Finally...

I would have updated my blog earlier but my internet was giving me a hard time, so here it is.

I must admit, I'm didn't do as much reading for the research as I wanted to but I did read other books. (This might be irrelevant, but...). One of which was Abarat, by Clive Barker and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Abarat and Baba are similar since the authors always include an illustration in the beginning of the chapter. In reading Abarat, I discover aspects about Baba that I didn't notice before, or I did but didn't pay much attention to it.

I got frustrated before because I thought the book was one continuous story (I read too many fiction). What Yang is actually doing is telling one story per chapter. Yay, problem solved, I'm actually enjoying the book now.



As for what techniques Yang uses, well, that's an easy answer. Tons and tons of figurative language. She takes detours instead of the straight road. For an example, she doesn't say:

He is sixty-year-old.

In Yang's language, it's:

"Old Guo, who had weathered over sixty winters, could not weather the betrayal of his son."

What I also noticed is that she chooses words that go with what is going on in the scene. In this case, "weather."

Another example:
"When the bottles [bombs] landed in their pigsties and flung their animals to swine heaven, knowledge exploded upon them."

"exploded" goes with the bombs.

Yang uses words that are related with each other in different context constantly throughout the book.

Yang also establishes a mellow tone that create a bed-time-story-telling voice. Even when the scene is morbid (a wolf killed a child), she makes it seem...unmorbid.


Anyways, Happy New Year (even though it's a little late)!