Joseph-Rushdie-3/9

I found myself trying to reconcile many things in Midnight's Children, and it's ultimate place in the history of literature. For example, we know that this book is heavily influenced by Arabian Nights. Rushdie mentions it from the start: “I must work fast, faster than Scheherazade , if I am to end up meaning—yes meaning—something”.  Scheherazade's concerns are much more immediate than Saleems. The story needs to go on and on and be prolonged because of the impending death. Saleem has a considerably greater amount of time, and it's apparent that his lengthy prose may do him a disservice in conveying any message before his death. Of course, if we are to consider this, we have to consider that it is all a big ruse and Rushdie has no point to make. For Rushdie(and every satirist) it is hard to avoid destroying something only to end up standing for nothing, or ending up reinforcing the things it is satirizing. It is interesting to wonder how Rushdie has treated these two properties that every Satirist must consider.


In an earlier interview, Rushdie states:


"In a country like India, you are basically never alone. The idea of solitude is a luxury

which only rich people enjoy. For most Indians the idea of privacy is very remote.

When people perform their natural functions in public, you don’t have the same idea

of privacy. So it seemed to me that people lived intermingled with each other in a way

that perhaps they don’t anymore in the west, and that it was therefore idiotic to try

and consider any life as being discrete from all other lives."

This gives clear reasoning as to why the story is told in such a fragmentary, epic comic, and sprawling manner.  Could it possibly also reinforce stereotypes of India? Is Rushdie expressing a static viewpoint of India, and perhaps illustrating it under the manner of all that we've come to expect from postcolonial literature(complete with myths, magic, etc etc? Midnight's Children is a seminal work that merges the influences of both East and West(At one point a boy attends an 'Eastern Western'), and I wonder about how effectively it manages to be a open ended discourse.

In regards to Edward Said, in his book Orientalism he quotes this passage from Flaubert:

"On the road from Cairo to Shubra some time ago a young fellow had himself public

ally buggered by a large monkey—as in the story above to create a good opinion of

himself and make people laugh.

A marabout died a while ago—an idiot—who had long passed as a saint marked

by God; all the Moslem women came to see him and masturbated him—in the end he

died of exhaustion—from morning till night it was a perpetual jacking off."

I thought this could somewhat relate to the Rushdie quote above; this idea of performing 'natural functions' in public.  I think,  for me, it is sometimes difficult to imagine what Rushdie supports and what he is satirizing. That ambiguity seems to to be a fundamental tenant of post-modern literature. Linda Hutcheon states, 'In granting value to (what the centre calls) the margin or Other, the post-modern challenges any hegemonic force that presumes centrality, even as it acknowledges that it cannot privilege the margin without acknowledging the power of the centre'. What is the line between reinforcing something or bringing it to attention so as to remove it? I often find this an interesting question in satire, and I think Midnights Children rewards a wealth of study in this regard. It has clearly succeeded in inspiring a discourse, and I am not reticent to call this book a classic.

Hannah-Rushdie-03/09

In Rushdie's interview (around 20 minutes in), he says that understanding reality means grasping the whole picture. He also states that the world has become "too fragmented... for anyone to see everything". Rushdie explains that those who don't necessarily see their own realities as a whole and instead see it as a smashed mirror is insane. Saleem can definitely be called crazy, but throughout the novel he's putting the pieces of the mirror (reality and his history) back together, thus being relieved of the cracks that consume his life (he says that maybe Padma's love can put him back together, but also suggests he's going to die no matter what).

"Looking upwards into the mirror, I saw myself transformed... reminded me vividly of my grandfather Aadam Aziz on the day he told us about seeing God... The young-old face of the dwarf in the mirror wore an expression of profound relief" (514-515). Saleem hasn't necessarily put all the pieces of his life together because he's still contemplating his death, but he decides to write about the future instead. He's finally done writing about the past, seeing the smashed mirror coming together once and for all.

Rachel, Rushdie - 9/7

Oh Rushdie.  Your voice is just as deep and narrative as I would expect from a British guy.

