Opinions differ on this - chiefly on Letter From An Unknown Woman - regarding how to see this, as a maudlin or heartrending.
To begin with the story is about a handsome rich playboy who is depicted in the tale with no moral sentence on him whatsoever, neither about his wasting his life nor about his neglect of the women he has been around with. This is not to say one ought to pass such a judgement or that the author lacks moral sense, it is merely how the portrayal here of the man goes. The chief part is about a young girl who is poor and it so happen she lives across from his flat, looks at him and is fascinated by him and his lifestyle. There is no way she can aspire to be one of his lovers in her circumstance.
Her circumstances change for the worse, and she subsequently is a woman of the world in the barest sense, but with better financial position, and happens to be on the fringe of the man's circle one evening and he notices her. He is intrigued, takes her home, and she has the love she had ever dreamt of - for the short while she does.
She knows he is not to be bound, to be expected to be steadfast in his attraction or notice he took of her, it is casual, and while he could be with her again just as casually another time, he might not, too. She knows this, unquestioningly accepts it, and leaves in the morning.
It so happens she is with child from him and hence loses any possibility of keeping herself financially well off - and then loses the child too, to an illness she is too poor to pay for a treatment of.
The letter is written post that heartrending loss, still with no expectation, just to let him know. He reads it, wondering, trying to remember which of the hundreds of women he has been with was this one, and has merely wisps of recall but nothing clear.
Written in a simple style and heartrending in its truth at every step, it makes an impact - unless this is what one takes as normal and is impatient with the author or the woman for making a fuss, which one supposes a good many would; some of course would denounce the male, and most the female. The author merely portrays the lifestyle of one, and the life of another blossoming and withering, without any such denouncing or comment.
Some opine this is a great work, and some that this is maudlin sentimentality.
Incidentally, the word stems from Magdalena and represents the snide attitude towards women from the church authorities of early, perhaps even now, times; not so far from the word grotto being the origin of the word grotesque, and the latter one being denigrated into meaning something horrible, while really it amounts to merely relate to grotto the way statuesque relates to statue. Grottos and caves, or artificial grottos thereafter even until now, were and are used for worship of the Mother Goddess figures through Europe; on one hand the figures were integrated by using the name of Mary the mother (one wonders if the earlier and real figure included Mary Magdalene, the bearer of Jesus's child, rather than his mother); the practice of the grottos used for worship continued on one hand and was denigrated on the other by the denigration of the word grotesque.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
River of Smoke : by Amitav Ghosh.
What with the meticulous research that went into this one, it has taken a while for this second part of the trilogy of opium to come out. Meanwhile one has the details of the first one a bit blurry if one did read it. No matter, though, what is necessary to remember is referred to more than enough with more details and one begins to recall the first part vividly when those references do occur.
Opium was forced on Asia by powers of Europe and the so called New World, in a two pronged strategy, after this and other similar substances were banned with heavy, harsh penalties in the home lands of those powers that benefited from this forcing of the substance on Asia. Back in UK for example anyone trading or possession or indulging in opium stood to lose three times the market value of the substance in possession, while being in danger of prison or worse. Abroad, however, the same people who abhorred the substance in their own countries and obeyed the laws thereof, traded with impunity. This might sound innocent until one realises that fact is such trade was not only forced and manipulated by these people but was in fact introduced in the first place by them, those that would not tolerate it in their own homelands.
Part one described how East India Company forced poor farmers of India to convert their lands to produce opium, instead of the variety of foods the produced which had kept them in good health and wealth until the lands thus converted amounted to shortage of food and other necessary produce and byproducts - animal fodder, thatched roof material, and more. The opium thus produced with pain by the poor farmers was then compulsorily sold to the same British at the prices they set, thus driving the poverty of the farmers to further dire levels.
And all this was "justified" by British in a sentiment quoted in a private speech amounting to necessity of sacrifice for sake of the benefits of opium in new research for medicine - never mind that the most benefits went to the profits in pockets of the British while the sacrifices were the poor Indian farmers' lot.
