"And everyone died. The end."

So I guess the only thing I don’t get about Seasons of Migration is the reason for all of Mustafa’s girlfriends’ committing suicide (it’s only the main premise of the book and all…). From what I can gather, Mustafa and the narrator are leading parallel lives, a pattern which obviously ends when Mustafa dies, leaving us to see if the narrator’s story will end in the same way. When Mustafa’s wife, who was entrusted to the care of the narrator dies, it is to say he carries on the same pattern of “love” ending in death. The book ends with the narrator diverting from Mustafa’s path in that he makes the conscious decision to live whereas Mustafa apparently chose death. What I don’t understand is the reason for all the suicides or how it connects to post colonialism (because post colonialism is always the answer, duh.) I suppose the women all felt a lack of emotional response from Mustafa, Mustafa felt guilt either about this or his aiding in Jean Morris’ death, and the narrator felt guilt for the death of Mustafa’s wife which all fueled the self-loathing that led to so many deaths but this still doesn’t give a postcolonial explanation. In any case, this was actually my favorite of the books that we read, despite the fact that I didn’t understand it and everyone in it should have been staying in a padded room…    

Crazy Indian dads...

In our last discussion of White Teeth, everyone was pretty hard on Samad for being a hypocrite about becoming westernized, which is understandable. I mean, the guy yells at his wife for wearing tennis shoes with her sari while he’s wearing a full track suit (if you're going to make arguments like that, at least make sure you're the epitome of Bangladeshi fashion). But despite all this, I feel pretty sympathetic towards him. You have to consider the idea that coming from the Bangladeshi/Indian culture (which has remained mostly unchanged for centuries) to the western/English culture would be terrifying, especially in the sense of parenting. Everyone has ideals and values they want to instill in their children, and they do so, consciously or not. For Samad, raising two already very impressionable boys in a comparatively wild and secular culture would be a huge burden of responsibility, especially considering he is, despite his resistance, influenced by it too. I guess part of the reason I can’t be too tough on Samad is because his attitude reminds me a little of my grandfather’s. My dad is from Singapore and his parents were originally from Kerala, India. When he married my mom, an American, they kept it a secret for a while because my grandfather was accustomed to the idea of arranging marriages for one’s children and wasn't exactly thrilled at first with my dad making his own decision there (all 7 of his kids ended up choosing their own spouses, so he didn’t really get to follow through on that one at all…). The thing is, what my grandfather was doing was out of love for his kids, wanting to ensure that they would live happy and productive lives, which is the same motive Samad has. Sending Magid back home isn’t just about avoiding westernizing culture, it’s about keeping at least one of his kids out of harm’s way and trying to ensure him a good future. Seeing this, I really can’t get too angry with Samad. But that still doesn’t justify kidnapping kids. That’s not the solution… usually…         

"And we all had superpowers. But mine were the best."

            That’s basically what Saleem implies throughout all of Midnight’s Children. While other kids in the Midnight Children’s Conference (aka the Indian X-Men) can walk through walls, fly, and travel through time, Saleem considers himself superior because of his telepathic powers and the fact that he was born EXACTLY on the stroke of midnight. Even beyond his own abilities, Saleem seems very focused on himself. He loves to mention how many women he’s slept with (Parvarti the Witch, the girls during his army days, etc.) and how in love Padma is with him, which is kind of remarkable considering he describes himself as “bald, blotch-faced, missing part of a finger, and big-nosed” (I would just like to point out that Professor Xavier was also the leader of his mutant team, telepathic, and bald, thus proving hair impedes our true superhuman and leadership abilities).

Saleem also considers himself the primary cause for many major events in not only his family, but all of India, (the 1957 riots in Bombay being caused by him falling off his bike into a protest for example). His reasons for considering himself the catalyst may just be a reflection of Rushdie’s attempt to turn an individual’s life into the history of India, but it still gives us the impression that Saleem is arrogant to think so in the first place.

Maybe I’m just skeptical of autobiographies (in this case, fictional). I mean, if your story’s so great, why are you the one having to write it down? In any case, Saleem thinks pretty highly of himself for being the baby who got mentioned in the paper next to the cut-out coupons for laundry detergent…  

"British Reserve"

Something that really stood out to me in reading Jane Eyre was the way emotions were conveyed. In our 21^st century American culture of “share all your feelings” and “never bottle anything up”, Jane Eyre, and I suppose the English in general, seem, well…  foreign. While Jane shares her thoughts with us because she is narrating and wants us as readers to feel what she’s going through, she rarely shares her feelings with other characters. When she does, it’s with someone she is very close to, like Helen, Mr. Rochester, or the Rivers sisters. The “British reserve”, as it’s been called, comes kind of as a shock compared to our “Generation Oprah” where every single thought people have about one another needs to be laid out in the open, not only with each other, but with the entire world. To me anyway, that much sharing seems like a total disregard for the privacy of one’s own thoughts and leads to more problems.  

While Jane is very good at keeping things to herself, I think Charlotte Bronte is trying to make the point that there needs to be a healthy balance. Part of Jane coming into her identity is sharing herself with others. When she does get into an impassioned state, such as when telling Mrs. Reed that she has treated her unfairly, she does so with a sense of justice and knowing she deserves recognition as a human being, not with the intention of being right or dominating others. This is what makes Jane such a strong character, because you know what she’s going through must be very painful in order for her to mention it at all.