My Sky Blue Trades

I love a scene in the prologue to My Sky Blue Trades by Sven Birkerts. He introduces it, "One scene in particular comes to mind," then he moves back in time but stays in present tense, "It is fall of 1969 and my first semester at the University of Michigan." The use of present tense makes the scene feel immediate and intense. He goes on to describe a dinner with his family. He comes home unkempt, in his hippie clothes to his father's disapproval. The grandmother asks for a definition of a hippie. Talk turns to marijuana and the scene crackles with tension. Birkerts blurts out that he has smoked it. He predicts his father's reaction in the second before it comes, "He will blink and dab his eyes, and it will twist my heart." Throughout the scene, he scatters setting and sensory details that bring the scene to life. The dialogue is brilliant and tense in its restraint. It's a short scene but has great structure. At the end, he reflects back on that scene, acknowledges feelings of shame, and concedes that at the time, there was no question of "acting differently, of being someone else." I admit to being a huge fan.

Having grown up in much the same time period and with much the same ethnic background (my family, too, came to the United States from Latvia during WW2), even in the same approximate area (lower Michigan), I picked up Birkerts' book (and, as chance would have it, I found it in the bookstore in Ann Arbor he describes as his place of employment) with immense curiosity. Just how similar would his experience be to mine? Initially, it was rather exhilirating to read this memoir that spoke of so much that I, too, knew so well, down to the ethnic bone. As I read of his discomforts and anxieties about learning a new language other than the one spoken in his home, his sense of being something of a misfit in both the Latvian and the American communities, I identified in most every detail. Ah, yes, this too I felt on my adolescent thin hide... Mine, I felt simultaneously as blessing and curse, as perhaps, in conclusion, did Birkerts.In later years, of course, Birkerts' experiences forked away very much from my own... but no matter. I didn't need to look into a mirror to sustain my interest. Indeed, that is the whole appeal of this book - it is not only for the multicultural reader. The writing is excellent, and my exhiliration at sharing in a similar experience soon veered to an exhiliration simply in reading a book so well written. Perhaps that is one of the blessings of being bilingual, this ability to approach a second language with greater awareness. Birkerts' use of language is vibrant and lush and frequently stunning. His insights and perspective on his work, his relationships, the inner workings of his developing self.... all are richly portrayed. No matter from what backgrounds we come, we all question ourselves and our life choices, we all struggle with similar demons at one time or another. Family dynamics are not so different, I'm sure, no matter what the ethnic background.Birkerts' `My Sky Blue Trades' is a valuable portrayal of the immigrant experience for more than one generation, but is also of value simply as a well written book.