Orientalism by Edward Said

Orientalism by Edward Said (1978,  368 pages)

The Most Important Work in

Post Colonial Studies

 Orientalism by Edward Said (1935 to 2003) has been on my TBR list for years.    Said is considered by many to be the founder of post-colonial studies and his most famous book is by far the most influential book in this field.    As far as my quick research could determine, no other work even comes close.   In the area of serious post colonial studies one is either a disciple of Said or reacting against him.    (Said had an interesting academic career and also spoke out on political issues and was a leading American advocate of the rights of the Palestinian people to have their own state.    There is a good article on him here)

The basic theme of his book is that western scholarship about Asian countries (what was then called "The Orient") was done in the services of imperialism and as such is inherently servile to the needs of the state.   He details how a "myth of the east" was created by scholars.    I found his arguments very convincing.   Basic to the idea is that the creation of the myth that  westerners are superior to the Asian in every way.   The western student of Asian, the orientalist, has helped created this myth.  The most important part of this idea is getting the colonial people to a accept that they are inferior.   In one very interesting note (the book is full of fascinating observations) Said said it was the policy of the British in India to withdraw all of their people by age 55 so no Indian would ever see a white person taken down by old age.   It was also done to make the colonial administrators feel forever young.

Asia was viewed as exotic, nearly unknowable, and a source of decadent delights.    Said quotes at length from Flaubert's writings about his tours of the brothels of Cairo.  (Said treats the middle east as his main subject-some have faulted him for this.)    There was a heavy sexual element for westerns for travel to the east.   One could do there what one could  not do at home.    (This is hardly a dead idea.)

This is a very academic book.   By that I simply mean it is half about the subject matter of  the book and half about what other professors have said in their books.  

I found this a fascinating book.   When I read Flaubert's Salammbo set in ancient Carthage I will look carefully again at what Said says about this book.   From a literary stand point, Said sees Flaubert as being very influential in propagating the myth of the exotic east.    He also spends a lot of time looking at the work of Conrad.

I have recently read and posted on some of the stories that have been short listed for the Caine Prize for best short stories by an African author.   Others posting on these stories have introduced me to a new literary concept that I do find very interesting, "African Poverty Porn".    I am still coming to terms with what this precisely means (it is up for debate) but basically it is stories written about the poor of Africa that are meant to appeal to the tastes of  well meaning educated readers who know little or nothing about the reality of life in Africa but enjoy reading about extreme poverty.   It is suggested the western readers are being made to feel superior and at the same time being made to feel somehow as if they are good people because of the pity they feel for the poor Africans.  There is real animosity toward the authors of some of the Caine stories.    I think it is because they are seen as what Said called "native informants".    A native informant is simply a person from a colonial country who passes along his knowledge to a western ruler or administrator in order to obtain a comfortable status in life for himself.   (It should be noted that Asian countries such as China and Japan have been colonial rulers of a very harsh sort.)

I recommend Orientalism to anyone seriously into post-Colonial literature with the qualifier that it is a very academic book (though not hard to understand) whose main content could probably be stated in ten pages with the other 360 as evidence for his claims.

Mel u

Proust's Overcoat: The True Story of One Man's Passion for All Things Proust

Proust's Overcoat:   The True Story of One Man's Passion for All Things Proust by Loreza Foschini (2010, 144 pages, translated  by Eric Karpeles)

It has been a long  time since I read Marcel Proust's (1871 to 1922) Remembrance of Things Past.    Not long ago I was sent a large number of books by a very kind reader from New Delhi.    Among them was Proust's Overcoat:   The True Story of One Man's Passion for All Things Proust by Lorenza Foschini.     I was not familiar with this book or its author but some quick research told me I might enjoy reading it and I did.

The author, Lorenza Foschini, was born in Naples and lives in Rome, Italy.   She is a radio and television correspondent specializing in coverage of the Vatican for RAI, a state owned media corporation.     She is an avid lover of Proust.

Proust's Overcoat is an odd, very interesting to me book.    It is not a book of deep literary analysis of the work of Proust.   It assumes you have at least some familiarity with Proust. 


