All posts by emc24

Ishiguro

One’s Environment; One’s Self; One’s Past – My take on prompt 3

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N: An unseasonably cold day in London had led me to the depths of Waterstones in Piccadilly, where after many shelves perused and many titles purchased, I found myself tucked away at a  table of the 5th View Restaurant. Far beyond the bar, where echos of “Guinness!” bounced off the finished wood, I sat pressed into the right wall’s corner, fiddling with the aglet reading “Earl Grey” that hung from my near-empty cup. Staring into the cork-colored drink, I laid out the rest of the trip’s plans, and had thought to signal the waiter, when I was alerted to unfamiliar voices in heated debate.

W: “James, you cannot honestly believe that what you have just said is not identical to what I have been explaining for the past half-hour!”

The jay’s song dissolved in the air and settled amongst the crowd who, ignorant to life’s sudden wind, remained, sighing collectively for all sorrows, unable to commit it to the sea, but no uptorn shore or violent wave could have shaken the gaze from the distant table.

N: For there she was, Virginia Woolf, blooming with grace. You will forgive me not immediately noticing the gentleman beside her, or the one at the hostess stand, until my line of sight was cut, and I saw James Joyce offer his left elbow toward her. The couple walked to a table adjacent to mine where the second man waited. Upon further inspection, I realized I was looking at Kazuo Ishiguro, and was all of a sudden grateful for my covert angle with which to view and hear the ensuing conversation. I pulled my laptop out of my briefcase, and ordered another cup of tea.

J: “O Ginny, I really do believe that what I am saying is entirely different, and that one’s self and one’s environment are not equal contenders when one chooses to write. Did Jung not say that it is our inner child that affects us for all of life? And is it not the environment that child was nurtured in that takes half the blame of our future wellbeing? Why then, should it not be the purpose of all literature to understand the places we were raised?”

W: “James, you know that I find you truly remarkable, but I cannot believe that, as you seem to suggest, one’s self can be half-removed from where we happened to see our early years, or that who we once were is anymore important as to who we are now.”

J: “Ginny, I do not think you are fully hearing-”

W: “On the contrary, James, I believe my ears are working just fine.”

N: Playful banter, I think, though awfully passionate for it to be inconsequential. While Joyce and Woolf were consumed with one another, Ishiguro was rather quiet, stoic even, and ordered a round of afternoon tea.

W: “People ebb and flow throughout their existence, do they not? And as people shift, does society not as well? It is certainly more telling of the greater human experience to explore how one changes throughout their life rather than chronicle how their life was. To live in our organized society shows as much human dilemma as is needed to come to grips with who we are; literature proves that.”

N: A cloud passed by the window, darkening Woolf’s once illuminated face, but the dim light overhead left Joyce and Ishiguro quite plainly visible.

J: “How very Russian of you.”

N: Ishiguro peered at the pair through his rectangular frames.

I: “If you will allow me to interject, could one not argue that it is our past we search for in writing, an understanding of how we came to be through the time before us?”

N: It was at this time the tea arrived, and the group was left to mull over the suggestion. Ishiguro splashed milk into his tea, as did Woolf, who added two sugar cubes. Joyce left his as is.

W: “While that may be part of it, Kazuo, I do not think that it is what we can call the purpose. In a properly conveyed written idea, any reader will be able to see the progression, see the character’s conscious, and if not relate to it, recognize what it means for the greater world; reflecting on one’s self and using it as a vessel for a larger group; holding a mirror to society; that is true purpose, and that is good literature.”

J: “You make it seem so philosophical, Virginia, but isn’t it the way one grew up that affects how they view themselves and their future surroundings? No matter how desperately one tries, it will always be what was known to us as children that impacts us the most, making the task of a writer not only to explore such events, but analyze them, explain them.”

N: The sun was further covered, and the bench holding Woolf and Joyce was sent into complete shade. Joyce’s monologue seemed to have tired him a bit, for his posture slightly failed and he reached for a scone, smearing clotted cream on the face and taking a bite.

J: “If we can agree on one thing, it is that for literature to not convey some point, whether that is who we are, what we have experienced, and where we come from, would be a complete waste of paper.”

N: Woolf grabbed a cucumber sandwich, biting the corner.

W: “A waste.”

N: Ishiguro looked up from his tea, his plate free of residue.

