Saunders vs. Horkheimer and Adorno

Let me be completely honest-  George Saunder's In Persuasion Nation has been my least favorite book that we've read this semester. That says loads about the other books that we have read because I still found this book interesting, it was just very confusing at times. Despite the confusion, Saunders comments on the larger issue of cultural brainwashing and uses the means of satire to voice his opinion.

In "Brad Carrigan, American" our main character Brad is a member of a TV show cast and is the most socially aware character on the set. This is seen when Buddy passes away and all the other characters just try and think about the good things instead of grieving. Brad thinks that the response of the other characters isn't appropriate/meaningful enough for a death.

Additionally, Saunders explicitly makes fun of how society makes everyone the same- even physically. "In California, a fad has broken out of regular people having facial surgery to look like their favorite celebrities. Sometimes they end up looking like hideous monsters. Celebrities have taken to paying surprise compassionate visits to the hideous monsters. One hideous monster, whose face looks like the face of a lion roasted in a fire, says the surprise celebrity visit made the whole ordeal worthwhile. In the Philippines, a garbage dump has exploded due to buildup of natural gas emitted by rotting garbage, killing dozens of children digging in the dump for food," (77).

I mentioned this in class, but Saunders, and specifically the story "Brad Carrigan, American" reminded me a lot of Horkheimer and Adorno. In philosophy last year we talked about how Horkheimer and Adorno suggest that all of the culture industry, including the film industry, has become completely homogenized, merely reproducing a single product over and over again, while convincing the audience that they are receiving something unique every time. Specifically, the film industry has made all movies essentially the same at the core. Horkheimer and Adorno then go further by implying that we, as consumers of capitalist products, can do nothing but accept our fate as long as we leave the means of production in the hands of capitalists. Many people in the class had major issues accepting Horkheimer and Adorno’s claims, either unable to comprehend or unwilling to accept the idea that everything created by the Hollywood industry is essentially the same story sold to us over and over again, with different actors and settings that make us feel like we’re watching a unique film.

Overall, Saunders was harder to understand but in the end I agree that he made some compelling statements. Thanks for a great semester everyone!

Interpreting the Interpreter of Maladies

More so than any other short story collection that we have read, Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies has struck a personal chord for me. As the granddaughter and daughter of Korean immigrants, I can relate to Lahiri’s theme of Indians in America struggling with being too American for Indians but too Indian for Americans. 

“When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” was the first story that struck me. Lilia’s parents looking to befriend people from their home country, history lessons about India, discussions of American opportunity, and even the comments about the American education system reminded me a little of my parents and the dynamic of many immigrant homes that I have had the chance to observe. Lilia’s dad in particular is upset about the fact that Lilia isn’t taught much about Indian history at school and he worries that she will grow up unaware and apathetic towards her heritage. Personally, my parents have taken it upon themselves to make sure that I am aware of Korean history and current events as a way to keep the culture alive in our home. The delicate balance that Lilia must preserve of assimilating into American culture without forgetting or abandoning her heritage is one that I empathize with greatly. 

And it only gets worse then I go back to Korea and visit family members. The Das family in “Interpreter of Maladies” is an extreme case of Americanized Indians, but the same initial judgement that Mr. Kapasi expressed towards the family is not an exaggeration. I get looks on the street for being too tan and my parents criticized for not making sure my brothers were fluent in Korean. Yes the Das family may be a little rude and impolite, but I give them the benefit of the doubt that maybe Mr. Kapasi is being judgemental and hypercritical of them. 

Another stark contrast between America and India/Korea that is expressed throughout the book and mirrored in my life is the idea of an individualistic society vs. collectivist society. It’s been noted in class that the two stories that take place in India- “A Real Durwan” and “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar”-  take place in apartment buildings and involve many members of the community while the rest of the stories that take place in American tend to occur in houses and only focus on one or two families. From my own observations, many of my relatives and friends in Korea live with their extended family (grandparents, cousins, etc), while me and most of my friends in America live only with our immediate family. In my personal opinion, that can be positive at times when the community works together to help each other (“The Treatment of Bibi Haldar”), but it can also be a negative and cause people to gossip more and be competitive about ridiculous things (“A Real Durwan”). 

After wrapping up Interpreter of Maladies, I can definitely say that it’s been one of my favorite books from this semester. Lahiri’s style and narrative flow make the stories enjoyable in and of themselves, but my personal connection and ability to empathize on a different level has set this book apart for me. Anyone else on the same boat?

