Conceptually, the story is easily comprehensible (perhaps that is one its flaws). It is a kind of romance horror where the Hindi couple is absorbing Christian culture via immersion and partial assimilation.
Sanjeev's love for European concerto music withstands the fact that most of that music is dependent on the Judea-Christian inspiration. Twinkle's pursuit in a masters in poetry and they way she is compelled to adopt collect the Christian icons is indicative of the dominance of Christianity not just in English but in all European languages. My atheist self argued with my agnostic self on this subject for quite some time because when you realize that the two are inseparable (religion and language)than it can be overwhelming.
There are flaws in Lahiri's style that defeat her intentions. For instance, the character's body language does not match their dialogue which robs the piece of it's unity. "Where are you going to put it? She asked dreamily, her eyes closed. One of her legs emerged, unfolding gracefully, from the layer of suds. She flexed her toes." (402) In this passage, Lahiri, in my opinion, misses an opportunity. Kinesics is a good study for a writer to be acquainted with . It's not that the scene needs more realism. It's that its just ornamental and nothing else (the way the majority of her flurries of details end) and then the things that are symbols (the feather hat & the relics) are force fed to the audience with their inherent shininess'. At times, this can give the audience the experience of being the other in a Western culture of inadvertently consuming the underlining morality. But it seems to illuminate an artifact of Lahiri's psyche, more so, spinning the story with so much control that control is lost.
No comments:
Post a Comment