Anyway, I didn't like the book Midnight's Children - it dragged on too long, I wasn't satisfied with the hero's eventual marriage to Padma (I had kind of assumed they were married already?)  In my view, this dragged on too long.  The thematic undercurrents of it were violently pushing me around and I drowned....in the literary sense.

But just because I didn't like the work doesn't mean I can't love the man behind it.  Rushdie was stellar in this interview.  When he describes humans as "storytelling animals?"  Brilliant.  My favorite quote: "We define ourselves by stories...if someone tries to control that, we simply, in my view, cannot be ourselves."

Tell it like it is, brother!  Remember North Korea!!

Will - Rushdie - 3/9

Around the 19:30 mark on the video, Rushdie mentions the "perforated sheet" through which Aadam Aziz falls in love with Naseem.  He says that in a way, that is how the book is constructed:  in fragments.  This is how we've seen the perforated sheet, as a metaphor for the fragmented vision of the world presented in the novel.  "Nobody has "whole sight," he says, no one knows everything about the world.  The narrator Saleem doesn't even know everything about the world he describes.  But Rushdie adds that the fragments are "united by the imagination of the writer."  So, though the world presented in Midnight's Children is fragmented, it is not random.  The book does have its own internal logic, though maybe no one but Rushdie will understand all the allusions.  Saleem's birth is mirrored by the birth of Aadam, the Ganesh-shaped child, a child born at the exact moment of Indian Emergency.  The book is filled with transformations, doubles.

At the half-hour point in the video, Rushdie mentions that if a person marries into a new family, he or she is not a real member of the family until they know the stories of the family.  That sort of highlights the oral history aspect to the novel.  Saleem invites the reader into his family, telling us the stories.  In this way, the stories are preserved.  We try to endlessly analyze the text, but it's nice to think of it as just a simple guy telling his story so it's not forgotten.

And it ends with a wedding! Rushdie's masterpiece concluded.

Northrop Frye, the great critic who wrote Anatomy of Criticism, noted that a comedy always ends with a wedding. Also, maybe less surprisingly the book ends with pickles and snakes. As a somewhat low-impact post for the conclusion, please screen the Columbia University interview with Rushdie, conducted fairly recently, but focusing on Midnight's Children. Then, with Rushdie's comments in mind, make any summing-up remarks on the book as a whole. Remember, as discussed on 3/7, we have to decide where the book is headed on a macro level in order to write about a specific theme. While Rushdie is not necessarily the expert on his own work, his comments may certainly color the way we see it.

The Rushdie interview, it shoud be said, is mostly about the fatweh and only tangentially about MC. For a more direct treatment of MC - and if you just can't get enough - view the top video, also from Columbia, and featuring Edward Said, who pioneered the idea of "orientalism." We will probably flip through this later video in class a bit.

An unrelated matter: the short story readings due for the class after break will be available by Friday in packet form at Village Copier, on 13th between 5th and University. On Wednesday, we will discuss the format and design for your midterm essay, due the Wednesday after spring break.

Michael rUSHdie---------

The passage beginning on page 411 starting with "futility of statistics" captures my attention in the way the narration of a tv show or a movie might. maybe a documentary, where the narrator insists that no words can describe the number in the migration to india. The rhythm is maintains a sort of domino effect in which with a list of a question  effectively being answered one after the other. Saleem speaks in a sort of thrid person when mention the buddha man-dog beast, my favorite line is "the buddha was not the only one who did what he was told" because i would consider the buddha to be one who does the opposite which i feel points out the humourous contradiction of calling himself the buddha in the section, it shows the absurd and  holy as rushdie does throught most of the novel.

anna –Rushdie- 3/7

first section, page 337 is a repetition of the begging of the book with the same general "format" lots of , "No that wont do"s and then, "theres no getting away from the date." The whole thing is meant to be a circle I suppose, because he uses the exact same phrases of "spell it out" , and "at the precise time of.." The language is as cutesey as it is poetic i.e. "heartboot"It is almost as if Rushie has the whole way of writing ingrained in his head as very logical, how he starts abstract, moves to micro to macro, and the language dances the reader through it and along

Jason - Rushdie - 3/7

The beginning of the passage on 390 starts with questions, “Who died in the holy war?” and so on. These questions create a sense of anticipation and mirror or become in some way similar to the falling bombs Saleem describes in the next paragraph. The questions leave the impression of things “being up in the air,” things with answers are similarly “explosive,” in that we learn that Saleem essentially loses his family and with it his life as a part of a family.

