Jason-Roy-4/6

            The ways in which the powerful and the powerless appear in Roy’s novel seem to be split along lines one would assume they would be split along. Class position, religion, political alignment, skin color, age, etc. Sophie Mol seems an embodiment of all that is deemed powerful, at least by the family. Though the love she is the focus of (which she seems to not reciprocate or even be interested in) ultimately doesn’t save her from drowning. Though in some way her place in the family’s “heart” does appear to haunt Rahel and Estha endlessly.

It seems that the greatest determining factor, in terms of who’s powerful and who’s powerless, is the degree or amount one is loved. This didn’t seem to come up in Roy’s speech specifically but does in the novel. Rahel and Estha (though particularly Rahel) seem to be focused on the amount they perceive their mother to love them. In their eyes, this entity, love, is what can give them power. The weighing Rahel and Estha do, to determine their moth’s love for them, seems to be set against the perception they have that Sophie Mol is ubiquitously loved by everyone in their family perhaps to a “larger amount” then anyone loves them. Only Velutha seems to unconditionally love both Rahel and Estha.

            In terms of a political perspective, maybe this child-like rendering of power dynamics is really at the heart of all political discourse. The state or the status quo, or the traditional manners of hierarchical structure, embodied by Inspector Thomas Mathew and the police, Baby Kochamma and Mammachi, Comrade Pillai, seem to all be in the business of determining who can be loved, how much, and by who. By doing so it is possible to dictate who interacts with who, who has relationships with who, and determine what the structure and face of social dealings look like. This is made clear by Ammu’s relationship with Velutha (a touchable and an untouchable) one that’s forbidden by societal traditions as well as Rahel’s relationship with Estha and what it culminates in. It’s possible that in Roy’s depiction of the interference of political systems and traditions on interpersonal relationships, specifically Ammu’s and Velutha’s, she implies that it sets a dangerous precedent for the generations that follow. That these types of restrictions are the source of all ensuing problems.

Will - Roy - 4/6

Roy's speech, she says, is about the same thing her novel is about:  "The relation between power and the powerless."  The evil that swoops down at the end of the book to destroy Velutha, Ammu, and the twins is a manifestation of the same power that Roy describes in her speech.  The brutal authoritarian power that installs military dictators in Latin America, the power that subdues Kashmir, the power that oppresses Palestinians, to use Roy's examples.  The power that kills people but also steals lives from the living.

The powerless in the novel are Ammu, Velutha, and the twins Rahel and Estha.  Ammu and Velutha are wiped out, but Rahel and Estha live broken lives.  The family unit can be seen as a metaphor for a nation.  The facade of "good breeding" that Mammachi has nourished is broken by Ammu's lust for Velutha.  Baby Kochamma could be construed as a metaphor for a thoughtless politician, "pillaging even the most private human feelings for political purpose."  She uses the catastrophe of Sophie Mol's death, Chacko's rage, and the love (or lust) between Velutha and Ammu for her own advancement.  The family/nation is eventually reduced to two broken children, Baby Kochamma and a cook who are both addicted to the fantasies of television and have let the Ayemenem house fall to ruin.  The empire has crumbled because a circumscribed way of life has been promoted to the exclusion of all other ways of life.  "Flags are used by governments to shrink wrap people's minds then shrouds to bury the dead."

Karol - Roy -04/05

"Fiction and nonfiction are only different techniques of story telling." Roy's talk is very broad on the system's of oppression in the world  but I have a hard time seeing it in the book. Perhaps it shows in the character's lack of agency. I can definitely see her interests in power dynamics but since everything is on the subjective level the state level (as her theme here represents) is not visible. There is an anarchic tone to her rhetoric which she represents in her book.

"I believe that the accumulation of vast unfettered power by a State or a country, a corporation or an institution - or even an individual, a spouse, a friend, a sibling -regardless of ideology..." I agree what she says about the branding of anti-Americans but that is not representative of the whole or even the majority.

"The term "anti-American" is usually used by the American establishment to discredit and, not falsely - but shall we say inaccurately - define its critics. Once someone is branded anti-American, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they are heard, and the argument will be lost in the welter of bruised national pride...is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination." Saying that calling someone racist for calling you anti-American is just tit for tat. Overall, I found her speech is very interesting but the pessimistic approach is what I find unattractive about her work. Not to say that she is wrong but she offers no solutions (it's easy to point out the problems).

Rachel, Roy - 4/6

Although The God of Small Things does not directly comment on war, as "Come September" does, I think both pieces are written in the same vein.  Joe is right to call Roy a sentimentalist.  At the core of this novel is not Roy's desire to tell a story  - it is her need to express connection and empathy with a broad range of individuals, be they Americans or veshyas.  She urges us to realize the weight of our own actions on other people, whether they are acts of violence or charity.  I think that's the goal of many activists, is to get people to realize that.

In "Come September," Roy writes:

"War cannot avenge those who have died.  War is only a brutal desecration of their memory.  To fuel yet another war, this time against Iraq, by cynically manipulating people's grief, by packaging it for t.v. specials sponsored by corporations selling detergent and running shoes, is to cheapen and devalue grief - to drain it of meaning.  What we are seeing now is a vulgar display of the business of grief the commerce of grief, the pillaging of even the most private, human feelings for political purpose.  It is a terrible, violent thing for a state to do to its people."

This same anti-authoritarian tone is adopted in Ammu's death scene.  (It's on page 154, if you'd like to take a look at it again...we also did a close reading on Monday.)  "Ammu always noticed them [veshyas] in the market, the women with vacant eyes and forcibly shaved heads in the land where long, oiled hair was only for the morally upright...everybody would know them for what they were...new policemen on the beat would have no trouble identifying whom to harass."

Ammu manages to sympathize and identify with prostitutes, even if it is only subconsciously.  They exist outside her moral circle, and yet she feels sympathy when she sees their shaved heads.  Like her, they are outcasts because of decisions that they have made.  Both of Roy's writings urge the audience to incorporate a similar approach in their own lives.  She wants us to realize the true, ripples-deep affect that violence we inflict on "non-persons" has...and maybe realize that the U.S. army isn't trying to "liberate women from their burkas."  Maybe the women even feel compelled to wear them out of religious obligation.  But first we have to imagine life from their perspective and their culture - and not ours.

On a more personal note, this speech was like a therapeutic brain massage.  "We are being led to believe that the U.S. marines are actually on a feminist mission."

Say it like it is.

Joseph-Roy-4/6

Arundnati Roy,when speaking about the unfavorable political climate in India, expressed hope for an anarchist spirit. The exchange is as follows:

Zinn: But I liked what you said about the...that in India there's a kind of inherent anarchism which will save India.

Roy: We hope. I think it's like... trying to corporatize India is like trying to put an iron grid on the ocean. I just think even though Fascists are not disciplined, they're...hopefully they'll mess it up.

Roy became aware of the need for political disturbances/awareness from a very young age. She comments that her mother(who married a man outside of tradition)  “ made the mistake of marrying him and then divorcing him and came back to the village. And so we grew up sort of outside the realm of all the protections that that society chose to offer its members. So from a very young age, one was aware of the fact that you were not going to be given those protections.”

If we look at the text, we can see a similar ostracization towards the character of Ammu. Roy writes, on page 256(of my version), that Ammu is “The Unmix-able Mix—the infinite tenderness of motherhood, the reckless rage of a suicide bomber.”

