Reading Deeper into the Ganguli Family's Life (IR)

        I am now about two-thirds through The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. For the most part I am still enjoying the book, but there was this super long stretch where I just got bored with the content. The beginning had lot's of things happening very quickly and time gaps further boosted the pace of the story. Once Gogol was in his late twenties, however, Lahiri slowed down the pace a lot. This wouldn't be a bad thing, as it provides more development for certain aspects of Gogol's character, except for the fact that the events within this section of the book just weren't as compelling to read. It didn't help that I got annoyed with some of the characters - mainly Gogol and Maxine. I really have enjoyed the parts about Gogol's parents. They're own life story is interesting to read about. Lahiri hasn't really focused in on Sonia as much as the other characters, and I kind of wish that she would, simply to retain a sense of balance and understanding of the Ganguli family in its entirety. On the other hand, her personal life is not as relevant to the main story line, which encompasses Gogol and his own experiences throughout life.
        The boring section in the book did end after a while though. When Gogol's father dies from a heart attack, the plot takes a new turn. So many things start happening as the family struggles to adjust to the sudden death of of their beloved family member. Although it was devastating or the characters, I feel like they almost needed something like this to happen, just to get their lives together again. Ashima was too dependent on everyone else and needed to learn how to stand on her own two feet, at least with a little less support. Sonia felt very distant throughout the novel, very rarely appearing to take part in the family's main story line. By moving back to help her mother, Sonia could pick up past relationships and establish a better connection with her family.
        And then there's Gogol. Gogol had been drifting through life, simply trying to find an escape from his family's history and beliefs. By constantly pushing himself away from those that he truly knew, Gogol was concealing the truth that he loved his family and its traditions more than he wanted to admit. This shows when he starts pushing away from Maxine and connecting better with his mother and sister, as well as honoring his father's memories with a melancholy persona. So, even though it's heart-wrenching to lose a family member in the blink of an eye, I feel like Gogol's character especially needed such a tragedy to occur in order to stop making lame excuses and feats of denial and finally accept who he is, the background he is from, and the type of person he wants to be. Therefore, I think that this event will slowly lead to a resolution for the various conflicts in the novel. So, I guess I'll see where the story leads next.

The Namesake (IR)

        Believe it or not, we're reading our last independent reading book for AP Lit. Crazy, I know. Well, for my last group book, I'm reading The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. If you remember correctly, Jhumpa Lahiri was also the author of Interpreter of Maladies. I love the style she writes with -- it's crisp, clear, descriptive, and easy to follow. The phrases flow very smoothly, unlike some books I've read this year (a.k.a. The Sound and the Fury and Heart of Darkness). The only problem I had with Interpreter of Maladies was that because it was made up of short stories, you couldn't get very attached to the characters or the events that occurred. The Namesake, however, makes it possible. It's a complete novel rather than another set of short stories. Therefore, it's easier to let myself relax into the story-line and let it all seep in gradually. It makes Lahiri's writing a whole lot more enjoyable.
        The Namesake is like taking one of Lahiri's short stories to the next level, lengthening it into a bigger picture. It follows a family from India as they grow accustomed to the ways of America. After the introduction of Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, new to America and trying their best to settle in, the story focuses in on the birth of their first child. The newly-fledged parents have difficulty thinking of a name to put on the boy's birth certificate, as it was custom in their culture for other family members to give the child a "good" or formal name, and then to give the child a more familiar second name -- a "pet" name -- that would be used with family only. Ashima and Ashoke, new to the identification system used throughout America, end up putting what would be the child's pet name on the birth certificate. And so, Gogol Ganguli is born.
        The main sense of conflict within the story so far is the prominent hardships that come with a shifting of cultures for the family. Here are just a few: Ashima has great homesickness for her old home in Calcutta, Ashoke must grow accustomed to the ways of America while at the same time raising a family, and Gogol and Sonia (Gogol's younger sister who is born a few years after him) grow up in a family with different customs than those that they learn in school. One of the recurring conflicting elements of the story is Gogol's name. He can't seem to find anyone in his country with the same name, nor can many pronounce it right. It doesn't bother him too much when he's little, but once he gets a bit older, he starts to see the downsides of his name. To make matters worse, he slowly learns the truth of his namesake (hence the title) Nikolai Gogol, a historic figure who wasn't quite as amazing a person as his parents had always made him out to be. All of these conflicts ebb within the pages, magnified slowly over time.
        Speaking of time, Lahiri uses many time jumps in the book. In my opinion, these are performed brilliantly, skipping a few years and picking up the story in a spot in the Ganguli's life that easily connects back to the past. There was one spot where I missed the transition into one of Ashoke's flashbacks and got slightly disoriented about time and location, but I was able to pick up the plot again quickly enough.
        The character development tops everything off. Lahiri has a way of sharing the thoughts of each of the individual characters rather than just one, making the story much more constructive. I really like how The Namesake is written. I'm not too far into it yet, but I feel like it's going to be a very good book. Onto the next chapter! :)

There Will Come Soft Rains (PR)

There Will Come Soft Rains

Sara Teasdale, 1884 - 1933

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
And frogs in the pools singing at night,

Robins will wear their feathery fire       

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,

Would scarcely know that we were gone.  

