The Dead Father: Half way to the yellow stuff

The title does fit the chapters, I swear.

I am just past the half way mark of The Dead Father and I cannot wait to be able to read this book again. I see something of great value in it, but am just not quite there yet. It is an adventure in itself as the reader is thrown into a world that doesn't quite make sense and is forced to figure it out. Everytime I understand a societal relationship a little better I have a bit of pride in my accomplishment.

What, might you ask, is The Dead Father? No, you'd never ask this question because you would assume, as did a fellow co-worker today, that the book is about a father who is dead. This is half correct. The Dead Father is one of the main characters, and he is a jerk. He is a part-man, part-machine being that changes size. Sometimes he is giant and goes on killing sprees. Sometimes he is more manageable and simple demands impossible things from his "children". I assume they are his children as the Dead Father seems to create much. My favorite creation is the deity Libet, as explained in an earlier post.

There is something attractive about the usual simplicity of the language. The confusion comes from the language as well though, as there are assumptions that the reader knows things that the reader cannot. The book is "highly symbolic", but I am not quick to infer what the symbols represent. The Dead Father seems to be the dead father figure of the 1950s. The one that takes the credit for creation, and passes the blame on the rearing. The book was written in 1974, so I'm not sure how much that image of the father had disappeared. In that sense the Dead Father, being still alive, would seem more closely to represent an image that needed to be dead.

The side characters are also interesting though ambiguous. Emma, Thomas and Julie are the main ones, but there are more characters with equally usual names, and differentiation can be difficult. This is the type of book that I should be taking reading notes on; I am trying to convince myself that I'm doing it for fun though, so I refuse.

Juxtaposed to Kate's most recent Marquez read, this book has much happening, but with less plot. Each chapter is an episode in dragging the Dead Father to a land, whose name escapes me, so that he can recharge.

80 pages to go and I can't wait to read it again.