In this one the well known (but less publicised and hence twisted to the opposite of facts in general public knowledge) facts about how opium was forced on China by British, other Europeans, and in fact by US in the first place, traders, is the gist of the story.
The first ship to introduce opium to China was in fact from Boston, Massachussetts - and while reading this I recalled how my housemates in Boston discussed substance abuse and their firm belief (they thought, of course, that it was fact and general information, rather than belief) that it was Asia that introduced such substance abuse to innocent youth of their ilk, their brothers who had gone out to various nations of Asia as part of the wars they were sent out to fight to defend democracy in the world.
The arguments of the foreigners of west - west of Asia, that is - justifying not only trading of opium in China but forcing this trade on China and people of Asia in general are given at length in this, and are astounding to read in their out and out openly fraudulent leaps of logic. They amount to the following.
Back "home" in "civilised nations" of (Europe and US) there are laws preventing everyone from trading and abusing and possession of the substances, therefore those laws are sacrosanct, since the substance abuse is evil in the first place. But any attempt of a nation such as China to enforce the same laws already in place are merely evil intentions of a mad despot on throne to enforce his will on the people of China against their "right" and their "free will", hence not worthy of respect.
Moreover, such an attempt to enforce the laws is against free trade, which is to say liberty, which is breath of God. (Why this breath of God is then allowed to be curtailed in nations "back home", by laws respected by the same "free trade" mouthing traders, is only because those laws are enforced - by the same powers that would fight exactly the same laws of China!)
In all this, there are a few men - foreign women are not allowed in interiors of China, even as visitors, even if there were any in the trade of that era in the world - who happen to be from the nations subjugated by west (again, meaning Europe and US and co) who happen to be trading in the small fraction of the trade that they can deal in, and they happen to be from various nations around the Arabic Sea. Their lot is the most fragile, since the Chinese success in confiscating the illegal materials is too heavy for their small investors to bear, and unlike the European traders and investors these poor ones can neither wait nor profit from the subsequent "Opium Wars" between China and the powers that sought to force opium trade on China at gun point, much less benefit from insurance. They stand to lose the heaviest, symbolised in the drowning of a figurehead.
The descriptions of Fanqui Hong - the little annexe outside walls of Canton where foreigners were limited to live and do business, not being allowed to enter Canton or China any further - are very evocative, and one only wishes there were maps if not pictures. The place was razed to ground by Chinese post the hostilities of opium and the behaviour of the western traders, and exists no more, according to Ghosh - which there is no reason to disbelieve, of course.
The bits of descriptions of various details are very telling.
The biggest one, of course, the key to the whole tale - how the foreigners contained in their buildings and deprived of their until then plentiful Chinese servants and providers of necessities, were provided by the legal Chinese authorities that were merely demanding the surrender of the opium before they could be allowed to leave - are telling in the difference of level of civilisation. On one hand, the chicanery of the western traders in forcing opium on others while obeying their own home laws; on the other, the Chinese allowing them to stay in the buildings in Canton and providing them with all possible necessities of life (rather than throwing them in jail and executing them summarily, as they would be in their own nations) and only demanding the surrender of the abusive substance.
But the other bits of descriptions are no less in making it all come alive - the unacknowledged son who basks in his father's attention while being still unwilling to smile, years of neglect and lack of status being not made up for sufficiently by the new attention; the love of the employees of Modi for his generous good heart and their loyalty to him; the history of art of Chinese souvenirs; flora one is so used to one is unaware came from China; various people who travelled and migrated back and forth in lands in East, from Egypt to China; various intercommunal and international marriages or otherwise families and consorts with much love; and more than anything, the descriptions of how shipbuilding in India was superior to that of west and had to be swatted down by British law making it illegal for them to continue ordering ships from India, as they later killed other trades and crafts of India (beginning with fabrics manufacture, killing thousands of weavers by starvation and driving poverty to new levels).