The real subject of this book is Jacques Guerin.    Guerin was a wealthy Parisian whose family owned a perfume factory.    He was a devout biobliophile and collector of anything related to Proust.    He spent the week running his families perfume business and his weekends in the bookshops of Paris.    He assembled a fabulous collection of rare books.    His greatest literary passion was for Marcel  Proust.    By a happy accident,  Guerin sought medical care from Proust's brother, a doctor.   He met the sister in law of Proust through this.   His sister in law had always been embarrassed by the fact that Proust was gay (as was Guerin-Genet lived in his house for as while when he got out of prison) and intended to destroy any letters and papers that made any references to this part of Proust's life.    Guerin became involved in saving these and other papers from the fireplace.    

By the most generous of standards, Proust was eccentric.    He had an overcoat that he loved.    He wore it everywhere all the time.   At night or when he was in bed (which seems to have been at least half the time-he wrote in bed) he kept the coat over him.    It was clearly his "security blanket".    A good of space is devoted to Proust's relationship to this coat and Guerin's efforts to secure it for his collection.




Proust's Overcoat is about Proust, the mania for collection, perfume factories, old Paris bookstores and being gay in Paris.   There are some interesting things said in passing about his writings but the book is really about the mania for collecting and how the love of an author can change or even dominant lives.    


Proust's Overcoat is  a quirky look at a very nearly fey world.   It is a world of affluence, privilege and high culture.    There are a lot of intelligent and interesting observations in this book.     The more you are into Proust, the more you will enjoy this book.    I thing it might motivate some to read him for the first time.  (I am thinking about rereading him in 2012. )


This is a short book (the print is large and there are lots of interesting photographs).    You can read it in just a few hours.    I enjoyed this book and am grateful for the opportunity to read it for free.    


My recommendation is unless you are simply wild for Proust do not spend the money for a full prize purchase of this book.   If you can read a library copy or perhaps buy a used copy then it is worth reading for those with some interest in the subjects it covers.   It is enjoyable and funny and wise and about the love of Proust.      


Mel u

The Caine Prize 2011 Short List-Story Two

"What Molly Knew" by Tim Keegan (14 pages, 2008)

The Short Listed Stories

Second of Five Stories

The Reading Life Caine Prize Project

The Caine Prize for African Writing will be awarded on July 11 at an award dinner in Oxford.    The Caine Prize is one of the world's top literary awards.    It is given to the author of a short story from a country in Africa.   (There is additional background information on the award in my prior post and on the Caine Prize Web Site.)    This year I am doing a series of post on the five short stories that are on this years short list for the prize.     Yesterday I posted on "Hitting Budapest" by NoViolet  Bolawayo which I liked a lot.    It centers on a group of very poor children in Zimbabwe.    

"What Molly Knew" by Tim Keegan is very much a traditional crime story with a surprise ending.      Structurally it has all the hall marks of a short story called for by Frank O'Connor in his The Lonely Voice-A Study of the Short Story.    As the story opens Molly gets a phone call  from her son-in-law telling her that her only daughter, Sarah, has been murdered.    Keegan then gives us a very well done account of the relationship of Sarah and her mother.  He does tell us how things are between them, he does not show us.   In this he is in violation of one of the dictums of the modern short story, "show don't tell".    They seem very  close but it was a bond of shared history and a life held together half by acrimony half by the ties between a mother and her only daughter.    At first I was a bit shocked that Molly does not choose to call her husband at work (the step father of Sarah).   She tries to keep her routine as normal as possible as she waits for a police detective to come over.   Keegan does a very good job of letting us see the routine of Molly's life.   

Molly, in her mid fifties,  was widowed from Sarah's father when he died twenty years ago in a car crash.   She married Rollo to have a provider for her and Sarah.  Rollo was a good reliable earner .   He was a far from perfect husband, given to being a bit abusive while drinking and a womanizer in his younger days but as Molly says "what is she to do".   (Of course one could say, "Well Molly you could get out of your flat and get look for a job!")

Sarah married a man that Molly always hated, a psychologist.   As the story progresses  we learn that Sarah's husband was of mixed parentage and he is a "political agitator".    It is never said explicitly, but it is clear this is part of the issue between Sarah's parents and her husband.

