To: ALL Date: 02/18
From: ZGPG28A CARLA GLADSTONE Time: 12:25 PM
Rabbit Boss: few comments have appeared recently other than
Barbara's saying that she was half-way through. I have
finished reading it, which is not the same thing as saying I
have read it all. I read about 100 pages and couldn't stand
it any longer. Mr Sanchez may have an important story to
tell, but the way in which he choses to tell it demands more
from the reader than I am willing to give.
The writing in RB makes me think of a kind of giant
peep-show: a movie is being shown on the other side of a
wall. You get to see fragments of the movie through a few
holes in the wall, but you don't ever get to see the entire
screen at one time, and you have no reason to believe that
the projectionist is showing the movie reels in
chronological order. If the movie is sufficiently
compelling you will persevere and perhaps you'll be able to
reassemble the fragments in your mind. But it's a
challenging exercise and you've got to ask yourself "Is it
worth it?"
Have any of you found more in this book than I have?
Carla from The Nation's Capital
=============== Reply 1 of Note 68 =================
To: ZGPG28A CARLA GLADSTONE Date: 02/18
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 2:24 PM
I found myself getting incredibly impatient with RABBIT
BOSS myself initially. I particularly had to skim over
some of the earlier scenes involving the rituals that
involved the Indians just prior to the white men appearing.
If I tried to read them slowly and make sure that I was
comprehending each sentence, I'd still be at the beginning.
The scenes that have hooked me on finishing it were the
hunting scene in which Joe guides the group of white,
middle class bow hunters and the contrasting one in which
the Joe (as a boy) when leaving the government school kills
a deer with a small stone knife after jumping onto it's
back. I was also captured by the relationship between the
boy called Bob (I'm assuming that was Joe) and Mr. Fixa.
I am now about two-thirds of the way through and am sure
that I will finish it because I've found just enough of
those brilliant moments to sustain me. As Carla says
though, it is a very difficult book to follow because of
the switching back and forth in time and characters...and
the characters are even identified by different names in
some instances.
However, Sanchez is communicating the quality of
bewilderment felt by the Indians as they confront this
absolutely totally different way of looking at the world
that is embodied in the European and Oriental peoples who
appeared among them. One almost wonders if there was ever
even a glimmer of hope for communication. Barbara
=============== Reply 2 of Note 68 =================
To: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Date: 02/18
From: BUYS59A BARBARA HILL Time: 8:53 PM
I finished Rabbit Boss several weeks ago. Was curious to
hear what others had to say about it. I thought the spirit
like (or ritual) section didn't add to the book or should
have been shorter as it didn't sustain my interest, but I
liked the rest of the book. I believe Captain Rex, Bob, and
Joe Birdsong all followed G (ayabac? It was a library book
and I don't have it for reference) in that order. A thing
that stands out in my mind was how FORD became the symbolism
of the ever present white oppressor to me and triggered a
memory I had from the movie ET when the police officers were
all walking across the yard with key chains jangling from
their hips, another oppressive symbol--LAW ENFORCEMENT. It
was a good book, does anyone know anything about the author
other than what was on the dustjacket?
Barb Hill
=============== Reply 3 of Note 68 =================
To: BUYS59A BARBARA HILL Date: 02/19
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 8:25 AM
Barbara--
Nice to see your note. I was starting to think that
Carla, Allen and I were the only ones reading it. No, I
don't know anything more about Sanchez...maybe Theresa does.
I kept thinking that Bob and Joe Birdsong were one and
the same...again, I'm only at the part where the other
Washo have taken "Bob" from the government school...am I
wrong? Barbara
=============== Reply 4 of Note 68 =================
To: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Date: 02/20
From: BUYS59A BARBARA HILL Time: 0:31 AM
The jumping around in time made it hard to keep track of,
especially if you are trying to remember the sequence of
events later. If I can trust my memory-Bob was taken from
his sick Grandmother (G's wife) who was burned along with
her house during the time of the sickness. He was taken to a
couple who kept him in a shed for weeks, scrubbed him up and
put him to work for a time then traded him off to an old man
who gave him the name Bob. After the old man died Bob left
for Frisco to find the gorilla in the jeans ad. He later
hopped on a train and got taken farther than he wanted to go
etc. Joe is the one who as a kid saw his older sister
raped when they were taking her for her Becoming a woman
ceremony. As a young man he worked on a ranch breaking
horses, mending fences etc. He took the hunters out to hunt
the rabbits. He was the one the government tried to buy (or
steal) his house and land and he went off to find proof of
his right to the land. I hope I have that right.
