Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name

Throughout the novel Let the Northern Lights Erase your Name by Vendela Vida, the theme of abandonment is solidly established.  Chronologically through the book, it begins when Clarissa abandons her fiancée and the life they had together in the United States.  However, throughout the timeframe of Clarissa’s life, the abandonment, as far as the reader knows, begins when Clarissa’s mother leaves her stranded in a shopping mall at the age of fourteen.  Abandonment, in general, is a very prevalent topic throughout the novel.  Not only has abandonment been the framework for Clarissa’s life, it has become her security blanket as well.

          Olivia Iverton abandoned her daughter in a shopping mall and disappeared into thin air when Clarissa was fourteen.  Unfortunately, this was not the first time that Clarissa had chosen to vanish from someone’s life.  She also abandoned her first husband, Eero Valkeapaä and their life together in Lapland when Clarissa was just a baby.  All of Olivia’s life, once Clarissa was conceived, was focused towards running away from the memory of her rape.  She couldn’t come to terms with what had happened, but couldn’t stand the idea of people pitying her for it either.  She left Eero because he was trying too hard to take care of her.  She felt as if she was being treated as a victim, so she left to get away from her shame.  Running away didn’t fix Olivia’s life.  However, she desired a new start free from people who knew about her past.  Unfortunately, this only meant that she would later abandon Clarissa, the product of the rape. 

            It’s difficult to tell whether or not Olivia’s abandonment of Clarissa led her to, in turn, abandon so many people.  Potentially, Clarissa was using her mother’s abandonment as an excuse to leave a situation in which she wasn’t happy.  However, it is also possible that Clarissa found it easy to leave her mentally challenged younger brother and Pankaj behind in America because her mother had abandoned her so long before.  Yet, it was made clear that Clarissa and Pankaj’s relationship had long since burned out.  “The stagnation in our separate and joined lives prompted Pankaj to propose…Somewhere around the twenty-fourth floor, Pankaj got down on both knees.  I thought he had fallen.” (32)  It is possible that Clarissa saw Pankaj as an expendable portion of her life, and thus easy to leave behind.  Either way, Clarissa leaves Pankaj with nothing more than an unheard whisper in his ear before she races off to Lapland. 

            Clarissa’s younger brother, afflicted with Down’s Syndrome from birth, is nothing but a minor character within this story.  However, Jeremy is far more needy than most of the characters.  It’s unknown as to whether or not he felt the loss of his mother when Olivia disappeared.  Clarissa took care of Jeremy from a young age, where Olivia did not.  Other than Clarissa’s rage-fueled telephone call to Jeremy in his home, he hears nothing from her once she is gone.  Jeremy is, unfortunately, abandoned twice within the pages of this book.  Clarissa seems completely unconcerned by the idea of leaving her mentally challenged younger brother to fend for himself in a home.  Perhaps she felt liberated from her responsibilities once she no longer had to take care of him.  From a younger age, Clarissa was saddled with the responsibility of caring for her brother.  Once she is gone, however, it is as if her brother does not exist.  Clarissa marries, has her child, and begins a new life without looking back at her brother even once.  It is as if the angry phone call was her final goodbye to him.  It will, however, remain a mystery as to what Jeremy thinks about his own abandonment throughout his life.

          Let the Northern Lights Erase your Name is littered with abandonment and loneliness, due to the decisions made by Olivia and Clarissa.  Both characters decide to leave those closest to them in favor of starting a new life full of anonymity and peace.  They are, for the most part, unconcerned for those that were left in their wake.  Both characters are only concerned with running from their dark pasts and finding a way to live in ignorance of their shame.  In the novel Clarissa, by Samuel Richardson, the main character, for whom Clarissa Iverton was named, desires only to live alone in peace.  Strangely enough, this is the life that Olivia achieves in her lonely hut up in Lapland.  It seems as if Olivia and Clarissa Iverton, so similar and regretful, want nothing more than to be ignorant and happy, no matter what the cost.

            

And now we're back on track...

            Alright, let’s get this ball rolling.  Overall, this book has been pretty intense.  I think we can pick and prod it apart as much as we want, but I feel like it’s one of those books where we still might not get the entire story.  It’s like the author has a masters in psychobabble and we’re all just throwing darts at a tiny target trying to guess the intricacies of Clarissa’s mentality.  I feel like we don’t see enough of Clarissa’s mind to know what’s really going through it.  Which is a strange thing to say, I guess.  But I get this weird, detached feeling.  As if Clarissa is shut off from even the readers of the book.  I’m pretty sure that’s not intentional by the author.  I think I’m going to chalk that one up to the author being slightly off-kilter and having a really unique writing style.  But I guess that’s why I feel like we’re never going to be able to really get Clarissa.