I: “A waste indeed. However, it would also be a waste not to realize the influence of the past on how we see the future, how we live in the world, how we view the world. Is it not our nation’s history, our nation’s evolution, that has formed our core identity? Is it not the parents who imprint on the youth, altering their perceptions in ways never known? And it all remains distinctly different from our environment, from what we remember.”

N: Woolf looked up from her tobacco-dusted fingers in time for the sky to cloud in entirety, and the table sat still in the shadows.

I: “That is, of course, all speculation of what can understand by some compulsion we share.”

N: The table laughed, and finished their tea with a debate over greek philosophy and ideology, but that is a blog post for another time. Around half past three, the group stood, Woolf linking to the left of Joyce, Ishiguro parting the way, and walked into the gloomy streets of London. So, as I sit with what I have heard, and weigh each argument with its counter long after the departure of the trio, I have realized that the nuance in conversation was so little, and they all, in fact, were cheering for the same opponent; had the same victor. And when I left 5th View, and Waterstones, and left in search of hot cross buns, I find the only thoughts in my head of the purpose of discrepancy, or the meaning of anything at all.

Joyce

Literal and Metaphorical Paralysis in “The Sisters”

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On the surface, James Joyce’s short story “The Sisters” appears the simplest and easiest of his works within the Dubliners collection. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that Dubliners is introduced by “The Sisters” for its in-depth analysis of a darker part of Dublin life. The development of paralysis in the story is simultaneously mild enough to temper into the collection while being overt enough that no doubt could be created over the persistent theme. Paralysis permeates through “The Sisters” with the boy’s forced confrontation of his mentor’s illness and adulthood and the priest’s syphilis and career.

The young boy is forced to confront the priest’s illness and subsequent reputation several times throughout the story, leading to internal conflict the boy is not emotionally ready to handle. As the child waits for the priest to pass away, he thinks, “Every night as I gazed up at the window I said softly to myself the word paralysis… It filled me with fear, and yet I longed to be nearer to it and to look upon its deadly work” (1).  With this first indication that the boy, on some level, is hesitant and distrustful toward the priest, the text better builds the conflicting emotions the death brings up for the boy. Such emotions include the child’s instinct to defend his mentor in public while privately fearing his memory. As old Cotter shows his dislike for the amount of time the boy and priest spent together, the child fills his mouth with food to prevent him from speaking up (3). However, this adult-like will fades at night, and the boy finds himself very much a child, afraid of the priest’s image, describing, “In the dark of my room I imagined that I saw again the heavy grey face of the paralytic. I drew the blankets over my head and tried to think of Christmas. But the grey face still followed me” (3). The clear tension between the townspeople and the dead priest led the boy to become trapped between an adolescent and adult mindset, wanting to think and learn like an adult but being unable to escape his childhood. While this idea is important, it seems to lose emphasis as the story progresses, unlike the boy’s emotional conflict of the priest. As the boy builds up courage to enter the priest’s home, he thinks, “I found it strange that neither I nor the day seemed in a mourning mood, and I felt even annoyed at discovering in myself a sensation of freedom as if I had been freed from something by his death” (5). Yet after this admittance, the boy reminisces on the time the two spent together and priest’s old habits in a manner fit for someone who should be mourning. He still goes to the priest’s house, pays his respects, and stays while the adults converse. The boy is immobilized by the conflicting reports and emotions in his head, making a final opinion or any change impossible.

The priest’s syphilis not only left him paralyzed physically, but mentally, stuck remembering his life’s mistakes while being driven insane. The priest’s sister, Eliza, mentions a strange reoccurrence, saying, “Mind you, I noticed there was something queer coming over him latterly. Whenever I’d bring in his soup to him there I’d find him with his breviary fallen to the floor, lying back in the chair and his mouth open” (9). Given that it is heavily implied, through his syphilis and the disapproval some have of the young boy associating with him, the priest was not staying true to his chastity vow. This sin has made it impossible for him to recite prayer, as he feels he is unworthy and too corrupt to speak holy words. His syphilis-caused insanity appears to have manifested this subconscious thinking. When Father O’Rourke goes looking for the missing priest, he finds that, “[H]e was sitting up by himself in the dark in his confession-box, wide awake and laughing-like softly to himself” (10-11). As the priest is driven mad over his disease, the nature of its contraction leads him to confession, attempting to rid himself of the sin that his reputation is based on. The priest was paralyzed by his illness, but also by Dublin, which would have become a hindrance to his career. When the boy recalls what the priest has taught him, he remembers that he studied at the Irish college in Rome (5). Shortly after, Eliza says the priest had wanted to take a trip to his childhood home for a day with the two sisters (9). Going from living in a poorer area like Dublin to living in a wealthy city like Rome is not a common transition, but given the opportunity not one easily passed up. Despite his education at a privileged, well-off university, the priest returned to Dublin. His desire to visit his childhood home demonstrates a desire to understand life’s trajectory, and how the priest’s great promise led him from Dublin, to Rome, to excommunication, and back to Dublin.

