Anna Boyer
Cooper
CRWR212
May 6, 2014
Analysis: The Book of Jon
Eleni Sikelianos’ memoir, The
Book of Jon, recalls memories of her father, Jon, who is ultimately a
tragic figure that the reader grows to know and appreciate throughout these
tales of a chaotic family. In her foreword, the author states that this work is
part of a longer family history that is an illustration of the human experience
as a whole. The idea of a family story told through multiple generations is a compelling
one and Sikelianos’ work has many themes to represent the microcosm of the
human experience that is her family as a whole. One of the key themes of this
intimate family portrait is the dissolution of one’s quality of life as
permitted by the self. Another is the imagery of the desert, both in nature and
in life. This tale of the multiple layers of the author’s family and of the
fall of her father creates a great deal of empathy for those involved and a
world that is both dream and nightmare.
The central father figure of Jon
falls into a pattern of self-destruction that ends in his death inside of a
motel room. Naturally, these behavior patterns have a strong effect on the rest
of the family, given the nature of Jon’s addiction and the subsequent consequences.
The factor that is the most intriguing about the disintegration of this man’s
quality of life is that the suffering is largely self-inflicted. That being
said, Jon suffers from a drug addiction, which is a mental illness that
ultimately takes over his life. One section of the book that is especially
powerful in terms of speaking to this tragically frustrating part of his
personality is entitled “What Was in His Pockets”. This critically important
part goes on for seven pages and includes a photograph of all of the items
contained in Jon’s pockets at the time of his death, and also goes into the
medications which he had been prescribed. The doctor who performed the autopsy
described multiple possibilities for the cause of death. Sikelianos describes
some of the medications and their uses: “He had in his possession Xanax and
clozapine (indicated for the management of “severely ill” schizophrenic,
bipolar, depression and dementia patients “who fail to respond adequately to
standard antipsychotic drug treatment”)”. (Sikelianos 102) What follows these
medical treatments and their intended uses is the author’s reflections on where
her father could have possibly gone following his death. She proposes that
people are only shadows of their full selves while living on Earth and that the
mind can barely comprehend the space that the dead occupy, free from the harm
they experienced on Earth. In the transcription of the obituary that appeared
in The Albuquerque Tribune, the reader gets a vivid picture of the nature of
this man that harmed himself throughout his life of wild adventure and
crippling darkness. (Sikelianos 109) It is true that Jon’s suffering was
largely self-inflicted, but Eleni Sikelianos gives us a picture of a man who
was eventually defeated by the same elements that made him a gifted creative
soul.
During his life, Jon experienced the
desert, both within nature and within his own mind. The author explains that he
lived in several different places, including California and Albuquerque, trying
to find the right place for his bohemian sensibilities. He eventually lands a
job at the zoo, developing a connection with the animals, especially the bears.
However, the desert is unforgiving physically and emotionally in the literal
sense. It is hot and dry and offers little in the way of sustenance for those
who were not designed to survive such extreme conditions. Jon’s life became
like a desert as he slipped deeper and deeper into his addiction and closer to
deadly consequences, since no living thing is designed to survive when the body
reacts to an overdose. Jon did not belong in the desert due to his ancestral
predisposition: “He might have simply sighed and stopped breathing. He might
have been, after twenty-eight years of intermittent drug use and alcoholism,
very tired.” (Sikelianos 103) Jon had an artistic predisposition that could
very well not be satisfied by the dry, flat desert; he instead created an
emotional desert for himself that could only be quenched by destructive forces.
This is not to say that Jon was a bad person in the author’s eyes. Indeed, he
was a troubled man that needed to escape to an environment in which he felt
some form of control.
Eleni Sikelianos’ work can be
classified as poetic prose and she uses several poetic devices to tell her
father’s story. One of the most obvious devices is that of conflict. Jon is in
the midst of a struggle within himself and with members of his family, both of
which are equally harmful in the end. She also uses figurative language in this
story to describe scenes. For example, in the section titled “Book of the
Dead”, she describes the morning of her father’s death: “This morning, the cat
interpreted my father’s death for me. The whole theatre was running through
her; she was like a TV, but you couldn’t see the show…” (Sikelianos 87) Even
though Jon is gone, it is difficult to imagine him not existing in life. A
third device Sikelianos uses is that of the flashback, which gives the reader
an idea of the family’s experiences with Jon and how everyone’s lives were
impacted by his behavior that was frequently driven by addiction. Imagery is
also a very powerful device used in this work, describing abstract landscapes
and experiences on the journey with Jon. Sikelianos’ style is quite unique in
that she switches between prose and free-form poetry. These two structures lend
a different mood to each section, moving from straight storytelling to an
abstract reflection on a mental state. One of the most important elements to
the whole piece is the author’s tone. Since she is writing about her father,
the tone is obviously quite sentimental, but there is also a frustrated
undertone, indicating that the author is angry with her father about the
choices he made that impacted those around him.
Works Cited
Sikelianos,
Eleni. The Book of Jon. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2004.
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