            Saleem describes the bombs dropped by the aircrafts involved in the raid as “actual or mythical.” This distinction he creates implies a meaning separate from the physical result (the deaths) that the bombings produces. The section in which Saleem says that there are more bombs remaining to be told of, creates another sense of anticipation for the bombs to actually go off and explode. Saleem interrupts himself while explaining the consequences of the bombing raid to describe the death of Mutasim the Handsome by the bullet of a sniper. This creates more tension and serves as a kind of device for the reader to picture the bombs falling, as if in a movie, in such a way that the bombs are superimposed over the image of Mutasim’s death. This technique is explicitly used and described in a later chapter. It also “buys time” for the bombs to fall (which creates a sense of realism) and correlates the sound of a whizzing bullet with (presumably) the screeching noise of a falling bomb.

This sequence is both an end and a beginning. The passage literally closes the “chapter” or second book of Saleem’s childhood and begins another section of his life (or the retelling of his life).

There’s also a reference to the perforated sheet in this passage. In this instance Saleem seems to analogize the hole in the sheet with a kind of bombing target. Even though the hole resembles a “smoke-image” of (presumably) Naseem Aziz after the bombs have been dropped, the implication seems to be, at least to me, that Saleem understands that his family was specifically targeted.

Jane- Rushdie- 3/7/11

2. What I found to be striking about the passage that begins: "They had even began to sleep together again; and although my sister- with a flash of her old Monkey-self- said, "In the same bed, Allah, chi-chhi, how dirty!" (Rushdie, 341) was how less fanciful, and more self-aware and colloquial it is compared to much of the narrative. Salim's voice retains the same raconteur quality that has dominated much of the book until this point, wherein he appears more vulnerable, particularly when he speaks of his losing favor amongst his fellow Midnights Children. I also find aching the moment where he speaks of the disingenuousness he feels about the sense of reunion amongst the other Children as he writes: "We repeated, over and over again, our joy at being back together; ignoring the deeper truth- that we were like all families, that family reunions are more delightful in prospect than in reality, and that the time comes when all families must go their separate ways" (Rushdie, 341).

Joseph-Rushdie-3/7

Saleem Sinai has long been championing himself as a human solid, but this is an instance when he considers that perhaps he may be a human surd.

The selection starts off with a repetition of 'silence' paired with parentheses:

'Silence outside me. A dark room(blinds down). Can't see anything(nothing there to see).

Silence inside me. A connection broken(for ever). Can't hear anything(nothing there to hear).

Silence, like a desert. And a clear, free nose(nasal passages full of air). Air, like a vandal, invading my private places.

Drained. I have been drained. The parahamsa, grounded. (For good).'

First off, we can note the parallels and rhythm of this section: It goes from silence inside, to silence outside, to silence all around. It goes from not being able to hear anything to not being able to see anything. Desert is followed by 'drained'. Fatalistic statements like 'for ever' are followed by 'for good'. It's a wondrous notion that air would be draining something: Saleem blows a lot of hot air, and it seems to have become so full that the draining is removing the surface elements, stripping Saleem's prose style down to a bare minimum. Interestingly enough though, this part is the most obtuse and the most minimal, and continues with the fatal attitude towards language that a lot of this section adopts.

 'Parahama' is an interesting and evocative word choice. Parahamsa is typically represented as a wild swan. The image of a wild swan in the desert is a bizarre pairing, but it works. This is not just any bird that has landed in a desert: It is the bird that most symbolizes water and grace, and the choice to place the swan in the desert is jarring.

The next paragraph Saleem begins with 'O, spell it out, spell it out' and proceeds to spell out his predicament in a detached, almost medical tone: 'obstensible', 'draining of my inflamed sinuses', etc etc. It's a bit strange for Saleem to begin with an 'O' and then proceed to speak in such a matter of fact, detached manner.

