I was in a bit of a reading rut, recently. You know when that happens, it's like you can't concentrate, you really want to read but you're intensely bored etc. So anyway, I started reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (thanks Uncle Geoff!) and The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid and have now finished both. It's unforgivable to descend to banal platitudes when talking about great books and literature, but oh my God! They were amazing. Please drop whatever you're doing, scrape together your last pennies and go out and buy these books. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, I'm proud to announce has made it onto the Booker Longlist. I haven't read Gifted by Nikita lalwani yet, which is the other Penguin title on the list so I'm not sure exactly which one I'll be rooting for, but it will definately be one of those. I know The Grumpy Old Bookman isn't overly enamoured of these literary prizes, and neither was I for a while, but I really feel Hamid's book deserves some major recognition.
Anyway, back to Kingsolver and Hamid. I think what I enjoyed most about their books is that they've done something different with first person narration. The prose was beautiful but not contrived, poetic without being ridiculous. Kingsolver narrated the story of the undoing of an American Baptist family in the Belgian Congo, by giving each of her characters their own unique voice with which to tell their story. The overall effect was of sitting round a table at some family's reconciliation meeting, getting their different perspectives on what they went through. Because each of them used their own lingo, and explained their thoughts and feelings, we got valuable insights into the character's motivations, which as I've mentioned before, is very important.
Hamid's book appealed to me simply because I have a particular fondness for eavesdropping on stranger's conversations. I love sitting on the bus, in a restaurant, on a plane listening to what the people around me are talking about, how they're saying it and guessing at why they're saying it to whom they're saying it to. (You don't get to judge me, by the way!) So we see Changez, the protagonist sitting at dinner with someone, telling him about his life in America, how came to fall out of love with the country, or possibly, how the country fell out of love with him. It felt like I was sitting at the table next to them, listening. The setting is Lahore, the two are eating dinner, but at the same time, it's New York, because the stories of his youth (which he's telling) transport us back there with confidence, mastery, and a little bit of nostalgia. It's a brilliant twist at the end, when the talk turns to secret plots and conspiracies, that the unnamed dinner guest pops off Changez. Everything is implied of course, it's all very poetically done, but I felt awed and excited at the end at how it all worked together.
Another theme that ran through both books, was the concept of 'otherness' in societies; what constitutes it, what perpetuates it, whether it can be overcome, and if so, how. The Price family kids in The Poisinwood Bible were set apart from their peers at school because they were labelled the preacher's kids. In Kilanga, in the Belgian Congo, they were set apart because they were the only white family for miles around. The local people of Kilanga and the Prices found each other equally strange until they learnt to identify common factors in culture: love, respect, generosity, patience, and use those to guide their relationship. In The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Changez was one of a few non-white students in his class at Princeton. When he was headhunted by the valuation company Underwood Sam, there was him from Pakistan, and Wainwright, from Jamaica, both trying to navigate the balance between who they were as proud young men from elsewhere, and how that fitted into the cosmos of work life, New York, and America after September 11.
Both books, without making a song and dance about it, tackle what it means to be a stranger in societies other than one's own, how extended abscence from one's place of birth and prolonged residence as a foreigner changes one's perspectives, and by default, allocates psychological/emotional energy to seeking out exactly who one is, what one believes and why. In the light of how the world is today, the Global Village, for lack of a better term, things like this are worth thinking about, and not just in a token, flippant way.
On that note, I'd like ot hear what you all think about issues to do with diaspora, otherness, and culture, in whatever form they occur. Also, what role do you see books/literature/creative arts playing in such issues? Should they tackle those issues full on, as a stated premise, or should it be done more subtley?
Anyway, back to Kingsolver and Hamid. I think what I enjoyed most about their books is that they've done something different with first person narration. The prose was beautiful but not contrived, poetic without being ridiculous. Kingsolver narrated the story of the undoing of an American Baptist family in the Belgian Congo, by giving each of her characters their own unique voice with which to tell their story. The overall effect was of sitting round a table at some family's reconciliation meeting, getting their different perspectives on what they went through. Because each of them used their own lingo, and explained their thoughts and feelings, we got valuable insights into the character's motivations, which as I've mentioned before, is very important.
Hamid's book appealed to me simply because I have a particular fondness for eavesdropping on stranger's conversations. I love sitting on the bus, in a restaurant, on a plane listening to what the people around me are talking about, how they're saying it and guessing at why they're saying it to whom they're saying it to. (You don't get to judge me, by the way!) So we see Changez, the protagonist sitting at dinner with someone, telling him about his life in America, how came to fall out of love with the country, or possibly, how the country fell out of love with him. It felt like I was sitting at the table next to them, listening. The setting is Lahore, the two are eating dinner, but at the same time, it's New York, because the stories of his youth (which he's telling) transport us back there with confidence, mastery, and a little bit of nostalgia. It's a brilliant twist at the end, when the talk turns to secret plots and conspiracies, that the unnamed dinner guest pops off Changez. Everything is implied of course, it's all very poetically done, but I felt awed and excited at the end at how it all worked together.
Another theme that ran through both books, was the concept of 'otherness' in societies; what constitutes it, what perpetuates it, whether it can be overcome, and if so, how. The Price family kids in The Poisinwood Bible were set apart from their peers at school because they were labelled the preacher's kids. In Kilanga, in the Belgian Congo, they were set apart because they were the only white family for miles around. The local people of Kilanga and the Prices found each other equally strange until they learnt to identify common factors in culture: love, respect, generosity, patience, and use those to guide their relationship. In The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Changez was one of a few non-white students in his class at Princeton. When he was headhunted by the valuation company Underwood Sam, there was him from Pakistan, and Wainwright, from Jamaica, both trying to navigate the balance between who they were as proud young men from elsewhere, and how that fitted into the cosmos of work life, New York, and America after September 11.
Both books, without making a song and dance about it, tackle what it means to be a stranger in societies other than one's own, how extended abscence from one's place of birth and prolonged residence as a foreigner changes one's perspectives, and by default, allocates psychological/emotional energy to seeking out exactly who one is, what one believes and why. In the light of how the world is today, the Global Village, for lack of a better term, things like this are worth thinking about, and not just in a token, flippant way.
On that note, I'd like ot hear what you all think about issues to do with diaspora, otherness, and culture, in whatever form they occur. Also, what role do you see books/literature/creative arts playing in such issues? Should they tackle those issues full on, as a stated premise, or should it be done more subtley?
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