June 2008 Archives

My opinion of INHERITANCE OF LOSS by Keran Desai changed after the discussion by 14 attendees at the CentralMarket Book Club, last Monday, June 9th.  This often happens and I continue to be amazed how much a discussion helps my own comprehension and appreciation of the books we read.  Most are rather difficult since we are affiliated with Great Books.  INHERITANCE OF LOSS was QUITE difficult, perhaps one of the most difficult I've read in sometime.

The fact that I believed the author was a great writer never changed.  I found many many passages to be wonderful, enlightening, lyrical, humorous and astute among other adjectives. I can't say enough good things about the quality of her writing.  But my first impression of her ability to write a good story was suspect.  I thought initially that the story failed to have a good solid linear thread to make it more compelling to read. That some of the pieces of the story were contrived plot devices and not representative of quality literature.  But my opinion changed for the better, thanks to Jackie who was moderator of the discussion as well as thanks to  numerous other contributors to whom I am grateful for their attendance..

Jackie started our discussion asking us to focus on the characters, which ones did we care about.  The cook, Biju who was the cook's son, Jemubhai who was a retired Judge, Sai who was the Judge's grandaughter,  Gyan who was the granddaughter's boy friend and numerous secondary characters such as Lola, Noni, Uncle Potty and Father Booty as well as Biju's acquaintances in New York and numerous characters involved on one side or the other of the insurgency. And also characters that were part of the judge's family and past, including his dead wife Nimi and old friend Bose.  And finally, can't leave out Mutt, the judge's dog.

Many attendees at the discussion including myself thought the cook was the most endearing.  The consensus seemed to be that his son Biju, who immigrated to the US and whose experience working in the basement of  restaurant kitchens as an illegal was not as resourceful as his father. It seems his naivete and lack of maturity caused him numerous problems where he was victimized by others who were smarter or more into hustling those less experienced.

Finally in the end, he seems to have developed some kind of "grit" missing in the first part where he is determined to return home to India.  We speculated that perhaps this was a sign of his "coming of age". And even after losing all his worldly possessions while making the trip, the joy between the father and son when they are reunited in the end was powerful and  effectively written as "two figures leaping at each other" seen by a third person, Sai who didn't yet know that it was the Cook and his son.  This gave the passage another dimension, IMO, since the reader realizes that even though the novel has ended, there is a lot more that can be imagined that will come when the son is introduced back into the household and begins to find a new life back in his homeland.

I think Sai illustrated "the pathos that pervades the country" as described by one of those attending the discussion.  Sai was an orphan, taken in by her grandfather who had lost any ability to love if he had ever had such an ability (which some doubted).  She falls in love with Gyan (name meaning knowledge and who becomes a character having hope).  Their falling in love was incredibly tender, I thought as they started describing each other's body parts. We discussed whether we thought she would be able to leave as she expressed a couple of times in the book.  As a woman, leaving was going to be much harder than it was for Biju.  She didn't seem to have an identity to lose as the title suggests. It seemed as if it was lost to her from the very beginning.  She could expect nothing from her grandfather and though she loved the cook, it was clear she was very unimportant to cook compared to his feelings for his son.

Many thought the judge was a very powerful character.  I initially thought he was one of the artificial plot devises because the author made him so powerful that the intensity was greatly increased whenever he came on the scene.  I originally thought readers were being teased to some extent because they were left wondering so much about the judge, why he was the way he was, what he might be doing or what he might think about something.  

Perhaps he might be considered by some the main protagonist but now as I'm writing this, I don't think there was a main character. I felt this more strongly once we had a short lecture from one of the attendees who was Indian and who explained some of the history of India's culture in an "easy to listen to" mode.  

I came to believe that not one of the characters was representative of a typical "Indian".  Apparently a good case can be made that there is no such thing. That because of India's complex history, these characters that now were described as living in India were at least as complex as their country's history. Their lives were touched by both the legacy of the British as well as non-British, the caste system, as well as the political efforts to eliminate the caste system, various religious cultures, various languages, multiple ethnicities, etc., etc.

