Studying Manguso’s variation in movement and flow within and across chapters illustrates the richness of her work, beauty of language, and how she turns her horrendous experience into art. She accomplishes this feat in part by varying her pacing and focus. Examining Manguso’s use of movement and flow at the chapter and paragraph level elucidates her skill and grace. By varying movement and flow at the chapter, paragraph, and sentence level, Manguso allows the reader to move back and forth between the tight focus on a single experience and back out into a vast expanse, as if both training the lens of a microscope to shifting and using a telescope. Both serve to ground the reader in the space and time continuum at a micro and at a macro level.
In addition to lending a level of complexity to the writing, this approach also illustrates the potentially disorienting experience of severe and lasting illness. Unlike a brief and straightforward episode of acute illness, Manguso underwent a long and arduous journey of an unfamiliar disease that ebbed and flowed, requiring both ongoing and episodic hospitalizations and treatments, with improvements and setbacks. Thus the movement and flow on the page also simulates the back and forth nature of illness and wellness, crystalized memories and blurs of misery and pain.
In addition to lending a level of complexity to the writing, this approach also illustrates the potentially disorienting experience of severe and lasting illness. Unlike a brief and straightforward episode of acute illness, Manguso underwent a long and arduous journey of an unfamiliar disease that ebbed and flowed, requiring both ongoing and episodic hospitalizations and treatments, with improvements and setbacks. Thus the movement and flow on the page also simulates the back and forth nature of illness and wellness, crystalized memories and blurs of misery and pain.
ASSAY: A JOURNAL OF NONFICTION STUDIES
7.2
7.2
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Jie Liu
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Tanya Bomsta is a doctoral student in Educational Studies at The Ohio State University. Her essays have been published in The Iowa Review, Pleiades, The Gettysburg Review, The Florida Review, and other publications. Her essay 'Erosion' was listed as a Notable in Best American Essays 2015.
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