Gathering Blue

“Everywhere she heard arguing. The cadence of bickering was a constant sound in the village: the harsh remarks of men vying for power; the shrill bragging and taunting of women envious of one another and irritable with the tykes who whined and whimpered at their feet and were frequently kicked out of the way” 

This passage illustrates the tenor of daily life in the village and the casual cruelty of family relationships, particularly those between mothers and children. In this context, Kira’s relationship with her mother is remarkable for the love and care that exists between them and is presumably one reason why Kira is able to move past her own fear.

“Kira had always had a clever way with her hands. When she was still a tyke, her mother had taught her to use a needle, to pull it through woven fabric and create a pattern with colored threads. But suddenly, recently, the skill had become more than simple cleverness. In one astounding burst of creativity, her ability had gone far beyond her mother’s teaching. Now, without instruction or practice, without hesitancy, her fingers felt the way to twist and weave and stitch the special threads together to create designs rich and explosive with color. She did not understand how the knowledge had come to her. But it was there, in her fingertips, and now they trembled slightly with eagerness to start” 

This passage is the first mention of Kira’s gift as a “threader,” and it describes her ability as more than just a set of skills she has learned; instead, she possesses a kind of artistic genius. Also important is the focus on the way her hands feel the designs, rather than seeing them with her eyes. It places the emphasis on creation rather than on vision, which will later link Kira to her father, who is blind but who is able to unravel the blue thread she needs from his own shirt just by touch.

“The community cloth was drab, all no-color; the formless shifts and trousers worn by the people were woven and stitched for protection against the sudden occasional rain, thorn scratch, or poison berry. […] The robe worn each year by the Singer when he performed the Ruin Song was richly embroidered. The intricate scenes on it had been there for centuries, and the robe had been worn by each Singer and passed from one to the next” 

The contrast between the community cloth and the Singer’s robe is not surprising, given the way the community lives and the deep significance given to the annual Gathering and singing of the Ruin Song. However, the contrast also highlights something important about the Council and their rigid control over all forms of beauty. Not only is this society based primarily on fear, it is also lacking expressions of beauty. This is evident in the fact that Katrina hides the pendant Christopher gives her inside her shirt. All forms of beauty, even a simple love token, are forbidden. 

“The threads began to sing to her. Not a song of words or tones, but a pulsing, a quivering in her hands as if they had life. For the first time, her fingers did not direct the threads, but followed where they led. She was able to close her eyes and simply feel the needle move through the fabric, pulled by the urgent vibrating threads”  

This passage describes Kira’s first experience of artistic inspiration, where the material leads her, rather than the other way around. Here again, the emphasis is on her fingers and how they feel the design; Kira even closes her eyes while she pulls the needle through the fabric. It’s also significant that Kira experiences this moment while she is sitting next to her mother’s deathbed, and that the “scrap of cloth” that results from this experience is the last thing her mother sees. While the experience of using only her fingers to guide her work connects her to her father in the end, the product of her first experience of art-making memorializes her connection to her mother.

“‘This is the entire story of our world. We must keep it intact. More than intact.’ She saw that his hand had moved and was stroking the wide unadorned section of fabric, the section of the cloth that fell across the Singer’s shoulders. ‘The future will be told here,’ he said. ‘Our world depends upon the telling’” 

This passage is from a conversation between Kira and Jamison. Jamison’s primary purpose seems to be making sure that the story of the world is kept “intact.” He is Kira’s supervisor and he also manages Jo. What’s curious here is the phrase “more than intact.” It could mean that, rather than just maintaining the story, Kira will be tasked with creating it in that blank space across the Singer’s shoulders. But it’s also curious that the “world depends on the telling.” Presumably, the world will keep turning whether or not the Singer’s robe is completed; however, Jamison’s use of “our” limits the “world” to just this small village, and that society’s reality does depend on how the future is created, or told, as Kira will come to realize.

“The Singer’s robe contained only a few tiny spots of ancient blue, faded almost to white. After her supper, after the oil lamps had been lit, Kira examined it carefully. […] It was then that she noticed—with relief because she would not know how to repair it; and with disappointment because the color of sky would have been such a beautiful addition to the pattern—that there was no real blue any more, only a hint that there once had been”  

This passage reveals that the Singer’s robe lacks the color blue in any significant quantity, inviting us to consider what blue represents and why it is missing from this society, especially since it “would have been such a beautiful addition to the pattern.” Its absence also invites us to think about the utter lack of sky in the vast majority of these scenes of human history.

“When he read the word hollyhock aloud with his finger on the word, she saw that it was long, with many lines like tall stems. She turned her eyes away quickly so that she would not learn it, would not be guilty of something clearly forbidden to her. But it made her smile, to see it, to see how the pen formed the shapes and the shapes told a story of a name” 

This passage comes after we learn that Kira is not able to read and write because it is something forbidden to girls. It illustrates her capacity for recognizing patterns: here, it is the patterns of written text; later, it will be the more sinister patterns of the Council’s behavior. This passage also illustrates the balance Kira strikes between following the rules and finding joy in new knowledge.

