101 Nights

Hi everyone. I don't know how many of you might be checking the blog yet, but I figured it was time for me to make a second appearance in these parts (as soon as things settle down just a bit more I'll aim to post more regularly). You should certainly plan to leave behind a textual trail here if you find yourself still ruminating (as I am) on aspects of the East, West stories and our conversation last week. First, an announcement of sorts: I think I've nearly already said something similar, but I think for Wednesday's class it will be sufficient to read about 101 nights. Thus, you should at least plan to read Hadddawy's introduction and up through page “The Story of the Two Viziers.” As I’ve said, I don't have a specific directive in terms of framing this reading, but in general we should be contemplating some of the contexts for The Arabian Nights, especially as part of a course on Rushdie. What do we need to talk about? I'm not sure myself, but it should be fun and as always we'll work through it together. Remember, too, the Hayden White essay on historiography and narrative (which gestures towards next week and Midnight's Children more than it pertains to the Arabian Nights) and the stray essays for the week from Imaginary Homelands. By the way, I have to cancel my office hours on Monday morning, unfortunately; I will try to reschedule them via additional hours later in the week, but do feel free to send me an email if you need to see me for some reason and want to set up a day/time.

As for the short stories that we now leave behind, well, despite the fact that they're considered (I suppose) one of Rushdie's "lesser works" (which says more about the scope of the major novels than it does the shortcomings of the stories), they offer us plenty to talk and think about, and certainly we got off to a good (if inevitably limited) start last week. I was grateful for your various comments, observations, and critiques, especially those that seemed so astutely to recognize the aesthetic and thematic characteristics particular to each of the three sections – I don’t know if I’ve quite noticed before how carefully Rushdie seems to have created that tripartite sensibility.

After class I regretted my own attempt to return to Radhakrishnan – not because there wasn’t still a lot of uncovered terrain in that essay, but because there ultimately wasn’t enough time to tease out the implications of some of the passages I read. And although we did, indeed, manage to touch down on each of the nine short stories, it occurred to me later that “Chekov and Zulu” probably warranted more attention, as did “The Courter,” I think. The title characters in the former story seem to be emblematic of the kind of estrangement that permeates most/all of these stories: by giving themselves these names, Chekov and Zulu are not ultimately doing anything to erase or ease the estrangement they experience and represent as foreigners in England: they're fragmented individuals, and on a linguistic level this is evidenced by their lack of a stable, coherent self to call upon. Even the sound of the names they adopt for themselves defies them: rather than the Star Trek characters they intended, their identities can be mis-categorized as either of a Russian or African nationality. To invoke language from structural linguistics, there is, we might say, a huge gap opened up between signifiers and signifieds in these stories. The courter/porter is another obvious example of the contingency of names and the instability of identity (though this can be seen to indicate a positive sense of hybridity & blending, a processual nature to identity formation, etc. -- the character of "Mixed Up" thus can be valorized in this sense as someone who symbolizes the rejection of pure origins). I always find myself wanting to talk about chess after reading “The Porter,” too. Not only is the game an alternative mode of communication for Mixed-Up and Certainly-Mary – cutting across various distinctions and boundaries (the way music does, too, perhaps) – but it becomes a kind of metaphor for characters (immigrants) who must be exacting tacticians and strategists to deal with the balance of (political) power, with their state of being unhomed, with the challenges of hardship and defeat in a foreign location …

And I remain very fascinated by the Columbus & Isabella story. One thing that's terrific about that story is the fact that its form (i.e., with shifting narrative voices that appear in wildly different registers: i.e., the serious narrator, the presence of seemingly gossipy court voices, the divided voice of Columbus himself) works in concert with the content: it's hard to identify who is speaking and to whom, and in that sense it makes the story itself a reflection of diasporic identity, Add to that the radical deconstructing of a Western historical figure we thought we know (it's interesting how many different Columbuses there are, you know? He's a hard figure to pin down in any responsible way given the mythos that surrounds him. If you want a humorous diversion along these lines, revisit this classic opening scene to an episode of The Sopranos) and you have a really stunning story. It's a story that complicates notions of east and west (e.g., it implies the subtext of the culturally and historically rich Islamic presence in Al-Andalus via the Moors; it makes of the undiscovered "New World" a kind of imaginary homeland, one that is exoticized in the imagination the way the East tends to be; it necessarily draws in issues of colonialism and tyranny, of religious (in)tolerance, of foreigners, etc.).

By the way, given that I recall someone seeming to ask about the sterilization context in “The Free Radio”: Indira Gandhi was convicted of electioneering malpractice and was banned from office in 1975. Instead of resigning, though, she chose to declare a national emergency (The Emergency, as it’s now referred to in the history books), which suspended the constitution. The Emergency ended up lasting about 18 months, and it was marked by massive troop deployments in the streets, the arrests of many thousands of political leaders, journalists, and students, imprisonments without trial, etc. It also included some particular insidious efforts by Indira’s son, Sanjay, who tried to effect slum clearances and far-reaching birth/population control through an aggressive sterilization program. This context dovetails a little with the question some of you raised about whether Rushdie may have given “the East” more of a free pass with his social/political/cultural criticism.

Anyway, that's plenty enough for now. Perhaps some of you may be inclined to pick up one of these threads and keep this particular conversation going. Those ruby slippers will undoubtedly be accompanying us for the rest of the semester. Cheerio and see you Tuesday.