When the detective shows up at the flat, he tells Molly it is most likely the husband who is the killer.   This is based on the fact that it is most often the man who kills his wife.   Further in this case there is no sign of anyone breaking in and nothing has been stolen.    The husband was the only one who could get in the apartment besides Sarah.    Rollo comes home and says he knew all along the husband was no good and he is not at all surprised by this.    

At this point in the story, neither Rollo or Molly have a lot to admire about them.   He is an abuser and sometimes a drunk.   Molly accepts this abuse for security for herself and her daughter.   Molly does not get comfort or even dignity, only shelter and food and a place in the world.    Rollo rejects his step daughter and her husband because he is of mixed blood.   Maybe the story is a symbolic representation of the reaction of older South Africans to the willingness of their children to accept the end of apartheid and race laws that the older generation has always cherished.     

There is a very powerful dramatic development at the end of this story.   I think a lot of people will want to read the Caine Prize short listed stories without knowing the endings in advance so I will tell no more of the plot.    Not everyone who reads this story has felt as I do, but the ending left me with very little regard for Molly.

This is a very traditional old fashioned story told in the third person.    I will enjoyed this story.   For fun, once I have read all the stories I will hazard a guess as who I think win

You can read this story and the other Caine Short Listed Works HERE

This is my second year blogging on the Caine Prize short stories (my 2011 posts are HERE).   Last year I think I might have been the only blogger to post on the stories, this year there is a very politically aware group of bloggers posting on each story.

The Sky and Everywhere in Between

Zunguzungu

The Oncoming Hope

Backslash Scott

The Mumpsimus

Method to the Madness

One  simple way to see the postings  is by doing a Twitter search on "Caine Prize".

I am really profiting from reading the posts of all those involved in reading the Caine short listed stories.    Some of the posters have the added insight that living in the countries where the stories are set gives them.

Tim Keegan is from Capetown, South Africa.    He is now a professional writer with several successful novels.   He has worked as an academic historian prior to writing full time

The New International  Books, the publisher for the Caine Prize, has kindly provided me a copy of their  wonderful book, To See the Mountain and Other Stories Caine workshop.     I was also provided an e-book.   

Several posters on the Caine Prize stories have said they seem to verge on "poverty porn".   This was a new expression to me, I admit, but I can see the point.   Are the Caine Prize stories just about tales of poverty to raise anguish and pity among those whose lives are far far away?   I think some feel it is unethical for a writer, I am being hypothetical, from a rich family who has been educated in London and has seen poverty only through the window of a limo  writing about the poor of Africa and claiming authenticity merely because of an accident of birth.   I do not agree with this concept myself but I respect it.   I might post more on this once I have read the other five stories.    

"What Molly Knew" is very well written and it will for sure make you think and perhaps expand your understanding of South Africa.

Mel u

The Caine Prize 2011 "Hitting Budapest" the 2011 Winner

"Hitting Budapest" by NoViolent Bolawayo (2006, 11 pages)

This Story is the 2011 Caine Prize Winner

The 2011 Short Listed Stories

Story One of Five

The Reading Life Caine Prize Project

Last year I read and posted on the 2010 Caine Prize  Winning Short story, "Stick Fighting Days" by  Olufemi Terry from Sierre Leone.    I also did a combined post on the four stories that were short listed for the prize.    This year's award will be  announced on July 7th at the annual award dinner in Oxford (details will be forthcoming for readers who might wish to attend this event).          Below is some background information on the Caine Prize I included with my first post on the award a year ago.


The Caine Prize is considered Africa's Leading Literary award.    Entry is open to anyone from an African country and the form of work is the short short.   The patrons of the prize include three African winners of the Nobel Prize for literature, Nadine Gordimer, J. M. Coetzee and Wole Soyinka.    Chinua Achebe, winner of the International Man Booker prize,  is also a patron.    The award comes with 10,000 British Pounds  and is given out annually at a celebratory event in Oxford.     The short story is seen as a continuation of the tradition of African story telling which is one of the reasons the award focuses on that genre.    The award began in 2000.   

