Joanna Siwiec Response: David Borkowski, Chapters 5-8

[Anonymous]

#698

In chapters 5-8, I noticed that Borkowski begins to fill in a lot of the holes that left to be filled in the first 5 chapters. We find out about his family, the relationship, and how David’s progression into a scholar occurred. At this point in the book I was dedicated to finishing his story, but kept getting distracted by his method of repetition. The lengths of his chapter continued to vary, but they also seemed to each contain different aspects of his life–which is where the intertwining hooked me, but the repetition of events and same concepts did frustrate me. But eventually I settled into this ricocheting way of David’s writing, as if he is trying to discover himself as he is writing this, and that I could relate to. He writes of his family, yet barely of his father. The relationship with his mother seems tense, and his sister’s portrayal is a almost disassociated way from himself. I looked for greater character development, but couldn’t find it. Finally giving in to David’s style, I only read his words in relation to him, and built him as the main character that is being created. I began reading his memoir as a sort of bildungsroman for post-modern literature. We’re practically reading the growth of a young teenager who was shot, and then how he came to academia in his adulthood–with everything around his existence serving as fillers for his progression.

When he writes of himself as an outsider, the imposter syndrome and the “fake” doctor that his family saw him studying to become, the text became even more relatable to me. How David portrays his working class family and their views on his academic goals is very relevant to how many children grow up in any borough of NYC–especially if the family has traditional roles that they see fit for their relations. The imposter syndrome, I think, is relevant to any graduate academic. I found this theory to hit me in the face in my first few weeks of graduate school–especially as I was in a MA program in a predominantly PhD facility. My classmates were all in their third or fourth year of their PhD program, and to my horror, some of them where adjunct professors that I met as an undergraduate at Hunter College. I’m not sure anyone ever leaves the imposter syndrome, especially as the academic cannon for each field narrows in size and grows in competition the further you go. I think David’s conflict between himself and the English cannon serves as the road he chose to take, regardless of his uncertainty in the field and surpassing the imposter that he felt he was. It just serves as another element in his life that he is alienated from and lives in limbo, similarly to his relationship with his family.

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