The Effect of Francesca Lia Block's Immersion Techniques

Calamity Rose Jung-Allen

January 15, 2015

English 2: Silver Stream, A Band

Literary Structure Essay

In her novella Echo, author Francesca Lia Block spins a stunning realistic tale centered around the modern misadventures of a young girl whose name correlates to the book’s title. Our naieve protagonist ages throughout this piece from a child to a teenager to an adult, and her experiences are organized into multiple short stories that are weaved together expertly in a mix of magic and metaphor. Block uses a technique that employs quick transitions between subject and setting, fantasy and reality, and uncommon sensory reactions to invoke complex immersion in the reader.

The exposition of Echo explains the relationship that she and her mother share between the both of them. The latter is filling their home with rejuvenating crystals, plants, and her own natural brand of enchantment to create a spellbound atmosphere for her and her family. “The house was a mess of rainbows. Rainbows poured across the walls. The crystals reminded me of tiny cities with cathedrals and towers … Delicate watery music spilled through the house. The rooms smelled of lavender and aloe and eucalyptus.” (17) In this particular portion of the story, Block uses sensory reactions as her boldest point to create this ethereal mood. A tactic that is used extremely often in this author’s work is to describe objects, people, settings or feeling with adjectives that are not necessarily used to describe them in everyday life. This includes choosing to elaborate on something’s texture when it is almost always never touched, or a sound by its look. For example, music is not tangible and therefore has no consistency. It is very rarely used in the same sentence as a description that could be interchangeable with an object, but here it is labelled as watery. This adduces a clear feeling of uneasiness with the audience, in that they cannot possibly predict the next sentence or event. Consequently, they are further immersed in the story and its descriptions.

In this moment, Echo is observing her surroundings, making special note of the playing children, the tunes in the air and the colors that envelop her emotions in that second.  “In the smoggy violet of summer evenings they sat on the dilapidated porch playing guitar and singing. The children from the neighborhood came and hid behind the posts, peering out with dark eyes eyes, peering at the whiteness -- the flash of what looked like diamonds at Wendy’s and Suze’s throats and wrists and in Smoke’s ear, at their bleached hair.” (93) This chosen passages uses the quick transitions as its focal point, specializing in the bridge between fantasy and reality and making the tone both confusing and fascinating to the point of, again, immersion. One of the most obvious transitions it makes it between describing the actual setting of the children running around to the comparison to the white color describing Wendy and Suze’s throats and wrists and bleached hair. This quick switch creates a similar sense of unease that is surprisingly realistic when pertaining to one’s thoughts.

Here, Block illustrates a character’s appearance while utilizing this approach, giving us another insight into a different aspect of her descriptive style and the elements involved. When Echo meets a new man she may be interested in, her feelings and his appearance are described in minute, intertwining detail. “The veins in his arms had a thorny blue glow. He led her to the bar and grabbed a bottle of gin, pouring it, straight, into a paper cup. It flared electric in her head and he was watching her. His eyes were like full-blown poppies, like sleep.” (120) In this scene, Block is describing a person and not a setting, so, again, we receive a more in depth view into what she may see in a character’s vibes and total look, and how thought association may occur in that respect. She employs a similar tactic to the first example, where she uses uncommon and unusual adjectives and matches them with uncommon and unusual subjects. For instance, here we see that color does not have a shape nor texture, but she describes the hue of blue as thorny, which insinuates an unpredictable feeling to her writing.

In a published conversation with Interview Magazine, Francesca Lia Block commented on her use of metaphors to show magic in her writing. She said, “Metaphors are an interesting example of creating magic in prose. You can use a simile to say, "It felt like the house was on fire," or you can actually set the house on fire in the story. You can say, "He made me feel like roses were growing out of my heart," or you can actually have roses grow out of the character's heart. As writers we have the opportunity to make magic happen every day.” These quick transitions between reality and fantasy creates the atmosphere of magic she describes here. This further proves and explains her technique of skipping the formalities of similes and jumping straight into metaphors. It explains the unusual matches between adjectives and subjects, because she realizes that both of these techniques work together as a unit, and aid each other in producing the overall effect of her work.

The tone that contributes to the overall mood and atmosphere is so important because without it the story wouldn’t hold the same gravity or attitude. It is what makes the writing so interesting, and without it, a story may be dull. Often, a transition can occur unexplained when association occurs, but it is never explained. We never feel the need to explain ourselves. In that way, Block is such a captivating author, because she embodies the role of thoughts unable and unwilling to make sense of themselves. Or in other words, everyone’s minds. It plays to our deepest and more instinct drives as avid readers, and lets us be a part of the story instead of in the audience.

Works Cited:

1. "Francesca Lia Block's Elements of Style." Interview Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Jan. 2015.

2. Block, Francesca Lia. Echo. New York: Joanna Cotler /HarperCollins, 2001. Print.