Lemons Are Not the Only Fruit

Personal Reflections Finally, we've reached the last chapter (and, I believe, the longest). There's a lot to talk about here, but with Jeanette's journey finally over I think this is a good place to talk about my thoughts and feelings regarding the novel as a whole. I did like it a lot and found it to be very interesting, but I'm not sure if the structure (with all of the digressions, meandering through time and memory, and alternating between reality and imagination) worked very well for me. I like all of these things in theory and I think the concept of blurring these lines is super fascinating, but in practice it was difficult for me to follow along with everything that was happening and to parse the deeper meaning of many sections, especially the fairy tale digressions (which there were a lot of in this chapter). Like, what/who does Winnet represent? I do think ultimately it's meant to represent something within Jeanette's psyche (which I will do my best to ...

Personal Reflections This chapter was an interesting (and shorter) one, coming off of the previous one, and the whiplash of Jeanette getting to return to her youth ministry role even though she was found out to be gay (because the church decided it must have been the fault of demons, actually, and forced a confession out of her) was a lot to take in. But I think it makes sense in terms of the story and setting, so I'm on board with that. I liked seeing how the story shows that even though Jeanette has gone back into the religious fold externally at the start of the chapter, she no longer really believes what they are preaching and is just doing what she needs to do to maintain her social position in the community, since she (correctly) assumes that staying in the closet will be necessary if she wants to continue living with her mother. And of course, she isn't able to stay in the closet for very long before she and Katy are found out and she is back in trouble again. The way th...

Personal Reflections In this chapter, the narrator confesses her feelings for Melanie and both girls are suddenly, dramatically, and very publicly punished by the church for their "unnatural passions." This is the longest chapter in the story so far, and a lot happens, so I will try to go over the parts that are relevant to my interests as best as I can. Also, while Jeanette and Melanie are separated, there is an interesting scene where Jeanette visits Miss Jewsbury for a while, and the older woman comforts her and offers her support. It appears that she is also a lesbian, but has kept it a secret in order to protect herself from facing the punishment of the church in the way that girls are currently. Then the two of them share a moment of intimacy together, which Jeanette seems to want (since she misses being touched and held in this way, the way that Melanie held her), but she describes it by saying, "We made love and I hated it and I hated it, but would not stop....

Personal Reflections This is a shorter chapter with a distinct difference in tone and content, asking big-picture questions about the nature of history (and storytelling in general) rather than following the arc of the narrator's coming-of-age as we have so far in the novel. Since we're reaching the end of the "Torah" (or Pentateuch) selection of chapters based on their Biblical names, I believe this is representing a transition of sorts into the next stages of the story, mirroring the passage of Israel's leadership within the Bible from Moses to his second-in-command Joshua (whose name also graces the next chapter in this book). Something tells me that Jeanette's meeting of Melanie in the previous chapter will have something to do with it. But for now, let's go over what is  in this particular chapter. It's not much, but the different tone gives it a greater sense of dramatic weight, even if the import of the words on the larger narrative is unclear s...

Personal Reflections This is the chapter where the theme of (homo)sexuality starts to become unavoidable, culminating in Jeanette's budding friendship (or perhaps something more than just friendship?) with Melanie. As noted before, the passage of time in this novel is not exactly clear, but it seems by this point that Jeanette has entered her teens (or at least attained the age of 12 or so). Certainly she has become more focused on topics pressing to adolescence, including her concerns about how so many women seem to have married "beasts" disguised as men. She is concerned about the disconnect between what she was told growing up and what she is observing now that she is becoming more aware of the adult world. One particular incident ties into one of her first recognitions (after the discovery that she was adopted and being denied the opportunity to meet her birth mother) of the ways in which her mother has lied to her. One of her mother's favorite books, which she re...

Personal Reflections Things start to pick up a bit more in this chapter, although the pacing is a bit confusing to me. I confess I found the fairy tale digressions (which become more prominent in this chapter; I barely mentioned them in the previous two because they were such small parts of the story up to that point) to be more engaging and interesting than the main story. The style of writing for Jeanette's story is so detached and loose in it's treatment of time that it's difficult to know what to focus on or where dramatic weight should be placed, which makes it a bit difficult to get invested. Small and innocuous details are interspersed with revealing, and often frankly horrifying revelations about the awful things that are said or done to the main character even though she is still a child. It's unclear how old she is at this point in the story though; the passage of time is unclear, so I can't really tell if she's still meant to be 7 or 8 years old (just...

Personal Reflections Here the narrator finally goes to school and we see how she gets along with other kids her age. Or rather, how she does not get along with them very well and they find her to be weird due to her unconventional Pentecostal religious background. Even the teachers seem confused and somewhat disturbed by the subject of her creative work in class even though she displays great artistic talent and intelligence. We see in these experiences an aspect of growing up in culty religious groups that is not often noted: people from outside of the community don't understand you and (quite reasonably) don't want to get involved in fundamentalist culture or teachings, which further isolates you from the world at large. I felt bad reading about how the other kids treated Jeanette like a weirdo and a freak because of her strange religious proclivities, but I have to say that I felt somewhat conflicted by this chapter. While my parents were Christian and foisted some aspects o...