Kate Simon’s Bronx
Primitive follows the story of Simon’s immigration to the United States
from Warsaw, Poland and her adjustment to New York City. She first brings the
reader into her memoir with her descriptions of her brother and how she felt
about him. She talks about her jealously she has towards him saying, “I was
jealous, felt abandoned, unloved, coldly shadowed while the full warm light
that was mine now circled him” (40). This is just one of the examples of her
great ability to introduce and describe the characters in her story. Her
description of the slight man in brown is very well done as well. She adds some
reflection from her current self by stating, “I searched for him for many years
later”(42) after revealing that she had an adolescent crush on him. Her
creation of these characters is very visual, emotional, and triggers senses
that are not normally triggered through reading, such as the tasting of a
Hershey’s chocolate bar after her description of seeing her father for the
first time in New York City.
Simon’s scene creation is also very done. The first time
Simon really digs into scene creation is her retelling of the ship, the
Susquehanna, as almost like a dream. While the descriptions of the ship are not
extremely visual the whole point of the scene is her showing the reader that
her journey to America was a very long one. This was probably the stronger of
the scene descriptions for me strictly on the merit that because most people
forget what they dream about after they wake up, it shows the reader how long
of a trip the journey to America was. However, when she describes actual scenes
she creates a very visually fulfilling atmosphere. The one line that speaks for
her overall description of America is, “Instead of a city of silver rivers and
golden bridges, America turned out to be a Uncle David’s flat on Avenue C in
which my father had first lived when he came to America”(43). She later goes on to talk about how her
vision of America was not what she had envisioned while in Warsaw. She hoped
for it to be full of sacks of candy and cookies, but instead, “…was a stern man
whose duty it was to cure us of being the cosseted spoiled little beasts our
mother and her idiot sisters had allowed to flourish”(47).
The overall plot structure is very straightforward in terms
of the events that she has gone through.
However, while these events can be said to be almost normal situations
one must go through while immigrating to a new country, it’s what Simon
discusses and reflects upon while discussing these events that really bring her
memoir to life. An example of this is when she arrives at Ellis Island. She is
given a new English name of Caroline. She describes this new name as a
“barbed-wire fence that divided me from myself throughout my school years”(43).
She does this to show what exactly she was feeling at the time. This adds a
great deal of significance to the memoir because it’s not just a story of how
she got her “school name” but it’s how she felt about it and how she hated it
so much. Another example is the ending of the memoir in which her father more
or less “taught them a lesson” about not walking down the street without him or
their mother. She talks about making a “Domesday Book” of her father’s deeds,
how he feared it, and how with that fear Simon, “…which I battened, the tears
could not make me shed freezing as an icy wall between us”(48). Using this type
of writing style adds a much larger dynamic to the story telling of the memoir.
It’s no longer just the retelling of the events, but there’s a great deal of
reflection and personal dialogue going on with Simon’s writing which makes the
piece stand out.
Kate Simon (born Kaila Grobsmith, by the way) uses all the traditional trappings of the immigrant story in her first memoir: she's got the labor-intensive escape from the destitute nation, the disillusionment present when America isn't all petals of pretty flowers, and the emulsion of small bits o' the Old Country in the new. Moments of reflection are rare, eschewed for a curio presentation of immigranthood in the second decade of the 1900s. It's a shame we didn't read this before Russell Baker's; it would've made a good lead-in. Simon rarely uses dialogue to characterize her relatives, her descriptions and monologue-ic interactions are enough.
ReplyDeleteThe pressure of the historical setting and his use of the written correspondence between Oluf and his mother causes Baker's piece to feel, uh, "societally documentarian," while Simon's has the perspective of a back-looker, one who has survived the Great Depression. It is generally more MEMOIR than the other, a definition reached by a more artful composition, usage of scene over prose (although scene *is* prose). I would "pro-prose," ahem, I mean "propose," that this is one of many perfect examples of memoir. It isn't experimental, it explores her past searchingly, and it holds setting and linear progression over the tangential stream of thought that flows while writing in the present.
I really enjoyed the story. I think that Simon’s has a great style, it’s the kind of style that I wish I could emulate. She has an interesting way of describing things and it really brings the reader into her world and her mind. I like that Simon uses the past tense in this story and that she doesn’t describe it as if it just happened. Simon looks at her memoir with the wisdom of years past and I find that it works well with her reflection.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting how Simon viewed America. At one point she says that she and her brother will never get to America, the America that was bags of candy and her dad’s mouth tasting like chocolate. It’s her childish perspective on what it means to be in America.
Another thing that struck me was her relationship with her brother. In the beginning, when she was young, she viewed him as competition, and didn’t understand why she wasn’t getting any attention anymore. As they grow up, she steps into the mother and protector role. She views him less as competition and more as her child/protectee.
All I thought about when reading the first couple pages of this memoir is we are a lot more fortuante than we may think. Simon's relationship, as a child, with her crippled brother is really mind blowing stuff. She says, "It was a short childhood. I had my first baby at not quite four, better trained in maternal wariness and responsibility than many fully grown women I later observed," (41). And even before this part when Simon's mother was taking her son to the doctors and they all said he needed a better diet, only problem is the army is taking all the food and Poland is pretty much deserted of goods. Simon describes the harsh words from the doctor to her mother, "Leave the boy, he's going to die anyway. Take the girl to America while there's still time. Or do you want to sit with two dead children in this graveyard city," (41). The advice may have been harsh but it also may have saved their lives.
ReplyDeleteThe jobs she had to do as a 3 year old child for her brother are something that no three year old should be doing. Washing him, cleaning him, carrying him to bed, etc, it amazed me the type of childhood that Simon had.