Ammu refuses prostitution, and is shamed by the patriarchal community. This is a label she cannot escape( i.e,  after Velutha’s arrest, Ammu is called a veshya by the police.) Ammu is seen as a wild card. She is not the traditional, doting mother or wife. She is someone who is attempting to transcend the ‘double colonization(introduced by Kirsten Holst Petersen and Anna Rutherford’ of colonalism and indigenous patriacharal structures. Roy writes of Ammu on page 44: “They senses somehow that she lived in the penumbral shadows between two worlds, just beyond the grasp of their power. That a woman that they had already damned, now had little left to lose, and could therefore be dangerous.”

Protections may have to be sacrificed, but it is ultimately worth it. At the heart of the matter, Roy is a sentimentalist in the age of irony. She is not a kind of sentimentalist that is content to learn coping mechanisms and accept things as they are. She is the other kind of sentimentalist: the kind that risks losing power in order to gain strength. The last statement in her interview is the perfect mix of sentiment and sober thought:

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.

 Beauty and truth are not all around us. They must be sought out, and chased down. If literature is to be the oppostite of a nuclear bomb(as Roy states), it must properly cultivate its explosive power.  

Roy: Poet and Pundit

Watch Arundhati Roy's speech at the Lanaan Foundation, "Come September." Here is a link to the transcript. Then post on the way her political and philosophical ideas shed light on the intents of her novel. She claims that her novel-writing and her political activism share a common message and purpose. Referring specifically to the film, can you find Roy's political perspective in her famous novel? How do her convictions perhaps explain the novels' style and choice of topics - even its details?

Anna- Roy-4/4

I noticed that both Roy and Rushdie have employed the tactic of false suspense. With Rushdie we wait until halfway through the book for the main character to be born. While we wait we are given a whole bunch of lead up, then it happens like nothing. In Roy's book, we are waiting too. We are waiting and waiting foremost for Sophie Mol to arrive (pg. 157) We already know she will arrive and she will die from very beginning of the book. Kind of like we know Saleem will be born on the stroke of midnight from his first page. In Roy's we are also waiting for the forbidden love.

Will - Roy - 4/4

One technique used in Roy that is similar to Rushdie is the use of prophetic dream.  In Midnight's Children on page 238, Saleem has a fever dream that begins "No colors except green and black the walls are green the sky is black . . . . "  The dream continues:  "the children run and scream the Widow's hand curls round them green and black."  The dream, though dreamt by Saleem in the present after drinking Padma's love elixir, comes at a point in the novel when Saleem is nearly-nine.

On page 205 in The God of Small Things, while Estha and Rahel visit Velutha and Kuttappen, Ammu dreams:  "Ammu traveled upwards through a dream in which a cheerful man with one arm held her close by the light of an oil lamp."  She dreams of Velutha, but Ammu and Velutha can't touch because "in the shadows, there were metal folding chairs arranged in a ring and on the chairs there were people, with slanting rhinestone sunglasses, watching."  Roy even uses the same color combination that Rushdie used:  "The sea was black, the spume vomit-green."

The dreams come at points in the narrative when the reader knows that things are going to go very badly but not why and act as a preview.  Both dreams depict people at the mercy of forces much larger than them.  With Rushdie it is the Widow (Indira Gandhi) who represents the government and history, and in Roy it is the people in sunglasses who represent society, or opinion, or what-would-the-neighbors-think.  For Roy even the most intimate moments, like dreams, are invaded by oppressive societal forces.  On a side note, this is the second time in the novel that Velutha's abs have been described as the ridges of a chocolate bar.  Whose description is that?  Would a grown woman describe abs that way?

Jason-Roy-4/4

            To me that the focus on recurring images and/or objects in both The God Of Small Things and Midnight’s Children holds a similarity somewhere. It may even be present in A Bend In The River in the fact that Salim is a dealer of things. Though comparatively, Roy’s and Rushdie’s usage of the idea seems to be a much clearer parallel.

Throughout Roy’s novel the narrator picks out particular objects, types of reactions or impressions to things and events, onomatopoeic descriptions, animals, and other points of focus that is in a way similar to Rushdie’s usage of recurrent images and objects. In Rushdie’s case, through Saleem, he (Rushdie) takes these continually surfacing things and uses them as the literal (as in the words he uses on the page) and metaphoric material for building the story that Saleem’s history consists of.

So, it seems to me that in the case of Midnight’s Children things/objects/images, in other words, the fragments of memory, are the basis for weaving a narrative. It seems also that within these things there is a meaning within them being discovered, maybe re-discovered, or at the least being applied to them by an imaginative individual. On page 121, Rushdie shows Saleem describing a list of things that he (Saleem) says made him.

            In Roy’s novel, I think a similar thing is happening though in a different way. On page 215:

           

At the time, there would only be incoherence. As though meaning had slunk out of things and left them fragmented. Disconnected. The glint of Ammu’s needle. The color of a ribbon. The weave of the cross-stitch counterpane. A door slowly breaking. Isolated things that didn’t mean anything. As though the intelligence that decodes life’s hidden patterns – that connects reflections to images, glints to light, weaves to fabric, needles to thread, walls to rooms, love to fear to anger to remorse – was suddenly lost.

In this passage it shows a struggle to link things together to build an understanding of a moment, a family, and an individual life or a memory of a life. This passage comes after a description of Chacko’s grief after Sophie Mol’s funeral and Ammu asking Rahel and Estha to always love each other. What seems to be an inability to connect things together to make meaning out of them could relate to the structure of the narrative, how it frequently interrupts itself and the flow of time.

Though the opposite could just as well be said that the intercutting structure could be a sign of consciously splicing things/objects/images/ideas together to make meaning – though in Roy’s novel there doesn’t seem to be a self-aware narrator. Either way, this kind of style, of piecing together fragments (or the inability to do so) could be a defining characteristic of South Asian Literature.

Eidia.Roy.4/4

Rivers

In both V.S Naipaul's A Bend in the River, and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, there is a strong underlying presence of nature; specifically, rivers. Both novels have a similar attitude regarding this natural element. There is a sense of mystery attached to it, as well as differing viewpoints towards humans, those incapable of as well as capable of interacting with the capricious characteristics of both rivers. In Naipaul's A Bend in the River, while Saleem, the protagonist, is mystified as well as intimidated by the river by his village, Zabeth, a merchant woman, is depicted as a character capable of defying the impossible and confronting the currents of its forces. With her interaction with the river, the danger of its currents as well as its varied channels, Zabeth manages to survive via her courageous demeanor. At the same time, with a sense of admiration, but a much stronger sense of fear, Saleem describes his viewpoints regarding the river as:

"In the darkness of the darkness of river and forest you could be sure only of what you could see--- and even on a moonlight you couldn't see much. When you made a noise---dipped a paddle in the water---you heard yourself as though you were another person. The river and the forest were like presences, and much more powerful than you. You felt unprotected, an intruder."

As Saleem felt like an intruder, most of Roy's characters were intrigued by the river Meenachal. While Naipaul only occasionally mentions the river in his novel, Roy references the element several times in her work. She also establishes a certain of characters with this natural force, such as Estha, Rahel, Velutha, and Ammu. These four characters have been greatly impacted by the Meenachal. Along with their constant interaction with this natural force, a foreigner, Sophie Mol, interacts with the river once--resulting in her death. Essentially, Roy's Meenachal is a ruthless river, she does not pardon a single being, even the natives are foreigners to her. She serves as a bridge who allows, easily for the Touchable platoon of officers to cross her, reaching the History House, ultimately bringing an end to living and death---both at once.
Both Naipaul and Roy established a common sense of Indian culture and mysticism via nature. They have allotted the rivers human qualities, transforming them into characters. While Naipaul's work lacks further insight upon the river, only sparsely mentioned, almost always admired for its mystery, Roy presents a contrasting situation in which her characters are so enthralled by the Meenachal, that they interact with it, study it, and immerse themselves in it.

