The Joy of Reading and Writing Superman and Me Questions

"Superman and Me" Past Sherman Alexie

The following essay appeared as part of a serial, "The Joy of Reading and Writing" published by the LA Times. This essay is also printed in The About Wonderful Books: Writers on Discovering the Pleasures of Reading and diverse anthologies including l Essays edited by Samuel Cohen.

I learned to read with a Superman comic volume. Simple enough, I suppose. I cannot call up which particular Superman comic book I read, nor can I remember which villain he fought in that issue. I cannot remember the plot, nor the ways past which I obtained the comic book. What I can remember is this: I was iii years old, a Spokane Indian male child living with his family unit on the Spokane Indian Reservation in eastern Washington state. We were poor by most standards, but 1 of my parents unremarkably managed to discover some minimum-wage job or another, which made us middle-course by reservation standards. I had a brother and three sisters. We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear and authorities surplus nutrient. (1)

My father, who is one of the few Indians who went to Catholic schoolhouse on purpose, was an avid reader of westerns, spy thrillers, murder mysteries, gangster epics, basketball player biographies and annihilation else he could detect. He bought his books by the pound at Dutch's Pawn Shop, Goodwill, Salvation Army and Value Village. When he had extra coin, he bought new novels at supermarkets, convenience stores and hospital souvenir shops. Our house was filled with books. They were stacked in crazy piles in the bath, bedrooms and living room. In a fit of unemployment-inspired creative energy, my father congenital a set of bookshelves and before long filled them with a random array of books about the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, the Vietnam War and the entire 23-book series of the Apache westerns. My begetter loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well. (2)

I can remember picking up my father's books earlier I could read. The words themselves were more often than not foreign, but I however retrieve the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of a paragraph. I didn't take the vocabulary to say "paragraph," simply I realized that a paragraph was a fence that held words. The words inside a paragraph worked together for a common purpose. They had some specific reason for beingness inside the same fence. This knowledge delighted me. I began to think of everything in terms of paragraphs. Our reservation was a small paragraph within the United States. My family unit'south house was a paragraph, distinct from the other paragraphs of the LeBrets to the north, the Fords to our south and the Tribal School to the west. Inside our business firm, each family fellow member existed as a separate paragraph but yet had genetics and mutual experiences to link united states of america. Now, using this logic, I tin can run into my changed family every bit an essay of seven paragraphs: mother, father, older brother, the deceased sister, my younger twin sisters and our adopted piddling brother. (three)

The League of Supermen (Part Seven) (Photo credit: fengschwing)

At the same fourth dimension I was seeing the world in paragraphs, I also picked upwardly that Superman comic book. Each panel, complete with picture, dialogue and narrative was a iii-dimensional paragraph. In one panel, Superman breaks through a door. His suit is scarlet, blueish and yellow. The brown door shatters into many pieces. I look at the narrative above the picture. I cannot read the words, just I assume it tells me that "Superman is br

eaking down the door." Aloud, I pretend to read the words and say, "Superman is breaking down the door." Words, dialogue, also bladder out of Superman's mouth. Considering he is breaking downwardly the door, I assume he says, "I am breaking down the door." Once again, I pretend to read the words and say aloud, "I am breaking down the door" In this way, I learned to read. (four)

This might be an interesting story all by itself. A petty Indian male child teaches himself to read at an early age and advances quickly. He reads "Grapes of Wrath" in kindergarten when other children are struggling through "Dick and Jane." If he'd been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been chosen a prodigy. But he is an Indian male child living on the reservation and is only an oddity. He grows into a man who often speaks of his childhood in the tertiary-person, as if information technology will somehow boring the pain and make him sound more than minor well-nigh his talents. (5)

A smart Indian is a dangerous person, widely feared and ridiculed by Indians and not-Indians alike. I fought with my classmates on a daily basis. They wanted me to stay quiet when the non-Indian teacher asked for answers, for volunteers, for assist. We were Indian children who were expected to exist stupid. Most lived up to those expectations inside the classroom just subverted them on the exterior. They struggled with bones reading in school but could call up how to sing a few dozen powwow songs. They were monosyllabic in front of their non-Indian teachers but could tell complicated stories and jokes at the dinner table. They submissively ducked their heads when confronted by a not-Indian adult but would slug it out

with the Indian smashing who was ten years older. As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian world. Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians. (6)

I refused to neglect. I was smart. I was big-headed. I was lucky. I read books tardily into the dark, until I could barely keep my eyes open. I read books at recess, then during lunch, and in the few minutes left afterwards I had finished my classroom assignments. I read books in the machine when my family traveled to powwows or basketball game games. In shopping malls, I ran to the bookstores and read $.25 and pieces of as many books every bit I could. I read the books my begetter brought home from the pawnshops and secondhand. I read the books I borrowed from the library. I read the backs of cereal boxes. I read the newspaper. I read the bulletins posted on the walls of the school, the clinic, the tribal offices, the post office. I read junk mail service. I read car-repair manuals. I read magazines. I read anything that had words and paragraphs. I read with equal parts joy and desperation. I loved those books, but I likewise knew that dearest had simply one purpose. I was trying to salvage my life. (7)

Despite all the books I read, I am still surprised I became a writer. I was going to be a pediatrician. These days, I write novels, curt stories, and poems. I visit schools and teach artistic writing to Indian kids. In all my years in the reservation school system, I was never taught how to write poetry, short stories or novels. I was certainly never taught that Indians wrote poetry, short stories and novels. Writing was something beyond Indians. I cannot recall a single time that a guest teacher visited the reservation. There must have been visiting teachers. Who were they? Where are they now? Exercise they exist? I visit the schools every bit often every bit possible. The Indian kids crowd the classroom. Many are writing their own poems, brusk stories and novels. They have read my books. They accept read many other books. They wait at me with bright optics and arrogant wonder. They are trying to salvage their lives. And then there are the sullen and already defeated Indian kids who sit in the dorsum rows and ignore me with theatrical precision. The pages of their notebooks are empty. They carry neither pencil nor pen. They stare out the window. They refuse and resist. "Books," I say to them. "Books," I say. I throw my weight against their locked doors. The door holds. I am smart. I am arrogant. I am lucky. I am trying to save our lives. (8)

(1300 words)

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