rosencrantz's blog

Chopin’s Nocturne #2 in E flat played clumsily from the apartment across the hall. Every afternoon at around two, her young neighbor practiced whatever piece had been assigned to her that week. She usually tried to avoid being home during these practice sessions, but with her recent layoff from work, this had become increasingly more difficult. 

On some level, Aurelie welcomed this need to find a new direction for her life. Too long had she been going through the paces of her nine to five office job, following the guidelines set down by her younger boss and enduring the flirtatious behavior of her co-workers. 

Setting down the fresh bread from her local boulangerie, Aurelie shooed away the hungry cat from under her feet. Dejected, the scrawny creature slunk back to her window seat, curling up on the back of the faded arm chair all the while staring down her owner. With her boyfriend back in Spain for Christmas, the cat was her only companion. They were not at the point in their relationship when he would invite her to meet his family, and besides, she wasn’t sure that she were up for such an awkward and stress inducing activity. She had no intent to marry him, and she had resolved to never meet the families of her flings. That would be showing attachment, something that Aurelie refused to do.  

He had suggested that she should go visit her mother in America. It had been over twelve years since she had seen her, and occasionally she felt a nagging guilty feeling lingering over her head that she knew had to do with neglecting to make the trip. Aurelie had grown up in Boston until she was ten. After her parents divorced, she had moved with her father to his native France. It wasn’t what the family counselors had suggested, but her father’s temper scared her mother into abiding by whatever rule or regulation he set down. So with her stuffed suitcases packed away in the trunk of the taxi, Aurelie said goodbye to her mother and the life she had known. Tears mixed with the misty humid rain, restricting her vision to the point where everything blurred together. The entire ride to Logan airport was spent hugging herself in the corner of the cab, keeping an ample distance between herself and her dad. She would have preferred to stay with her mother in Boston, but she too feared his occasional outbursts. 

For the first few years, she would go back and forth to the States for vacations. However, she soon became attached to her friends in Antony and the number of visits dwindled down to zero by the time she was seventeen. Phone calls were more frequent, once a month at the least, twice a week at the most. As her mother aged and her health deteriorated, the calls became more serious, focusing almost entirely on subjects that Aurelie detested. Her most recent conversation had been about nursing homes. Years of an abusive marriage had taught her to be subservient, so when her doctors told her it was time to move into an assisted living community, she was more than willing to comply. At the end of the last call, her mother’s voice saddened and Aurelie felt that her time to see her was waning. 

Maybe she should go see her, she thought. Her cat purred as if in agreement. She had no responsibilities to uphold here and her job search had been futile. Only one company had replied to her resume and even they seemed less than enthusiastic about having her as an employee.  Sighing, Aurelie logged onto her computer and booked an one way ticket for the following week. 

Touching down in Logan had brought on more emotions than Aurelie had expected. She knew that returning to her home would make her sentimental, yet she had not anticipated the force of the feelings that swept over her. Nothing looked the same and the foreignness of the supposedly familiar place made her feel like a stranger. Consulting a map of the terminal brought her to tears. This wasn’t the homecoming she had imagined. Aurelie wanted to flee back to France and forget this misstep; she should never have come. 

Her mother was supposed to be waiting for her at the gate and Aurelie realized with a jolt that she wasn’t sure that she would be able to recognize her. Feeling dizzy with exhaustion and nerves, she made her way to the waiting area, unable to focus her eyes long enough on each person to scout out her mother. Her surroundings began to spin and Aurelie frantically grappled for something to hold onto. Everything she reached out for disappeared before she could steady herself and the result led her farther into a sense of panic. She realized that the trip that was supposed to make her whole again had broken her down; she was alone in a strange new place.

Aurelie fell to the ground. The last thing she saw before blacking out was a white haired woman smiling down at her. 

Nothing was the same. 

Her eyes opened to see a nurse standing over her. Unaware of her awakening, the nurse continued monitoring Aurelie’s vitals on the beeping machines by her bedside. Aurelie slowly began to process her surroundings. The white walls, the pastel colored hospital gown, the sterile looking appliances and the face of the nurse gave her no clue as to what country she was in. She could have been anywhere, and she found herself not caring. Aurelie felt a liquid trickle down her forehead and reached her hand up to wipe whatever it was away. Bringing her hand back down, she was startled to see that it was blood. Still, she was not bothered, and once again, closed her eyes.

The door opened and Aurelie raised her eyelids just long enough to see her boyfriend walk through the door. 

She pretended to go back to sleep. 

 

Q+A with the author:

 

What was the main message of this story?

In all the stories we read in class, the characters always traveled to a new place. They never revisited an old place with a new pair of eyes. The idea that returning to a changed place and confronting the change intrigued me. How would someone react when realizing that she did not recognize a place and people that once meant so much to her? Would she feel that she had lost a fundamental aspect of who she was or would she be able to accept that this was natural? 

 

What are the allusions to Sputnik Sweeheart, and why did you allude to the novel? 

