Interpreter of Maladies begins with a story about a couple who becomes depressed over the death of their child and lose the connection to each other. Their lack of relating leads to them breaking up. Interpreter of Maladies ends with a story of a couple who start out as total strangers who then become a loving couple. Eventually in passing they mention their son, a direct result of their successful relationship. These two stories have mirrored sequences of events except for the move to America. The relationships of the couples in them show that in times of strain, there must be an interpreter of maladies to ease the situation.
"A Temporary Matter" features a couple who is blind to each other's thoughts. The day that their baby died, their relationship died. The guilt over not being able to be there for his wife drives Shukumar deeper into himself. He feels as though he cannot speak to his wife, that there is a gap between them. The pain and longing of losing a child consumes Shoba. To her, everything reminds her of what she lost, so she avoids everything by staying out. As Shukumar and Shoba move in opposite directions they need someone to bring them back together and redirect them towards each other.
The narrator in "The Third and Final Continent" has accepted an arranged marriage to a girl in India. His wedding is an event to him, no more personal than to any other average attendee. When his wife joins him in America they are strangers to each other and no reason to care.
I think that there needs to be an interpreter of maladies with all of the couples in the book. The interpreter would ease the communication between the estranged partners like the tour guide in "interpreter of maladies," or the old woman in the last story. That old woman so instrumental that the couple's marriage would've ended up like the couple in the first story had they not went to speak with her.
Friday, December 11, 2015
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Gossip Girls
In both "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" and "Down at the Dinghy," women open the story by gossiping. We as readers are only given the middle of the story to start at in order to figure out what the gossipers are talking about. Even though we hear the beginning of the conversation in "Bananafish," there is a larger context of conversations that is frequently referenced by either muriel or her mother. In "Dinghy" there is less context for us to have to guess at but we are again thrown into the middle of the "conversation.
Salinger uses the conversations like Hemingway uses those in his stories. There are no "important" details, on the surface that is. Salinger's characters in these conversation tend to speak in short snips, with the same emotional dynamics that Hemingway does. The gossiping characters sound very differently than other non-gossipy conversations. Hills like White Elephants is a good comparison for how the conversations have a subtext that is always implied. For example in Bananafish Muriel's mother keeps asking Muriel if she is alright and Muriel keeps interrupting to reassure her and change the subject which inevitably concerns Muriel's mother even more. The subtext is all but screaming at us that there might be something up with Muriel's spouse (Seymour).
In addition to giving subtext, the conversations tell us about the other characters in the stories from points of view that do not necessarily sympathize with them. In Dinghy it is the maid resenting the family that she works for, especially Lionel who overhears her whenever she wants to vent her frustrations. In Down at the Dinghy" Sandra's venting gives us background information on the family; they are staying at their vacation house for all of October (the current month just to put the story in a time period), Lionel's father is Jewish (offset by his wife's Glass style eccentricities), and how unusual Lionel standing in the dinghy is. In Bananafish, Muriel's mother is the one who is giving us information that reveals that Seymour is eccentric or possibly insane. She references events like the tree and a psychiatrist and a hospital that we do not know more about, but are obviously important. Just listening to Seymour, we would think that he is a kind of odd man but would have no background as to why he might kill himself after seeming cheerful in the elevator.
Salinger uses the conversations like Hemingway uses those in his stories. There are no "important" details, on the surface that is. Salinger's characters in these conversation tend to speak in short snips, with the same emotional dynamics that Hemingway does. The gossiping characters sound very differently than other non-gossipy conversations. Hills like White Elephants is a good comparison for how the conversations have a subtext that is always implied. For example in Bananafish Muriel's mother keeps asking Muriel if she is alright and Muriel keeps interrupting to reassure her and change the subject which inevitably concerns Muriel's mother even more. The subtext is all but screaming at us that there might be something up with Muriel's spouse (Seymour).
In addition to giving subtext, the conversations tell us about the other characters in the stories from points of view that do not necessarily sympathize with them. In Dinghy it is the maid resenting the family that she works for, especially Lionel who overhears her whenever she wants to vent her frustrations. In Down at the Dinghy" Sandra's venting gives us background information on the family; they are staying at their vacation house for all of October (the current month just to put the story in a time period), Lionel's father is Jewish (offset by his wife's Glass style eccentricities), and how unusual Lionel standing in the dinghy is. In Bananafish, Muriel's mother is the one who is giving us information that reveals that Seymour is eccentric or possibly insane. She references events like the tree and a psychiatrist and a hospital that we do not know more about, but are obviously important. Just listening to Seymour, we would think that he is a kind of odd man but would have no background as to why he might kill himself after seeming cheerful in the elevator.
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Before our time
Hemingway's In Our Time is a collection of stories that are continuously relevant. There are occasional references to things that are solely in the past like the maid in Italy or the steamship doing logging. Additionally when Nick's dad goes to perform a c-section and sews it up with gut, Hemingway reveals the time period. Despite these slips, In Our Time could mean our time, not his time.
