Blog 7 by Ruthie Heavrin

Susan Straight's Take One Candle Light a Room is highly convenient and misguided. How can a white woman possibly write from the point of view of a black woman? In class we were told that Straight feels like a black woman trapped in a white woman's body, but that goes against everything she writes for in this novel: family and heritage. Why isn't Straight proud of who she is? Why can't she be a white woman in a white body who understands that racism is bad? I feel a little offended that she chose to write from a first person point of view. Like the essay prompt suggested, family is huge theme in this book. Victor loses his family so he creates a new family with the fakesters. FX Antione reconnects with her father during the trip, and Victor and Antonine are finally able to find family and peace in each other. Straight should find peace in who she is. The book is highly convenient and almost feels like magical realism. How convenient that Hurricane Katrina shows up and that everyone happens to be in Louisiana at the same time. If it were that easy to be together, then the journey should have never happened in the first place. There was convenience in the characterization as well. Straight uses the plot to form the characters instead of the other way around. I mean that many of the characters did things because it would progress the plot, not because it is something they would actually do. Sure, all the Little Women fans would love to see Teddy and Jo together, but it's not in Jo's character to marry someone for convenience. It is not in Victor's character to lash out at Antione then suddenly be nice the next chapter. He leaves hints for her to come to Las Vegas, then acts surprised (and angry) when she shows up. Victor wasn't round enough. Also, the manner in which Straight described her characters was unsatisfying. I couldn't picture a single one and had to choose people from my life to take the place. I wish I could say something positive about the book, but the constant switch between flash backs and present time became jumbling. I couldn't tell if most of the events were past or present. The syntax was highly frustrating as well. Most of the sentences. Were. Not complete. Sentences and I. Had trouble. Following along. It had a James Joyce stream of conciseness feel, but there is a reason why scholars still scratch their beards over Ulysses: it's hard to understand because the syntax is ludicrous. I would have loved if the first chapter turned into an epic tale of how these women overcame rape and defeated the white rapist. Such good content should not be summed up in one single chapter. Those womens' stories were much more interesting than the constant bragging of the places Antione has been. Why is this book so critically acclaimed? I don't know but I can guess that it has something to do with white people being happy that a white woman wrote from a black woman's point of view. "Finally," they must have thought – "We're in the clear."