Answer TWO of the
following…
Q1: As the hero of our
tale, Ganesh undertakes the most heroic task of all: to become a writer of
books. What obstacles does Ganesh face on his path? Are these typical to all
writers—or would-be writers—or are they uniquely Trinidadian
complications?
Q2: In Chapter Four,
Naipaul writes, “It was their first beating, a formal affair done without anger
on Ganesh’s part or resentment on Leela’s; and although it formed part of the
marriage ceremony itself, it meant much to both of them. It meant that they had
grown up and become independent.” What do you make of this scene and others
like it? Is this simply part of the “Non-Western” fabric of Trinidad ...or does this result from the conflict of East and West on the
island?
Q3: Defending his book to
Beharry, Ganesh exclaims, “Is a damn good book,
you hear.” Why does Ganesh so
overestimate the quality and importance of his book? What do we see (thanks to the narrator) that
he is blind to? How might this reflect
the colonial limitations of this world as Naipaul sees them?
Q4: In Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place (a non-fiction work about
the island of Antigua), she writes that “people in a small place cannot give an
exact account, a complete account of events…The people in a small place can
have no interest in the exact, or in completeness, for that would demand a
careful weighing, careful consideration, careful judging, careful questioning.”
Why are the people of Trinidad so unwilling to judge and question their world? Is
Ganesh the exception to this—or is he just as “small” as the rest of them?
Q1: As Ganesh goes on to write his book, his biggest obstacle is writers block. He really just has no earthly idea what he is going to write his book about. He also faces fear. He wants his book to be so good that he is scared to write it. He is scared his book will not be as big or as good as he wants it to be or as others feel like his work should be. He reads so many books and takes notes on them, but they really do not help him at all for his own book. I believe all writers go through this atleast once in their career. It is not just writers who fear being inadequate. Many others fear this too. Athletes for example are fearful sometimes of a big game. This would be comparable to the fear writers sometimes have.
ReplyDeleteQ2: I found this scene to be rather distasteful and disturbing. It is extremely sad to me that a woman being hit by her husband is just a part of Hindus religion and culture. It should never be okay to hit a woman, let alone for the reasoning that Ganesh did. Woman are not allowed to amount to anything in the Hindu culture and that very much saddens me. East and West cultures are extremely different in this way. In the western world, women are protected and able to prosper. In the eastern world, women are told how to live and are not protected against abuse. I understand we have completely different beliefs, but it is still hard for me to grasp as a whole.
Q1: Ganesh faces living in a tiny and uneventful town along with having no real talent for giving massages. Ganesh and Leela have troubles having a baby and they're also broke because he spends most of his time being a failure masseuse and reading and taking notes. Then he faces the issues with trying to be noticed by the public and the postman gets annoyed with him sending off advertisement coupons so they have to bribe him. Leela's family notices how poorly they're doing and she leaves him. The only writer I was ever close with took his own life, so in my narrow field of experience I do think being a writer also means dealing with hard times. I can't speak for everyone though. I'm sure some writers never struggle but to me it seems typical for someone trying to make a living off of writing to have a hard time starting out. Marital problems during times of struggle are universal. Any type of relationship can be strained during hard times, not just marriages. Stress does that to people.
ReplyDeleteQ2: It's a very foreign concept to me. Because although I'm no stranger to spousal abuse, at least where we live women don't tell their friends about being beaten. In the West it's either kept a secret or a reason to leave that partner. It isn't something women talk about with each other in the nail salon. If a woman here mentioned last night's beating to her girlfriends the police would be called! In this story, it says "Now she too would have tales to tell of her husband's beatings, and when she went home she would be able to look sad and sullen as every woman should. The moment was precious." This is so far detached from what I know of western ways of life, that I have to say this has to be a Trinidadian thing. The author is writing in an ironic/sarcastic tone in order to convey that it is normal for them. He is making fun of the dynamics of marriage in Trinidad because he knows better and he knows how shocking this behavior is for Western readers.
