Hello there!
so, I think we need to branch out, to expand our boundaries a bit, to raise our eyes up.
from here on out, shilpitina will not only be reading, but will also be watching/listening/cooking... and sharing.
so....
if you haven't already, go watch Slumdog Millionaire. It's totally awesome.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
I'm in
So, just wanted to say, started Divisdero and it's amazing! the subtle meanings packed into every sentence, the atmosphere, the story --- I'm sold, and will be eating it up over the next few days. Kristina, I know you are at least a few chapters in -- what do you think?
Thursday, September 11, 2008
i am polish.
shilpi,
i am 1/4 polish by the way. so i want to relate two things in close...maybe three things in closing on travels with herodotus. maybe just two things, so first thing is:
1) China, you asked me if I related to R.'s impressions. As much as I can decades later--60 yrs. later? I will say I related to the language barrier. I was promised language courses upon arrival-- no such reality. I fumbled with Chinese co-teachers. We pantomimed and exercised jaws and faces as much as we could to pronounce words in Chinglish. I have felt no other isolation in my life than when in Jiaxing City, but also no other mission at the same time because I was teaching-- so I had a focus. In sum, I wasn't a journalist--I had another profession, but yes, I related. It rang true. Being in another nation in which you don't speak the language and are wholly other is... to say the least a challenge. I also had to contend with my hosts-- who censured every free moment I had on the earth. I had to sneak out and get lost for any autonomy... "Happy every day" splashed on billboards in the background.
2) So R. I want to say that I have immense admiration and lay at the feet of this man. He's lived a life that few have the courage to experience. But, what amazed me about his early recollections was the humility and almost--ordinariness-- of his trials. He was scared, lost, and giving himself up to strangers for direction and kindness. I was inspired. You too could be R.K., with a lot of hard work (and research) and a little luck upon arrival. He's a human. You're a human. I'm a human. Welcome to humanity.
Next selection: Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje.
This book is meant to be next. I'm entranced...its romantic and violent.
xo miss you.
kristina.
i am 1/4 polish by the way. so i want to relate two things in close...maybe three things in closing on travels with herodotus. maybe just two things, so first thing is:
1) China, you asked me if I related to R.'s impressions. As much as I can decades later--60 yrs. later? I will say I related to the language barrier. I was promised language courses upon arrival-- no such reality. I fumbled with Chinese co-teachers. We pantomimed and exercised jaws and faces as much as we could to pronounce words in Chinglish. I have felt no other isolation in my life than when in Jiaxing City, but also no other mission at the same time because I was teaching-- so I had a focus. In sum, I wasn't a journalist--I had another profession, but yes, I related. It rang true. Being in another nation in which you don't speak the language and are wholly other is... to say the least a challenge. I also had to contend with my hosts-- who censured every free moment I had on the earth. I had to sneak out and get lost for any autonomy... "Happy every day" splashed on billboards in the background.
2) So R. I want to say that I have immense admiration and lay at the feet of this man. He's lived a life that few have the courage to experience. But, what amazed me about his early recollections was the humility and almost--ordinariness-- of his trials. He was scared, lost, and giving himself up to strangers for direction and kindness. I was inspired. You too could be R.K., with a lot of hard work (and research) and a little luck upon arrival. He's a human. You're a human. I'm a human. Welcome to humanity.
Next selection: Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje.
This book is meant to be next. I'm entranced...its romantic and violent.
xo miss you.
kristina.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
hello out there
XTina --- I know you are bored with the new book. its gone. its done. im with you, girl. polski is done-zo. Pick a novel! Anything -- I'll read it. I miss you. ps, im a little drunk. as per shilpitina rules.
love,
shilpi "endless well of book and xtina love" paul
love,
shilpi "endless well of book and xtina love" paul
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Polski on the Run (bye jhumpa)
yahoo! This is just a quick post to document my joy. Welcome back, Xtina! I'm so happy we're up and running.
I really enjoyed your Jhumpa post. I think you are on target about many things: the fixedness of characters, the time passing as a major actor, the limited male characters. And you made me much more sympathetic to Sang and helped me understand her situation, her decisions. And Hema and Kushik -- they did have a chance! that sneaky "hope" feeling kept creeping up on me when i was reading those. alas, not in Jhumpa's world...