And one has to mention the enchanting descriptions of homes and gardens of the wealthy traders in China, of course, as something beyond what one has seen in west or imagined.
But the book does suffer from never quite becoming a tale, a story on its own, what with connecting part one of trilogy to the next one to come and stuffing this one out with historic documents and details. It is almost there, and one keeps on reading it more and more in hope of the story continuing and getting somewhere, but it flounders in the far too long letters of the artist to the botanist duplicating the already described events of Fanqui Hong. This book remains a connecting link, however important and good, between the part that was (Sea of Poppies) that the part to come. One hopes the author changes his mind and makes it more than a trilogy, with a couple of more parts to come or three. Bimal Mitra did the history of Calcutta in five parts after all, very detailed and long ones too. This one is about the sweep of history of the era, the lands from China to Africa in focus, with traders of all over the globe on sea routes. It could stand more.
History and general descriptions of the colonial era focus on the takeover of the Asian lands, "discovery" of the "new world", assuming ownership of Africa and not mentioning it much at that; the thoughts and awareness that gets a mention is generally of men (and rarely of women) of west. This book changes a lot of one's perception of the era shaped by those as it mentions men and women of the occupied lands and their sweep of awareness of the world of west as much as that of the lands around them. An Armenian of Egypt, and a Parsi (literally, Persian) of India, being aware of Napoleon and his wars and his predicaments, and the effect thereof on their own lives and trade, is just one such detail.
.......................................................
Opium was forced on Asia by powers of Europe and the so called New World, in a two pronged strategy, after this and other similar substances were banned with heavy, harsh penalties in the home lands of those powers that benefited from this forcing of the substance on Asia. Back in UK for example anyone trading or possession or indulging in opium stood to lose three times the market value of the substance in possession, while being in danger of prison or worse. Abroad, however, the same people who abhorred the substance in their own countries and obeyed the laws thereof, traded with impunity. This might sound innocent until one realises that fact is such trade was not only forced and manipulated by these people but was in fact introduced in the first place by them, those that would not tolerate it in their own homelands.
Part one described how East India Company forced poor farmers of India to convert their lands to produce opium, instead of the variety of foods the produced which had kept them in good health and wealth until the lands thus converted amounted to shortage of food and other necessary produce and byproducts - animal fodder, thatched roof material, and more. The opium thus produced with pain by the poor farmers was then compulsorily sold to the same British at the prices they set, thus driving the poverty of the farmers to further dire levels.
And all this was "justified" by British in a sentiment quoted in a private speech amounting to necessity of sacrifice for sake of the benefits of opium in new research for medicine - never mind that the most benefits went to the profits in pockets of the British while the sacrifices were the poor Indian farmers' lot.
In this one the well known (but less publicised and hence twisted to the opposite of facts in general public knowledge) facts about how opium was forced on China by British, other Europeans, and in fact by US in the first place, traders, is the gist of the story.
The first ship to introduce opium to China was in fact from Boston, Massachussetts - and while reading this I recalled how my housemates in Boston discussed substance abuse and their firm belief (they thought, of course, that it was fact and general information, rather than belief) that it was Asia that introduced such substance abuse to innocent youth of their ilk, their brothers who had gone out to various nations of Asia as part of the wars they were sent out to fight to defend democracy in the world.
The arguments of the foreigners of west - west of Asia, that is - justifying not only trading of opium in China but forcing this trade on China and people of Asia in general are given at length in this, and are astounding to read in their out and out openly fraudulent leaps of logic. They amount to the following.
Back "home" in "civilised nations" of (Europe and US) there are laws preventing everyone from trading and abusing and possession of the substances, therefore those laws are sacrosanct, since the substance abuse is evil in the first place. But any attempt of a nation such as China to enforce the same laws already in place are merely evil intentions of a mad despot on throne to enforce his will on the people of China against their "right" and their "free will", hence not worthy of respect.
Moreover, such an attempt to enforce the laws is against free trade, which is to say liberty, which is breath of God. (Why this breath of God is then allowed to be curtailed in nations "back home", by laws respected by the same "free trade" mouthing traders, is only because those laws are enforced - by the same powers that would fight exactly the same laws of China!)
