What is the author's dominant method of communication--dialogue, description, narration, exposition, inclusion of others' texts--?

Leif Enger uses mostly dialogue, description and narration in Peace Like a River. Everything is from the perspective of Reuben Land, who is an adult looking back at the time he was eleven years old. The story is a narrative, obviously, so most of what Reuben says is simple description of what happened, who said what, and how he felt about it. It is interesting, I think, to see how Leif Enger creates Reuben as an eleven year old boy throughout the story, but it is written in past tense and at the end of the book the audience truly comes to recognize that Reuben is an adult writing about his life at eleven years old. Everything Reuben experienced Enger relates to the audience through a much younger perspective. It is almost like Enger takes on an entirely different persona than his own, and then through that persona tries to figure out how that person would be like as a young boy. It seems quite complicated.

Enger's most convincing passages, I think, were the ones in which Reuben related both facts and emotions, not just one or the other, such as when he described the miracles he witnessed his father perform. If Reuben provided just facts about seeing his father walk on air, the audience would draw their own conclusions without necessarily the depth that Enger wished them to. If Reuben didn't describe the scene with lots of details and only provided how the incident made him feel, the audience would have nothing to base their opinions on and find him incredible. Enger found the right ratio of facts to emotion. He provided, step-by-step, what Reuben witnessed, and then he described how compelled Reuben was through that incident. It was almost as if Enger led us to draw our own conclusions, but based on what we were given, we had to believe Reuben.

Did the book come to a satisfactory closure for you? Why/not?

Peace Like a River did not come to a satisfactory closure for me. I finished reading and was not happy with the outcome. I thought it was horribly unfair for the father to die. I thought it was horribly unfair that Roxanna had been married to the father for only three months when her husband died, and she was left to take care of Reuben and Swede all by herself. I didn't like it that Davy continued to be an outlaw and could never really be with his family ever again. The only thing I was satisfied with was that Davy would let Reuben run into him every once in a while. Except, he never let Swede find him, which I also thought was horribly unfair. I am the youngest sibling, and if my sister was estranged from our family and only ever met with my brothers I would be very upset, so I can relate to Swede in that regard. I was also unsatisfied with the fact that Jape Waltzer shot the father and Reuben, then ran away and was never found. I understand that Leif Enger couldn't just write a happy ending where everything good happened, that wouldn't be realistic or effective, but I still found the end of the book unsatisfactory.

Does the author seem to have a friendly, unfriendly, or some other type of relationship with the audience? Why do you think so?

I think that Leif Enger has a very friendly relationship with the audience. He wants to share Reuben's miracles with his audience. Enger speaks from Reuben's point of view and he always sounds like he really wants the audience to understand and side with Reuben. Reuben is a young, asthmatic boy who believes in miracles and is nice to his sister. I think that Enger's choice to make his hero this likable was an attempt to bring the audience in and make them want to have a friendly relationship with the content of the book. Now that I think about it, however, I can't imagine a scenario in which an author would have an unfriendly relationship with the audience. If I am reading a book and I feel like the author is being mean to me, I am going to stop reading it. That reminds me of the beginning of The Hobbit that we looked at in class a while ago and noticed that J.R.R. Tolkein used lots of tools to put his audience on his side. That is what Enger did also, by creating a character whom the audience finds endearing and friendly.

If the purpose is implicit, tell what you think the purpose of the book is and why.

I finished How the Other Half Lives by Jacob A. Riis and am now reading Peace Like a River by Leif Enger.

I am not really sure what I think is the purpose of this book yet; I will try to work it out as I write this. I don't know very much about Leif Enger's personal life or background, but I feel like he must be somewhat similar to Reuben Land, the main character, in order for him to have captured his character, fears, beliefs, personality, and experiences so fully. I'm not saying that I believe that Enger went on a cross-country trek with his religious father and poet sister to find his outlaw brother, but from my experience authors write about things that are familiar to them. I bet that Enger grew up with a religious background, as his book carries this religious theme of faith and miracles. He most likely knew someone like Swede who had an innate gift for storytelling as well as poetry and meter. I would also guess that he did have an older brother, to whom he always looked up but maybe shouldn't have. So based on what I know about the book and what I can infer about Enger himself, I feel that the purpose of his book is to inform his readers about things he believes in, i.e. miracles, faith, family, morality. I am not a religious person. To me personally, it felt like he was trying to convince me of these religious things he experienced. It felt like he was trying to turn me, a skeptic, into a believer. I don't necessarily think that was his goal in writing it, but I do think his goal had to do with teaching his audience about these things that he believes in.