"Hitting Budapest" by NoViolet Bolawayo (OK admit it, you love her first name!) is from Zimbabwe and that is where her story is set.    As the story opens a group of children from the poorer sections of town are getting ready to go on an expedition to steal some Guavas.    I admit as the story opened I thought to myself, "Guavas cannot possibly grow in Budapest".    Upon reading further Budapest is a region in a city in Zimbabwe.    We never learn what city we are in but it seems to me that it is most likely the second city of Bulawaya, based on a bit of research I did on place and street names in the story.    The city is distinctly divided into rich and poor areas with the rich areas being almost like European style enclaves.


The story is told in the first person by one of the children in the group.    The city is kind of a scary but exciting place to them.    The children have names like "Godfellow" and "Bastard".    They know if their mothers find out what they are doing they will be in big trouble but they do not much care.


I thought the conversations between the children were well done.   The oldest boy is a great runner so he seems to be in the lead.   In a shocking revelation passed of as quick matter of fact note in a conversation, we learn that a ten year old girl in the group is pregnant by her grandfather.   None of the other kids seems to find this shocking or terrible or outside the scope of their experience.   This is one thing most people will recall about the story.   


As the children approach the Budapest area everything seems so different to them.   There is no smell of out door cooking and no smell of rotting garbage.   The houses are big, all have walls around them and most seem unoccupied.    At one house a woman smiles at them.    They are confused by this as it does not happen often.    The woman is thin and is wearing a camera around her neck.   The kids fixate on the fact that she is eating something very exciting looking they cannot identify.    They are shocked when she throws it in the garbage half eaten, nobody throws away food in their neighborhood.    They notice the woman has beautiful pink feet.   She says she is from London and is there to visit her father.   She asks the kids if she can take a picture of them.   They are made uncomfortable by this request they do not understand but they do it.    As the get safely away from the house they begin to shout insults at the woman as they were very hurt when she threw the food she was eating out instead of offering it to them.    The woman goes back inside but seems to have no clue why he kids are insulting her.  


There are no real dramatic developments in the story, it is just some kids out for the afternoon.   The power of this story lies in its understatement.   A ten year old girl pregnant by her grandfather can be shrugged off as is a woman found  hanging in a tree.    The kids debate whether or not they should take her shoes but express no emotions or little curiosity about her.    


Konwomyn of Sky, Soil, and Everywhere in Between is also posting on the five short listed stories and we have agreed to exchange notes.   (There are five other bloggers posting on the stories and there are links to them on Konwomyn's blog.)    Konwomyn, who is from Zimbabwe,  says there is a kind of irony in this story.   The author of the story does a good job of presenting the very Anglo woman with a father from London taking pictures of the poor kids to show her friends back in London.   The suggestion then is NoViolet Bolawayo with an MFA from Cornell is similar to this woman.   She has written a story about the poor of Zimbabwe in a literary journal published in Boston aimed at Americans with high end literary educations.  Is this just a story for rich liberals to read and pity the poor for their lives?


   In a quick answer I would just say the exact same thing could be accurately  said of Charles Dickens.    I liked this story a good bit.   I would happily read more of her work and will look forward to seeing her career develop.   We have agreed to post our bets for the winning story.


The narrative flow in the story is well done.   I felt I was being shown what life was like for the kids, not told.    I enjoyed reading this story.      


You can read  the story in The Boston Review

There is a link to NoViolet Bolawayo's web page and blog HERE.

I will post on the next four stories soon.

The New International  Books, the publisher for the Caine Prize, has kindly provided me a copy of their  wonderful book, To See the Mountain and Other Stories which has the five short listed stories as well as twelve stories by participants at this year's Caine workshop.     I was also provided an e-book.