As Jackie described it, she thought it was a thangkha which is a kind of tapestry, in this case a tapestry of the lives of these characters. All had mundane problems described often in extreme detail such as how they managed to carry on when the rains came for months as well as extremely tragic problems such as Father Booty being deported and the devastation caused by the insurgency.  I described it as a collage which I think is another word for thankha. One of those attending, after the discussion having wine downstairs in the coffee shop said that he thought the book must be comparable to art by a well reputed artist  named Jackson Pollack who painted collages and who baffled many art reviewers with the question "what does it mean"?

It is amazing to me that the author manages to cover so many characters, events and situations in only 350 pages.  It is an extremely dense book, one of the reasons it is difficult to read and to write about. Most thought the difficulty of the book came from the fact that it didn't flow well. A few thought it "choppy". One accused it of being ADDish (i.e. unfocused).

I thought the best theory was proposed by Jackie,  that the book is fragmented and choppy intentionally for a reason.  That we are supposed to feel disconnected and be uncomfortable while reading it because that corresponds to how fragmented we readers are as well as how fragmented are the characters with the numerous components of their personal identities especially considering the history of their homeland.  That we all have moments,  sometimes instants of  enlightenment, pleasure, anger, dysfunction or whatever with the focus of our thoughts often changing from one subject to another and back again. 

Probably not the only way to explain the author's unusual writing style but it sounded good to me, especially in light of  some outside information shared from the New York Times that the author reported having trouble finding a publisher because "It was messy, and they didn't think editing could save it.".   .

Looking forward to our next discussion of SISTER CARRIE by Theodore Dreiser scheduled for July 14th, 7pm in the community room upstairs at the Houston Central Market.  More info about our group, see http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/CentralMarket/;

The Montrose Great Books discussion was extremely well attended Thursday evening for our discussion of THE STRANGER by Albert Camus. I stopped counting at 30 attendees.  I apologize to those who didn’t get a seat at the front but since we were in the large room downstairs, at least we were able to seat quite a few more than had we met in our usual place in the conference room upstairs. I will try to get the downstairs conference room for next time.

Wendy was the moderator and led a very well organized and well structured meeting with excellent questions as well as a brief intro to Existential philosophy.  We started with a discussion of Meurseault, the narrator and main protagonist.  Wendy asked: what was he like? Most agreed that he was literally “thoughtless”.  Did he like his job? Not anymore than he liked anything else. Except for one thing he liked to do at work, he liked “washing his hands”, a symbol for his fondness for (or at least connection with) physical sensations such as water and the sun and sex (of course).  He was good at his job but since he didn’t seem to really like anything, not even an offer to work in Paris by his boss (pretty incredible to most of us that he turned this down), we assume that he was competent without any passion.  

Next we discussed his relationship with his Mother. It seemed strange or at least very unusual for him not to feel any grief for her death. His first response was to wonder what day she actually died, whether today or yesterday.  Some wondered why he even went to the funeral but then others remembered that there were some papers for him to sign.  While attending her funeral, he thought “what an agreeable walk I might have if it hadn’t been for my mother.”  If he didn’t dislike her, it was very clear that he had no feelings for her but this was not a surprise as we read on since he really has no feelings, good or bad,  for anyone including his girlfriend, Marie.  When she asks him whether he loves her, he says “No’.  His honesty here is one of his redeeming traits that allows the reader to consider him a decent fellow in some respects, certainly a step above his sleazy neighbors,  

He chose to associate with or be acquainted with his neighbors such as Mr. Salamano who abused his dog as well as Raymond who is a pimp and who abused women and who was responsible for Meursault being on the beach where he killed the Arab (who originally was after Raymond for revenge for his treatment of a relative.)  Meursault’s lack of judgment in being acquainted with these neighbors who are sleazy and not the sort a decent fellow would associate with is another sign of the emptiness of his thoughts.   Also, one might consider the theme of the absurd being included at this point because he tends to believe “nothing matters” including whether his friends or acquaintances are scumbags.

