When thinking of how I wanted to start this blog post, I thought back to the free writes we did in class, because I had many questions about the concept of Cereus Blooms at Night. The first thing I would like to draw attention to is Tyler’s notes on pages 3 and 105. I liked their structure within the book, and how they almost set up the concepts of Part I and Part II. However, the most obvious aspect of these is the fact that their premise feels false. For a letter that is supposed to be for Asha, Tyler uses “I” a lot (Mootoo 3). The whole concept of these starting letters is Tyler saying he is not going to talk about himself. Yet, 4/6 lines are about himself or talking about himself and his efforts, and 2/6 of the lines reference Asha. The word “myself” is used five times in three lines (Mootoo 3). Similarly, the second starting letter Tyler talks about himself and his efforts 4/5 lines, and Asha once.
My version of close reading in this sense is more about structure and repetition. At first, these annoyed me, because it is very contradictory, and the concept of this book is that it is a letter to Asha Ramchandin about her sister (if that is the case, why is he relaying to her a lot of her own childhood trauma? Perhaps a question for a different blog post). Yet, I feel a lot of it is about Otoh and then a good amount is about Tyler. So, I stress that AT FIRST this annoyed me. Because, of course, I had some revelations.
We can never separate ourselves from what we are writing, especially for those of us who are queer. When I look at my own writings, whether they be fictional or not, my own biases but also my own experiences are reflected. I do not think we should separate ourselves from our writing. The use of first person, in Tyler’s case, is a direct insertion of ourselves. Frankly, we need to. Without knowing the history or biases of a writer, we cannot fully appreciate the work or analyze it correctly.
Personally, I believe writing, in and of itself, is a version of queer space. Typically, when thinking of that concept, I envision a physical space, but I think mental space is also important. Books are a view into a different world, and we all interpret them differently. They can be safe spaces as well. As a writer, I feel safest within my own writing because I can freely express myself and who I am. Growing up, I did not read a book that represented my sapphic identity until I was in high school, and I had to seek it out myself. But upon opening that book, I felt seen. I felt that similarly when I started writing as well. So, perhaps inserting ourselves is not as self-centered as it may seem. But, rather, and integral part of our own identities and cultivating a space to freely be ourselves.
I (here I go––already proving your thesis) love this observation. I didn’t notice how often Tyler referenced himself in these letters, partly because they (purportedly) are not about him. When we are talking about other people, when we are telling their stories––as Tyler is telling Mala and Asha’s story––we are also talking about ourselves, we are telling our story inadvertently. Words are referential. Language cannot exist without the “I,” the speaker, the storyteller, as it cannot exist without the “you,” the listener, the story. Language is a relationship, and as often as I wish I could disappear and love language despite myself, I can’t. I think your relationship with writing, your vision of it as a “queer space” is an example of this, too. Writing is safe, it is comforting. The page, or the blog comment, is a refuge. But even these safe spaces, these places where the “I” can exist un-self-consciously, still imply another, an Other, a reader. We can never eliminate the “I,” but, more specifically, we can never eliminate the “I” in reference to the You.
I’m really glad that you talked about this! This contradiction wasn’t something that I thought about much, but it was still at the back of my mind. It was something I flagged but didn’t really think to deeply on. Even though Tyler is supposedly writing this whole book as a letter to Asha, his repeated inclusion and talk about Otoh derail the book from that purpose and prove him to be a rather unreliable narrator. I think the point you touch on about how Tyler’s first-person inclusion is incredibly necessary is super important. In fact, that point harps back to what Tyler writes in the first letter – “Forgive the lapses, for there are some, and read them with the understanding that to have erased them would have been to do the same to myself” (Mootoo 3). To have written this book entirely omnisciently, Tyler would have effectively been erasing his own story and the parts that he played in the narrative.
I love this. I never thought about the way that Tyler included bits of himself in this piece, but it does to me make sense. It is true that we are never truly separated from the things we write. I, however, also believe that it isn’t necessary for the story since it is not necessary for this supposed book for Asha. However, I think he wanted to put himself out in the world as well, after all he is assuming multiple people would read this before it reached Asha. Therefore, I really enjoyed reading this because it opened my eyes to something new.