Given the argument that it may or may not be possible for a Westerner to fully comprehend another culture’s means of communicating about itself, in terms known to itself, and known as “normal” terms within the culture, I think Rushdie’s writing style still combines elements of relatable “realistic” life (that a westerner could understand) with an exaggerated, metaphorical-perspective-taken-for-literal-perspective approach that could be labeled fantastic-realism or even magical realism. One instance of what could be called Rushdie’s magical realist perspective is when the narrator, Saleem, uses his ability to read minds in order to find out “what makes [Evie] tick.” In the passage where this happens, it seems Rushdie is playing with the idea (which comes from the Novel- a western convention, I think) of the narrator’s omnipotent perspective, the ability to go into a(nother) character’s head to find out what they’re thinking, and attributes that power to the character of the narrator within the frame of the story so that it reads like a supernatural, magical power, one that is outside the bounds of a realistic story. But then again, I think Rushdie plays with both the idea of magical-realism as a construction placed upon cultures other than those that are Western and the idea of non-Western cultures having a different conception of what is taken to be literal. He seems to be making magical realism out of conventions of the Novel (which might be an “othering” of the Western perspective for Westerners?) and mixing in exaggerations of cultural perceptions that a Westerner might find unbelievable or magical in the first place.
No comments:
Post a Comment