SORRY--this don't post yesterday but got saved as a 'draft'!
Remember, no questions for Friday, but read Chapters 7 & 8 for our discussion. We'll start with an in-class writing over the chapters, which might include some of the following ideas:
* Is Ganesh 'fated' to become a mystic and a great man of Trinidad? Or is his autobiography (which the Narrator quotes throughout the book) merely trying to sell his life as such? Does the Narrator write against this belief? Is he satirizing Ganesh's mystic pretensions?
* Where else do we see the line become blurred between satire and ridicule? What do you make, too, of passages where the narrator casually uses the N-word? Why does he include this, since the word refers to him and Naipaul (both of whom would be called this by the English).
* Ganesh establishes his reputation by saving the young boy, Hector, from the 'dark cloud.' Is this a true testament to his abilities as a mystic? Or is it a clever piece of showmanship? Is he a sage or a charlatan?
* Why does he end up going to war with Ramlogan? Why might this be a problem of success in a 'small place' like Trinidad?
* A local paper starts making fun of Ganesh as the "business Man of God." Why is this an insult? And is there any true to the insult?
* Why might this novel also be a satire on commercialism and the very Western desire to turn everything into a profit? Does Ganesh represent the 'Eastern' point of view or the 'Western', do you think?
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