The final paragraph finds Saleem outlining all the possible meanings of the last name Sinai,and ones ultimate bondage to their name : Many connections are mythical and Rushdie sets up the prose like an ascending tower to Babel: The paragraph is almost made into one long sentence linking together all different interpretations underneath the repetition of 'also'. It's like Rushdie stacks the meaning upon another: 'But also', 'And there is also', 'and also'. All these meanings layered upon another are ultimately futile by the conclusion of the passage, which mirrors the style of the spare opening: "It is the name of the desert-of barrenness, infertility, dust;the name of the end'. Our language limits are the limits of our world, and if we examine the 'Iceberg theory' populated by Hemingway, we can see that perhaps Rushdie is asserting that no amount of myth or language can escape a larger,ever present force: All of the iceberg is on the surface and there is nothing underneath.

Rachel - Rushdie, 3/7

I absolutely love the first selection, so I'm going to close read that.  It starts on page 337, if anyone wants to grab their book and follow along...

The rhythm in this passage is unbelievable.  Totally alive.  I love this passage because it mirrors the one that opens the book, but instead of hearing "once upon a time," we hear "it's only a matter of time."  There's two phrases that are notorious for beginning intense stories...two storyteller phrases if I ever heard them.  We also see another dittoed line: "No, that won't do, there's no getting away from the date: my mother, right ankle on the left knee, was corn-tissue out of the sole of her foot with a sharp-ended nail file on September 9th, 1962.  And the time?  The time matters, too."

There's that anaphora that insists on itself: "I hold on to Padma.  Padma is what matters - Padma muscles, Padma's hairy forearms, Padma my own pure lotus. . . .who, embarrassed, commands: "Engouh.  Start.  Start now."

The constant repetition generates an electric sense of urgency in the book. It's almost like you can hear Rushdie saying: "we're going further down the Rabbit Hole now."  Saleem himself struggles to continue that narration, as though the psychological cracks are making it near-impossible to continue writing.  But Padma - there's that buff female figure, again - urges him forward...going to make a note of that for my gender relations paper.  Definitely.

Karol - Rushdie -03/05

This passage begins and ends with “…it’s only a matter of time” and time plays as an enumerative conceit throughout grounding the readership in dates and figures as addendum to Salim’s inner life. There is a hyperrealism apparent here to the point where it ‘chews on bones.’  The images of Amina picking at her corny gangrenous feet accretes into a scene less magical then Salim’s inner life. 

The space of an inner life that is interrupted by telecommunications and projecting phantasm onto reality, and thus, creating a fablesque space. It is significant that Amina Sinai receives a message by telegraph that affects her action in material reality based on Morse code radio transmission that requires a faith network in order to operate (meaning both sender and receiver have to trust the other party is real) .   

The anti-sublime image of Amin Sinai “right ankle on left knee” using a nail file is interrupted by an “envelope in a silver dish,” and stylistically the theme of interruption is evident  in the form. Because of the exhcange between form and content interruption can view as a thing in itself. 

When hyperreal space is interrupted it is hallmarked by dates and details in an enumerative concentration on details of “armies and their dates.” Rushdie’s use of the word “verucas” is interesting because It implies a viral basis to Amina’s affliction and paired with the arrival of the telegram it suggests a parallel. Its arrival also marks the entrance into fablesques space as Salim begins:  “…once upon a time. No, that won’t do…”(337-338)

Close Reading Rushdie II - 337-429

More passages for close reading. Just like before, only - remember: the emphasis here is on the language, the type of words, rhythm, voice, metaphor... In other words, the "rhetoric" or "poetics" of the passage. Try not to simply comment on "what it says." So, with that rather tedious preamble:
1. From "What chews-on-bones..." (337) to "...only a matter of time." (338). 2. "They had even begun to sleep..." (341) to "...you are badly changed." (342). 3. "Silence outside me..." (348) to "...the name of the end." (349). 4. "Capable of smelling..." (354) to "...opposite direction to me." (355). 5. From "There was a new brilliance..." (356) to "...revisited by Uncle Puffs." (356). 6. "What I could smell..." (361) to "...the spoors of whores." (362). 7. From "Once upon a time..." (366) to "'Progresshas occurred.'" (367). 8. From "The next morning..." to "...what she knew to be so." (373). 9. "Tick, tock..." (379) to "...adrift, unmanned." (380) 10. "Who died in the holy war?" (390) to "...family from the earth." (391). 11. From "Futility of statistics..." (411) to "...Ganges and the sea." (412)