All the talk of her landscape, the orbiting (or, ahem, rubbing), the isolation helps to close out our discussion of this book and the overall sense that it leaves you with. For me, it was a very space-y "land"scape, with much distance, very gentle, subtle (from our perspective) movements. Hope (sometimes) in the tiniest glimpses. Ok. Goodbye, Jhumpa. It's now been 2 months since I last picked up the book and I feel very ready to close up the talks and put it on the shelf.
And on to Ryschzardddd Kcappuschyinksi! I'm also about halfway through and am so delighted. This feels like a much more personal book that what we just read, a journalist journalizing his own life, bringing in his history and Herodotus's Histories and world histories. He is able to draw you in so quickly, to open up and reveal vulnerabilities and allow us to see through his changing eyes. It feels very anthropology-ish to me, so much context and up front subjectivity and making of big picture connections. His descriptions are very vivid and his insights are just sweet. He talks about how he was studying how to "see" from Herodutus, the ancient times reporter/documentor/anthropologist --- I think I want to learn a bit about seeing from our Polack.
Those are my impressions -- more details to come soon. What are you feeling on this one? You've spent time in China -- did you find anything in his descriptions/experiences that rang true or untrue to you?
I really enjoyed your Jhumpa post. I think you are on target about many things: the fixedness of characters, the time passing as a major actor, the limited male characters. And you made me much more sympathetic to Sang and helped me understand her situation, her decisions. And Hema and Kushik -- they did have a chance! that sneaky "hope" feeling kept creeping up on me when i was reading those. alas, not in Jhumpa's world...
All the talk of her landscape, the orbiting (or, ahem, rubbing), the isolation helps to close out our discussion of this book and the overall sense that it leaves you with. For me, it was a very space-y "land"scape, with much distance, very gentle, subtle (from our perspective) movements. Hope (sometimes) in the tiniest glimpses. Ok. Goodbye, Jhumpa. It's now been 2 months since I last picked up the book and I feel very ready to close up the talks and put it on the shelf.
And on to Ryschzardddd Kcappuschyinksi! I'm also about halfway through and am so delighted. This feels like a much more personal book that what we just read, a journalist journalizing his own life, bringing in his history and Herodotus's Histories and world histories. He is able to draw you in so quickly, to open up and reveal vulnerabilities and allow us to see through his changing eyes. It feels very anthropology-ish to me, so much context and up front subjectivity and making of big picture connections. His descriptions are very vivid and his insights are just sweet. He talks about how he was studying how to "see" from Herodutus, the ancient times reporter/documentor/anthropologist --- I think I want to learn a bit about seeing from our Polack.
Those are my impressions -- more details to come soon. What are you feeling on this one? You've spent time in China -- did you find anything in his descriptions/experiences that rang true or untrue to you?
Monday, July 28, 2008
Blog on...Summer Reading
Summer Reading with Shilpitina.
Travels with Herodotus
by Ryszard Kapuscinski
sing, Sang, sung...take us home, jhumpa
Last for me on Jhumpa, but we do need a little closure, right? Not just.........space. And, having a little separation-- a little summer respite and some distance from the queen of distancing people, I feel I can be a firmer book club critic looking back and reviewing some passages.
First of all, I want to say that I think you beautifully captured the major linchpin in the mechanics of her narrative. She invites you to enter a landscape. And this landscape and its main figures may be peculiar to her vision as an author, yet she takes you along with very deliberate steps and images, that almost convince the casual reader that all is inevitable. Characters are walking on a narrow path, to their isolated destinies (destinies that "orbit" as you wrote, or maybe rub up against one another... as I write for the sexual innuendo) and then time trudging on is the force of climax and resolution...not the characters or their potential actions. So Jhumpa provides another kind of fixation...and people are just fixed (in their places and like they're neuters,... get it "fixed" like a cat.).
