"THE SPIRIT CATCHES YOU AND YOU FALL DOWN" REFLECTIONS

The article “In Defense of The Spirit Of An Author: On Anne Fadiman's ‘The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down’” brought up a new point about our summer reading book that I hadn’t considered.  This article focused on the many criticisms of Fadiman’s book, and Dr. Monica Chiu makes a lot of strong points about the reading. Overall, the review came off has harsh towards Fadiman’s writing, but Chiu also made a strong point surrounding the real meaning behind the novel.  While reading The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down over the summer, I was easily able to detect the theme of western medical culture versus Hmong culture.  It seemed like the most obvious focus, as most of the story revolves around Lia Lee’s time spent in the hospital, where most of her treatments went against her parents’ wishes.  There was a never-ending issue with language barriers and miscommunication, but reading this article made me realize that this wasn’t entirely the hospitals fault, or maybe it wasn’t their fault at all.  Chiu makes the point that even more than a medical cultural battle, the real issue is the Hmong culture being numbed by American law. Although this may have been intended as a criticism, I found this to be a very abstract way of looking at the book.  Fadiman layered, perhaps unintentionally, two very important themes, especially when she divided the chapters between discussing Lia’s situation and the Hmong Secret War. My view of the book wasn’t altered, but I have a new-found appreciation for the way this book was written.
After reading this book, I think that whether or not Fadiman’s writing would have been better as a shorter version in the New York Times is very debatable.  Chiu’s issues with the novel have a lot of connections with the idea that Fadiman inserted her own experiences with the Lee family and the Hmong culture into the book.  Chiu’s points that Fadiman sympathizes for the Lees and that she is “borderline racist” are both dismissed because Fadiman makes this book more personal. She combines this with factual information and Lia’s factual medical story, making the book into more than a recant of a language-restricted medical struggle, but more of a memoir.  I think that for this reason, the story could go in a book or in the New York Times. If it were in the New York Times, the story would be significantly shortened and the personal aspect would be lost. If readers are looking to solely learn about the theme of American law or medicine versus Hmong culture, than this information would make a great newspaper article.  The themes would be much clearer because the information would be more concise and straightforward. If the point, however, is essentially to tell a personal story in connection with these themes, then a book is the right way to go. Fadiman’s personal statements can’t be put into such a short article in the newspaper because, much to Chiu’s point, the little things, such as the “racism” would be attacked.  In a book, the personalization forces the reader to overlook these aspects. In the end, it really depends on what the reader is intended to gain.