I think what struck me most about this memoir was the details that she remembered at such a young age. We talk a lot in class about remembering vs. realistic fictionalization, and I think what she does in the beginning of this memoir shows an interesting way to get around this sticky situation. Comparing her memories from being so young to a dreamlike state the way she does in the boat scene just struck me as so accurate. Also, I think by being transparent with her readers about this pseudo-memory allows her to create the scene and reflection in a way that reflects her incredible talent for writing; at the same time, she removes any skepticism that her audience may have that her story isn't perfectly true to life.
ReplyDeleteAlong the same lines, I think she does an incredible job placing us within her child's mind. I felt as if I was making these discoveries about America right alongside her. I think my favorite example of this is when she writes about her brother as a baby, saying "I might in time have grown interested in him, beginning with the gallant way he peed upward in a little shining arch, out of a finger in a peculiar place" (40). While this description is in no way necessary for her story, it helps put the reader into the mindset of her child self.
I honestly think this is my favorite memoir that we have read so far. I can definitely see why the introduction says, "It was as a memoirist that she showed the fullness of her literary gift." Simon is able to put the reader not only into her scenes but also into her head at the time. She writes from the point of view of her child-self very well, as Kelsey also mentioned. (Kelsey's example was also my favorite example--Simon's remembering how she thought of the peculiar way her baby brother peed.) Another example was when she was reassuring her brother: "We'll soon be on another choo-choo train and then the big, big ship that will take us to our father in America" (41).
ReplyDeleteI also really enjoy her snippets of reflection intertwined with the narrative, in the middle of her scene. She describes a scene where she felt scared because they had become lost, and then suddenly she interjects with reflection: "By the time...my mother burst out of a doorway to run to us, I had become, in some corner of my being, an old woman" (48). Throughout this piece, she indicates how she had to quickly grow up and did not have much of a childhood because of her brother. As I read, I felt as though these reflections fit seamlessly into the overall story she was telling.
What I liked about the excerpt from Bronx Primitive by Kate Simon was how she described her Uncle David and her cousins, Rachel and Yentel. The reader gets a strong mental picture of who her relatives were through her descriptions. I also liked how she uses personification to describe America. She writes, “America as stern man whose duty it was to cure us of being the cosseted spoiled little beasts our mothers and her idiot sisters had allowed to flourish.” Though she lived a rough life in Poland, she doesn't view America as that much of a step up. She had big expectations that America was going to be full of dolls and candy bars and “silver rivers and golden bridges.” Buts she's let down. I also thought that Simon's relationship with her sickly yet intelligent younger brother was interesting. At the age of four, she has to look after and take care of him. Thus, she refers to her childhood as a “short” one. She also writes that she essentially had her first child (her brother) at “not quite four.” She does a good job at describing how frustrating it is taking care of a young child at such a young age; She has to grow up fast and learn responsibility. Through taking care of her brother and living under the circumstances she's living under, she's forced to mature must faster than other kids her age.
ReplyDeleteCompared to the other memoirs we have been reading lately, Kate Simons excerpt from Bronx Primitive almost gave off an energy and tone of being a "standard memoir." Well-written, well-executed, interesting, and engaging, it was written a way that felt similar to Wolff. It tells a direct story, the author's journey from Poland to America, through her earlier years living in America. In between these scenes of her life, from her brother being born and lacking the basic neccessities for survival to getting lost on the streets of New York, she cuts in with insights and reflection from who she is now. As much as I appreciate the conservative style, her piece is very well written, it felt very formal to me compared to everything else we have been reading lately, and I couldn't get past that to feel the emotions of her "character" in the moment.
ReplyDeleteKate Simon’s Bronx Primitive seems to be a great example of the quintessential memoir. It has a life changing event, characters, solid and descriptive words (“she looked like a mechanical woman, a machine with flashy glassy circles for eyes” (44)), and reflection throughout. When I finished the memoir, I flashbacked to when I was younger and went to Ellis Island, looking at the lists of names and images of the new Americans.
ReplyDeleteWhat was intriguing about the piece to me, is the fact of the bravery Simon and her family had to go through to get to where they are. It’s certainly admirable and isn’t completely about her, but incorporates her brother, a brother that wasn’t sure if he would live, a suspense throughout the piece, someone to cheer for, and a sense of worry. Obviously, her taking care of a brother like she said, “There was no mother, no father…” and “the sickness of betrayal” (47), were heartbreaking sentences to read. However, this instance gave a deep reflection to the piece alongside with a feeling of the younger Simon taking fulfilling all of the shoes she had to fill.
I think this was a simple piece overall, but it certainly holds an amazing amount of not only personal reflection, someone’s difficult life, but also history. Incorporating coming to America doesn’t relate directly to us, but rather immigrant readers, which I think is an interesting way to come across to her readers. Overall, I think the piece was a simple, straightforward, and typical memoir, but brought a magic to it.
I enjoyed the style and language of Kate Simon’s memoir. She seems to follow the type of memoir style we have been working on; setting up the scene, showing action and then reflecting, interjecting her own emotions into her memoir. I found it very interesting when she is discussing when she is only four years old how much he remembers and how she also interjects what she knows now.
ReplyDelete“I knew where he might bump his head, where he might topple, how to divert him when he began to blubber. It was a short childhood. I had my first baby at not quite four, better trained in maternal wariness and responsibility than many full grown women I later observed. At four I also knew one could intensely love and as intensely hate the being of who was both core and pit of one’s life.” This short excerpt shows examples of what she remembers from the time but also shows what she knows now that she did not know when it was actually occurring. At the age of four I find it hard to believe that she understood “intense love” but she may have realized that once she reflected on her life. The same idea applies with her statement about having a short childhood, Simon probably realized when she was four that she had many responsibilities but probably didn’t understand that her childhood was cut short. These are just a few things she could only find through reflection and she interjects them to show her emotions and feelings.