So Paul and Sang and Farouk, after I read this one, I remember feeling so much tenderness for Sang, she was making some really disturbing/ fucked up choices about a man, but she seemed so unhinged in all other aspects of her life (dropping out of school without a plan, seemingly drifting and a little friendless) that it was really easy to see that she would easily connect to an abuser. Farouk is strange and rigid--maybe she liked this structure even if it didn't bring her very much happiness. And, I don't mean to throw the "abuser" term around lightly, but "I've warned you, Sang...I will not spend my life with a woman who makes scenes." I almost tore a page out and ate it I was so angry... but I didn't want to make a scene.
The thing that I found so interesting in this one were the very limited options available for the male characters...you had either the distant idealizer, Paul: lonely and longingly reading literature, finding a bunch of incomplete versions of women to graft onto his romantic version of Sang. I would cut him more slack, but I really feel like his interaction with her is really so limited. And then Farouk, the dickface (for lack of a better) who rolls up in a BMW, can't stand sleeping together after sex (although, he seems to have no issue with Deirdre), and chides Sang for desiring some openness and ease in their relationship. And finally, I guess I can't leave out the army of anonymous suitors...calling her with little else but her Bengali resume to cling to for conversation. Which seems like a bit of a drain, she has to play-act good humor about this constant bombardment on the house phone. In sum, she's got a lot of bad choices... a delusional Romeo, a dickface, and then a bunch more faceless Romeos. And, she chose the dickface, ain't that just like a woman! In all seriousness, I think its quite human to choose a companion that makes you forget who you are, if all you are wanting to do is forget who you are for awhile.
A little too simplistic in my description of Jhumpa's "landscape"? Do you see more goodwill in Paul's actions than just a dreamy, grad student with a little libido?
Also, Part II: Hema and Kaushik was my favorite. I thought their story was really beautiful, and maybe the only one that dispels the fixation theory, they had a chance, didn't they!?!
I'm halfway through Travels with Herodotus, if you want to move on a blog about the aged Polack.
I'm really excited about Stuffed and Starved too, I think there will be debate, I skimmed it at a bookstore last week.
i just got back from vacation in Seattle, it was excellent, beautiful in the summertime. miss you and hope you are well.
xoxoxo kristina
First of all, I want to say that I think you beautifully captured the major linchpin in the mechanics of her narrative. She invites you to enter a landscape. And this landscape and its main figures may be peculiar to her vision as an author, yet she takes you along with very deliberate steps and images, that almost convince the casual reader that all is inevitable. Characters are walking on a narrow path, to their isolated destinies (destinies that "orbit" as you wrote, or maybe rub up against one another... as I write for the sexual innuendo) and then time trudging on is the force of climax and resolution...not the characters or their potential actions. So Jhumpa provides another kind of fixation...and people are just fixed (in their places and like they're neuters,... get it "fixed" like a cat.).
So Paul and Sang and Farouk, after I read this one, I remember feeling so much tenderness for Sang, she was making some really disturbing/ fucked up choices about a man, but she seemed so unhinged in all other aspects of her life (dropping out of school without a plan, seemingly drifting and a little friendless) that it was really easy to see that she would easily connect to an abuser. Farouk is strange and rigid--maybe she liked this structure even if it didn't bring her very much happiness. And, I don't mean to throw the "abuser" term around lightly, but "I've warned you, Sang...I will not spend my life with a woman who makes scenes." I almost tore a page out and ate it I was so angry... but I didn't want to make a scene.
The thing that I found so interesting in this one were the very limited options available for the male characters...you had either the distant idealizer, Paul: lonely and longingly reading literature, finding a bunch of incomplete versions of women to graft onto his romantic version of Sang. I would cut him more slack, but I really feel like his interaction with her is really so limited. And then Farouk, the dickface (for lack of a better) who rolls up in a BMW, can't stand sleeping together after sex (although, he seems to have no issue with Deirdre), and chides Sang for desiring some openness and ease in their relationship. And finally, I guess I can't leave out the army of anonymous suitors...calling her with little else but her Bengali resume to cling to for conversation. Which seems like a bit of a drain, she has to play-act good humor about this constant bombardment on the house phone. In sum, she's got a lot of bad choices... a delusional Romeo, a dickface, and then a bunch more faceless Romeos. And, she chose the dickface, ain't that just like a woman! In all seriousness, I think its quite human to choose a companion that makes you forget who you are, if all you are wanting to do is forget who you are for awhile.
