Push

What a disturbing book...or rather, evocation of the book. Through Sapphire's pen, I'm able to see Precious's life and hear her voice. From page one of the text, Precious's voice is in my ears. I am dropped into the ongoing flow of Precious's inner landscape and outer life...Her realities have all the more force because of the way Sapphire posiitons them as ordinary. About her math teacher --
"I didn't want to hurt or embarrass him like that, you know. But I couldnt' let him, anybody, know, page 122 look like page 152, 22, 3,6,5 -- all the pages look alike to me. "N I really do want to learn. Everyday I tell myself somethin gonna happen, some shit like on TV. I'm gonna break through, or somebody gonna break through to me -- I'm gonna learn, catch up, be normal, change my seat to the front of the class. But again, it has not been that day" (p. 5).

What is ordinary, though repugnant, to Precious is there for the reader to see full on, or, for me, even more graphically when it's a fleeting image....like Mrs. Lichenstein's "white bitch hands" (p. 6) Or Carl's knees on either side of her head....
The whole horrible flashback that overtakes her as she's going back to school at the hotel....seven, second grade, abused and traumatized (pp. 38-39).
And...filling out forms when Mongo was born....
"Father," she say. "What's your Daddy's name?"
"Carl Kenwood Jones, born in the Bronx."
She say, "What's the baby's father's name?"
I say, "Carl Kenwood Jones, born in the Bronx" (p.12).

Invisible woman --
"What it take for my muver to see me? Sometimes I wish I was not alive. But I don't know how to die. Ain' no plug to pull out" (p. 32).

Not one, but both parents, depraved.

And hope....
Instead of sitting in the back of the class as always, "But something like birds or light fly through my heart" (40).

"I'm alive inside. A bird is my heart. Mama and Daddy not win. I'm winning. I'm drinking hot chocolate in the village wif girls -- all kind who love me. How is that so I don't know" (p. 131).

It makes me think of Peter Johnston's talk on Saturday (and his book, Choice Words) -- about how it's our moral responsibility as educators to teach our students to be critical of, well, everything. If Precious's objectification by her parents hadn't been reinforced by the people that were supposed to nurture her and teach her at school, she might have had to live through the abuse for a shorter time.....might have been able to find herself a little sooner. Johnston told us of studies that showed how one, single assault of language that implied that the subjects were "smart" or "dumb" had observable ramifications for poor choices that they made afterward...choices that reduced perceived risk to a fragile self-esteem.