Karol - Roy -04/04

While Roy uses the same symbol systems as Rushdie (nose, pickles, often Freudian symbols) her tone is closer Naipaul's because in many ways hers is an angry novel and Rushdie's is not. Roy mentions sex and death in a Freudian way like Rushdie would but I think her protagonists leanings are closer to destruction than creation. Whereas, Rushdie's protagonist has an equanimity of perceptive reasoning between the two. Joseph makes a good observation on the temporally defamiliaritve factors that separate the two authors.

I decided to compare Naipaul's and Roy's mentions of money and I was surprised with what I found because both author's mention money a lot and Rushdie only seems to mention in terms of luck and th horse races (could be wrong. Money is often associated with scholarships with both authors. Naipaul seems to have a better understanding economics but in Roy the characters are always influenced by it.

He had no pressing reasons to stay in touch with his

parents. The Rhodes Scholarship was generous. He

needed no money. He was deeply in love with his love...

along with the pressures to living together came

penury. There was no longer any scholarship money,

and there was the full rent of the flat to be paid." (Roy, 212-213)

 
"Young men, not all of them from the lycée, took to

turning up at the shop, sometimes with books in their

hands, sometimes with an obviously borrowed Semper

Aliquid Novi blazer. They wanted money. They said

they were poor and wanted money to continue their

studies. Some of these beggars were bold, coming

straight to me and reciting their requests; the shy ones

hung around until there was no one else in the shop." (Naipaul, 56)
 
I am tempted to call both of these authors materialist but I'm not sure I'd have to give it more thought.  

Joseph-Roy-4/4

I wanted to discuss the repetition of certain images in both books. Multiple images are repeated throughout the texts, but they acquire a different meaning according to their temporal setting.

 In God of Small Things'we can observe, for example, the repetition of things like 'blue church-sky" and "dum dum". Roy writes (at the beginning of Chapter 11): "She could have touched his body lightly with her fingers, and felt his smooth skin turn to gooseflesh. She could have let her fingers stray to the base of his flat stomach. Carelessly, over those burnished chocolate ridges. And left patterned trails of bumpy goose flesh on his body, like flat chalk on a blackboard, like a swath of breeze in a paddy field, like jet streaks in a blue church sky. She could so easily have done that, but she didn't."

Compare that to this passage later on in the novel: "That first night, on the day that Sophie Mol come, Velutha watched his lover dress. When she was ready she squatted facing him. She touched him lightly with her fingers and left a trail of goosebumps on his skin. Like flat chalk on a blackboard. Like breeze in a paddy field. Like jet streaks in a blue church-sky." Observe the change in style here, even though many of the phrases are identical. In this passage, the repetition of "like" is separated by periods. It is not a climbing on top of one another, all at once event like in the previous example. The action here unfolds in a staccato, more careful manner. It is interesting that   frames it this way, because the second example is the active one. The first example is all imagining: She “could” have done this, she “could” have done that. Yet, it is written in a much lighter use of punctuation and prose mechanics. The second example is active, but it is stunted and suggests the weight of taking action.

The weight of taking action and reconciling ones self with time is a central concern of 'Midnight's Children', and Rushdie uses many instances of repetition and alternating meanings to manipulate time. I will use 'perforated sheet' as the example:

Saleem first remarks (at the beginning of the chapter 'Mercurochrome'): "But what is so precious,” Padma demands, her right hand slicing the air up-downup in exasperation, "to need all this writing-shiting?" I reply: now that I've let out the details of my birth, now that the perforated sheet stands between the doctor and patient, there's not going back." There is clearly a concession to forward motion here, to linear timekeeping. Yet, this belief in time being linear is subverted when we examine further mentions of the perforated sheet.

Let's observe the mention of the perforated sheet that concerns Jamila and Mutasim. Rushdie writes:

"But when Jamila Singer, concealed within a gold-brocaded burqa, arrived at the palace, Mutasim the Handsome-who owing to his foreign travels had never heard the rumors of her disfigurement-became obsessed with the idea of seeing her face; he feel head-over-heels with the glimpses of her demure eyes he saw through the perforated sheet. (p. 402(in my electronic version) In essence, the perforated sheet has found new life. It has found another worldly traveling man who falls in love piece by piece with a woman. The perforated sheet does not become clearer as the story evolves (as one would expect in a strictly linear narrative).  This is another example of an active voice, but it appears that it is unaware of the tale that has come before it.

In the final chapters of the novel (the fourth paragraph in the chapter entitled "A Wedding") Saleem writes:

"In a blind landowner's house on the shores of a Kashmiri lake, Naseem Aziz doomed me to the inevitability of perforated sheets; and in the waters of that same lake, Isle Lubin leaked into history, and I have not forgotten her death wish." Here we get a passive, reflective mention of the perforated sheet. It is no longer the thing that drives the narrative (the first example), or the thing that has inspired a new one (the second example). It is now, in fact, the thing that prevents a narrative from ever fully forming. '

Rachel - Roy, 4/4

So for my theme, I'm choosing how "adult" issues are explained to children within South Asian diaspora literature.  If there's one thing different cultures tend to view differently, it's how children should be raised.  Obviously, a significant aspect of raising children is discipline.  If a kid throws a tantrum in a grocery store, is it okay to smack them across the face?  In the small supermarkets of Korea, yes.  In liberal, yuppie Whole Foods of NYC, no.  Is it okay to talk to them about safe sex?  In Korea, DEFINITELY NO.  With a resounding "NO!"

In liberal, yuppie NYC, kids get "the sex talk" and an anatomy book before they're ten.

One particularly illuminating passage is on pages 112 and 113 of The God of Small Things - it's probably remembered as the exchange between Chacko and Rahel.  Here's the extract, in which they discuss the human condition:

"Chacko?" Rahel said, form her darkened bed.  "Can I ask you a question?"
"Ask me two," Chacko said.
"Chacko, do you love Sophie Mol Most in the World?"
"She's my daughter," Chacko said.
Rahel considered this.
"Chacko?  Is it Necessary that people HAVE to love their own children Most in the World?"
"There are no rules," Chacko said.  "But people usually do."
"Chacko, for example," Rahel said, "just for example, is it possible that Ammu can love Sophie Mol more than me and Estha?  Or for you to love me more than Sophie Mol for example?"
"Anything's possible in Human Nature," Chacko said in his Reading Aloud voice.  Talking to the darkness now, suddenly insensitive to his little fountain-haired niece.  "Love.  Madness.  Hope.  Infinite joy."
Of the four things that were Possible in Human Nature, Rahel thought that Infinnate Joy sounded the saddest.  Perhaps because of the way Chacko said it.
Infinnate Joy.  With a church sound to it.  Like a sad fish with fins all over.
A cold moth lifted a cold leg.
The cigarette smoke curled into the night.  And the fat man and the little girl lay awake in silence."

Again, this passage just shows the innovative diction that makes me love Roy so much...everything is always compared to a fish.  Why is that?  I don't know, but I like it.  Also, there's a fish stamped on the front cover of the God of Small Things edition I've got.  Just because I got it hardcover from Fogelman Library...weird.