At the last BR choir concert, all of the choirs were singing songs with the theme of poetry. The middle school choir (Vocal Elements) was asked to sing "There Will Come Soft Rains", a piece based off of the poem by Sara Teasdale. I had to think extra hard about the words of this song because I was asked to conduct it as the Vocal Elements TA. Besides the excitement over the fact that I was going to get to conduct a song, I was also thrilled that it happened to be a song that I sang when I was in Vocal Elements in 6th grade (Time flies, doesn't it?). Of course, when I was in sixth grade all I thought about was getting the words ad pitches right rather than letting the meaning of those words sink in. The song lyrics aren't written exactly like the poem itself, but most of the words are the same. After looking at the piece again after six years, I saw that although this song is a beautiful piece with phrases of spring's magnificence (like in the first phrase -- "There will come..." to "sound") , it has a haunting element to it as well. Take last few stanzas. They talk of war and the destruction of mankind, not something one would expect in a shimmering song about spring. Seriously -- the melody and harmonies to the song are beautiful. Hidden behind that veil of beauty, however, is what I interpreted as a statement about the world itself. While history plays through it's course, nature prevails. People fight, war breaks out, traumatic events occur that change the outlook on life itself and still, the natural world continues on, never skipping a beat. The animals continue to live, the plants continue to grow, and the world continues moving forward.
        In the musical score, a phrase that doesn't actually appear in the poem was added to form the chorus. The pre-chorus consists of the poem's last three stanzas, ending on the sorrowful idea that Spring (being personified as a living being) would never even notice if mankind disappeared from the world, perishing in its own spiral of destruction. Then, the piece leads into a powerful cascading melody -- written as "And it will rain." "It will rain" is then repeated twice more to put more emphasis on the fact that the world still cries out for the tragedies that take place within it. Nature may be able to keep on living without humans, but the world is so much better with them. While there is tragedy within the world, there is also greatness and hope. Good people live and good things happen, as do the bad. This is one of the reasons I prefer the lyrics to the song based on the poem rather than the poem itself. I really liked that added-in phrase "It will rain". It really connected the two aspects of humanity and nature in three simple words. I may be biased from being a choir person, but it's the way I feel. The poem could be interpreted in different ways as well, but this was the level I got to after thoroughly analyzing my choir music. Ha! Well, I'll post a video I found on youtube so that you can actually see what I'm talking about. You can tell from the music the melancholy feeling that comes layered beneath the beauty -- especially in the pre-chorus. :)

*Things Fall Apart* Versus *Mulan* (CC)

        Okay I know this is a little bit unrelated to our class discussions at the moment, but the whole theme of women being undervalued as less important than they actually are has gotten me thinking about just how great the movie Mulan is. Oh yes, Disney. When I was younger I watched so many Disney movies. I had a VHS player in my room so I would watch the same movie every single night for like three months and then change it, because I loved falling asleep to the music and story lines. For a while it was Beauty in the Beast. And then it became Mulan after one of my sisters rented it from the library and had to pay a fine to buy the movie after we lost it for a month. Then we found it, and I watched it. Over and over and over again. Let me just say, I have no regrets. Mulan is one of my favorite Disney movies of all time. I think one of the reasons I loved it so much was that Mulan had so much heart as a character -- she was brave, and stuck to her own beliefs of what was right rather than obeying the moral standard. Pretending to be a boy marching off to war may have seemed an impossible task to her in the beginning, but she pulled through after putting in hard work and effort, and in the end proved that women could be just as brave and capable as men.
        One of the many reasons I haven't really enjoyed reading Things Fall Apart so far is that it takes place in a culture that simply brushes aside the views of women. For instance -- take this quote from the book:

“Ikemefuna came into Okonkwo’s household. When Okonkwo brought him home that day he called his most senior wife and handed him over to her.
‘He belongs to the clan,’ he told her. ‘So look after him.’
‘Is he staying long with us?’ she asked.
‘Do what you are told, woman,’ Okonkwo thundered” (Achebe 14).

As displayed, Okonkwo takes advantage of his title of "father of the house" and burdens others with his own pending issues and forces them to simply accept them for what they are, no questions asked. The women encourage this behavior by obeying his whims and accepting his words without fighting about it. Although this is simply a part of such a culture, I don't support it. I much prefer everyone being able to deal with problems together, compromising rather than having one person declaring what should be done without consulting the other. I also disapprove of the idea that no one can speak out against an action the community wishes to take, even if it goes against moral reasoning, like the execution of Ikemefuna, an innocent boy who just happened to be forced into a deathly predicament. Why couldn't Okonkwo have spoken out for this boy? Ikemefuna was killed just like that, and no one dared to speak out for fear of going against the Oracle and the community itself.
        And this brings me back to Mulan. Mulan was scared to go against her community and their laws as well, but she still did it, because she felt in her heart that it was the right thing to do. Had she pulled an Okonkwo on the situation and simply sat back and watched, her father would have most likely died fighting in the war, and the great war itself could have been lost without the smart actions she was destined to make. What would have happened if Okonkwo had spoken out for Ikemefuna? Would the boy still be alive? Would the community have shunned Okonkwo? There's no telling what would have happened, as Okonkwo didn't take that risk. He decided to remain in his peaceful little community bubble, trying to ignore the splintering guilt building up inside him for going along with the common plan, and aiding in the execution of a boy he once thought of as his own son. In terms of characters and their choices, I much prefer Mulan's story.