From some background reading, I understand that Algiers was in the midst of a violent civil war that had gone on for decades, with rampant racism.  Nothing was mentioned in the book about this.  Some think that considering Camus’ avid involvement in the political climate and upheaval in Algiers at this time and the absence in the book of any description of the context of the war that might have been part of the conflict with Raymond and the Arabs is yet another sign of how disconnected Meursault was from what should have been his social world.  

And at some point, we discussed whether the story was really very credible. We actually came back to this a couple of times. How realistic is it to believe that it was totally chance that he went back on the beach after he was tired,  with a revolver in his pocket, and with the problem of the sun still being very hot,  headed for the same place where he and Raymond were just assaulted a short time before?  This question seems to only be satisfactorily answered by considering the theme of the absurd.

Regarding the killing, Meursault thinks: “It occurred to me that all I had to do was turn around and that would be the end of it. I took a few steps toward the spring” and with this poor choice of options, he causes the Arab to take his knife out and causes Meursault to shoot him, not once but five times. He later tells the prosecutor that the fact that he fired an additional four shots “doesn’t matter”.  As was mentioned in the discussion, this exemplifies the absurd theme again but a main theme of chance or contingency is also reflected in this passage as well.

Pretty unbelievable, IMO.  This is the point where I came to the conclusion that the character was more of a “stick figure” than meant to be a real “in the flesh” character. This is the point where it seemed to me that the symbolism or metaphorical attributes of the character were larger than the character himself.  And now as I write this, this is the point where I believe Camus intends for Meursault not to be an “individual”, not yet anyway. He is still undeveloped without a social context. He was someone with few real connections with society as was noted at the discussion in answer to one of Wendy’s questions.  And this fits well with what I understand about existentialist theory, that one can’t be a true individual unless they first have a socially derived self from which they can launch their own individuality.

The trial was the mechanism used by Camus for Meursault to be able to arrive at his own individuality.  For example, at the trial, he actually recognized that others loathed him, something that in Part 1 of the book, he wouldn’t have noticed.  

What was he a symbol of, then? In simple words, I think he symbolized someone without a thought in their head except for a few such as those he remembered hearing from his mother that are included in the first part of the book.  One attendee commented that in Part 1 he symbolized innocence in the Genesis sense. He has not yet eaten of the tree of good and evil.  In part 2, Meursault is then cast out of his innocent happy life through imprisonment.

At the trial, his lawyer never even raises the defense of “self defense”.  Everyone  attending our discussion agreed that Meursault was not convicted of the murder of the Arab but instead was really convicted of not grieving properly for his Mother. Most believed at the discussion that if he would have faked his grief, he would have been acquitted..

The passage in Part 2 where he finally understands that he is guilty which from what I’ve read, some write this could be interpreted to mean that he recognized he was guilty of his humanity corresponding to the Garden of Eden analysis.  This recognition is the most important part of the book, IMO.   But what may be more important but more difficult to understand is the conclusion.  We talked at length about this. The best I can do to describe what sounded like a reasonable explanation to me from the discussion is to use a conclusion by one of the attendees,  that Meursault comes “full circle”. 

In part 1, he says things don’t matter but this isn’t a result of any real reflection since there are no thoughts in his head.  In part 2, he actually has feelings, develops a social context as a result of the people at the trial, understands how they loathe him, develops his own feelings such as his anger with the chaplain,  then develops his own individuality,  and as a result of reflection using his newly developed individuality thinks that things don’t really matter.  In the words of the book, he refers to this as “benign indifference” or “gentle indifference” depending on which translation. Doesn’t this seem to be what he thought in the beginning? It does to me except that now, as was commented in the discussion, he has arrived at this conclusion through reflection.

Looking forward to our next discussion of  HANDFUL OF DUST by Evelyn Waugh scheduled for July 3rd at 6pm.at the Freed-Montrose Library conference room currently scheduled for the upstairs conference room but I will try to get this moved downstairs. Stay tuned.

See our web page at http://www.houstonbookclubs.org/Montrose/ for more information about our group.

p.s. I may provide a link to Wendy’s questions here. Not sure yet about this.