Cion - Introduction and Chapter 1

CION by Zakes Mda

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ON MDA

The Novel

Setting:

Athens, Ohio – Halloween celebration

Toloki describes what it's like to be at the Athens Halloween Celebration. His observations reveal Political climate of 2004, an election year. Toloki mentions Dick Cheney and the Halliburtons gang, and the impulsive desire to market french fries as freedom or liberty fries (8). He also witnesses negative depictions of Rumsfeld and George Bush concerning collateral damage and tax cuts for billionaires (10-11).

Kilvert, Ohio – home of Obed, Orpah, Ruth, and Mahlon (a town of diverse ancestry)

Toloki walks into Kilvert with Obed and observes "run down houses strewn with scrap metal, muddy gardens, broken-down vehicles, and rusty trailers". approaching the door to Obed's parents' house he notes, "the house has a wrap around porch. Like all the houses here it is built of timber, painted white. Peeling in places. But from the ground to the porch it is built of brown bricks..." (24).

Characters:

The Sciolist

Who/what is the Sciolist?

“Instead of focusing on the play his mind had wandered to other matters—hence my conception” (p2, pp1).

• What is the Sciolist’s relationship to Toloki?

• Sciolist’s home (p6)

• The Sciolist at the Halloween celebration--Toloki makes fun of him or Zakes makes fun of himself. "He looks like a friar...his belly hangs out like an apron" (p9). http://www.english.ohiou.edu/directory/faculty_page/mda/

Toloki

Who is Toloki?

Professional Mourner (Narrator)

• Sam Crowl, Shakespeare Professor at Ohio University: “…the professor had asked, ‘Have you ever thought of taking Toloki the Professional Mourner to another culture, say to Durham…’” *- 1^st abandoned in Durham, now abandoned at the cemetery at the Ridges in Athens.
  

• “…Durham was mentioned because it was at that cathedral city that the sciolist in his Godly madness had conjured me into existence a decade or so before” (p1, pp6).

• “…my professional mourning practice in South Africa was in a rut” (p2, pp4). --in a rut because of the sameness of deaths he encountered --Dumped at the famous cemetery at The Ridges the Athens.
  

• What does Toloki tell us about the Ridges? --Women unjustly placed there. From 1874 until a couple decades ago it was the Athens Mental Health Center (*remember this, it becomes much more relevant at the end of the novel). (p4 and 5) Toloki reflects on what it may have been like as a patient there. (*Funny passage regarding OU student admitted for 'excessive study.' Do you think it's just Zakes Joking?) (p5). On page 31, What does Ruth tell Toloki about the ridges?
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• Toloki finds that his appearance is quite normal at the Athens Halloween celebration, something he is clearly not used to. Description of Toloki: "...My stocky figure, broad face, and thick eyebrows are less foreboding than the ghoulish faces of some of these creatures. My small eyes that have always been praised for having a permanent sorrowful look, my yellowish complexion and my small oval mouth do not invite stares as they have always done elsewhere..." "My funeral costume of tall shiny black top hat, tight-fitting black pants, sharp pointed black shoes and velvety black cape buckled with a big gold colored brooch with tassels of red, yellow, and green, is not out of place here" (P7) .

• Toloki is from another novel Mda wrote called "Ways of Dying," he directly addresses readers reminding them that much has changed "...since we last met" (7).
  

Noria

Toloki reflecting on mourning in Durham Cathedral: “Here was the opportunity to recapture my austere and ascetic ways that I first cultivated years ago after being influenced by the agori sadhou of India…” but that Toloki lost during travels with the love of his life, Noria (p2, pp2)

Obed Quigley--In Costume as Nicodemus

• Toloki first meets Obed (p13, pp3) Description of Obed: "I turn to face a tall young man, perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties, with a dusky complexion and long black hair tied in a ponytail" (13).
  

• Dressed as Nicodemus Obed is tattered and bloody. Toloki asks him "are you from a story too?" Obed replies, "I'm a fugitive...from the slave breeding farms of Virginia. My name is Nicodemus. I escaped on the underground railroad...I was beaten to death. I was murdered" (13-14).
  

• Obed gets arrested. Approached by a girl in a nightgown and slippers flanked by two cops, Obed is apprehended when she says "That's him officer" (16).
  

• Toloki learns the full story of the Ghost of Nicodemus after pursuing Obed after he is arrested. Obed "is in jail for impersonating the ghost of Nicodemus, a slave that was murdered in the basement of a house on Washington street about a hundred and sixty years ago...today the house belongs to a sorority" (17).
  

• Obed refers to how everyone from his hometown come back because it's "where our race of people was molded (22).
  

• Obed refers to sycamores as Ghost trees. He says, “they’re carriers of memories” (23). *Obed shows again his strong beliefs.
  

Care for the dead – (p25, pp3)

*- What else is a carrier of memory? Ghost Trees, Town, Quilts, Ghost of Nicodemus, Kilvert Graves, The Ridges, Tradition—self-sustainable (Ruth’s Garden, pickling, cooking; Mahlon slaughters pig)

Nathan

• Friend of Quigley family. Lives in Cutler, about five miles past Kilvert.
  

• Gives Obed and Toloki ride over flood waters after they are stranded with their cab that took them from the jail. The floods "happen quite often and villages likes Stewart, Kilvert, and Cutler are cut off from the rest of the world" (21).

• Nathan is determined to ford the water because "...he has to spend the night with his children who 'ain't got no mama or nothin'" and offers Obed and Toloki a ride (22).

• Nathan's romantic interest, Orpah, is playing hard to get (23).

Orpah

• A reclusive character, plays the sitar upstairs while Toloki visits. Obed asks her if she wants dinner and reports that she isn't hungry. Ruth replies "If that girl loses anymore weight she'll blow away" (32).
  

How would you describe Mahlon Quigley? What does he look like? What is his personality like?

• "A man is sitting on a white swing on the porch..." (25).
  

How would you describe Ruth Quigley? What does she look like? What is her personality like?

• Ruth and Obed just can't get it right that Toloki is South African, not African (27).
  

• Ruth and Tradition: Ruth’s Gardening tradition (29). Ruth’s relationship with community center and Ruth’s sense of the past and need to preserve it. (30-31) . What it's like being multi-racial (31).

• Ruth learns that Toloki is a Professional Mourner through Obed. She isn't skeptical of his career which shocks him, she in fact asks him how he does it.
  

• Toloki tells Ruth he was at the Ridges the night before and was disappointed. He learns that "Mahlon Quigley's mother lies buried there and the family has been struggling to locate her grave". The graves are marked only by numbers (31).
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• Ruth shows Toloki her quilts in order to present her sense of tradition to him. she says, "the souls of those who are gone rest in the threads of those quilts" (33). The Quilts were used to escape from slavery.
  

Toloki says he was conjured up by the sciolist. What does he mean by this? Describe a character that you or someone in your family conjured up. What was the conjured character's purpose?

Why do you think Zakes Mda uses the sciolist in his story?

CION BLOG LINK

Chapter two

Setting-Virginia

Abyssinian Queen

David Fairfield

River Jordan - The Ohio River

(55, 56) - The biblical divide between heaven and hell or freedom and slavery