“Approaching, she could see the pen that was already partly built. It had been only a few days, but the women had gathered thorn bushes and circled them around the remains of the cott where Kira had grown up. The encircled ground was still ashes and rubble. Very soon the thorned fence they were building would enclose the area completely; she supposed they would create some kind of gate, and then they would shove their chickens and their tykes inside. There would be sharp wood pieces and jagged fragments of broken pots. Kira sighed, seeing it. The tykes would be scratched and splintered by scraps of her own destroyed past, but there was nothing she could do” 

This passage describes the pen that Vandara and her friends have begun to build on the land where Kira’s cott once stood. They are literally building on top of the ruins of her old life, but what she is most saddened by is the danger the space, with its thorns and jagged shards, poses to the children who will be confined in it. In short, there’s no way for her to protect the children from the inevitable pain of their existence. This passage becomes particularly significant when paired with Kira’s new purpose at the end of the novel: to try to create a better future for her community.

“The vegetable garden was completely stripped, but the flower plot remained though its plants were trampled. Clearly the women, dragging their bushes to build the pen, had simply walked across the area; yet the blossoms continued to bloom and she was awed to see that vibrant life still struggled to thrive despite such destruction” 

Kira is amazed by the tenacity of her mother’s flowers, but those blossoms can be seen as representative of her own life, with the very same women trample the flowers having attempted to crush Kira too. And yet, she is also trying to thrive and live a vibrant life.

“A dog barked nearby and now she could hear arguing: a hubby shouting at his wife, a tyke being slapped. The village was waking to its routine. It was time for her to go. This was not her place any more” 

This is an important moment in that it rehearses a familiar scene—the casual violence of village life—but with a difference: Kira no longer has a place there. This passage also raises some questions, though. One is whether she ever really had a place there to begin with. Another is whether the place she has now is better or worse.

“But her fingers ached. Kira rubbed them and sighed. This was not at all the same as her own threadings, the small pieces she had done throughout her childhood. It was certainly not like the special one that had begun to move of its own volition in her hand beside her mother’s deathbed, to twist and mix the threads in ways she had never learned, to form patterns she had never seen. Her hands had never tired then”

While one could argue that the difference between Kira’s work then and now is in terms of its size and scope—what she did before were “small pieces” and now she is working on the Singer’s robe, with embroidered scenes that cover the whole of human history—this passage also illustrates a difference in the nature of the work itself. Here is a description of the difference between being inspired to artistry and being compelled to do art by an outside force—intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation.

“What of my father, then, him taken by beasts? Kira drifted into sleep, the words gliding slippery from her thoughts. She dreamed the question, her breath soft and even against the pillow. […] The fabric gave a kind of answer but it was no more than a flutter, like a breeze across her that she would not remember when she woke at dawn. The scrap told her something of her father—something important, something that mattered—but the knowledge entered her sleep, trembling through like a dream, and in the morning she did not know that it was there at all”  

This passage comes after Annabella has told Kira that there are no beasts in the woods, which, if true, raises the question of what happened to Kira’s father, who was supposedly killed by them. Just as important as Annabella’s declaration is the response of the scrap of embroidered cloth to Kira’s dream question, as this is another example of Kira’s intense connection to her art and of the kinds of “knowledges” that come from it. It would be too simplistic to say that the scrap of cloth is trying to tell her that her father is still alive, as if it both sentient and omniscient; however, the passage does support the idea that part of Kira’s artistic genius rests in her growing ability to recognize patterns and designs. The clues to the truth about the Council of Guardians, and by extension, her father, are forming into a pattern that hovers just under Kira’s consciousness. This is the “flutter” of the cloth.

“Kira touched the place where his hand lay. She tried to determine whether her fingers would feel the magic there. But there was only emptiness. There was a feeling of unfilled need. […] He seemed to sense her uncertainty and reassured her. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We will explain to you what we want pictured there.’ […] Kira didn’t reply. His reassurance troubled her. It wouldn’t be instruction that she needed, it would be the magic to come to her hands” 

In this passage, Jamison and Kira are discussing the Singer’s robe and the blank space across the shoulders that Kira is expected to fill. Not surprisingly, Jamison mistakes the source of her anxiety about the blank space: she wants to feel inspired to create, while he intends to dictate the pattern to her. The problem is that creative inspiration and the art that goes with it cannot be controlled. True art requires an openness that is antithetical to the closed-off, carefully controlled society of the novel.

“In some places on the robe there was a feeling of entire worlds ending. Yet always there would emerge, nearby, new growth. New people. […] Ruin. Rebuilding. Ruin again. Regrowth. Kira followed the scenes with her hand as larger and greater cities appeared and larger, greater destruction took place. The cycle was so regular that its pattern took on a clear form: and up-and-down movement, wavelike” 

This is another example of Kira’s ability to recognize patterns, and it gives her insight that Thomas does not have and thus pushes her toward a leadership role. For example, Thomas’s response to Kira’s dismay at the living conditions in the Fen is a resigned, “That’s just the way it is.” But Kira’s recognition of the patterns of ruin and rebuilding, of ruin and regrowth, shows her that “the way it is” is not how it always was or, by extension, how it always needs be.