Anyway.  Back to child rearing...Rahel manages to ask Chacko about the human condition - probably the world's most "adult" matter - without realizing it.  The even initiates the conversation.  So how does he, being an adult and a father, react?  Even if he isn't Rahel's father specifically, his reaction would certainly be influenced by cultural upbringing.

First, he speaks realistically - if not bluntly - in this passage.  Clearly, Rahel does not comprehend everything he says on a literal level.  It would be difficult for a child to truly grasp the concept of "Human Nature," or even the definition of "infinite."  But he goes on and says it anyway.

And somehow, at least on a phonetic level, Rahel understands.  The intonation of his voice, the sound of "Infinnate (capitalized, italicized, with three n's) Joy" explains the meaning to her.  Nothing is really left unexplained.  The child is left to decipher meaning on their own, but the adult is honest.  At the end of the passage, he smokes a cigarette while she contemplates, trying to process what has just been explained to her.

Things are handled differently in Midnight's Children.  Saleem is practically dumped at his aunt and uncle's house on page 275, and he "blames [himself] not a little for his banishment, attributing it to his "bandylegs cucumbernose horn-temples staincheeks."  The adults seem to be reluctant to discuss their reasoning at all.  It just kind of happens; but then, this is Rushdie, and the entire text of Midnight's Children just "seems to happen."  Nevertheless, adult matters are kept between adults - parents and aunts/uncles.

So, in conclusion, parenting methods seem just as varied in South Asian literature as they are in American literature.  You get parents who are either honest or secretive, strict or lax.  It all depends on which family you're born into, I guess.

ROY up to 225

As we forge on in Roy's elliptical novel, we should keep in mind the final task of this course: to gather ideas about S. Asian diasporic literature in general, drawing examples from the works we've read. With that in mind, try this for your post: pick a theme, character, motif, or stylistic quirk from the passages we've read and compare it to  a specific and similar feature of Naipaul's or Rushdie's book - or one of the stories. Such a theme could be the play (perforance, articiality); the "wisdom exercise notebooks" (archaic ideas about human development); Ammu's and Velutha's love (secretive love that defies religious strictures); the Ayemenem House; the History House; the role of accident; filmic or pop culture references; depictions of the body; instances of memory being unreliable, etc. Your post should contain two passages: one from Roy and one from another text - include a quote and page number from Roy: just a page number from the non-Roy text is fine. 

Jason-Roy-3/30

Within the Family, Western influences seem to have near equal footing within their perception of the world. Chacko’s time spent at Oxford seems to be an underlying reason for the existence of his “Reading Aloud Voice,” what seems to be a kind of overly accentuated intellectuality and need to present himself as above everything and everyone around him. There seems to be a similarity between this type of behavior and the way the children, Estha and Rahel, are forced to engage in pronouncing English words “properly” with the correct “Prer NUN sea ayshun.”

A strain of Chacko’s Westernness, forced on them by Baby Kochamma, seems to be acting as a constraint or restraint on the children’s means of interacting with language with are ultimately things outside of themselves. It seems to be a kind of tool for identity formation. Ammu does a similar thing when she takes Rahel aside after she’s wrapped herself up in a dirty curtain to avoid Sophie Mol and Margaret Kochamma at the airport.

She (Ammu) “informs” Rahel what is “DIRTY” and what is “CLEAN.” It seems behind this distinction that Ammu demands Rahel understand is a struggle of Rahel’s innate personality versus Sophie Mol’s foreign worldly superiority (that everyone of the adults in the family places on her). In other words, there’s a conflict between Indianness and Englishness or Darkness vs. Lightness, good and evil. Still, Rahel and Estha already have many parts of their identity determined according to Western sensibilities. Estha’s fascination with Elvis and Rahel’s (and Estha’s) love for Velutha who seems to embody this interrelatedness of Eastern and Western as an untouchable who seems to have the power to rise above his circumstances.

karol- roy - 3/30

6. The story, like Rushdie's book, makes liberal use of foreshadowing. There is a suggestion of a motive for Rahel and Estha's involvement in Sophie Mol's death. Comment on this suggestion and its possible meaning or reason for inclusion.

"The backs of Rahel’s legs went wet and sweaty. Her skin slipped on the foamleather upholstery of the car seat. She and Estha knew about millstones. In Mutiny on the Bounty, when people died at sea, they were wrapped in white sheets and thrown overboard with millstones around their necks so that the corpses wouldn’t float. Estha wasn’t sure how they decided how many millstones to take with them before they set off on their voyage." (80)

The audience definitely knows Sophie is going to die well in advance of the event. After the capsizing of the boat the anticlimactic reaction is definitely a clue; paired with what Sophie says to them the night before pairs motive with opportunity. The term accidentally on purpose comes to mind. The mutiny on the Bounty reference evokes a colonial/imperial thematic content synonymous with their relationship.

Will - Roy - 3/30

If you remember the first reading from class, "Intro to the Indo-English Novel," a modernist ideology is supposedly morally untenable for a post-colonial writer.  Modernism represents a break with history and emphasizes solitariness and alienation as the human condition.  If that is true, then family and community have no meaning, which would not sit well with, say, Rushdie.  It is also an apolitical stance that will never help "liberate" people living in places with colonial history.  So, according to the writer of that essay, critical realism is the correct aesthetic for post-colonial writers because it shows the conflict between the individual and the social world.  But can we really say that Roy is morally wrong in using a modernist style?  Can't a modernist style be liberating?


If modernist heroes are alienated loners, Rahel and Estha seem to be perfect examples.  Estha, mute, sits out in the rain looking at the river, while Rahel is incapable of real human interaction (see her failed marriage, her interaction with Comrade Pillai on p. 122).  Another aspect of modernism which may have influenced Roy is the use of every-day, mundane subject matter for art, for example in the poetry of W.C. Williams.  Roy's novel is made up of ordinary, "small" moments.  The terseness of her sentences owes something to Hemingway.

Eidia. Roy. 3/30

9. Ammu, the twin's mother, is in some ways a different type of female character from the ones we've seen. Expand on this idea.

"In the Plymouth, Ammu was sitting in the front, next to Chacko. She was twenty-seven years that year, and in the pit of her stomach she carried the cold knowledge that, for her, life had been lived. She had had one chance. She made a mistake. She married the wrong man." (Roy, The God of Small Things, pg. 38)

Ammu, in a sense is a non-conventional sort of woman. She definitely did not conform to the traditions of her family, disregarding cultural and religious constraints, she married a man of a different caste as well as a different religion. Despite coming from the same nationality, Ammu and her husband were culturally different; hence, their children - Estha and Rahel were referred to as "hybrids". Yes, her life had been lived, for she married the wrong, but still managed to undergo the complete course, in a traditional sense, womanhood: daughter, wife, mother. Another striking impression brought forth via Ammu courageous confrontation with her life situation is her ability to endure and undergo her fate. She divorces from her husband, and once again returns to her maternal home, knowing the cold frontier that it has become for her, yet still obstinate to survive amidst the scorn and negative scrutiny of her own character and her baba-less children. I think Ammu's biggest attribute is her ability to accept her situation, yet confront the odds, still pushing forward through the thick air of failure.

Jane- Roy- 3/29/11

"Even her walk changed from a safe mother-walk to another wilder sort of walk. She wore  flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes" (Roy, 43).

