the story in fragments. By fragments I am talking about how at one moment she’d write of one thing and at the next she’d write of something completely different. For example (page 25), I the beginning of the novel Jakob was talking about he was forgetting details about his family and then it suddenly ends and switches over to Jakob listening to listening to Athos’s stories. It is a very interesting way of writing; however, it does get a bit confusing at times.
William Keller
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12. Ben is angry with the fact that Naomi is close to his parents because they never shared the same closeness with him. They were more open with Naomi, more welcoming, yet with Ben it just seems that it was a relationship that neither benefitted from. His parents nutured him to adulthood and then they broke off. Eventually he leaves her for Greece, subconciusly annoyed with her and finds refuge in Petra. She is a renewal for him, restoration much like Michaela to Jakob. However the outcome is the opposite, the relationship ends up in shambles rather than complete, Ben left alone once again. The name "Petra" comes from the same route as "petrified" meaning "and organic substance turned stony" such as petrified wood, which in turn relates to geology, Jakob, and Athos.
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13. Science in the novel is the characters' escape from the world. They all have pain and pasts that follow them, they use the science to escape into a world of logical reasoning, where everything is explained and happens for a reason. Athos uses geology to forget about the loss of his brother. Jakob uses poetry to forget about his experience with the Holocaust, the loss of his parents, and not having a "home" anymore. He never truly finds a "home" again until he meets Michaela. Ben uses meteorology to escape from his parents' neglect, how they hid things from him and seemed to love Naomi more than he.
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15. Ben's last line means he is surrendering the human contact of Petra, he felt for her but in the end was blinded by his interest in Jakob, causing him to scare her off, but sicne the beginning she might not have wanted the same thing he did, she was nowhere near as desperate as he was. In the last line he is surrendering Petra, his human contact, his escape from himself, to the stranger who's arm is slung through Petra's.
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