Sylistic Essay

October 25, 2012
Dear André,
Thanks for sharing your impressive writing about “Shadow Cities.” With your narrations and descriptive rhetorical strategies you were able to take my imagination to places you like to remember, such as Rome at Piazza Navona, the large plaza near the small bookstore where you used to buy books every week when you were a teenager. I like the way you connectvivid imagery with your past, from your childhood, which appeals to my pathos and makes me think your article is mainly about remembering, and not so much about places.
Your story flows pleasingly organized because your words are familiar, not superfluous or complicated. For example, when you mentioned a park and pigeon droppings on the benches, I’ve seen that many times. When you mention theOlympia Deli, the Blue Rose, the Restaurant and Mr. Kay’s Barbershop it gives me a clear picture of a friendly neighborhood, I understand how important good memories are to you. Perhaps you had a nice hot cocoa with a cinnamon raisin bagel at the deli on a very cold afternoon? or the best haircut ever at Mr. Kay’s? The use of details boards the reader in a journey back and forth to a summerafternoon in Italy where you will seat and enjoy the sun, eat a sandwich or pizza and smile at elderly people passing by, a lifeless park with a ghost statute present in your descriptions but physically absent in the park, and then later an extraordinary restored Straus Park and the personification of its resurrected statute.
It was like traveling in time and being able to see what you saw, andsomehow feel what you felt when you share with nostalgia anecdotes of your reminiscences of parks and fountains of Rome. I found very interesting the use of the metaphor of finding an oasis in such a place as Straus, a park with a fountain in which there was no water. I found you adorned with so much pathos the expression “but an oasis of the soul, a place where, for no apparent reason, peoplestop on their various journeys elsewhere.” because it connects with my own soul, look for meaning and sentiments not for things.
At first, I was a little bit confused and wonder what a paradox when I read: “I didn’t very much like Rome, nor did I really want to be in France, or Egypt for that matter—and though I certainly did not like New York any better… once in Rome, I would mostcertainly long to be in Straus Park remembering the Rome where I’d once remembered the beaches of my childhood. Italy was just my way of grafting myself to New York” until I realized that you long for the great memories these places bring to your heart.
I found very creative the way you almost bring to life the statute of Straus park using personification as figurative language “I would come everynoon, for the statue mostly, because she was, like me, willing to stand by in this halfway station called Straus Park. She reminded me of those statues one finds everywhere in Rome, springing on you from their niches in the evening when you least expect them.” You gave attributes to a statue that is not alive, and it make it sound almost sensual, as if it was a woman, your girlfriend or a friendyou meet at a special place to have a nice conversation but now you miss her, because she no longer is there for you.



I chose to interpret your story in a sentimental way rather than a geographic one when you refer to your memories about Alexandria. I see that Straus Park, New York reminds you of your past and your childhood which is represented as the imaginary place of Alexandria.I believe everyone has an Alexandria in his or her heart. It is like a perfect place you created with pleasant remembrances of your infancy. Alexandria is the representation of a shelter where you can run to when you are bored, tired or homesick and always find serenity and pleasure. You shaped this place or built it with components of other places enjoyable and meaningful to you, for...