This passage is striking because it illustrates just how uncharacteristic Ammu is compared to what we've seen of the mothers figures in what we have read thus far. In the last two short stories as well as in Midnights Children, as I mentioned in a previous post about Mistry, that women are often portrayed as coquettish and child-like while maintaining some sense of self-awareness that leads the reader to think they know more than their husbands give them credit for. Ammu is a largely unsympathetic woman, although some of her attitudes towards her children, though they may seem harsh, are unrelatable and human. It could be Roy's way of challenging our traditional expectations of mothers in that Ammu can set aside her motherly responsibilities and be more fulfilled being her own person in a "better, happier place" (Roy, 43).

Joseph-Roy-3/30

1. in class we discussed connections between Roy's style and modernism? Firstly, what makes it quasi-modernist? 


I first wanted to talk about the issue of time and modernism in this work. One clear example is the twins habit of reading backwards and their love for palindromes( word, phrase, number or other sequence of units that can be read the same way in either direction). Writing in a palindrome form would be an example of "constrained writing", which is a favorite of modernists(I'm thinking of Nabokov using acrostics in 'The Vane sisters', or Walter Abish's Alliterative Alphabetical Africa). In 'The Vane Sisters', such a technique is used to go backwards in time(or at least retrieve something that was once lost) as, through deciphering the acrostics, the reader discovers that the deceased Vane sisters are controlling the narrator from the grave.  The twins in 'God of Small Things' also seek to turn back the clock. Emilienne Baneth-Nouailheta comments: "reading a word or a phrase both ways allegorizes the universal desire for the reversibility of action. In this sense, language is the children's own field of power in which they can bring forth their fantasies--and for that reason, characters like Miss Mitten or Baby seek to confiscate them."


I also wanted to consider a point made by Cecile Oumhani, who observed 'God of Small Things' in a Bakthinian view("the Russian critic famous for his theory of the novel as a modern, hybrid literary form in which a multiplicity of voices coexist and intermix 'dialogically'). She posits that "the Ipe twins occupy a liminal zone in TGST, reminscent of the 'interrogatory, interstitial space between the act of representation(....) and the presence of community'. The structure of the novel as a whole could also be read as a continual intertwining of liminal viewpoints and marginal details." Just something to consider, and perhaps something more skilled than I can lend their thoughts to this critique.

Rachel, Roy - 3/29

4. Find examples of some of Roy's characteristic stylistic flourishes - capital letters, lists, quoted language - and discuss when they are used and what effect or meaning they have.


Here it goes!  Here's a chunky excerpt from page 108:




"The sticky neon night rushed past the taxi window.  It was hot inside the taxi, and quiet.  Baby Kochamma looked flushed and excited.  She loved not being the cause of ill-feeling.  Every time a pye-dog strayed onto the road, the driver made a sincere effort to kill it.
The moth on Rahel's heart spread its velvet wings, and the chill crept into her bones.
In the Hotel Sea Queen car park, the skyblue Plymouth gossiped with other, smaller cars.  Hslip Hslip Hsnooh-snah.  A big lady at a small ladies' party.  Tailfins aflutter."




Its this rhetorically-packed language that makes me appreciate Roy so much.  (As Robin pointed out...I can't really discuss her without sounding like a positive book review, haha.)


Some things that jump out at me right away:


1.) "the sticky neon night" = some alliteration, but how can night be sticky, or even neon?  Not sure what highbrow Greek term you'd use to describe this.


2.)  "Every time a pye-dog strayed onto the road, the driver made a sincere effort to kill it."  Did anyone else laugh at this line?  I thought it was funny, even though animal cruelty is totally not funny.  Didn't Freud do studies on that?  I think most jokes are supposed to be a way of tricking the superego into releasing the id, if only for a split second.  Whatever.  Freud was amazing, but in 2011, his theories are outdated.


3.)  Personification of the cars.  (And even using a neologism to describe how they talk!)  The brand name (Plymouth) and color of the car suggests the socioeconomic status of the people inside it.  Obviously, they are well off, and it shows, as their car is the fanciest in the lot - or, in Roy's metaphor, "at the party."  "Tailfins aflutter" almost implies that the vehicles are taking on the form of fish-like creatures...huh.  Not sure why that is, but it's interesting.


4.) Rahel's moth, I think, it the most beautiful image in The God of Small Things.  Although it is a delicate insect, it becomes a haunting motif that symbolizes failure.  (Her grandfather - I think it was the grandfather - tried to have the moth named after him, and failed.  This is Roy "setting her audience up" to comprehend the moth's meaning.)  Later, Ammu tells Rahel that when she is mean to people, they "love her a little less," which causes her pain.  After this scene, every time Rahel experiences failure - especially in her personal relationships - the white moth inside her appears, chilling everything it touches.  Personally, I would have put a white moth on front cover of this book.  Thematically, I think it is one of the most important motifs Roy offers.


Gotta love a wordsmith who knows what she's doing.

God of Small Things to p. 147

ideas for your posts - read them all: most questions can be used by more than one student, as they refer to a range of events: 1. in class we discussed connections between Roy's style and modernism? Firstly, what makes it quasi-modernist? 2. Secondly, how are modernist techniques to be understood differently in the post-colonial context? 3. As we see the past and the future in chapters 1-5, Ayemenem, the Kochammas' chidhood home, remains a constant, although it changes over time. Comment on this landmark as a symbol. 4. Find examples of some of Roy's characteristic stylistic flourishes - capital letters, lists, quoted language - and discuss when they are used and what effect or meaning they have. 5. The story contains many instances of interrelatedness between the characters living in Kerala, India, and European influences: Christianity, Christian figures like Father Mulligan, the former owner of the History House, the "Anglophile" family itself... Pick one or more instances of these relations to the colonizers and comment on it. Does it show a struggle for identity? A kind of endurance of Indian culture? Or the complicatedness of all these things? (Point to specific passages.) 6. The story, like Rushdie's book, makes liberal use of foreshadowing. There is a suggestion of a motive for Rahel and Estha's involvement in Sophie Mol's death. Comment on this suggestion and its possible meaning or reason for inclusion. 7. Forbidden love appears in many different forms in the book. Find some instances of this and comment on them. Be specific. 8. Also, hopeless love (Baby-Mulligan, Chacko-Margaret) appears repeatedly. Comment on instances. 9. Ammu, the twins' mother, is in some ways a different type of female character from the ones we've seen. Expand on this idea - try pp 42-43 for examples. 10. Discuss the arrival of Sophie Mol as a scene and as a disruptive influence on the family. 11. How is Communism presented? Unlike in other books we've read, it is a dominant political force in the beginning of the story. Is it seen as bad or just not perfect?

Anna- Roy-3/28

Roy is like a little rushdie to me. The only way to understand the story is to mind the details. But there is no shorttage of ashtonshing details, and because of this you can read a line like, "Rahel's new teeth were waiting inside her gums, like words in a pen." And not even remember to think how much you like it. This is very distractin for me, to read something this bright. I am also interested in the way Roy writes as if shes writing one long prose poem. She indents new paragraphs to say one liners like,
Not old.
Not young
But a viable die-able age.
She also capitalizes terms as object-things. Like Rahel opens the window to get a Breath Of Fresh Air. (and told to close it when she was done) I am very interested in her style. So instead of quoting a passage here I showed the aspects I liked. My favorite passage was the spitting woman on the nyc subway.