Mel  u

Totto-Chan The Little Girl in the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyangai

Totto-Chan The Little Girl in the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyangai (1981, 78 pages, translated by Dorothy Britton, 1984)

Memoir of a Tokyo WWII Childhood

by a Mass Media Super Star

Totto-Chan The Little Girl in the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyangai (1933-Tokyo) is the memoir of the elementary school years of Japan's first talk show host.    Tetso Kuroyangai is a media superstar in Japan.    The obvious comparison would be to refer to her as the Oprah Winfrey of Japan.    She has interviewed over 2000 people for her talk show which is the most popular and longest running such show on Japanese Television.    She  has achieved great success as an actress and an author.    What ever she says commands respect in the Japanese media.   This book is about her experiences as a student at a very special for its day elementary school in Tokyo with WWII as our background.

Totto-Chan The Little Girl in the Window  Totto-Chan The Little Girl in the Window was first published as a series of magazine articles.    When it was first published as a book it broke all records for book sales in Japan,  selling nearly Five Million copies.   It is written in a very simple fashion and might be best seen as young adult or almost a child's book.    Most Japanese schools in WWII were places of great discipline and memorization.    No "bad" behavior such as speaking out was tolerated at all.    Kuroyangai had just gotten expelled from her elementary school for talking to much in class.    Luckily for her she was not blamed by her parents.    They placed her in a school that went way out of its way to develop the personality of its students.    The book could be called "super heart warming",  and that maybe why it was such a best seller.    The chapters are all short and each one covers a different episode at the school.    The headmaster does seems like a wonderful educator and I would be happy to send a child to  his school.

I really found the few mentions of  how WWII intruded on the lives of the school and its students and faculty very interesting.    The students were taught that Americans were devils and told to prepare for American bombs.     It was very moving to see the young boys 12 and under in the school acting out the role of soldiers.    You could feel the heart break when the school was destroyed in a bombing raid.     The author attributes her success in life to her years at this school.

I was given a copy of this book by a very generous reader of my blog in New Delhi.   I would tell others to seek out a library copy if it sounds interesting to you.    I do not see it as a book I would suggest someone pay full prize for on Amazon.   It is fun but basically an insubstantial read probably achieving its status as a best seller from the high prestige of its author.    To most  readers, I would say if you cannot find away to read this nice book for free, then read something else.    I am glad I read it as I was curious to see why it would sell so many books.

Mel u

Swami and Friends by R. K. Narayan

Swami and Friends by R. K. Narayan (1935, 78 pages)

  School  Days in Malgudi

The Reading Life R.  K. Narayan Project

Indian Literature

Swami and Friends is R. K. Narayan's (1906 to 2001-India) first longer work of fiction.    I began reading Narayan with the title story in his 1947 collection of short stories, The Astrologer's Day and Other Tales.    I then happily read the other 29 stories in the collection.    I agree with Jhumpa Lahiri in classifying Narayan among the great short story writers of the 20th Century.     (There is background information on Narayan in my prior posts).     Most of his fiction is set in the imaginary town of Malgudi, India.   Each story is a completely stand alone work but the more you read, the more you understand the world of Malgudi.    As I read the short stories and then The Man Eater of Malgudi I thought, "there is a good TV series in these stories" and then I found out there have been numerous TV shows, series, and movies made based on the world of Malgudi.    All of his stories are written in English and have their own beautiful rhythm.   

Swami and Friends  centers on a boy in a private school.   This book is really one that should be read by those into Asian colonial fiction as it shows how the teachers try to turn the students away from the religion they were born into toward the religion of the English, Christianity.    The teachers (all Indians themselves) mock the religion of their students, equating it to idol and devil worship.    It was great to see the students fight back against this.   It is an all boys school (as I guess there were no mixed school) that is run as a profit making enterprise.    Some of the teachers are very dedicated, some oppose British rule and some totally adopt an attitude of complete servility in the hope it will allow them to advance.   We see concerned parents at school conferences,  we get to listen in as couples talk about their hopes and concerns for their boys,  and we get to hear a speaker demanding Independence for India.   

The dominant passion of the boys is cricket.   It was a lot of fun to see them form the Malgudi Cricket Club and watch their big game against another school.   