“Suddenly Kira knew that although the door was unlocked, she was not really free. Her life was limited to these things and this work. She was losing the joy she had once felt when the bright-colored threads took shape in her hands, when the patterns came to her and were her own. The robe did not belong to her, though she was learning its story through her work. She would almost be able to tell the history now that it had passed through her fingers, now that she had focused on it so closely for so many days. But it was not what her hands or heart yearned to do” 

This is a key moment in Kira’s development—a key realization about the work she is now required to do. The joy she feels in working with the threads, which is representative of her talent, is the reason she was chosen to do this work, and yet this work is taking the joy out of threading for her. This passage is also suggestive of the larger question of how to balance personal needs with duty to one’s community, but the problem is not that Kira is unwilling to work for the benefit of her community—only that she is not allowed to balance that work with her own desire and personal fulfillment.

“Golds, light yellows deepening to vibrant orange, reds from the palest pink to the darkest crimson, greens, all shades, threaded in their intricate patterns, told the history of the world and its Ruin. As he turned to mount the few stairs to the stage, Kira could see the broad blank expanse across the Singer’s back and shoulders, the blank that she had been picked to fill. The future that she had been chosen to create”

This passage is one of several that revels in the color of the Singer’s robe, color that is largely absent from everyday village life, as if beauty must be meted out in small doses—once a year, seen from afar. The passage also contrasts the “history of the world and its Ruin” with the “broad blank expanse across the Singer’s back and shoulders,” raising the question of what comes after “the world and its Ruin.” Though the blank space has been presented to Kira by Jamison as something to be filled in according to the Council’s instructions, what it actually is, seen from this new vantage point, is a space of possibility. Again, we are reminded that Kira has been chosen to thread this space, but posed in this way, it becomes clearer that she is not only going to create the scenes on the robe, she is going to create the future itself.

“Though Kira had told no one, not even Thomas, she had realized recently, to her surprise, that she could read many of the words. Watching his finger on the page one day, she had noticed that goldenrod and greenwood began the same way, with a looping downward curve. And they ended the same way too, with a little twiglike upright line. It was like a game, to find the marks that made the sounds. A forbidden game to be sure, but Kira found herself puzzling over it when Thomas wasn't watching, and the puzzles had begun to explain themselves” 

This passage is another reference to Kira’s illiteracy, but here she is less tentative about learning to read, even though it is a “forbidden game.” Her facility for patterns allows her to see the patterns of written language, but more important, perhaps, is her increased willingness to do what is forbidden, to break rules set up to limit her access to all kinds of knowledge.

“The deep blue was rich and even. The color of sky, of peace” 

This description of the blue that Matt brings back, along with Kira’s father, gives us insight into why the color blue is missing from the history told on the Singer’s robe. It suggests that “peace” has also been missing from this history.

“She watched his ruined eyes, and saw that they were able, still, to weep” 

This is a poignant moment for Kira, when her father, who will never be able to see her or the colored designs she creates, sheds tears over their loss.

“Kira was astonished. In her entire lifetime in the village, she had never encountered a single person who would have done such a thing. She knew no one who would be willing to soothe and comfort or aid a grievously wounded being. Or who would know how” 

This passage describes Kira’s response to Christopher’s description of the people who gave him medicine that dulled the pain of his injuries and who carried him for days back to the village where he now lives, which he calls the village of healing. Her response illustrates how, in the absence of a desire to care for others, the knowledge of how to do so withers away as well. She makes an exception, however, immediately following this passage, when she thinks that Matt is the only one in the village who knew how to “soothe and comfort or aid a grievously wounded being”, because he did so with his dog, Branch.

“The three of them—the new little Singer who would one day take the chained Singer’s place; Thomas the Carver, who with his meticulous tools wrote the history of the world; and she herself, the one who colored that history—they were the artists who could create the future” 

This is the moment when Kira has a clear vision of her purpose, which is considerably greater than just restoring the Singer’s robe and stitching in whatever design the guardians decide should be the future. Significantly, her purpose is inextricably linked to that of Thomas and Jo, the three of them each representing one necessary aspect of the creation of the future. 

“The guardians with the stern faces had no creative power. But they had strength and cunning, and they found a way to steal and harness other people’s powers for their own needs. They were forcing the children to describe the future they wanted, not the one that could be” 

This passage further delineates Kira’s new understanding of the guardians, whose power lies in their ability to take what they want from others, rather than to create what they need in collaboration with others.

“It was those small living shoots she had planted, and something in Kira knew without a doubt that they would survive.”

The “small living shoots” referred to in this passage are the woad that Matt and Christopher have brought her, but they are also representative of the new sense of purpose Kira has and the goals she means to achieve. These goals are not fully formed yet, but she has no “doubt that they would survive.”