 

Satrapi

Persepolis <3

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I love Persepolis. Perhaps not as much as I love the Bardo, but definitely as much as I love Atonement. I think turning a topic as complex as the Islamic Revolution into an easily digestible, visual novel is extremely effective at promoting Satrapi’s themes and reflects herself as a character quiet well. Persepolis is, in a way, our version of Marji’s Dialectic Materialism comic book, isn’t it? The simplification of intricate and elaborate ideas made to educate those just beginning this educational journey.

Let’s talk about God. Specifically, let’s talk about how his consistent presence in the novel stops and when. The last three times we see Marji interact with God are in times of distress: God talks to her when she is in the bath trying to understand what torture is like, God hugs her when she doesn’t understand justice and how it is served, and she yells at God to go away and never come back after her Uncle Anoosh dies. After Marji talks to God in the bath, the pages between interactions with him increase drastically, like he’s transitioning from the deuteragonist to a background character. This seems quite representative of Marji’s childhood naïveté. She believe that God can and will fix everything in her life, as I would argue most children do. As more things in her life start to go haywire, she begins to question her relationship with God; Maybe not outwardly, but his slow removal from the novel suggests that she formed some distrust or altogether disbelief in him. A lack of religious conviction wouldn’t be a big deal in the Satrapi family, but it would for young Marji. Today, Satrapi’s religious stance mirrors that of her parents in Persepolis. I wonder how much of her childhood has effected that as opposed to it being a purely philosophical stance?

Hypocrites or products of their society? Ebi and Taji have been part of some of my favorite moments in this novel, but have also made me question their credibility as activists and socialists. When reading their parts, I kept thinking about the story of Frederick Douglass criticizing the behavior of recently emancipated men. It feels reminiscent of Marji’s parents and their behavior, how they advocate for extreme change in their country yet, at the end of the day, so often fall victim to the status quo. I don’t think we can hate them for this, or say they are hypocrites, or that their protests are futile. I think in the context of the time, Ebi and Taji are what Iran needed, but in the context of today, they have work to do.

You know those moments growing up when you look at your parents and go “holy crap right now I am definitely thinking about this a lot harder and wiser than y’all are”? I think Marji’s moments of that are my favorite in the novel (I have a lot of favorite moments but those are my favorite favorites). I’m glad she kept those because they are definitely pivotal points in childhood, and I’m sure ten times more so for Marji.

In conclusion, I <3 Persepolis and Marjane Satrapi. I think this is a highly underrated novel and chose to hear no criticism for it. I am also attaching my fav Marjane Satrapi interview because sis does not hold back and it is wonderful. It’s like over 15 years old but it still slays. BRB gonna go sleep with Persepolis under my pillow 🙂

https://asiasociety.org/marjane-satrapi-i-will-always-be-iranian

Garcia-Marquez

A Book or a Telenovela?

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I can’t be the only one who read half of this book with my jaw hanging open.  It is truly an absurd chronicle, which is why it doesn’t surprise me that it is so commonly taught by IB teachers. It also doesn’t surprise me that Kafka was such an inspiration for Garcia-Marquez, because this book is crawling with insanities.

I thought that it was interesting how time works in a cyclical fashion in the novel. We start the novel with the day that Santiago Nasar dies, go through the story, and then end up at the day he dies again. It adds a lot to the story-telling element of the novel, but the progression doesn’t make any logical sense. All of the information given at the end about the day he died could have easily been thrown into the first two chapters, so why make it cycle back at all? Is this an element of magical realism, or is it representative of how the narrator is receiving information? It’s strange but interesting to think about.