Hemingway eludes the passing of time by focusing on the conversations between characters. It seems a strange thing to say that he focuses on when he devotes so little description to it. Hemingway is known for his bare bones style of conversation. The dialogue seems snippy more often than not.Yet, as we've discussed in class, the conversations hold a lot of meaning and tell us a lot about the characters and their views.
Additionally, the situations that the characters are in are all plausibly modern. The very first short story is a great example. On the Quai at Symrna reads like a modern Naval operation in a third world country. Sarcasm and cynicism are abundant throughout the story. As we become more cynical, we relate to the narrator more and more. The degree of separation from emotion also reminds us of atrocities that are found in any number of wars even today. Another story that should be familiar is A Soldiers Home. While it mentions the date of when Krebs gets home, just replace it with a more recent date and and the story nearly becomes something out of Fire and Forget.
Hemingway eludes the passing of time by focusing on the conversations between characters. It seems a strange thing to say that he focuses on when he devotes so little description to it. Hemingway is known for his bare bones style of conversation. The dialogue seems snippy more often than not.Yet, as we've discussed in class, the conversations hold a lot of meaning and tell us a lot about the characters and their views.
Additionally, the situations that the characters are in are all plausibly modern. The very first short story is a great example. On the Quai at Symrna reads like a modern Naval operation in a third world country. Sarcasm and cynicism are abundant throughout the story. As we become more cynical, we relate to the narrator more and more. The degree of separation from emotion also reminds us of atrocities that are found in any number of wars even today. Another story that should be familiar is A Soldiers Home. While it mentions the date of when Krebs gets home, just replace it with a more recent date and and the story nearly becomes something out of Fire and Forget.
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Both sides at once.
Hello all.
I really don't know who you are but if you are reading this then you are one of a select group of unfortunate souls. I highly doubt that you found your way here on accident and I bet that you will stay here for the duration of my post in order that you do not have to go read someone else's post. It might not be a good reason but it is all I need in order to entrap you for the next while.
As all of you know we were reading the book Fire and Forget: Stories From the Long War. This book is one that I found fascinating for a number of reasons. First of all there is the genre of the book. If I was a librarian it would be one of my nightmares. The book is technically fiction although I believe that it offers enough insight into the author's lives and their feelings that it qualifies as semi-autobiographical. Normally I tend to avoid autobiographies as they drone on and on about the persons lives, focusing on every infinitesimal detail. This book was great in that the stories were focused much more on one extremely defining time of the author's lives. The authors gave us as much detail as necessary but focused on how their story was told to make sure that its message was clear.
The other fascinating thing about Fire and Forget was the war story aspect. When we read war stories we read one of two kinds. The first is where the characters are in the midst of the action and the second is where they are reminiscing on it later but the story focuses on the psyche of the main character. Fire and Forget had the best of both worlds with stories falling in and around both of the categories. Since so many writers collaborated on the project, many styles are included in the book. When the authors talk about war, it seems real and you can practically feel the emotion and adrenaline. The book makes war seem like a real thing. It becomes a discrete series of actions and events in which very sympathetic characters participated. When the authors talk about after the war, I felt that they make it more fascinating as if by showing us the difference between veterans and their family's/surrounding people we can study them. We are at once looking through their eyes and looking through the eyes of a bystander, gaining a deeper connection with the veterans.
I really don't know who you are but if you are reading this then you are one of a select group of unfortunate souls. I highly doubt that you found your way here on accident and I bet that you will stay here for the duration of my post in order that you do not have to go read someone else's post. It might not be a good reason but it is all I need in order to entrap you for the next while.
As all of you know we were reading the book Fire and Forget: Stories From the Long War. This book is one that I found fascinating for a number of reasons. First of all there is the genre of the book. If I was a librarian it would be one of my nightmares. The book is technically fiction although I believe that it offers enough insight into the author's lives and their feelings that it qualifies as semi-autobiographical. Normally I tend to avoid autobiographies as they drone on and on about the persons lives, focusing on every infinitesimal detail. This book was great in that the stories were focused much more on one extremely defining time of the author's lives. The authors gave us as much detail as necessary but focused on how their story was told to make sure that its message was clear.
The other fascinating thing about Fire and Forget was the war story aspect. When we read war stories we read one of two kinds. The first is where the characters are in the midst of the action and the second is where they are reminiscing on it later but the story focuses on the psyche of the main character. Fire and Forget had the best of both worlds with stories falling in and around both of the categories. Since so many writers collaborated on the project, many styles are included in the book. When the authors talk about war, it seems real and you can practically feel the emotion and adrenaline. The book makes war seem like a real thing. It becomes a discrete series of actions and events in which very sympathetic characters participated. When the authors talk about after the war, I felt that they make it more fascinating as if by showing us the difference between veterans and their family's/surrounding people we can study them. We are at once looking through their eyes and looking through the eyes of a bystander, gaining a deeper connection with the veterans.
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