Broken Promises, Even After Death

In our English IV Honors class, we have chosen Damon Galgut’s The Promise, and have been engaging in literature circles. We discuss the novel, help each other understand confusing parts, complete projects, and enjoy reading literature. Themes of death, family and racial issues, relationships, and many more appear constantly in our book, which we discuss in our podcast. While reading Damon Galgut’s The Promise, we immediately saw differences between this novel and our previous literature circle novel Bewilderment. Because this is our second book, we are able to compare it to another Booker Prize novel, which adds a whole new layer of analysis to our project. The Promise has a unique narrative style that made the novel a bit of a challenging read at the start. The omnipresent and stream-of-consciousness style of narration made it difficult to follow dialogue and characters. Although the challenge level never faltered, as we continued to read, we adjusted to it and began to pick apart a lot of the important aspects and themes of the novel. Overall, we have thoroughly enjoyed reading The Promise and furthering our understanding of literature.

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