A little too simplistic in my description of Jhumpa's "landscape"? Do you see more goodwill in Paul's actions than just a dreamy, grad student with a little libido?
Also, Part II: Hema and Kaushik was my favorite. I thought their story was really beautiful, and maybe the only one that dispels the fixation theory, they had a chance, didn't they!?!
I'm halfway through Travels with Herodotus, if you want to move on a blog about the aged Polack.
I'm really excited about Stuffed and Starved too, I think there will be debate, I skimmed it at a bookstore last week.
i just got back from vacation in Seattle, it was excellent, beautiful in the summertime. miss you and hope you are well.
xoxoxo kristina
Thursday, May 22, 2008
lets get personal
Oh, Kristina! I hear you on the hug -- there is some real loneliness there. Her circumstances certainly set her up for isolation, and I think a lot of it can be attributed to your (2) -- the "otherness" that always remains with immigrants. But I have to say, I think sometimes Jhumpa Lahiri fixates on the distance we may feel from people and the fixation makes it greater -- it doesn't really HAVE to be that way. I think there are many happinesses in life that she doesn't allow her characters to enjoy. They always feel so far apart from each other -- this particularly saddens me with the relationships between parents and children. Why is there so much hidden? Why is communication so stifled between them?
A lot of this is personal, and slightly unfair; as someone from the exact same group, of bengali immigrants, I always felt extra close to my family - we were connected to each other in a way that was impossible with both our peers in America and our family who stayed in India -- we were doing something entirely unique, together. I think this can lead to real unity and communication within a family, and so I get very sad to see Jhumpa's characters, who are not only distant from their american peers/spouses, but also from their own nuclear family members! So they really are all alone (and make really bizarre decisions as a result! have you read the one about Sang and Farouk? Why in the world would she date that guy?)
To think about the questions -- why didn't Dadu want to stay? tricky... I would think it has something to do with being slightly afraid of the judgments of his daughter --- for some reason he doesn't want to reveal these aspects of his lifestyle to her, he is afraid she won't understand them. or he just doesn't want to have to deal with talking about it with her -- it all comes back to the lack of openness, and thus the inability to have a "live and let live" mentality if they were all in the same home together. There is a sense that he would be giving up a lot of freedom. I think there is a part of her that really wanted him to say yes -- I get the sense that if it was something imposed on her externally, she would really love it --- she's just having a problem being the asker/decision maker.
(and the postcard did feel a bit contrived, but i guess helped illustrate some powerful emotions...)
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Sang and Farouk story next --- so, so much distance there, between everyone involved. Extremely lonely people, doing strange things while orbiting around each other. Why do you think the roommate made the choices he made in his attempt to save Sang from this relationship? Why do you think Sang was willing to put up with such a shady character?
the contented immigrant --
s
A lot of this is personal, and slightly unfair; as someone from the exact same group, of bengali immigrants, I always felt extra close to my family - we were connected to each other in a way that was impossible with both our peers in America and our family who stayed in India -- we were doing something entirely unique, together. I think this can lead to real unity and communication within a family, and so I get very sad to see Jhumpa's characters, who are not only distant from their american peers/spouses, but also from their own nuclear family members! So they really are all alone (and make really bizarre decisions as a result! have you read the one about Sang and Farouk? Why in the world would she date that guy?)
To think about the questions -- why didn't Dadu want to stay? tricky... I would think it has something to do with being slightly afraid of the judgments of his daughter --- for some reason he doesn't want to reveal these aspects of his lifestyle to her, he is afraid she won't understand them. or he just doesn't want to have to deal with talking about it with her -- it all comes back to the lack of openness, and thus the inability to have a "live and let live" mentality if they were all in the same home together. There is a sense that he would be giving up a lot of freedom. I think there is a part of her that really wanted him to say yes -- I get the sense that if it was something imposed on her externally, she would really love it --- she's just having a problem being the asker/decision maker.
