topics: |  fiction | children | usa | classic | newberry-1954

[Miguel, thirteen year old boy in NM sheep farm has grown up in the
shadow of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, and his foremost wish is to
go with the adults when they take the sheep up to the mountains for
pasture in the summer months. Deeply evocative writing, Spanish ethos
beautifully captured and blended into an intelligent and thought
provoking peek into a confused, smart and universal boy's mindset.
One of my best reads of 1999. Is it a good book? I asked Pogo. "Very!"
he said, barely looking up. But no Harry Potter ... he read it only
once.]

Excerpts: how "Here are the bags." can mean "Notice me"=

In the first excerpt below, Miguel says to his father, "Here are the bags."
At one level, this sentence uses the indexical "here" to refer to a
location where the bags have been placed by Miguel.  But actually, Miguel
knows his father knows [that he know his father knows ] that he has brought
the bags. Therefore, to understand the objective of the speaker (Miguel),
one has to see why he might have made this statement.  When repeated, his
father understands that there is something about this statement that
demands his attention, so he initially suspects he is being told that there
may be something wrong with the bags.  But this is not the case.  Then he
realizes that Miguel is trying to draw attention to something else,
something he doesn't quite understand.  This leads to the last part of the
interaction.

And throughout Miguel feels that he can't make himself understood.  What do
you expect?

---
[p.13-15]
[His dad has the smaller kids run small errands during peak periods
at the farm. Miguel feels they don't notice the kids enough.]

   I brought him the bags. When he took them from me, I said, "Here are the
bags." My father said nothing. He rubbed the lamb and wrapped it up.
   "All right?" I said, "Okay?"
   My father felt the neck of the lamb. "He'll be all right. It'll live".
  "No," I shook my head. "I ask about the bags."
  "What about the bags?"
  "Are they all right?"
  "What can be wrong about the bags?"

  [Miguel tries to explain] This was not what I wanted to talk about at
all. [Father explains what Miguel already knows - how any bag, even with
holes, would do.  And never use the new bags meant for the wool for this
purpose. Did Miguel get him one of those?]
  "Me?" I said quickly, "Not me!" This is why it is hard for me to be
Miguel sometimes, getting people to understand.
  "Then what is all this talk about bags?" My father put his hands in
the back pockets of his pants and waited.
  "I'm sorry." I looked around trying to find some way to leave. But
it was too late.
  "Miguel, what's the trouble?"
  "Nothing." When your father looks at you then there is no place to
go. "It's only that I wanted to let you know that it was me -- I
brought you the bags when you asked for them."
  "Of course. They were needed. That's why I asked."
  "I know but --" It was no use. It could not get any better.
[Uncle Eli calls father - ewe with twins looks bad.]
  "Let me understand this Miguel. This is nothing but a question of
bags, yes?"
  "That's all."
  "Nothing else?"
  "No."
  "Very well," said my father, and he hurried through the sheep to the
other side of the corral.
  It is different in school. There when the teacher asks you to write
in your book the capital of New Mexico, and you write "Santa Fe," the
matter does not come to an end. If you do what she asks, then you get
a star in your book. And after you get enough stars you get a G on
your report card instead of an F.
  To be sure it is always good to have a card with a G instead of an
F.  Though, to tell the real truth, I never found it made much
difference from one day to the next what kind of letter you had on the
card.
   But here with the family and the sheep, where it makes a big
difference, ... there are no stars.

---

A thing like that was too much to hope for. To hope so much,
it's like carrying what's heavy, like too big a load of wood from
the woodpile. And you don't know whether to try to drop some
halfway, and you're afraid if you do you'll drop the whole load,
and if you don't you will drop the whole load anyway before you get
to the house. Until your brain gets tired from thinking and your arms
feel like they're ready to fall off. So that the next time you just
give up and make two trips instead of one. That's the way I felt
about hoping. I didn't want to try anymore. - p.129

---

[Miguel prays to San Ysidro. And it happens, but that is only because
his brother Gabriel has to go to the army for two years. This is too
heavy a price to pay, feels Miguel.]
  "I understand now," I said, "how it should be done. When I talked to
him, San Ysidro, I should've put in an 'only'. You know. Like he
should fix it and all, only in a way that my brother Gabriel did not
have to go away for two years in the army. You, too. You should've put
in an 'only'."
  "No," Gabriel shook his head. "That's no good. Where would you stop?
You'd have ten dozen 'onlys'."