            Over and over, we keep saying that we don’t approve of Clarissa’s need to leave and run away at the drop of a hat.  Yet we understand it, because her mother left.  But, personally, I feel like that’s no real excuse in every matter.  It was easy for Clarissa to leave Pankaj like she did because they don’t love each other and her father was dead.  Period.  To quote the amazing book The Perks of Being a Wallflower, “Not everyone has a sob story, Charlie, and even if they do, it's no excuse.”  (By the way, if you have not read this book, you need to.  I strongly believe that everyone should read this story before they die.)  I’m a firm believer that life is what you make it.  It’s like the story of two men whose father was an alcoholic.  One man grew up to be 100% sober, having never touched alcohol in his life.  He said he never wanted to be like his father, so he abstained from drinking.  The other man grew up to be dirt poor, slobbering drunk, proclaiming that he learned to drink on his fathers knee.  Or something to that effect.  You can either let your home life define you, or you can define yourself in spite of your home life.  There comes a time when human beings hold the ability to think reasonably and make their own decisions.  When you’re 8, sure, you do whatever mommy and daddy are doing.  That’s only to be expected and, sometimes, oh so adorable.  But when you’re 28, it’s a pretty pitiful excuse to say that you’re doing something because of your parents from way back in the day.  But I’m not a psych student, so I’m not pretending to be an expert on the way people think.

            As far as this whole paper thing goes, I’m sad to say that I’m at a loss so far.  I’ve been trying to swim through my other homework and throw together an anthropology paper on the evils of binding women’s feet in China or some crap.  So I’ve only just this moment begun to wonder what the heck I’m going to do for this paper.  I think that analyzing books is something I’m pretty good at, thanks to my English teacher from high school.  So I think what I’ll probably end up doing is picking a motif from the book.  I think I’d like to get inside of Clarissa’s mothers head a little better.  She’s got a really intense story, yet she’s such a cold ice queen about everything.  So maybe I’ll pick apart her character for my paper.

             But, overall, I think I’m going to wait until after class on Tuesday to peg down my topic for sure.  Shameful, I know.  But it’s 1am right now, and I have more homework to do before Tuesday than I reasonably have time for.  

The post that got away....

This is my initial second blog.  I realize that it’s late, but I was kind of at a loss for what to write about this book at the time.  Honestly, I still feel a little blocked as far as mulling over this text and whatnot. 

            Okay, so…honesty time.  I finished the entire book before the reading was ever even assigned.  No, I’m not a dorky overachiever.  I was bored at the beginning of the semester and started reading it thinking it would be a boring book and I’d need to get a head start just to keep on task when the reading assignments were flying my way.  And I ended up finishing it.  So, I’m at that awkward point where I know most of the class hasn’t finished it, so I can’t write spoilers.  Yet, the book as a whole changes any way of analyzing just pieces.  It’s like having to just analyze Mona Lisa’s smile by itself, without taking the eyes and the rest of the painting into consideration.

            And I babble on.  So what I’m going to do now, to make up for this overdue entry, is attempt to piece together an opinion without telling the end of the story.  At the beginning of the book, I feel like I was right with the average reader.  I was scorning Clarissa for all her choices and hoping beyond hope that she would see the error of her ways and return to the arms of Pankaj.  Or something to that effect.  But, as the book goes on, I find that I really don’t want her to go back.  Being in a dead relationship like that for no real reason is pretty bad.  I feel like neither one of them are in love anymore, and they’re only together because, well, why not?  So, as things progress, I’m rooting for Clarissa to find her father, figure herself out, and start a new life somewhere in Lapland. 

            I think I have decided, however, that Clarissa’s mother is kind of a cold, icy character, and it’s pretty befitting of her to end up in Lapland working for an Ice Hotel.  She’s one of those women who tend to draw a crowd of followers who love her, yet fear her judgment.  In a “Mean Girls” sort of style, really.  I hate people like that.  The idea of wanting so bad to make someone love you, or even just look your way for a second is a very depressing concept.  Love from a mother is, in all of its idealism, supposed to be unconditional.  Poor Clarissa gets left in a shopping mall because she took too long.

            Overall, this book has some pretty intense character development routes.  I like it, and I can’t wait for the class to finish the thing so I don’t have to watch what I say in class anymore.