Insomnia by Dana Gioia

Insomnia by Dana Gioia
Now you hear what the house has to say.
Pipes clanking, water running in the dark,  
the mortgaged walls shifting in discomfort,  
and voices mounting in an endless drone
of small complaints like the sounds of a family  
that year by year you’ve learned how to ignore.

But now you must listen to the things you own,  
all that you’ve worked for these past years,  
the murmur of property, of things in disrepair,  
the moving parts about to come undone,  
and twisting in the sheets remember all
the faces you could not bring yourself to love.

How many voices have escaped you until now,  
the venting furnace, the floorboards underfoot,  
the steady accusations of the clock
numbering the minutes no one will mark.  
The terrible clarity this moment brings,  
the useless insight, the unbroken dark.

When I heard Alexis give her poem for the class back in December I really liked it. I love the way it is written and really enjoyed how she delivered it. The poem seems to be about the regret the narrator has for caring more for the material things in his or her life then for the people in his or her life. The speaker laments all of the things in the house that are falling apart, the clanking pipes and shifting walls. "All that you've worked for these past years, the murmur of property, of things in disrepair," the speaker realizes that all of the material things he or she has worked for over the years are falling apart. The narrator of the poem is regretting not spending more time with his or her loved ones, "the faces you could not bring yourself to love." He or she avoided all the things that would have brought happiness in favor of material things. 

The personification of the house really allows the poem to make an impression. I envisioned the house as the person speaking. The things in disrepair were the aspects of the speaker's life that were falling apart. I could hear the noises in my head as I read the poem. Gioia rhymes the last three lines of the poem. I think this is to emphasize the "unbroken dark" and loneliness the speaker is feeling at the close of the poem. The last three lines help the narrator to understand that the "minutes no one will count" are the more important things, not the things one owns. 

The Quiet American

I have almost finished my third Graham Greene novel, The Quiet American. I have also read Our Man in Havana and The Power and the Glory, but I have to say that this one is my favorite so far. The book is about the relationship between two men, one American and one British, and their love for the same woman. Although, the book is not directly about religion there are still many references to the Catholic religion and many others like many of Greene's other novels. The main character, Fowler, repeatedly states that he does not believe in Gold. However, his friend Pyle claims to be a unitarian.

Many critics said that the novel was anti-American. They thought that the character of Pyle showed Americans in a negative light. Pyle seems to be the opposite of the stereotypical American. He is quiet and intellectual. Also, many Americans did not like the character or Fowler, the British man. However, I identified with and liked the character of Fowler much better than Pyle. Pyle wanted to date the woman Fowler was currently dating. He thought that as long as he talked to Fowler about the situation then Fowler had no reason to be mad at him for taking his girl. I think Pyle was very self-centered and innocent.

The novel is mainly about the love triangle between the two men mentioned above and a young woman named Phuong. The woman is a young Vietnamese woman. She switches between the two men multiple times and does not seem to be committed to either man. The woman seems to represent the country in which they are fighting, Vietnam. The fact Pyle wants her represents that the Americans did not want Vietnam to be under communist rule. She is also very underdeveloped. Other then when she is seen with the male characters she is not really shown. She never voices her opinion, just like the country she comes from never states its opinion.