Dan - Rushdie

285

            This excerpt shows the dynamic between Saleem between  Hanif and Pia. The fact that Hanif is so set on making realist cinema relects the state of Indian films. It is said that one of the only things that truly unites Indian culture is Indian cinema. It is known that realism is a genre that is not usually within the Bollywood culture. But the stubbornness of Hanif to create realistic scripts begins to bring him and Pia to poverty. This is the first time that Saleem is old enough to notice’s the disdain between Hanif and Saleem. I feel through Hanif and Pia Rushdie taking a swing at Bollywood. This can be seen especially in this excerpt where Saleem over hears Hanif and Pia arguing,

 "Scribble," she said, her hand slicing air, "Allah, don't stop me! So much talent, a person cannot go to the pot in this house without finding your genius. Are you happy husband? Are you making much money? God is good to you?" 

Eidia- Rushdie- 3.1.11

Pages 276 - 277

In this passage, there is a narrative voice employed by Saleem, who is in dialogue with his aunt; however, he is not entirely engaging in conversation with Pia Aziz, for he has transformed into an attentive listener, who in return exchanges his viewpoints with us, the readers and audiences. While describing her talents, which have been overlooked since her first success with Hanif's film, and her now banal life amongst the common folk, Pia, physically exerts a series of signals which is what Saleem is most affective by. Describing his aunt's complaints (while she claims not to complain about her current life), Saleem seems more drawn towards his sexual impulses, taking great care to describe Pia's "adorable breasts". Already, at such a young age, Saleem has begun to exert signs of his sexuality.
As Saleem continues to speak to the audience, Pia continues to engage herself in a one sided dialogue with Saleem, who expresses a minimum of responses. She is distraught by her husband's primary focus on penning scripts dealing with social cause, and exclaims how "boring-boring" they are. Ignorant of her husband's attempt to acquire a much more segued attempt from her "Public" appeals of dance and drama, Pia forgets for a bit that she is living the "ordinary" life that Hanif is scripting. She for once forgets to place herself in the same situation. Clearly, living amongst the masses, Pia is the one too proud of herself, not her husband.

Hannah-Rushdie-3/2

2. pg 274-275 "'Not the dark one...'" to "...lots of fun"

From pages 274-275, Saleem comes back from the hospital and is going to live with Hanif, Pia and Mary. When he is telling Mary to make him a light green chutney, "... green like grasshoppers!"(green = a new beginning, happiness, nature/nurture. The lighter the chutney, the more pure and innocent he wants to feel after experiencing everything that has happened so far, such as learning about his mother's infidelity). On page 275, Saleem compares himself to the Kolynos Kid that has a big grin on his face. "...squeezing crises and transformations out of a bottomless tube, extruding time on my metaphorical toothbrush..." (275). It seems that Saleem is trying to clean his slate and mind, but his hopes thin out, like toothpaste coming out of the tube, as his parents temporarily leave him with Hanif. Transformations and crises come and go in never ending cycles.

"That I was no longer a good business risk, no longer worth the investment of their love and protection?" Saleem is portrayed as an insecure little boy, as he should be at his age. Throughout the novel so far, he is seen as an older narrator at age ten because of his abilities and his powers, but this passage shows Saleem as doubtful about his future and the love of his parents. He even wants his sister to at least give him a phone call, reassuring his position as a child in his family. In order to deal with his insecurities, he decides to act like a surrogate son to Hanif and Pia, trying to reclaim his role in some sort of typical family setting. Rushdie seems to show Saleem as an ordinary boy in India, somewhat normal and worrisome. He is repetitive in Saleem's thoughts about blaming himself for making his parents disappear from his life, going on for a page about the 'what ifs' of his injury and what could have happened if it never happened.