Be a man

https://youtu.be/ZSS5dEeMX64

Society is and has always been trying to define masculinity for us. We're taught from birth that boys wear blue and play with trucks and that never ever should they cry. Boys should be strong, athletic, and "swift as a coursing river". Movies like She's a Man, Mulan, and even High School Musical touch on the ideals of masculinity and the struggles of maintaining gender stereotypes in every kind of situation. The theme can be seen across the board in books, movies, songs, and conversation.

Drown by Junor Diaz also attempts to define masculinity multiple times through the collection. Starting with the first story, "Ysrael", we see Rafa calling Yunior a pussy because he starts crying. Yunior has just been molested on the bus and is shocked, confused, upset, and scared. Yunior apologies for crying and Rafa responds by asking what's wrong with him and by threatening him- "if you can't stop crying, I'll leave you" (13). Later in the story Rafa goes further by saying, "you have to get tougher. Crying all the time. Do you think our papi's crying? Do you think that's what he's been doing the last six years?" (14). Yunior and Rafa have had to live without their father for the past six years and in the mean time Rafa has created his own definition of masculinity, which has been influenced by society. He believes in the alpha-male mentality and that influences how Rafa and Yunior treat Ysrael.

In "Fiesta, 1980" we see interactions between Yunior and his father. Yunior is older than in the first story, but we see that he is still not as "strong" as Rafa. It seems like Yunior's father is extremely frustrated by this and addresses his frustrations by trying to force Yunior to be more manly. He hates that Yunior vomits everytime they get in a car and he takes Yunior on drives, in an attempt to condition him not to vomit anymore. The father "jammed his finger into (Yunior's) cheek" and Yunior writes an essay at school titled "My father is a torturer" (30). We also sees that the father is having an affair, which probably confuses Yunior about the role of a husband.

In the title story "Drown", Yunior is molested again, this time by his good friend and mentor figure, Beto. The first time it happens, Yunior is "terrified" and is torn between wanting to hide from Beto but simultaneously wanting to hangout with him because he was his best friend. After that night, it happens again and then soon after Beto leaves for college. Yunior stays in his hometown, potentially to protect his mother/feel wanted and secure by being with her, which makes it seem like to Yunior, protecting women is important. But Yunior is not confident enough to decide whether he wants to confront/see Beto when he comes back for break or continue to ignore him. This causes him much anxiety and stress and he tries to both run into and ignore Beto. Yunior can't decide if a man should be forgiving and loyal or stand up for himself and cut people off.

These three stories are not the only ones in the collection that address the theme of masculinity. In fact I think each and every story in this collection contains elements of the theme from "How to date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie to "Negocios". I just chose to focus on the stories that stood out to me most and had clear depictions of masculinity or the struggles with abiding to the social norms of masculinity. Please chime in with other examples where masculinity pops up in Drown!

How to live with regret: Please don't

The power of a second person narrator has been a topic of much discussion as we have gone through Lorrie Moore's Self Help. Some have argued that it makes you more sympathetic to the characters and helps you understand them, while others feel indifferent or that the sympathy can be accredited to other aspects of the storytelling. In any case, the trend of her "how-to" stories read to me as dry, sarcastic stories of how the narrator ended up in situations with underlying messages of 1) haha this isn't ideal but at least I can laugh about it and 2) this could be any of you readers as well. It's almost like they were written for two audiences- readers who are probably quick to judge mistresses or breaking up with someone who has health problems, but also for the author/narrator to backtrack and remember how they found themselves in a predicament.

How to talk to your mother (notes) is a different playing field. While there is a hint of classic Lorrie Moore's dry humor, that isn't the overall tone of the story. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this story is filled with lots of regret. From the beginning (or end, depending on how you think of it) of the story, the narrator doesn't have a choice. The story has already taken place and there are no decisions to make... instead everything has happened and the only "how to" is for the readers. She can't revive her mother and start with a clean slate in the same way that the "other woman" can break up with the married man and move on in life. Instead, the only thing she can hope to get out of this story is that someone else would read her story, realize her regret, and choose to live their life differently as a result. In essence, it's more of a how-NOT-to story.

Another trademark Lorrie Moore storytelling trait is that she includes many little subplots or repeated phrases that show up throughout the story. In How to be an other woman there were lists and in How there were tests. In How to talk to your mother, the theme of pregnancy is strung throughout the entire story from the narrator's own birth to her multiple pregnancies and subsequent abortions. Does anybody have any inferences on why she would mention those? Someone pointed out in class that she's talking about how to talk to your mother but then intentionally doesn't become a mother. I've tried to mull through this but I can't come up with any logical conclusions. Maybe she doesn't realize the importance of mothers until it's too late?

