This is a fascinating story, because there's obviously a hidden narrative that the reader is supposed to play along with: rich, sophisticated asshole of a grad student takes advantage of a terribly young girl. Heartache ensues. One child suffers alcoholism. A ton of emoting going on.
As I take this apart, however, I'm at a loss to where the story is. Is it wrong to study other cultures? No. Is it wrong to take a wife of 13? Perhaps in the western world, but not there, so I gotta go with "no" on that one. Should the kids have stayed in the Amazon? Once again, I think both parents made the safest choice for the children in the long term. I also think it's great the writer is getting re-connected with his mom.
If anything, I'm disturbed by the idea that the mother is just another cookie-cutter ignorant primitive. I see no indication that she was forced into a marriage. It appears she wanted things to happen as they did. She decided to move to the states and she decided to move back. In fact, the father's explanation that it was a divorce looks to me like a clearcut explanation of what happened. Older man marries younger woman, kids arrive, much heartache, story ends with grown man finding his mother. It's a great story, no doubt, but not a very unusual one. I'm not sure what the "Isolated Amazon Tribe" brings to the table that isn't already there. Just a gimmick to attract more readers?
I hope this guy continues reconnecting with his mother's side of the family. As he says, his story is just beginning. I bet it's going to be an interesting one. It's the interaction of cultures that's the interesting thing here, not the all-too-common tragedy of marriages gone bad.
As someone else pointed out elsewhere in the thread, Yanomame do not travel to work and leave the wife. The man took two very different cultures and combined actions that are common in each but not the other. The combination was explosive.
Comments
This is a fascinating story, because there's obviously a hidden narrative that the reader is supposed to play along with: rich, sophisticated asshole of a grad student takes advantage of a terribly young girl. Heartache ensues. One child suffers alcoholism. A ton of emoting going on.
As I take this apart, however, I'm at a loss to where the story is. Is it wrong to study other cultures? No. Is it wrong to take a wife of 13? Perhaps in the western world, but not there, so I gotta go with "no" on that one. Should the kids have stayed in the Amazon? Once again, I think both parents made the safest choice for the children in the long term. I also think it's great the writer is getting re-connected with his mom.
If anything, I'm disturbed by the idea that the mother is just another cookie-cutter ignorant primitive. I see no indication that she was forced into a marriage. It appears she wanted things to happen as they did. She decided to move to the states and she decided to move back. In fact, the father's explanation that it was a divorce looks to me like a clearcut explanation of what happened. Older man marries younger woman, kids arrive, much heartache, story ends with grown man finding his mother. It's a great story, no doubt, but not a very unusual one. I'm not sure what the "Isolated Amazon Tribe" brings to the table that isn't already there. Just a gimmick to attract more readers?
I hope this guy continues reconnecting with his mother's side of the family. As he says, his story is just beginning. I bet it's going to be an interesting one. It's the interaction of cultures that's the interesting thing here, not the all-too-common tragedy of marriages gone bad.
As someone else pointed out elsewhere in the thread, Yanomame do not travel to work and leave the wife. The man took two very different cultures and combined actions that are common in each but not the other. The combination was explosive.