In all this, there are a few men - foreign women are not allowed in interiors of China, even as visitors, even if there were any in the trade of that era in the world - who happen to be from the nations subjugated by west (again, meaning Europe and US and co) who happen to be trading in the small fraction of the trade that they can deal in, and they happen to be from various nations around the Arabic Sea. Their lot is the most fragile, since the Chinese success in confiscating the illegal materials is too heavy for their small investors to bear, and unlike the European traders and investors these poor ones can neither wait nor profit from the subsequent "Opium Wars" between China and the powers that sought to force opium trade on China at gun point, much less benefit from insurance. They stand to lose the heaviest, symbolised in the drowning of a figurehead.
The descriptions of Fanqui Hong - the little annexe outside walls of Canton where foreigners were limited to live and do business, not being allowed to enter Canton or China any further - are very evocative, and one only wishes there were maps if not pictures. The place was razed to ground by Chinese post the hostilities of opium and the behaviour of the western traders, and exists no more, according to Ghosh - which there is no reason to disbelieve, of course.
The bits of descriptions of various details are very telling.
The biggest one, of course, the key to the whole tale - how the foreigners contained in their buildings and deprived of their until then plentiful Chinese servants and providers of necessities, were provided by the legal Chinese authorities that were merely demanding the surrender of the opium before they could be allowed to leave - are telling in the difference of level of civilisation. On one hand, the chicanery of the western traders in forcing opium on others while obeying their own home laws; on the other, the Chinese allowing them to stay in the buildings in Canton and providing them with all possible necessities of life (rather than throwing them in jail and executing them summarily, as they would be in their own nations) and only demanding the surrender of the abusive substance.
But the other bits of descriptions are no less in making it all come alive - the unacknowledged son who basks in his father's attention while being still unwilling to smile, years of neglect and lack of status being not made up for sufficiently by the new attention; the love of the employees of Modi for his generous good heart and their loyalty to him; the history of art of Chinese souvenirs; flora one is so used to one is unaware came from China; various people who travelled and migrated back and forth in lands in East, from Egypt to China; various intercommunal and international marriages or otherwise families and consorts with much love; and more than anything, the descriptions of how shipbuilding in India was superior to that of west and had to be swatted down by British law making it illegal for them to continue ordering ships from India, as they later killed other trades and crafts of India (beginning with fabrics manufacture, killing thousands of weavers by starvation and driving poverty to new levels).
And one has to mention the enchanting descriptions of homes and gardens of the wealthy traders in China, of course, as something beyond what one has seen in west or imagined.
But the book does suffer from never quite becoming a tale, a story on its own, what with connecting part one of trilogy to the next one to come and stuffing this one out with historic documents and details. It is almost there, and one keeps on reading it more and more in hope of the story continuing and getting somewhere, but it flounders in the far too long letters of the artist to the botanist duplicating the already described events of Fanqui Hong. This book remains a connecting link, however important and good, between the part that was (Sea of Poppies) that the part to come. One hopes the author changes his mind and makes it more than a trilogy, with a couple of more parts to come or three. Bimal Mitra did the history of Calcutta in five parts after all, very detailed and long ones too. This one is about the sweep of history of the era, the lands from China to Africa in focus, with traders of all over the globe on sea routes. It could stand more.
History and general descriptions of the colonial era focus on the takeover of the Asian lands, "discovery" of the "new world", assuming ownership of Africa and not mentioning it much at that; the thoughts and awareness that gets a mention is generally of men (and rarely of women) of west. This book changes a lot of one's perception of the era shaped by those as it mentions men and women of the occupied lands and their sweep of awareness of the world of west as much as that of the lands around them. An Armenian of Egypt, and a Parsi (literally, Persian) of India, being aware of Napoleon and his wars and his predicaments, and the effect thereof on their own lives and trade, is just one such detail.
.......................................................
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