Michael rUSHdie---------

In the passage on page 332 beginning with "Of course i nodded" rushdie narrates as eleven year old saleem  at a military dinner with his uncle the general and his son zafar. Zafar wets his pants and is chased out by the general out of shame. In the diologic sense we get an understanding of the voice of the general in his feelings towards his son and his need to find a replacement to salvage his honor, as described through his eyes. Saleem helps Zulfikar map out "the revolution" using pepperpots, salt cellars and bowls of chutney as symbolic object of soldiers and landmarks. We get a sense of the peoples view of the president in saleem admitting that at his age he was unable to pass any judgment on the corruption of the president. So in that we see the perception of both saleem as older narrator and saleem as eleven year old child, we feel the innocent excitemnet of adventure within the eleven year old saleem when his uncle wakes him up to take him to the presidents. Decribing his journey there the style of Rushdies writing and rhythm changes, and becomes a poetic portrayal of images via memory. "Black smoked windowed limousines pausing at darkened house. sentries guard the door with crossed rifles. Suddenly the writing assumes a present point in time as opposed to a past tensed tone.

Jason - Rushdie - 3/2

In the passage from Pg. 292-3 in which Saleem is becoming aware that his Midnight Children’s Conference is becoming tainted by prejudices which leak from parents into children and seem to obliterate the compassion, curiosity, and innocence a child is supposed to have. It seems to me that the irony or joke here is that kids are presumably acting with adult prejudices when it could just as easily be that prejudices are essentially child-like to begin with. In this situation adults may be portrayed here as overgrown children.

Much of the passage also focuses on Saleem as a kind of humanitarian who believes in the potential of the individual to overcome the dualities that are found throughout society. He wants to create a “third space” so to speak, outside of duality – duality being the thing that most alienates one thing/person/idea from another. Also, Saleem, in a way, shows himself to be a “dreamer,” believing in the power of ideas over the power of things. In this sense, Saleem could also be seen as a kind of spiritual figure, who rejects the material/physical/temporal world. There’s also the clear impression that the Conference, and what Saleem is arguing for, are part of a political discourse. It seems that Saleem’s position calls attention to or satirizes “the plea for reason” or “doing things for the greater good” within the context of a democracy.

Saleem’s ideas are confronted (or at least contrasted) by Shiva’s opposing beliefs in the inherent and inescapable dualities of life, that there is nothing more to living than providing for oneself, and that people are nothing more than things.

            This passage could also be a metaphor for human nature in general seen through the emerging yin and yang of Saleem’s mind as he comes of age or representative of self-confidence/self-belief versus self-doubt. This interpretation would probably be more applicable to Saleem the Narrator since his perspective is more removed and thus would be one that encompasses both sides of the argument.

Karol - Rushdie -03/02

One thing  distinct about the narrator’s voice is that his voice shift from present to past tensed narration he seems to evoke himself as if in the present by speaking to the audience familiarly. Part of the familiarity, I think, comes from the self-abasing satirical undertones Salim employs in narration. Stating his actions as allegorical or symbolic reduces them to readership but then again empowers the narrator because of his ability to suspend judgment in his following by reducing himself before they get a chance to. Rushdie beats the hand of judgment to the punch by having his protagonist declare the artifice of his constructions, an “active metaphorical mode of connection.”

                       

The pace picks up as Salim is woken up for the “real thing.” The list of objects being used for the game of strategy he is helping in set the pace as he is awoken by his uncle. His uncle also calls him “sonny.” Also, the text apologizes for Salim before it puts him in the abduction scene. “An eleven-year-old boy cannot judge whether a President is truly corrupt, even if gongs-and-pips say he is; it is not for eleven-year olds to say whether Mirza’s association with the feeble Republican Party should have disqualified him from high office under the new régime. Saleem Sinai made no political judgments…”

Rushdie sets the strange scene of the home invasion as it is happening in the present. “Black smoked-windowed limousine pausing at darkened house. Sentries guard the door with crossed rifles; which part, to let us through. I am marching at my uncle’s side, in step, through half-lit corridors; until we burst into a dark room with a shaft of moonlight spotlighting a four-poster bed. A mosquito net hangs over the bed like a shroud.” The opening of this sequence of events speaks of manhood as it pertains to fatherhood. Even though, Salim is inventing his father figures his initiation in manhood is very real and dire. (332-33)