Will - Roy - 3/28

"Chacko told the twins that, though he hated to admit it, they were all Anglophones.  They were a family of Anglophones.  Pointed in the wrong direction, trapped outside their own history and unable to retrace their steps because their footprints had been swept away.  He explained to them that history was like an old house at night. With all the lamps lit.  And ancestors whispering inside."  (page 51)

All the works we've read so far have had a strong concern with history, the inheritance of the past, whether it be national or family history.  There's not a sense in these stories that anyone can get a "fresh start."  The United States being a rather young country, it is often said that Americans are not tied to history like people from other places.  If this is true (I'm not saying it is), how is it that Americans are supposed to relate to the writings of Roy, Rushdie, or Naipaul?  Not everyone in class regards themselves as American obviously, so this may be a silly question.  But are we missing something?  

This novel reminds me a bit of Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom or The Sound and the Fury.  These novels are formal achievements with temporal leaps that show characters who are never free of what happened in the past, even before they were born.  The above passage shows how Roy is obsessed with lineage, similar to Faulkner.  Roy's style is evocative, and in this passage she compares the family to Untouchables (who had to walk backwards, sweeping their own footprints away).  The difference between Faulkner and Roy is that Faulkner admired humans in spite of everything, and Roy seems to resent them.

Jason-Roy-3/28

            In God of Small Things it seems one person’s conception of things and the overall perception of those things are frequently depicted as being influenced by the ideas or traditions of some other person’s beliefs. Chacko seems particularly influenced by his time spent at Oxford. This comes through his “Reading Aloud Voice” and perhaps his fascination with Communism. Pappachi’s role as Imperial Entomologist fluctuated according to the British presence. The validity of his finding of a new moth species was subject to forces outside his control.

            On Page 79 there’s a passage in which Rahel notices a crushed dead frog in the road and wonders whether Ms. Mitten was also crushed in the same manner when she was hit by a milk truck. This prompts a flashback of sorts in which Vellya Paapen assures both the twins, Rahel and Estha, that there are no black cats in the world but only black cat-shaped holes in the Universe.

            “There were so many stains on the road. Squashed Miss Mitten-shaped stains in the Universe. Squashed frog-shaped stains in the Universe. Squashed crows that had tried to eat the squashed frog-shaped stains in the Universe. Squashed dogs that ate the squashed crow-shaped stains in the Universe. Feathers. Mangoes. Spit. All the way to Cochin.”

To me this passage illustrates an inherent hierarchy of beings and things within the world and an inherent hierarchy of viewing things within world. It seems objectively that a stain is a stain and a hole is a hole. Only through being told what a “Miss Mitten” is or what a frog is can you describe a particular stain as being like a frog. These perceptions, dictated by people and traditions outside oneself, make up the distance between here and there or in Rahel’s case where she sits at the railroad crossing in the backseat of the sky-blue Plymouth and the movie theater in Cochin.

Karol - Roy -03/28

"Over time he had acquired the ability to blend into the background of wherever he was—into bookshelves, gardens, curtains, doorways, streets—to appear inanimate, almost invisible to the untrained eye. It usually took strangers awhile to notice him even when they were in the same room with him. It took them even longer to notice that he never spoke. Some never noticed at all.

Estha occupied very little space in the world." (17)

The description of Estha's "noticeable quietening" and self confinement evoked via image of lungfish leads to a boxy paragraph that closes in upon the reader as a prison of insignificance where Estha prefects his ability to blend in "invisible to the untrained eye." The lungfish is significant because it alters its body composition in order to breath air when it environment drys out. If that boxy paragraph is a prison than paragraph/sentence following is a prison sentence. 

I have to say. This book so far is just the right amount of Avant-garde for me. The details are not overpowering and seemingly purposeful.

Rachel - Roy, 3/28

The God of Small Things is definitely a diction-driven book.  Sometimes it can be hard to decipher what, exactly, is going on in the plot; I'm sure some readers will have different interpretations of what happens than others.  In that way, it's kind of like the Old Testament...or maybe even poetry.  It's fast reading pace is certainly reminiscent of poetry.

This diction is particularly clear on page sixty-three:

     "Within minutes, the road was swamped by thousands of marching people.  Automobile islands in a river of people.  The air was red with flags, which dipped and lifted as the marchers ducked under the level-crossing gate and swept across the railway tracks in a red wave.

     The sound of a thousand voices spread over the frozen traffic like a Noise Umbrella.

     'Inquilah Zindabad!

     Thozhilali Ekta Zindabad!'  "

Some things I immediately notice are: "automobile islands" (assonance), "Noise Umbrella," "dipped and lifted" (assonance again), "red" (repeated, it's said twice), the visual you get from "swamped by thousands of marching people" and "red wave."  P.s. - PLEASE correct me if these literary devices are wrong...AP English has completely escaped me, and even with one of those fancy internet guides, I still feel awkward using fancy Greek words.  I don't want to walk around Lang sounding like a jackass.  You know.

Anyhow.

Roy is just incredible as a wordsmith.  I found it only took me two or three days to complete this book, since she's able to create such surreal images with her diction.  The literary devices themselves seem so simple, such as juxtaposing the words "noise" and "umbrella" and then capitalizing the first letter.  Easy, effective.  That's a trait I deeply admire in a writer.

Thumbs up for Roy.  :}

The god of small things - first post

In your post, pick a passage from the first reading and comment on it. To give you inspiration, consider this passage about Roy and the novel:

The author, when asked just what the god of small things is, simply stated that it is “the inversion of God,” a “not accepting of what we think of as adult boundaries.” Roy asserts that throughout the course of the narrative, “all sorts of boundaries are transgressed upon.” It is, according to Roy, small events and ordinary things “smashed and reconstituted, imbued with new meaning to become the bleached bones of the story.” Subsequently, it is these small events and ordinary things that form a pattern for her narrative. “A pattern,” says Roy, “of how in these small events and in these small lives the world intrudes.” She believes that because of these patterns, and what they imply, that people go virtually unprotected, “the world and the social machine intrudes into the smallest, deepest core of their being and changes their life.”

Anna- Lahiri-3/22

So I wrote a response for class, but I deleted it because I wanted to rephrase my thoughts. Here goes: I am fascinated by the fact that many people do not like Jhumpa Lahiri. This is because I was given a novel of hers once from a Hindu boyfriend I had. he seemed to like her alot. From what I had gathered from comments in class however, it sounded like the consensus was that Lahiri knows what a Western audience "expects" from her as a Indian novelist, and so she gives the reader what they want, food, male/female roles, eduction and career and other "exotic" details lathered with a heavily stereotypical wash. It makes sense to me why she would raise some eyebrows. perhaps she was making her stories too easily, sculpting them out of cheesy clay. So it was interesting for me to read "This Blessed House" and see if I cold form my own opinion. It was easy to. Her writing is plastic clean. The parts that stand out, are each a bright stereotype. As mentioned in class, you can "smell the curry." I even recognized details from the way the male character was behaving down to the way he picked up his wife's scattered shoes and perfectly rearranged them inside the bedroom, from the relationship I once had. I didn't think that this was a stereotype, I always thought he just liked to keep our shoes lined up, but it seems to me something fishy is certainly going on with what is pre-recognizable in Lahiri's stories. Like, they are so "fun" something must be wrong. In comparison to the other short story we read , "The collectors" by Rohinton Mistry, Lahiri's characters just are not as beautifully evoked. It is the difference of a ink stamp, and a pen drawing. Mistry remind me more of Rushdie.