Barbara Hill
=============== Reply 5 of Note 68 =================
To: BUYS59A BARBARA HILL Date: 02/20
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 9:15 AM
Barbara--
You're exactly right. I just read the rape scene last
night and realized that Hallelujah Bob was the Bob who lived
with Mr. Fixa and that the brother who was kneed in the
groin at the Becoming a Woman ceremony was Joe. Before, as
they moved back and forth in time getting closer to the
present day, I kept thinking that Joe was going to appear
before he did.
That rape scene was probably the best
illustration of what feminists say that rape is...an act of
violence, not sex...that I've seen in a long time. Our
discussion of Nat Turner has brought this concept back to
me and, then, here is this perfect illustration. I had a
hard time reading it. And their reaction afterward was
arresting. After Bob is beaten up, with enough blood in
his eyes that he can't see, his son is totally
incapacitated by being kneed and kicked and his daughter
raped by four men, he says that this has happened before
and they must go on, that they have to complete the
ceremony. And, the daughter proceeds with the race up the
mountain. When I write it here, it sounds impossible.
But, in the book, it becomes who they are.
Thought of what Steve said about us becoming a society of
victims. Bob and his family knew that they were so outside
the protection of white law that there was no choice but to
continue.
And, then, you have the answer to the mystery of why Joe
won't work with Ben Dora. But, how incredible that this
was the only method he had to respond to what was done to
his sister.
Would be interested to hear your (and anyone else's)
thoughts about this scene. Barbara
=============== Reply 6 of Note 68 =================
To: BUYS59A BARBARA HILL Date: 02/20
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 10:26 AM
Barb--
I also checked on Thomas Sanchez in Homework Helper (see
my note regarding it) and found only one reference to him
which quotes some lines from MILE ZERO, which is listed as
his most recent novel on the book jacket, but that was in
the 1980s. Barbara
=============== Reply 7 of Note 68 =================
To: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Date: 02/21
From: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Time: 1:17 AM
Sorry, folks. I gave up on RABBIT BOSS. Just couldn't slog
through it, despite its being set in an area I know and
love. My parents have a summer cabin in Blairsden and I've
been spending time there for the last 30 years. Sanchez
certainly has something to say, but his writing style is way
too turgid for me. Does anyone know if this was his first
published work?
Ruth, in wet and rainy CA
=============== Reply 8 of Note 68 =================
To: KDEX08B RUTH BAVETTA Date: 02/21
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 11:22 AM
Ruth--
In my copy of RB, it says that:
"Thomas Sanchez spent his youth in northern California,
where he began writing RABBIT BOSS, his first novel, on a
cattle ranch at the age of twenty-one. One year later, he
received a master's degree from San Francisco State
University. After publishing a second novel, Zootsuit
Murders, in the late 1970's, he was awarded a Guggenheim
Fellowship. Mile Zero, his third and latest novel, was
written during the 1980's on the island of Key West.
Sanchez presently divides his time between California and
Florida."
The one reference I found to Sanchez on Homework Helper
was a quote from MILE ZERO describing Florida. It was
published in a Floridian literary magazine and was actually
a pretty impressive quote. And doesn't ZOOTSUIT MURDERS
sound familiar?
I'm still saddled with that feeling that I
am required to finish books. In this case, I think it's
paid off because I don't think this book hits its stride
until about half-way through.
Barbara
=============== Reply 9 of Note 68 =================
To: ZGPG28A CARLA GLADSTONE Date: 02/28
From: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Time: 1:42 AM
All right, folks: I've finally made it through RABBIT
BOSS. I'm relieved to see that I'm not the only one who had
difficulties with it, though not quite the same as those
that have been mentioned here so far. The jumping back and
forth in time was a bit of a problem -- I had to look back
a few times to check on which character was which -- but in
general I was able to keep things straight and don't see
this narrative approach as a fundamental flaw.
My reactions to RB were deeply mixed; on one hand I
thought what Sanchez has to tell us about the Washo tribe -
their way of life and its destruction by the settlement of
the West by whites -- compelling and vital, but have some
basic problems with the way he goes about telling it. To
put it as plainly as possible, Sanchez' writing is no fun
to read; the effort one must expend to slog through his
pages-long, monotonous paragraphs is not repaid. The
difficulty is compounded by the fact that for the first
half of the book there is very little action; in particular
I found the minutely detailed description of the Washo
culture in the book's earliest period quite a chore to get
through, and in spite of myself skimmed over some passages
out of desperation to get through the chapter.