Narayan is a master at making people come to life in just a few sentences.   He is great at depicting relationships.   We see the shifting balances of power among the school boys (this may be a commentary on Indian politics of the 1930s). Malgudi might not be Bonbay but it is not isolated from politics.    There is real passion in this speech by an opponent of British rule who is trying to stir the emotions of the people of Malgudi  and I think it took courage to include it in Swami and Friends:


"We are slaves to-day,' he shrieked, 'worse slaves than we have ever been before.

Let us remember our heritage. Have we forgotten the glorious periods of Ramayana This is the country that has given the world a Kalidasa, a Buddha, a

Sankara. Our ships sailed the high seas and we had reached the height of

civilisation when the Englishman ate raw flesh and wandered in the jungles, nude."

Parts of this speech are beyond the understanding of Swami and his friends but they do understand this:

"'Just think for a while. We are three hundred and thirty-six millions, and our

land is as big as Europe minus Russia. England is no bigger than our Madras

Presidency and is inhabited by a handful of white rogues and is thousands of miles

away. Yet we bow in homage before the Englishman!"

Swami and Friends also deals directly with conflicts between Hindus (as Swami and his friends were) and people of the Islamic faith.   Of course Narayan did not know in 1935 of the millions of deaths that the Partition of India would produce but he knew there was a deep malaise along a religious divide even in Malgudi.

"He is a nice Mohammedan, belongs to our class.' 'In the Board High School?'

There was just a suspicion of a sneer in his tone. Swaminathan preferred to ignore

this question and continued, 'He has a bicycle. He is a very fine Mohammedan,

calls Mohammed of Gazni and Aurangazeb rascals.'

'What makes you think that they were that?'

'Didn't they destroy our temples and torture the Hindus? Have you forgotten

the Somnathpur God? . . .'

'We brahmins deserve that and more,' said Rajam. 'In our house my father

does not care for New-Moon days and there are no Annual Ceremonies for the

dead.' 

There is a lot in this rich book I have not covered.    Narayan is great with conversations and relationships.    Swami and Friends ("Swami" is the name of the boy the story centers on) is easy to read and follow.    I like his prose style a lot.    This is a delightful funny book  from which there is a lot to be learned.

I would put it as near must reading for those interested in fiction centering around issues related to the British Raj.

I was sent this work and three other novels by Narayan by a very kind reader in New Delhi who wishes not be named.   I think I will next read The Printer of Malgudi.,

Please share  your  experience with Narayan with us.

Mel u

"Love Among the Ruins: A Romance of the Near Future" by Evelyn Waugh

Love Among the Ruins:  A Romance of the Near Future" by Evelyn Waugh (1953)

Recently Winstonsdad's Blog  announced an interesting reading project, Waugh Wednesday, which involves reading a work by the English author Evelyn Waugh (1903 to 1966-UK).    Waugh's best known works are the novels Decline and Fall and Brideshead .   (There is some background information on Waugh in my post on his 1936 short story, "Bella Fleace Gave a Party", a very funny gentle satire of the English upper crust.)    This post on "Love Among the Ruins-A Romance of the Near Future" (8 pages) is in support of Winstonsdad's great reading project.


"Love Among the Ruins-A Romance of the Near Future" is an interesting, kind of oddish Dystopian story set in England in the near future.   As the story opens the central character in the story, Miles Plastic, is nearing his release from prison.  He was a convicted arsonist.   It seems life is so bad on the outside that many people prefer prison to freedom.    Miles listens to lots of classical music in prison and is a lover of Tennyson.   There are some very funny descriptions of life in prison.   


When Miles gets out he gets a job at a euthanasia center.   There are a lot of interesting, thought provoking things in this story.   For example, women who wish to become professional ballerinas have to undergo sterilization as it is thought giving birth to a child erodes their abilities.   One of the biggest problems as the euthanasia center is the large number of people trying to sneak in for service!    You have to convince a government bureaucrat of the terrible life you have before you can be allowed to undergo  euthanasia.
The government also selects people who seem to have an attitude of some negative sort to undergo the process.   The drama of the story happens when Miles falls in love with a lady who has changed her mind about the process but it seems you cannot change your mind.   What happens next provides the development of the story.  


I would classify this as a fun story worth reading for the delightful prose style of Waugh and for his satirical touches.   


You can read this story online HERE

Mel u