Dan 3/22

Like most of the work that we have read this semester The Blessed House has very heavy religious undertone. But the ones seen in this short story are more haunting than those seen in Midnight’s Children. The story itself seems more western focusing on a Hindu couple in Connecticut, whose marital issues seem to be an issue within the marriage. As the first story that we have read that takes place in America it is appropriate that this story acts upon these issues of religion and marriage in a more western way. It is almost like a clash of cultures. Sanjeev and Twinkles relationship seems to be different from most that we have read of in the past stories. They have known each other for only for months and are already married, and unhappy. Sanjeev strives for happiness. And Sanjeev has a huge obsession with the Catholic religion, making these characters feel even more out of place.

Jason-Lahiri-3/23

This Blessed House presents two characters, Twinkle and Sanjeev, who seem to fit into the traditional versus modern archetypes found in South Asian lit. Within this theme might be an implied sense of “opposites attract.” Though Sanjeev’s affection for Twinkle seems to be based just as much on his near distaste for her personality than as his need for companionship. Still, Sanjeev’s traditional-ness is emphasized more by the juxtaposition of his being against his wife’s.

             The co-mingling of religious iconography and the importance of one religion’s images over another seems to also be an aspect of their traditional vs. modern dichotomy though it seems to be a whole unto itself as well. Twinkle’s fascination with the Christian objects found in her and Sanjeev’s home eventually endear her to the community she finds herself. Her openness allows both for her assimilation into “Americanness” and into the group invited to her and Sanjeev’s dinner party. The search for religious pieces that takes over party towards the end of the story is also emblematic of both its unifying and divisive qualities. Sanjeev is unable or incapable of participating within the openness of the dinner party group and seeks, instead, solitude – at least solitude from the type of intermingling that appears to go on within his own home.

            There might be some irony in the fact that Sanjeev is in some ways unable to find privacy within his own living space. It seems the idea of the crowdedness of India is a piece of him that he, in a way, rejects, but his wife, Twinkle, who appears to not have that cultural history attached to her, accepts.

            Awareness of hierarchical roles seems to be, in some way, imbedded in the relationship Sanjeev has with Twinkle and the dinner party guests. He remains by the ladder, on the lower floor, when everyone else ascends to the attic in search of fun (pleasure). He is also left carrying the bust of Christ and following behind Twinkle and the party guests at the story’s end. Though he’s attained a high status within American society, its mentioned he’s being considered for Vice President of his firm, he seems to be a notch lower in some ways (perhaps this is related to his inability to be “modern”) than those around him.

Hannah-Lahiri-03/23

As mentioned in Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Lahiri's "This Blessed House" touches upon changing gender roles in seemingly traditional Indian homes. Reverend Mother pretty much ruled her family and took charge when Amina's husband was "frozen". Aadam Aziz was watched by three women when he looked after Naheem through the perforated sheet. Amina had an affair with an old lover and Padma was seen as Salim's partner, not as an inferior woman.

Lahiri takes a similar approach. Sanjeev and Twinkle met through their parents and married soon after. They had a wedding in India after spending two months together. They moved to Connecticut and instead of taking the role of a "traditional" wife, Twinkle smoked, drank and so on. She barely does any work around the house and gets manicures instead. When Sanjeev wanted to get rid of the Virgin Mary statue on the front lawn, Twinkle wouldn't allow it and threw a fit. "In the end they settled on a compromise: the statue would be placed in a recess at the side of the house, so that it wasn't obvious to passers-by, but was still clearly visible to all who came" (403). She basically gets her way, even at the end when she puts the big bust of Jesus on a mantle instead of putting it in her study.

This view of gender roles could be applied to Mistry's story. Mrs. Mody isn't a passive wife, but instead checks up on her husband and Jehangir. She screams at Dr. Mody for spending time with "some stranger" (252) instead of his own son and doesn't reserve herself. She stands up for what she believes in, even though it causes embarrassment upon Jehangir.

Jane- Lahiri- 3/22/11

"We're not Christian," Sanjeev said. Lately he begun noticing the need to state the obvious to Twinkle. The day before he had to tell her that if she dragged her end of the bureau instead of lifting it, the parquet floor would scratch" (Lahiri, 392).

To this Twinkle replies: "No we're not Christian. We're good little Hindus" (Lahiri, 392).

The overall tone of the dynamic between Sanjeev and Twinkle reminded me of what we read in Midnights Children. Their seems to be a sense of condescension on behalf of the husband towards his childish, slightly coquettish wife. Yet, as was the case in Midnights Children in all of the narratives featuring dialogue between man and wife, the wife seems to be more self-aware than she initially lets on.  I also find it interesting that Lahiri goes on to depict Sanjeev has being vain and narcissistic as was the case with Saleem and Aadam in Rushdie's work.

Will - Lahiri - 3/23

One of the things this story has in common with our other readings is a lightly mocking attitude toward religion.  Sanjeev, when looking at the collection of religious kitsch, is "puzzled that each was in its own way so silly.  Clearly they lacked a sense of sacredness."  When Sanjeev informs Twinkle that they are not Christian, she sweetly replies that "We're good little Hindus."  More self-aware, she realizes that there are aspects of Hindu religion that must seem silly as well.  Twinkle is an enigma.  Her motive for marrying Sanjeev is unclear, and the details about her life we are given are mostly meaningless.  She's just kind of a quirky type.

The religious objects that Twinkle finds around the house are silly and kitschy.  But they are also part of a shared, mainstream culture.  Twinkle finds the manger snowglobe funny and charming because she is more comfortable inside this culture, though she is not Christian.  Sanjeev is more of an outsider, like Salim in A Bend in the River, and is simply irritated by these foreign incursions into his space.  Also, similar to Salim, Sanjeev's decision to get married is influenced by pressures from the home he has left, when he'd clearly rather be alone listening to Bach.  He made a mistake getting married if after only a couple months he imagines locking her in the attic and wiping away all trace of her existence from the house (!).

Rachel - Lahiri, 3/22

This story was so well-executed...it blew my mind.  (Also, someone archive this post -  I actually enjoyed two reading assignments in a row!  Surely this is some freak miracle of academia.)

Usually I hate 95% of what I read.  Bad?  Pretentious?  Maybe.  True?  Definitely.  But "This Blessed House" is in that top 5%.

I think this touches on an idea that is common in South Asian literature..."what constitutes good marriage, in the modern, feminist age?"  Amina married for children.  Reverend Mother's mate was chosen for her, by her father.  And Twinkle married for...well.  We aren't quite sure what.  But in Lahiri's text, there are these little snapshots you're handed that just say: "this is my character."  Example?  P. 395: "she dragged him to a tiny bookshop on St. Mark's Place, where she browsed for nearly an hour, and when they left she insisted that they dance a tango on the sidewalk in front of strangers."  She's about to get her master's degree.  (p. 401)  She leaves guests' coats on banisters in the house.  (p. 404)

So what does this make her, as a wife?  I think with India being increasingly exposed to ideas of feminism, it makes one wonder where the "traditional woman" - the kind who is demure to men and cooks - fits in.

Twinkle is a character that sticks with you.  She's like some kind of weird silly putty on your brain.  "She's so wow."  (p. 405)

Karol -Lairi -03/23

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.

