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?
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