Mama I made it

Note: There’s a video at the end of the blogpost. If you don’t end up reading the post, you should still check out the video. I thought it was powerful both as a way of “defending” Sonny and also as a way of challenging the norms of Uni.

It was mentioned in class that the narrator, Sonny’s brother, could potentially come off as smug, especially in the first half of the story. I’ll go through why he comes off like that and then I’ll try and defend him after that.

The narrator is educated African-American male who is an algebra teacher. He has a wife and two sons and he reads about his brother’s legal altercations for heroin usage in the newspaper. When he runs into Sonny’s friend that day on his way home and is asked what he’s going to do. The narrator responds by saying “Look. I haven’t seen Sonny for over a year, I’m not sure I’m going to do anything” (106). He follows by asking what he even can do at this point. Later in that conversation, Sonny’s friend is telling the narrator that Sonny is going to be sent to rehab but “that’s all” (107). The narrator acts like he’s confused and unfamiliar with the situation, when in reality he know’s exactly what they’re talking bout. Sonny’s friend even says, “that’s right, how we he know what I mean” (108). To make matters worse, the narrator doesn’t even contact Sonny immediately, instead choosing to wait a long time before writing to him. So maybe the narrator is smug and just thinks that he’s better than the boys around him.

Or maybe there’s something more? When reading this story, one of the lines that stuck out most to me was when Sonny says “everybody tries not to [suffer]. You’re just hung up on the way some people try- it’s not your way” (133). I immediately connected that to Sonny’s drug use. Drugs are his way of escaping and feeling good, even if just temporarily. So then what was the narrator's way of avoiding suffering? I think the answer lies in the fact that the narrator didn’t contact Sonny until after his daughter died. In fact, it was through his own suffering that he was finally able to understand Sonny’s. The narrator portrays the classic case of if-I-don’t-address-it-it-doesn’t-exist. He chooses to avoid his suffering and distract himself with work or just try and forget. Both of his parents have passed and it almost seems like he wants to make them proud and show him how far he’s come (especially his mom). He’s gotten married, had kids, got an education, started a career, etc but he’s not necessarily smug about it. Maybe he doesn’t want to diminish all that he’s accomplished with the hardships and things that have gone wrong so he just tries to ignore them. Granted, in the process of proclaiming “Mama I made it,” the narrator has forgotten the one thing his mother asked of him- to hold onto his brother and let him know that he’s there for him. But there seems to be an argument for a non-smug narrator.

I see both sides and I’m kind of torn. What do you think? Do you give the narrator the benefit of the doubt? Or is he just a smug, “I’m better than this” kind of guy?

And for the video I promised… it’s not related to my blogpost really but I came across it recently and our class discussion reminded me of it. Sonny wants to be a musician, specifically a jazz musician, at a time where that wasn’t a respectable career. It wasn’t the traditional, safe thing to do, and we see in the story that he faces a lot of opposition from the narrator for his choice. If Sonny was a character today, I could definitely see him making a video like this.

Nine short reflections on nine short stories

The upper-class have come up lots in our class discussion. In the short length of a blog post I’m going to try to summarize what we’ve observed about the upper-class through Salinger’s Nine Stories and then try and make sense of why this recurring pattern existed.

Ready, set, go.

“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” show us first Muriel and her mother. Clearly they are in the upper class- Muriel can afford to take vacations, stay in hotels, wear Saks blouses, and sit around the phone and paint her nails. Similarly, her mother (and father) can afford to bring Muriel back home, send her on a cruise, and pay for a psychiatrist. Clearly upper-class. Muriel’s mother is shining a bad light on Seymour to the reader (significant since her mentions are the first that we hear of him) and then in the end of the story he commits suicide. There isn’t much explanation on Seymour other than what we get from Muriel/her mother and Seymour’s interactions with the young girl Sybil. With all the mentions about bananafish, an inference that can be drawn is that Seymour committed suicide because he was so tired of the superficiality of the upper-class and didn’t want to be a part of it any longer.

“Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut” introduces us to Eloise and Mary Jane. Now Mary Jane is a working girl but she went to college with Eloise and all so she’s definitely been exposed to the upper-class lifestyle. Eloise on the other hand is all out. She wears camel hair coats and can afford to sit around all day drinking and smoking cigarettes. She even has a maid whom she calls to for everything related to her daughter, and a daughter whom she yells at a lot, especially when she’s just being a child instead of being all proper. Eloise is extremely cynical but by the end of the story it seems that she cracks. She can’t uphold her poised upper-class persona and breaks down. No matter what you interpret for Eloise’s tears, it’s clear that she can’t handle something about her life. Jab #2 at the upper class.

“Just Before the War with the Eskimos” introduces us to some more upper class characters. Selena and Ginnie play tennis (a rather expensive sport) in the East side (a really nice section of New York). They argue about how they pay/split the cab fare but for the sake of this blogpost, all we need to take away is that 1) they are rich enough to ride a cab and 2) they are rich enough to waste time arguing about who’s going to pay. Now we get to an interesting part- the introduction of Selena’s brother. Clearly he’s from the same upper class background as Selena, but unlike her, he seems to embody lots of characteristics that antithesize the typical pompous rich person. He cuts his finger while digging through the trash and then proceeds to fix it by wrapping it in toilet paper. He also hates on Ginnie’s older sister Joan and her finance and we get the notion that Ginnie might even agree with him. This is a pretty general summary, but Selena’s older brother is almost a breath of fresh air compared to all the upper class people around him.

“The Laughing Man” also seems to give us a break from the trend of stereotypical upper class characters through a story containing lots of children. Forgetting whatever happens plot-wise, these kids are able to go with the Chief and be totally consumed by whatever “adventures” or games they play. Before anything else, the kids are kids and don’t worry about being proper or poised, just about having fun.

“Down at the Dinghy” starts with an interesting perspective. Instead of diving into the perspective of upper class characters, we begin with a conversation between two of the help. They’re talking badly about the people that they work for, especially Mr. Tannenbaum. At least for me, my immediate reaction was to agree with the maids, even though I knew nothing else about the Tannenbaum family. By the end of the story we realize that the maids are actually the ones we should dislike because they are just bashing the family and using racial slurs against them- and from what we see about the family, they seem nice and pretty well mannered. I liked this story because of the plot twist. We start out assuming that we should continue with the notion against the upper class characters in these stories, but by the end we’re reminded that we shouldn’t be prey to stereotypes.

“For Esmé- with Love and Squalor” is told in two parts. In the first part, we get an American author sitting at a coffee shop who has a conversation with a young girl. He wears a cashmere muffler and woollen gloves and he’s about to get his assignment for D-Day. The young girl is European which is significant because even though she’s of the aristocracy, she spends most of her time trying to impress or show off what she thinks she knows about Americans. We saw a lot of contrast with Europeans and Americans in Hemingway but Salinger also touches on the difference. In the second part of the story, we see the author battered and broken from the war, even though he promised the young girl that he wouldn’t let that happen to himself. Similar to Eloise, we see another example of an upper class character “cracking” or reaching their limit of being able to maintain their composure and status.

“Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes” gives us a clear example of an upper class character covering up to try and maintain their image. Arthur, a lawyer, call his coworker Lee at night. He’s in an extremely drunken state and he’s asking Lee if he knows the whereabouts of his wife. Lee says something about how she’s probably out with some friends and just taking a while to get home but Arthur doesn’t really buy that and continues to go on and on about how their relationship isn’t working and that he’s done dealing with it. We’re never told explicitly that Lee is having an affair with Arthur’s wife but we given lots of clues that that may be the case. After an extended conversation, Arthur hangs up but then almost right away he calls back to tell Lee that his wife just got back home and that everything is fine. But nobody enters Arthur’s house and if we believe that Lee is having an affair, then Arthur’s wife is still at Lee’s house. Therefore this is a clear case of Arthur trying to cover up and maintain his status. He just called his coworker late at night and ranted about his marital problems but then he realizes he might have said too much and portrayed himself as not having his life together. Ultimately, Arthur feels an obligation to uphold his upper class image which means he must be polished and put together.

If I’m completely honest, I really didn’t like “De Daumier- Smith’s Blue Period”. The story was SO long (and in my opinion, unnecessarily so) and it was hard for me to keep reading and keep track of what was going on as the story dragged on. I won’t talk about this much but I’ll bring up one point and two question. First, this story mostly takes place in a poor section of Canada (unlike the rich neighborhoods we are used to from earlier stories) and Jean is also in a very poor state following his mother’s death. Secondly, what do you think the roles of New York, Paris, and Montreal play in the story? What do each signify or represent?