Eidia-Lahiri-3/22

This Blessed House:

Personally, I am not fond of Lahiri's writing style. There is a lack of fluidity, rather there seems to be sharp disconnect in most of her works. While in "This Blessed House", there is a shorter presence of her "choppy" style of writing, she managed to completely bog my mind in her novel "The Namesake". The problem with her work is the lack of balance. In most cases, this author manages to propose two cultural extremes, creating a sharp distinction between Eastern and Western, lacking any sort of dignity. Reading her work is almost nauseating. I am left even more confused as to how I should view my cultural situation. In "This Blessed House", Lahiri presents the married domestic life of a newly married couple, Sanjeev the husband, and Twinkle or properly addressed as Tanima, the wife. As a twist, Lahiri constructs a role reversal, in contrast to the traditional Indian wife who encompasses the qualities of cleanliness, etiquette and culinary skills, Lahiri presents Twinkle as a carefree whimsical figure, easily attracted to simple things. The husband, in this situation, is presented as the contemplative, stoic man, who is more than stable in financial matters, and seems to be constantly yearning for housewifely qualities in his wife; hence, taking on role of household duties such as cooking and cleaning. I can understand Lahiri's attempt to present this renewed sense of Indian domestic life, but it simply does not work. Rereading this short story, I am left once again, with this bitter taste in my mouth, wondering, what exactly is Lahiri doing? 

On a side note, Rohinton Mistry's work, "The Collectors" seems to present a much more direct example of the introvert and the extrovert. His style is sturdy, there is a definite form present in concept and writing style. Without excessive detail, almost succinct, the author brings the reader to understand his motive. Another key point to be noted, Mistry's work is centered within India, it focuses upon Indian people in India; therefore, it lacks the cultural drama of Lahiri's work. 

Joseph-Lahiri-3/22

Jhumpa Lahiri is a more streamlined, overtly empathetic author than the ones we have read so far. There are a lot of convenient signs to unpack here. For example, upon noticing the Christian paraphernalia, Lahiri writes that it is “roughly the same size as the vinegar bottle in the other”, surely not an accidental contrast detail. Like the Misty story, an object binds yet separates these two people. In both stories, interests are together on the surface, but the really important ones divide them.  Sajeev and Twinkie both like P.G Wodehouse, but that’s hardly an indicator of a compatible relationship. The divisions between them are numerous. In “The Blessed House”, Sajeev needs to not only go through every composer (to find a classical music listener is rarer than ever nowadays, and it’s comical that he can’t see the value of items that can’t be put to immediate use); he has to do it in alphabetical order. This highlights the absurdity of his stubbornness.  It would appear that Twinkle has a more layered identity, one that her husband cannot accept.  She appears to be the one with a more stable sense of self, despite being portrayed as “lackadaisical” and the husband being portrayed as fully there. Identity in Lahiri’s story is less concerned with politics and more with empathy, it seems (the vinegar soon turns into water, and in the scene with the blue mask Twinkle is portrayed as a kind of Madonna). Perhaps the largest set political or societal construction of identity is the rather quick marriage. Only after they are married does it appear that they can begin constructing real, more fluid identities; and arrive at the state of grace that the day of marriage is supposed to create.  It is interesting to contemplate whether the ultimate acceptance of these important disparate interests is a matter of pity or love, or perhaps a bit of both. 

Jhumpa Lahiri

As before, post on Lahiri's story looking for themes, techniques, topics etc. that seem characteristic of the South Asian diasporic school. If you did not post on Mistry, you may want to touch on both stories in your response.

Karol -Mistry -03/21

So I realized that I posted to another blog instead of this one. Apologies.

I'm reminded of what we spoke of in class about South Asian literature employing irony more in its attempts at humor. The catalyst that pushes the narrative in this story is also ironic. Since Dr. Mody is a veterinarian his son harassing animals brings him shame and sets him on the path to Jehangir. This story has some interesting plot devices and powerfully strange imagery that at times rivals Rushdie.

Will - Mistry - 3/21

Something this story shares with Rushdie, and even with the first story by Anita Desai we read in class, is the sense that time is malleable, non-linear.  We have spoken in class of the idea of recurrence in the Hindu religion.  This erases the distinction between past and future.  At the beginning of the story, Mistry writes, "Dr. Mody did not know it then, but . . . "  Then Mistry basically gives away what will happen later in the story to Dr. Mody.  There is the sense that this story has already happened even as it is unfolding on the page for the reader.  The shadow of Dr. Mody's death is present even in the joyous moments of the story.  Two years is an atypically long time frame for a short story, but it makes sense if past and future aren't much different.


This approach to fiction eliminates "surprise" for the reader.  It's not even surprising when Mrs. Bulsara reveals that she destroyed the prize stamp of her husband's collection.  This is another aspect of the novels we've read.  Readers will be frustrated if they're looking for plot-driven fiction.  My question is are these works of literature dramatic?  Why do we care to read about people whose fates seem to be decided from the beginning?  Is it because the characters are interesting and the language is beautiful?  

Jane-Mistry-3/20/11

"Finally flies and insects buzzed and hovered over the dregs, little pools of pulses and curries fermenting and frothing til the kuchrawalli came next morning and swept it all away" (Mistry, 237).

I find Mistry's writing style to be positively ingenious. His style seems to meld poetic flourishes with the matter-of-fact realism that we saw in Naipaul. This is a characteristic that seems to run through what we have read so far in this canon. The passage above to me what reminiscent of Midnights Children, particularly in terms of the voice Rushdie employs to narrate the story. Although this story is told from a 3rd person perspective, both narrators are omniscient in that they have total insight into all of the characters and their futures. There is also a sense of irony and satire that couples the image of something as grotesque as rotting garbage with such lyrical, lilting language. Perhaps it is not a kind of patriotic self-loathing that Naipaul has been accused of, but a way of projecting beauty on something that ordinarily wouldn't be thought of as such.

Rachel - Mistry, 3/21

"The Collectors..."  Wow.  Have to admit, I really the anti-consumerist theme in this piece.  (Being a 100% stereotypical New Schooler, however, I tend to think almost ALL writing has an anti-consumerist message, and therefore, has something critical to say.  Biased thinking, w00t.)

I know this post is supposed to comment on a distinctly "South Asian" theme within literature.  However, I think this is somewhat...impossible to do.  While culture and race are powerful factors that alter our perceptions of the world, I think human animals are - at the end of the day - human animals, and they will inevitably focus on the same themes.  In the 21st century, anti-consumerism is something we're fixated on, as a species.  This holds especially true in South Asian countries like Cambodia and India, where the trauma of 19th century genocide or colonialism has not been completely processed.

In Mistry's story, we see a wealthy veterinarian in his house, living with his car, stamp collection, and obnoxious son.  But this character is juxtaposed with beggars on the street, who pick food out of primary school garbage cans once students have finished their lunch hour.

In "The Collectors," the stamp collection symbolizes a material luxury.  It is something that brings the owner pleasure, but is not necessary for survival.  Jehangir even steals stamps so his collection may grow; while this brings him material comfort, it costs store owners their livelihoods.  It shows the class conflict that exists in present day India; at the moment, there are huge gaps between the intelligentsia and the "untouchable" caste.  This is one theme I've been seeing throughout this course, and I would imagine that it will be likewise explored in the next two books we're about to read.  And that's a good thing.

I think it is essential that class differences be grappled with in literature.  I think (and Rushdie would probably agree) that opening a literary dialog is one of the best ways for a culture to absorb the aftershock of trauma.  Whether it's trauma caused by colonialism, loss of culture, war, or poverty, a discourse needs to be opened up.

Good job, Mistry!