Monday, October 13, 2008
Completion in Bone
The idea of completion is one that came up numerous times in Bone, especially in regard to Ona. I think that that was significant because Ona seemed to be the one that completed the family. As she was close to Leon, she felt his happiness and his sadness. As the middle sister, her personality seems to lie somewhere between Leila's and Nina's in that although her life does not revolve around Leon and Mah like Leila's does, she also does not want to escape from home to the extent that Nina does. Although not much is seen about Ona's relationship with Mah, one can see that Ona was vital to the family dynamic. The conclusion of the book left us with many more questions, however, and not very many answers.
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4 comments:
I don't think a book necessarily has to be complete in order to be relevant. Even though the story left so many unasked and unanswered questions the fact is that life often leaves you wondering. Everything does not come wrapped up in a pretty bow. Sometimes your left feeling incomplete. I think the stories ending and its lack of structure emulates the characters feelings and lives. they continue despite all the chaos and the uncertainty. Becuse the fact is that no matter what bad things happen you have to find the streath to get up and to move foward in your life.
I think we were not able to get our anticipated completion from the book because everybody was pointing finger at something, trying to find an independent cause for the situation instead of coming together as a family and put the pieces together. The fact that human mind is tailored to have a "because" for everything is very evident in this story. Not everything as a because, things happen that cannot be traced. Ona's death, Leon's failure, Mah's lifestyle could not all be traced to a specific cause. Thats life!
When i first finished reading the book, I felt incomplete as well. I wanted to know what would happen to Leila the most out of all the characters. However, the ending was just a cutoff and connected to the beginning of the book. Now that i think about it, i feel that it actually was a good ending to the book. A perfect ending would have made the book like any other novel. However, it gives a realistic approach to life like yemisi pointed out. Therefore, I am glad that Ng chose to end the book this way.
Although I first was left with an unsatisfied feeling after reading Bone, after reading some of the comments, I've also come to share the idea that this ending added to the uniqueness of Bone. Furthermore, I also like yemisi's idea that this is reflective of reality - we DON'T always have the answers; however, this may be another reason why we long for answers in other things such as books, movies, etc. Nevertheless, a more reflective look at Bone made me realize that although I want more of an ending, it is the uncertainty of the book that makes still me question the book; a book with a definite ending may not have received as much consideration.
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