I feel like every time I re-read this book I will discover new information that blows my mind while also uncovering part of a new theme, or just a detail. It reminds me of Atonement in that way.

The way religion kept coming into the story was quite interesting to me, and I find it hard to believe that Garcia-Marquez didn’t intend it to be a commentary.  The bishop sailed past the town that is offering him everything that they can in a performative routine as he does every year. Angela, the only one who leaves town, seems to have a real issue with this. After Pedro and Pablo confessed to killing Santiago to Father Amador, they say that they are innocent. Father Amador replies, “Perhaps before God”. Father Amador was also responsible for the botched autopsy performed on Santiago Nasar. While the findings were medically helpful, it was inadmissible in court and poorly performed. I understand why Cristo Bedoya didn’t perform the autopsy, but there was another medical student there on vacation who would’ve had more up-to-date knowledge on how to not butcher a corpse. I’m pretty sure Father Amador is the one who knew about the attack but got scared and just rang a bell instead, but that might’ve been Colonel Aponte. I’m not sure if Garcia-Marquez has a personal gripe with religion, or perhaps he just wrote what he saw while he lived in this town, but it is clear that the religious figures of Sucre, Columbia have a cult around them while being woefully inadequate at their jobs.

While magical realism is still a topic that I am trying to come to terms with, I think it works so well within this book. At its core, magical realism is strange things being told as fact, and that perfectly describes the events the led to Santiago’s death, his death, and the events after. Even the judge over the case seemed wildly perplexed by the entire encounter.

Strangely, my biggest question is still who Angela’s attacker could be. Is it someone we met? Is it someone we didn’t? Does Garcia-Marquez even know? All I know is that this book keeps my mind up at night.

McEwan

To condemn, pity, or relate? My thoughts on Briony Tallis

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Briony Tallis is such a human character that it hurts, and it is because of that humanity that we are able to criticize her with such depth, passion, and the occasional f-bomb drop. Throughout the novel, I found myself switching between three main emotions regarding Briony: anger that led to condemnation, pitying her, and relating to her.

It is easy to relate to young Briony as she is, to her core, a typical kid. She doesn’t understand anything outside of her own little world and it inherently selfish- which is literally every kid Briony’s age that I’ve ever known. However, her isolation, creative mind, and narcissistic mother has not done wonders for her development. As an effective only child growing up, I understand the lengths you will go to to not be bored, but I can say that never accused my sister’s crush of raping my cousin because of it. Briony makes me think about the nature v. nurture argument. Is how she was raised to blame for her selfish actions the day she accused Robbie? Is she inherently that way? I think it may be both, but I now understand why McEwan is so proud of Briony as a character.

In part 3 of Atonement, Briony is just straight up pitiful. All she wanted out of life was to go to Girton, be a writer, and have this high intellectual status, but she chose to repent for her sin by being a nurse. She was a mediocre nurse, but she was doing her best. She carries so much guilt and anguish over how she tore Robbie and Cecelia’s lives apart and what could happen to them that she doesn’t sleep, pushes out her family, and dresses wounds with such precision and affection that she has to be told to move on. Despite everything she has done, it is difficult to not pity her and the weight that she is carrying.

I got severe emotional whiplash between part one, part three, and London, 1999 and my thoughts on Briony. I do have some respect for older Briony, as she seems to be aware of some of her biases, but there is one specific area within Briony’s book that I think shows her character that I take a big issue with. In Connolly’s letter to Briony, he asks why the woman goes into the fountain fully clothed and how it may relate to the larger story. However, it is made very clear in our version of the novel that Cecelia strips before entering the fountain. Given the conservative ideology of the time, I ask my question: if Briony cares so much about giving Cecelia and Robbie the “ending they deserve” and lies to do so, why humiliate Cecelia’s memory by stripping her for the sake of plot? My bias says selfishness, because even thought Briony knows she cannot publish in her lifetime, she simply cannot bear to change the truth in favor of a story. It was not until I read that note in C.C’s letter that I began to hold contempt toward Briony, specifically, her future self that rationalized changing history in favor of publicity.

Then again, with her as our narrator, it is impossible to know the truth about anything… Ian McEwan, how fucking dare you write this life-altering book.