“Teddy” is an very complex story with many parts and layers. The McArdle family, particularly the parents, are the epitome of upper class characters. The entire family is on a cruise and it seems that the father cares more about his Gladstone bag and Leica camera than his children. The children just kind of wander off on their own and nobody really seems to care (Teddy, the child, seems to be more responsible about his younger sister than either of his parents). Teddy on the other hand, wears dirty shoes without socks and clothes that not only have holes but are way too large for him. He doesn’t care for things like Gladstone bags (he prefers to use them as a step to jump on in order to see out of the ship) and leica cameras (he gives that to his younger sister to walk around with), but instead likes to ponder spiritual, philosophical, metaphysical, and existential matters. He’s not concerned with superficial matters and even though he dies at the end, we’re not supposed to feel sad about because Teddy is almost looking forward to his death and escaping the superficial life he currently lives in. As mentioned in class, Nine Stories begins with a story that ends with a death and ends with a story that ends with a death. Both people who  died seemed calm about it though, because they wanted to escape all the ridiculousness of upper class society.

Clearly we can see a pattern of Salinger portraying the upper class in a rather negative light. If you look up Salinger’s biography, you can find that he attended a private school but didn’t really fit in with people there. Later he attends college but drops out twice, both within the first year of enrollment. It looks like Salinger himself had personal opinions about the upper class and expressed those feelings through the characters in Nine Stories. I know my paragraph about each story wasn’t a conclusive summary by any means and didn’t hit all the major points, but I just wanted to shine light on Salinger’s feelings projected on the upper class characters in his stories. Let me know if you agree/disagree or see anything that I left out!

Hemingway's 5th Symphony?

With Hemingway’s In Our Time being published just years after the end of World War I and the initial “chapters” surrounding the topic of war, I wondered if maybe we were supposed to be seeing another book of war stories. But the short stories were never about the war and I was incredibly confused as to how the chapters and stories combined together and if there was supposed to be coherence within the book as a whole.  I couldn’t figure it out on my own so I looked to critics and reviews to see what they thought about In Our Time as a whole.

Hemingway’s biographer, Michael Reynolds echo’s my confusions saying, "None is more confusing [than In Our Time] … for its several parts – biographical, literary, editorial, and bibliographical – contain so many contradictions that any analysis will be flawed”. D. H. Lawrence, a reviewer, calls the book a “fragmentary novel”. On the other hand, Dr. Jim Barloon, a Hemingway scholar, argues that the “only unity consists of similarities in tone and style and the recurrence of the Nick Adams character”. 

With The Things They Carried, people compared the book to a concept album, saying that the individual stories were separate enough to be their own track while linked together through an overhead album. I don’t think that there is enough continuity throughout In Our Time for a concept album. I mean other than Nick Adams even the characters seem to be new in each chapter. Instead, I see the book more of a symphony, where each story is a different instrument or section of an orchestra.  

“Hemingway invented a form—the vignette or "miniature"—to delineate the surrealistic horror of modern-day warfare. The vignettes constitute the miniaturization of war, drawn on a small scale not simply because one gets "scared sick looking at it," but because the sketch more truly reflects the actual experience of war, testifying, by its very form, to a view of war as disordered and disjunctive,” Barloon says.

In a symphony, one piece is being played but each instrument/section is doing their own part. As the various instruments and sections work together, a piece comes together. I’d still argue that the overall piece/book surrounds the topic of war. But Hemingway draws light to other aspects of life (ex. post war Europe in “Cross-Country Snow”, father-son dynamics in “Indian Camp” and husband-wife dynamics in “Mr. and Ms. Elliot” and “Cat in the Rain”) that are ever present, in spite of the war. Life is constantly moving with or without a war and all it’s craziness/violence and In Our Time as a whole shows us just that. 

But not to fear if you disagree with my interpretation. Hemingway himself said in an interview that In Our Time, "...it has form all right". Later on he writes in a letter, “Finished the book of 14 stories with a chapter of 'In Our Time' between each story – that is the way they are meant to go – to give the picture of the whole before examining it in detail". 

Clearly the book was meant to have some type of unity. But Hemingway, in his classic non-revealing self, never tells us the exact meaning or connection behind In Our Time. This furthers my comparison of the book to a symphony because respectively, each reader/listener gets the luxury of having their own experience with the book/music. What one person will take away may be completely different than what the person next to them may get out of it. But that doesn’t matter and the writer/conductor doesn’t get mad that each person’s experience is individual and unique.