Will - Rushdie - 3/2

On page 276, the passage that begins "My mumani . . . " starts in the voice of the narrator Saleem, describing a charming scene from his youth when his film-star aunt made him act out scenes with her.  But the image of innocence is undercut with the detail that Saleem is "trying to keep my eyes away from two impossible orbs, spherical as melons, golden as mangoes."  This is a schoolboy's way of describing breasts, similar to when Saleem described his mother's butt as a giant black mango.  The phrase captures the awkwardness of Saleem's position at that moment:  he is being treated as a child, but he is in the beginning stages of his sexual maturity.  Pia then gives a melodramatic soliloquy, with "one arm flung across her brow."  She laments her declining fame and her simple life with Hanif, and ends with the ridiculous phrase:  "But I know this:  my face is my fortune; after that, what riches do I need?"  This is the voice of an actress, declining in fame but still dignified.  Rushdie is poking fun at the melodrama and narcissism of famous people, but in that moment the reader can still admire her self-possession. 

This is not so true when at the next moment Pia switches to the voice of a nagging wife, decrying Hanif's "boring-boring scripts" which are devoid of singing, dancing, drama, or humor.  Pia's monologue ends with the hilarious line, "So you know what he is writing now?  About . . . the Ordinary Life of a Pickle-Factory!"  Hanif, the strictest realist filmmaker ever, is all the while sitting on a "chlorophyll-striped sofa."  Rushdie inserts this detail to connect him to the Kolynos Kid, the smiley child on a toothpaste billboard representing gross consumerist culture.  This allusion keeps the reader from thinking of Hanif as a martyr, and his wife as a soul-sucker.  Saleem doesn't know whose side to take, and neither does the reader.  Rushdie uses different voices to make a common type of scene bewildering (perhaps because to a young child like Saleem it is bewildering).  This scene is funny, but it's a portrait of an unhappy marriage.  It's melodramatic but also psychologically realistic.  

Joseph-Rushdie-3/2

1. p. 273, beginning "Sensing Padma's..." and ending "...passed us by." 


It's obvious in this passage that we are meeting the poetic and linguistic narrator. This narrator is one who cannot find meaning unless he covers all grounds, and this is an instance in which he must explain terms mentioned in an earlier paragraph to a "bewildered"  Padma. It's largely a paragraph that attempts to poeticize the hyphen, and link each term to an academic study of 'Midnight's Children("passive-metaphorical", "passive-literal", and "active metaphorical"). This passage seems made for Spark Notes or term papers,and it's easy to see Rushdie is having fun(at one point he says "Under this heading you should file", as if he knows we are making handy analyses in our spiral notebooks). To link it to another work that pokes fun of it's audience(Nabokov's "Pale Fire"), it would be like if John Shade had left a poem, complete with handwritten annotations and a study guide, for Charles Kinbote , instead of Kinbote explicating little on the actual text and interpreting through his own idiosyncratic and delusional lens. Saleem may be having a go at jabbing his reader with scholarly humor, but he is also deadly serious and concerned about how he is to be interpreted. He leaves no room for ambiguity, unlike the deceased poet of 'Pale Fire'.

For Saleem, his outlook is mostly "active metaphorical": He imagines his life to run parallel with India's, and he actively goes seeking for connections. If reached for long or far enough, almost any event in our own lives can be made "active metaphorical" to match with history.  Saleem attributes only one event to being "active-literal": The rallying cry he gave the people. This is of course humorous, because Saleem states earlier that the words are "A nonsense; a nothing; nine words of emptiness". The most active thing he has done was essentially unintentional. These nine words of emptiness  played a role in the partition of Bombay(although, like many other things, perhaps Saleem overstates his influence).

On a structural level, the paragraph is very passive and serves to recount many things have occurred, or in the event that Saleem is reflecting on something which is to occur. It's a long, extended paragraph that does not have the one thing the passage ultimately addresses: action. As the passage comes to an end, Saleem laments that the Midnight's Children group had "passive-literal", "passive-metaphorical", and "active-metaphorical":What they did not have was "active-literal", and in terms of the narrative, neither did this passage.