Q1: The only complications that I see coming from Ganesh are his own internal fears, which every writer must face. He’s afraid to start this venture only to see it fail, just like everything else he’s done in his life. Everyone believes that he is some great, educated man, but the only real difference between them and him is that he knows how to decipher the letters on paper a little better than they can. He eventually uses this ability to gain knowledge and further his writing career, but at the beginning, he uses it as a way to keep himself above others in his community, even if he keeps that feeling internalized. So every thing that Ganesh must face is the same things that most writers in his time would have had to go through to get published.
ReplyDeleteQ2: This episode is completely just a cultural norm. The two felt that it meant so much to them as a couple because it was something that every Trinidadian marriage went through, so it made them normal. Their marriage was not one of tradition, and neither were their families. Ganesh has lost both his mother and father, and Leela has lost her mother. They are both outcasts of a sort, and they are searching for something to make them a part of the culture. This beating is one of the most normal things that can happen between a man and his wife. Which is very sad, but again, these two are searching for anything that can make them normal and culturally accepted. This isn't a result of tension, or hate, or anything else. It even says in the book, and the quote you used in the question, that neither Ganesh nor Leela desired this or believed that she had earned it. It was just something that happens to everyone else, so it should happen to her too. Peer pressure is a hell of a thing.
Q1: Ganesh faces the problem that he has no good ideas to write a book about. Not only that, but he is afraid that because of it, his book will fail and he will be seen as a failure himself. I don’t think that this aspect is local to the island, as I have personal experience with helping another through writer’s block. On top of this, Ganesh and Leela are a poor couple, and the island itself clearly doesn’t have a strong economy. Ganesh is incompetent and bumbling, which I think Naipaul exactly wants as his heroic representation of his home.
ReplyDeleteQ2: While this is a cultural norm, I believe that Naipaul is giving it to us as a sick joke. Naipaul has so far approached this book with an atmosphere of irony, giving us all sorts of examples as to why the culture on this island is twisted. Twisted so much, that not even the people on the island can quite see it themselves. All of these scenes are very odd and beg the question if they are faking it for the sake of tradition, or if they simply see this as so normal that it isn’t something to worry about. Naipaul wants us to question the cultural norms of his home, and he does a good job of showing us how odd those norms can be.
Q1:Ganesh fears that his work will not be a success. Which I think everyone has this fear that their effort will be in vain if their product is not successful. But Ganesh has built up this reputation that he is very knowledgeable and so that his main concern. To actually prove that he can create something that is good and to live up to the name he has created.
ReplyDeleteQ2: In their culture this is expected. But to me that doesn't make it right. There have been many times in America culture that something was "normal", but that doesn't make it ok. It's hard for us to see how women can even go through that and even expect that to happen. Naipaul is definitely showing us some of the darkest part of the culture that he grew up with.
Q2: Even while Trinidad is a culturally segregated landscape, moments like these show the way in which the customs of East sand West blend in a frightening way. Ganesh and Leela have only ever know a world where Hindu values and a Western knack for more aggressive forms of sexism mix. While the Eastern world does generally treat the husband as the leader of the marriage, the Western hierarchy has a different sort of caste system that permits a more violent brand of misogyny, with fewer karmic repercussions. The beating is seen as ceremonious because this is a culture that views ownership as indicators of status. In the same way Ganesh prides himself in owning big books, he sees his ownership of his wife as another step up the social ladder.
ReplyDeleteQ4: the people of Trinidad cling to their customs. Although there are some very obvious cracks in the system, such as heavy racial tensions, it's ignored mainly because the people are dependent on their ways to establish a social hierarchy and provide order to their lives. Just like how the folks in New Delhi ignored the feces in the streets, the people of Trinidad choose not to address the issues because it's the only way of life they know. Ganesh is no better than the rest, because he uses his supposed intellectual talents to play the already corrupt system for the sake of social gain.
Q1: Ganesh faces the obstacles of having never published or written a book before, and doing it as a Trinidadian. Nobody from Trinidad has ever written a book, and no one ever thought that they would. The people he told wouldn't believe he was writing a book. It was a crazy thing to say.
ReplyDeleteQ2: I don't quite know what I feel about this scene. On one hand, I feel sorry for Leela getting beat, and think she shouldn't, but on the other I realize that this is the custom of their culture. It's a tradition that is done to make them seem like adults. I do believe that this is more part of the "non-western" culture.