Besides the woman with white hair that Aurelie sees at the airport, the reference to classical piano is mirrored in the description of Sumire and Miu’s first conversation and the instruments used in the recording of the song after which Sumire was named. The aspect of trauma is also featured heavily in the novel. Sputnik Sweetheart delves into the metaphysical more than any of the other novels. My story is primarily about how being unable to recognize one’s home can dramatically impact an individual’s sense of self and make them feel emotionally as well as physically lost. Sputnik Sweetheart focuses on how an individual can feel broken apart and Aurelie’s feeling of being a stranger in a place that should be familiar leads her to a loss of identity. 

 

This is a personal piece (as in it follows intimately one character). Why is it not in first person? 

I felt that third person could capture the lost identity better than first person. If she were still telling her story, she would obviously still have to be aware of everything about her. Third person lets her have some gaps. 

 

What prompted you to provide so much detail on Aurelie’s childhood. Why did you include the aspects of trauma?

This was also an allusion to Sputnik Sweetheart. When people go through extreme trauma like abuse, they occasionally dissociate and revisit the trauma in their heads. When this happens, they lose touch with the current world and focus only on the past (like Miu’s experience on the ferris wheel.) With a history of trauma, Aurelie’s reaction to coming home is more understandable.  She is overwhelmed by the unfamiliar and is also coming back  to the place where she originally left her mother and started her life with just her father.  The taxi ride on the way to Logan when leaving Boston was an extremely emotional time for her, so coming back to Logan later would probably bring on similar feelings. Her desire to not feel attached to her boyfriend can also be attributed to her feelings towards men that stemmed from her father’s treatment of her. And because she tries to feel disconnected, her desire to ignore him while in the hospital makes more sense. 

 

How is this travel fiction?

This is travel fiction in the sense that in the act of going somewhere, the main character comes to a conclusion about herself that could only have been brought on by an experience like this. It is the act of coming home that forces Aurelie to confront how the distance she has maintained for so long from her origins has affected her and how even though she identifies Boston as her home, it has become a foreign place over time. She still feels like a stranger and goes through the same stress that comes from being a lost traveler. 

 

“A journey without an end” is how K describes his quest to find the lost Sumire (121). However, Sumire and Miu’s own experiences could be described the same way. How can a journey end if there is no real resolution? There is of course the ultimate conclusion of death, but life is a constant struggle, and when one task concludes, another begins resulting in a constant stream of trials. This is a simple enough concept, but is complicated in Sputnik Sweetheart by the reoccurrence of the metaphysical. Both Sumire and Miu’s journeys are their search for their missing parts: not in the way some travel to find other aspects of themselves that they didn’t know existed, but an actual hunt for a part of themselves that separated from the original whole. Their beings were ruptured and like Peter Pan without his shadow, they are driven to finding that missing piece. 

 

Sumire first relays the idea of a separation after K admits that her changed appearance was one that he did not fully recognize. She too agrees and reveals that there is a disconnect between how she feels and the face she sees in the mirror, and muses that one half of herself could leave the other part behind. Not yet a scary idea; leaving herself behind could be in the metaphorical sense like a reinvention (which is how K interprets it). Even though the pieces are disconnected, they are still tied together by some thread, however small. 

 

While in Greece with Miu, Sumire’s two selves are actually separated. At first she just feels that they are “out of sync,” but the documents K finds shows evidence that her disappearance may have been provoked by one of her images “[breaking] through the mirror and [journeying] to the other side” (71,165). There is no clear conclusion for her story as the audience gets no explanation from her about where she went, although she does return unscarred. 

 

Miu’s journey does leave a visible trace, implying that the experience that it involved was of a more traumatic nature. There was such a clean fracture between the two sides that they almost seemed to be irreconcilable. Miu’s white hair is a symbol of her trials, and for her, dying it is a way to forget.  

“I know I am on a journey to collect the bricks to build my life” (168). There is a certain ring of cliché to this, and I know that somewhere, perhaps in multiple places, I’ve seen this same sentiment before. All night I racked my brain for a blog topic. I went over all the phrases I highlighted, tried to connect them to other books we’ve read, and still, after hours of slaving, I had nothing to show; so indulge me as I begin with a reflection and intersperse random deep ideas throughout. 

 

Aren’t we all collecting bricks right now? I didn’t identify with Z at all while I was reading A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, but once I take out this individual quotation, I realize that this is exactly where we all are in our lives. We are taking bits and pieces of our past, throwing out the ones that are no longer relevant and adding to the pile new materials with which we can create our adult selves. 

 

There is so much fantasy surrounding the idea of New York City. It’s a place to reinvent ourself, and discover our true passions. The concept is the basis for broadway musicals like Thoroughly Modern Millie and dozens of rom-coms where the attractive twenty-something struggles with finding herself in the midst of the chaos that is New York. And there is a reason we are so attached to this type of story-line. We’ve all had that same desire. We want to throw our old self to the wind and say, “Screw it. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I am going to pack my bags, buy a one way ticket to the city and start anew.” 

