The American lecturer and the author of the book –holy land: A
Suburban Memoir, D. J. Waldie, was born in 1948. The Story in holy land revolves
around the city of Lakewood in California. Lakewood was recognized as a city in
1954. The Author explains how the city was built and which companies were
involved in its development. The book consists of 316 short sections. Some of
the sections are not longer than a few words structured on a sentence. Each
section describes an event at a certain time regardless of the focus point of
the previous and the past sections. Starting reading the text does not give us
a clear and strong understanding of the context of the book, however, reading
the book through make the readers to find more connections between each
entrees. A few pictures in the book further explain the life and timeline of
the Lakewood in 1950’s. Pictures also follow the same pattern as the other
entrees; no direct connection between the nearby paragraphs.
The story has been told often in first person and sometimes in
third person. The author tried to minimize his distance from the society he
writes the book for when he starts the introduction by writing: “I live where a
majority of Americans live: a tract house on a block of other tract houses in a
neighborhood of even more” (V). The place which the author lives in was bought
by his parents in 1946. The author often talks about grids. The grids are the
urban designing patterns used to determine the blocks limits in a new city.
Waldie thinks the grids as a start for a new life in a new field. “The grid is
the plan above the earth. It is a compass of possibilities” (4).
The author often talks about the people were involved in the
construction, architects, as well as real estate agents. He also describes his
neighbors in different years of his life in the Lakewood.
The text is almost empty of direct expression of the emotions. It
is a documentary of the historical and social development of a new born city.
However in some parts we can understand the emotion behind the documentary. For
instance, he talks about his family without expressing how he feels about them.
“Both my parents died before they were
seventy, as did my mother’s sister and my uncles Jack, Frank, and Ken. I am
forty-six. Given odds, I am two-thirds through my life” (115).
Waldie also describes the religious views of himself and also another
people he talks about in his book and doing so along with talking about death
of the people in a regular order, he applies a religious theme to the story.
It is undeniable that holy land is unlike any other memoir. It is written differently and at the first
glance, it could be the most confusing memoir the reader has ever read.
However, it looks like a wall with random colored bricks. Although each brick
is visually different, they still part of a wall and this is the connection
between them.
Work Cited
Waldie, D. J.
“holy land.” A Suburban Memoir. 11. Ed
New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2005. Print.
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