Book of Jon

Lexie Johnson

Cooper

CRWR 212

6 May 2014

Book of Jon

​Eleni Sikelianos does a wonderful job with capturing the essence of her feeling about her father, Jon. She takes the reader on this nice metaphoric ride with her use of diction. The Book of Jon must have been something very emotional for the author to write. This piece of work has been different from the other pieces we have read in class because of its content. The Book of Jon makes the reader come more in contact with their feelings for their own guardians. Sikelianos found a  way to let the reader  know that what she is writing is very important to her because of the form and writing style of this novel.

​The book of Jon is a novel that is from first person point of view, telling about how the author felt, remembered and wanted to happen in her life. She did not have an easy life and the father figure was very much absent in her life. Though her father was absent in her life the narrator still talks about how she loved her father and just wanted him to be there for her and to stop doing drugs. Sikelianos uses different forms to get this point across  to the readers. Her style mixes between prose and poetry that has stanzas. Reading this novel was like reading a piece of her journal. This seemed to be really personal thoughts of hers which gave it a more journal feel to it.

​The narrator had this conflict of love and hate for her father. It was like she hated him for being on drugs and not knowing any better but she loved him because he did not know any better and she constantly  flashback to memories that she could recall was both happy and sad. It seemed as if in one point of time the author was very proud of her father and she was proud of her family's background. The author then goes through this point where she was disgusted because of her father and that she didn't want to have anything to do with him. She always overcame her struggles of hating her father with love because deep down the author knew that Jon was like a child and he never grew up. He never grew out of his state of doing drugs.

​Though the author never really did much to help her father after she realized his issues, she still never turned her back on him. She would still call to check up on him and see if he was alive. Whenever he father wanted to see her, the author would still see her father. In psychology I learned that some people have this certain need and feelings of self worth. This seems as if the author wanted her father to stop doing drugs and develop a new lifestyle which is healthier for her. It seemed as she wanted him to stop for her because she never turned her back on him. Though he caused her a lot of emotional trauma, the author still seemed as if her life was together and the fact that her father did drugs, was absent in her life and then died did not seem to have effect her that much. She still became successful and didn't fall down to his downfalls in life.

​The death of her father was a bittersweet moment for the author. It didn't really seem to have effected her that much because deep down Jon was never there for her and he was a major contribution to her life. I think that the narrator regrets never having the opportunity to actually have a father in her life so that they can do father/daughter things. His death was ore like something that was expected to happen in her life. she did morn over it because Jon was finally a finished chapter in her life and though his death was painful, it was better for him to be dead than alive because while he was alive he was killing himself anyway.