On The Subject of "Little Failure"

  Gary S., in my opinion, brings upon an interesting set of ideas within his memoir "Little Failure". His conflicted self image and inability to cope with the circumstances of his past set a particularly intriguing tone to his novel. A vast majority of first generation American immigrants would come to enjoy this novel, but more than that I believe any individual who has come across any type of troubling circumstance from his past come to relate to Gary in some way, thus this novel reveals it self as a truly universal artifact. With that said, there are some aspect of Gary's memoir that I do find somewhat unsettling, for instance his take on racism. In the chapter he discusses his time at Stuyvesant High School he explains how he grows away from his previously racist state of mind, yet in this explanation he brings up a multitude of stereotypes that he has come to learn to live with and thus labels his own culture as the "normal" habitual circumstance in order to differentiate himself from everyone else. Counterproductive arguments like this one and a couple more throughout the book tend to take m out of his work and leave me in a sort of perplexed condition. Another circumstance from his book that seems to display a similar effect on me is the fact that various chapters are taken from different works of his from different times in his career. This, to me, creates loopholes to disable the novel to form a concrete plot and thus the novel itself risks not developing it self enough deeper meaning that the reader can come to understand. Yet this conflict is resolved with the consistent mystery of what happened with the church and the helicopter, giving the novel a direction in which to aim. Overall I enjoyed "Little Failure" up to the point I was able to make a connection from my own circumstances to what Gary was trying to say in his memoir.