(and the postcard did feel a bit contrived, but i guess helped illustrate some powerful emotions...)
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the Sang and Farouk story next --- so, so much distance there, between everyone involved. Extremely lonely people, doing strange things while orbiting around each other. Why do you think the roommate made the choices he made in his attempt to save Sang from this relationship? Why do you think Sang was willing to put up with such a shady character?
the contented immigrant --
s
Monday, May 12, 2008
"Be happy, love Baba...
he signed them, as if the attainment of happiness were as simple as that."
It did make me lonely, Shilpi. I wanted to find comfort in the fact that Ruma's melancholy could be attributed to her grief, the demands of motherhood, quitting her job, her adjustment to a completely new place, new home, and second pregnancy. But I think its more than that, either 1) she's saying happiness is some complex equation--something one doesn't just come by-- meaning everything has its placement, proper value and alignment, which then equals some total eclipse of happiness. So for example, the attainment of happiness is cultivation? Or happiness is being part of something greater, maybe the wholeness of having a community? Or, (2) I think Ruma (and Dadu, and her mother, and everyone), are struggling with how to manage the monolithic feeling of otherness and alienation that has marked their lives....this is all very dark.
I have no answer to why Ruma makes me want to hug her.
But, I have these questions, what do you think about the postcards and the quote, do you think its a flippant comment, a poke, provocation? And, why doesn't Dadu want to stay? For a moment, I thought Ruma was never going to ask, that she was going to let her emotional paralysis let every real moment pass her by. And, do you think she really wanted him to say yes?
xoxo.
It did make me lonely, Shilpi. I wanted to find comfort in the fact that Ruma's melancholy could be attributed to her grief, the demands of motherhood, quitting her job, her adjustment to a completely new place, new home, and second pregnancy. But I think its more than that, either 1) she's saying happiness is some complex equation--something one doesn't just come by-- meaning everything has its placement, proper value and alignment, which then equals some total eclipse of happiness. So for example, the attainment of happiness is cultivation? Or happiness is being part of something greater, maybe the wholeness of having a community? Or, (2) I think Ruma (and Dadu, and her mother, and everyone), are struggling with how to manage the monolithic feeling of otherness and alienation that has marked their lives....this is all very dark.
I have no answer to why Ruma makes me want to hug her.
But, I have these questions, what do you think about the postcards and the quote, do you think its a flippant comment, a poke, provocation? And, why doesn't Dadu want to stay? For a moment, I thought Ruma was never going to ask, that she was going to let her emotional paralysis let every real moment pass her by. And, do you think she really wanted him to say yes?
xoxo.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Book One
Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri (melancholy Bengali)
short stories, mostly focused on the children of immigrants and their grown up lives, complicated marriages, tea colored children, parental estrangement, and occasional natural disaster. okay, so I've read it already, but in a frenzy, and now I want to take a closer look. XTina -- will you post your thoughts on the first story? did it make you lonely? why Ruma so sad?
more after you've read it....
short stories, mostly focused on the children of immigrants and their grown up lives, complicated marriages, tea colored children, parental estrangement, and occasional natural disaster. okay, so I've read it already, but in a frenzy, and now I want to take a closer look. XTina -- will you post your thoughts on the first story? did it make you lonely? why Ruma so sad?
more after you've read it....
Monday, May 5, 2008
A Welcoming Toast (tink!)
This blog will document the tipsy readings of Shilpi and Kristina.
Rules of ShilpiTina Reads:
with every post, respond to a question and ask a question
have a glass of wine beside you
think about the good old days
post at least once a week
GOALS:
self actualization, online intimacy, dialogue, warm hearts and cold insights, tapping in to the expanding cosmos, expanding the cosmos with our minds, recording the year that Saturn returns.
Rules of ShilpiTina Reads:
with every post, respond to a question and ask a question
have a glass of wine beside you
think about the good old days
post at least once a week
GOALS:
self actualization, online intimacy, dialogue, warm hearts and cold insights, tapping in to the expanding cosmos, expanding the cosmos with our minds, recording the year that Saturn returns.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)