running in the family pt 2.

In the second reading, you see that the disoriented(disorganized) feeling is seemly intentional. He seems to want you to feel disoriented, as if to make you feel like he does as he sorts through his family's history. He's searching for the truth in the legends and stories of the past, all of which are embellished and changed by the people who tell them. Everyone remembers them differently. (On page 105 he shows us this by telling the story interview style. So you can see how the story changes, and people embellished the details.) 

He's also leading you through his experience of revisiting the place he grew up in but has not been to in years. He's rediscovering his own past. 

He also continues giving you facts about Ceylon. For example, he brings up the maps his brother has of the different shapes Ceylon was thought to have through the years. And how that shape changing kind of mirrors how the natives mirrored whatever culture came to claim the island. Or at least they did until the next culture showed up. The natives drew their own history, practices, beliefs and traditions inland. They shared little with the outsiders who didn't intermarry, and even those were still mostly outside it all.

In this reading he includes poems. I love that he did this. It adds to the bombardment of your senses. It also gives a better feel for the country, and where he comes from. I love The Cinnamon Peeler. It's so pretty. All of the poems are nice. They flow really well with the story. The song, (or at least I assume it is a song) Sweet like a Crow, made me laugh. Its so unpoetic, so non-lyrical, but works somehow.