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maureen. hi guys. :-) i have so much enjoyed the postings on araby! hearing everyone's thoughts and ideas about the story is so great... chandra, mein fraulein, you sound so much like me sometimes! i remember when i started studying literature, of course i had been a ferocious reader since i was very young. i had always just read and consumed and totally enjoyed and really personalized what i read. and... couldn't have given a rat's patoot :) about whether there was symbolism or not because this book was personal for me. at first i'd think, 'oh hogwash! how do you *know* that is what lawrence meant in using that horse in that scene and those flowers - pishaw!' :)) overtime tho i'd begin to see patterns with symbols, i'd begin to see a framework with an author, like joyce, or, like rushdie :), or like dickens. i still have these reactions sometimes... take for example, rushdie's ;-) _satanic verses_. i am positive that when i read that book, i missed very much of the meaning of it -- many symbols, connotations and cultural references flew by my brain with no recognition whatever -- but i enjoyed it nonetheless and understood it just fine, in my own way. i am sure when you or whomever read it, rushdie's MC too, your experience was quite different. that is, because many of you guys (that is, south asians) would possibly have had a much deeper appreciation of the meanings -- like the names of characters, i don't know what they mean. in other words, chandra, you do recognize symbols now, but only when you recognize them. sounds obvious and self evident, but it is something to think about; like that experience of snickering because we see what the author has meant on a level beyond the literal. i have to think about that frequently when reading SA fiction. when you went to that presentation and you were told, 'no, none of those things were used as symbols,' why i'd like to smack that guy's bum and send him off to his room to think about what he said! :-)) why? because he was being kind of a jerk for starters :) and as your friend shashi deshpande has said, often the process of creation is an 'unaware' process -- unaware consciously and intellectually of why we say this word and not that word, why we place an apple on the middle of table (oh c'mon, if that wasn't a symbol then today is NOT st. patty's day! :). i think your observations were probably 'spot on'; also too, keep in mind that english professors fight like bulldogs over the meanings and symbols of texts. :) one thing i like about vikram chandra is that he is very open to interpretations of his work. same with deshpande :). parts of VC's books have been conscious processes in which he knew exactly why he had sanjay 'eat his words' and why the three boys were created from magical laddoos filled with all kinds of 'essential' ingredients. but the first time i read 'red earth', this stuff totally escaped me -- i just thought it was 'cool' and magical and i loved his storytelling gift. to answer why i correlated the story to adam and eve, and mind you, i made that argument knowing that i could have argued against it as well...knowing that i could have argued also that the mythical story behind it was some other myth, some egyptian or greek myth...but i found it to be related to genesis for a number of reasons: --the 'central apple' tree there is much more; but no, i do not think i am reading these references *into* it -- joyce surely put them in there consciously, and he chose specific words and references carefully. it is too perfect for him not to have :). and, these kinds of interpretations are not necessary either -- we do not *have* to see this kind of stuff, like adam and eve or whatever, in order to entirely understand and enjoy joyce! :)) i think any interpretation of araby is valid; at the same time, so are intense analyses of symbol and theological/mythological frames. araby is a wonderful story simply as that -- a story. a story of first love, of becoming, of the painful process of moving from youthful innocence to painful and perplexing young adulthood (ismat chugtai describes it so well in _the crooked line_ too. often my prof (who i wrote that paper for, a grad class, 'lawrence, joyce, woolf' taught by my mentor, pradyumna chauhan, the dept chair of english at my college -- i am going to invite him to join us here -- you guys would love him!! he is quite funny and proper...don't know if he has time), he always talks with us about the various ways of 'reading' any text, and that is what i hear chandra saying too. there are so many ways to read and interpret texts. that is the great thing about joyce -- he had this special and unique talent of telling beautiful stories that all by themselves are just darn beautiful stories :) -- but he also gives readers this whole world, a universe, of myth and symbol and theological references and connotations and intrigue and 'life' that goes right along with that great story. his craft was very disciplined, structured and systematic (my view) -- much more so than many other authors; manish you said something about the endings of his stories that i really liked, it really hit me, but i gotta go back and re-read it... i don't think *all* of joyce's stories are so theologically framed, i mean the one about the friends (is it, 'a day at the races' or something like that? memory fails...) i don't see anything whatever religious in that, much as i do see a cultural/class critique. but that is what is so great about free discussion like this...because i get to hear and think about so many different ideas ... i will give my thoughts on araby later, unless they are all covered before i get to it!! :)) |
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