A couple of weeks ago Ruth characterized RB as "over-
written", a judgement with which I concur. There were many
passages wherein I detected a straining for effect, with
odd word choices or metaphors that fall flat. In the middle
of the book, Sanchez becomes quite fond of the word "slam"
and its variants, going so far at one point as to refer to
"the continuous slam of dust that rose up from the wagons
in the heat." (Dust slamming? How's that again?) And from
much later in the novel: "Over his head the light went out
of the sky everywhere and the stars danced through the
thin mountain air like drunken dogs." In my estimation
there is something about this imagery that just doesn't
connect, and add to the overall impression I had of the
English language being used as a blunt instrument.
It's a pity that the book's unreadability will dis-
courage people from finishing it, because the story Sanchez
has to tell -- and his knowledge of his subject is
obviously deep -- is one that needs to be heard. That the
establishment of American civilization brought with it the
annihilation of a millennia-old way of life is hardly a
pleasant fact to face up to, and most likely beyond any
one person's comprehension, but to turn away from it is
to shut ourselves off from a true understanding of this
nation's history. The overall plan of the novel -- to
illuminate the Indian experience as a whole -- is well
conceived and Sanchez' tremendous dedication to his
subject cannot be questioned. However, the book's
flawed execution will most likely serve to insure that
he will, by and large, preach only to the converted,
which is, given the importance of his message, most
unfortunate.
Allen
=============== Reply 10 of Note 68 =================
To: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Date: 02/28
From: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Time: 7:38 PM
Excellent points, Allen. I'm STILL about 75 pages from the
end, primarily because my life went back into overdrive
last Friday...the last half of the book has actually been
far more readable for me.
I thought one of the most important facets of this book
was how utterly unthreatening the Washo were to the whites
who settled their region. The fact is emphasized by the
excerpt from a report by the Secretary of the Interior in
1866 which proceeds the novel. It seems to underline the
tragedy of it. Barb
=============== Reply 11 of Note 68 =================
To: NCSH82B BARBARA MOORS Date: 03/01
From: VRCH78A ALLEN CROCKER Time: 5:10 PM
Barbara: Despite the many reservations I have about RB
(I've only mentioned some of them), I have to emphasize
that the book permanently changed the way I think about a
subject that I have never spent any significant amount of
time either reading or thinking about. I never learned a
thing about it in school, for one, and ironically I
attended a high shool that had been named after the chief-
tain of the long-vanished tribe that once inhabited the
area where I grew up. Your remark about how unthreatening
the Washo were to the whites reminded me of a thought that
struck me repeatedly as I read: the Indians were doomed
from the start, no matter what they did. If peacable, they
would be treated as though they hardly existed, as the
settlers fenced off, deforested and plowed up their
hunting grounds; if warlike, any resistance to the white's
encroachment would simply provide an excuse for the use of
whatever degree of violence deemed necessary to quell the
threat. The catch-22 that the Indians found themselves
trapped in is acutely pointed up by the ways in which they
were viewed by the whites: either they were "rabbit-
blooded", and thus contemptible, or else they were heathen
savages who would cut one's throat in one's sleep. The idea
that the Washo had their own culture, worthy of respect and
understanding, was a thought that the settler's mindset
was utterly incapable of accomodating.
When one re-reads the excerpt from the report to the
Commissioner of Indian Affairs after having read the novel,
it is plainly revealed as a classic case of blaming the
victim. After having their livelihoods destroyed by the
intrusion of the whites onto their lands and suffered the
effects of the abrupt introduction of alcohol (the amount
of drinking that goes on in RB is truly phenomenal) it's
small wonder that they might appear to be "indolent" or
"morally degraded." One can not read this book without
being sick at heart over these proud, self-reliant
people being reduced to scavenging from the garbage of
their conquerors to scrape out a bare existence.
If nothing else, RB does provide an example of the
power that fiction has to illuminate history; by giving
us this detailed examination of these few members of a
single small tribe, Sanchez allows us to imagine
similar tragedies being played out, across the continent
and over the centuries. Although I would hesitate to
recommend this novel to anyone not already intensely
interested in the subject it deals with, I'm glad that
I read it and since I certainly would not have done so
outside this group's framework, I'd like to thank
Theresa for bringing it to our attention. <>
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