 

However, the problem for Z is that this fantasy was not her own (and yes I know that she doesn’t end up in New York City.) She is being forced to “improve” herself first by her parents and then by her lover who thinks that she should go abroad. Perhaps this is why there is a theme of loneliness throughout the novel. Z describes it almost as a tangible object, saying, “ [she] can see the shape of the loneliness in front of [her], then surround [her] body, [her] night, [her] dream” (125). If we are forced to change, then we are left with the feeling of not knowing who we are to become, and that can be truly frightening. Usually, we the choice is ours, the is a vision of who we want to be. If there is no vision, then there is just an empty frame that we must paint without any help, no paint by numbers or model to guide us. 

 

Almost from the beginning, Z attaches herself to this stranger and he becomes her lover and only real friend. Not only is she being ordered around by the English language (she describes it as the boss of the user), but she also is at the mercy of this man’s schedule (20). Waiting at home for him, there is no way she can cultivate a new self. It is only once she goes abroad from London that she starts to really change. Yes her language steadily gets better throughout the novel, but she is not free until she flees the state of being the “wallpaper,” a mere observer in her lover’s life (153). 

 

Some of her decisions are incredibly stupid (not to be judgmental by any means), but these are the ones she made on her own and in the end are the ones that created the strongest bricks. On the way back to china, Z notes that she will never see the world in the same way as she did the previous year (279). And while she attributes that to her broken heart, from the other novels we’ve read, it seems that her changed perspective is probably from letting loose instead. 

 

Does this mean we should all flee from the social norms and try new things? Perhaps...luckily, we’re in Gallatin, so doing that is easy. 

Desire can drive us to do crazy things; pursue something or someone that we know is wrong or seek revenge on someone who has hurt us. It can drive simple minded individuals into becoming materialistic or rude and it can take seemingly innocent people and turn them into criminals. Sadly, it hits everyone. Even the pious man who is committed to doing no harm can be conquered by a wanting. No one can predict when they are going to be overcome by a wave of lust or yearning. It is inevitable. But, it’s what we do with it that counts. 

 

The Gateway of India and The Elephant God, two novellas in Paul Theroux’s The Elephanta Suite, first come across as completely opposite stories: the business man’s not-quite-appropriate trysts versus the young woman on the quest for self discovery in an ashram. But farther and farther into the stories, it became blindingly apparent; these aren’t the stories of saviors coming into a culture more disturbed than their own and aiding those they meet, these are the stories of blind-sighted Americans creating monsters out of others and of themselves from an all-consuming desire. 

 

Dwight and Alice, both Americans, travel to India for different purposes. On Dwight’s first trip, he comes unwillingly on business, and is constantly hoping that someone would “get [him] out of here” (84). For Dwight, it was “a week of Indian hell,” and he desperately wanted to go home, even though his home life was not much better (84). In his grand sweeping generalization of India, Dwight felt that it was “not a place to enjoy but one to endure” (86). Although Alice is disappointed with India at first, it’s not like the disgust Dwight feels. Alice imagined India to be full of splendor, and rather than coming to the land she had pictured, with “jokes, the love affairs, the lavish marriage ceremonies, the solemn pieties, the virtuous peasants, the environmentalists, the musicians, the magic, the plausible young men,” she found that it was lonely and “a land of empty corners” (190,197). 

 

Eventually, the two find comfort in aspects of India, whether it be through the people or merely through developing a routine. They soon move on in their feelings of comfort to feel almost like they are needed and powerful and this is where they display the greatest shift in personality. Dwight’s downfall comes in the form of Indru and her sister Padmini. On their first meeting, her “formality [and] the mode of her politeness [make] hims feel, if not powerful, then dominant--in charge in this lonely place” (105). He immediately feels that he has control, even though it was she, that approached him and filled him with enough desire to lose interest in Sumitra. Dwight sees Indru as an image of innocence. The white dress that she wears on their first meeting and “her willingness to kiss seemed like the proof that she wasn’t a whore” (106). He thinks these girls are victims and is blinded by the thought that the girls think of him as a hero. Ironically, he is just the type of men that usually use these young girls and victimizes them. His attendance of Shrinaji Gala Dinner dance to Aid Women in Crisis is an irony in itself. By going, he thinks of himself even more highly as others praise him for his coming. 

After all the coddling that he provides the girls, they soon to rely on him for materialistic goods, knowing that he will deliver. Because Dwight believes that “giving her [Indru] money when she said ‘ring money gone’ was his way of possessing her,” he continues to do so (132). Dwight almost sees himself in these girls, believing that he too was once “India’s victim” (138). In his mind, if he can overcome the hardships there, why shouldn’t they? Soon, he changes his view of himself, modifying it so it is now that of a superman, not a possessor. Even though he once admitted it to himself that he was enjoying the power, he worries that others will see him that way and insists (at least to himself) that “he [is] a benefactor,” and “had rescued” both girls (147). 

 

It is not long after this that he starts to put himself even higher on the food chain and see the girls not as victims, but as “parodies” (157). They continue telling him their stories and he becomes fed up with the repetition. He wanted Indru to speak out to help her overcome the hardships, but now that she is, he wishes to silence her once more. In his mind, his only release from her talking is sex. Dwight created a whimpering, materialistic girl in his attempts to make himself into the hero he wished to be. By the end of the story, he “had had a vision of himself as a holy man on a dusty road” (186). His opinion of himself is so high now that he sees himself in the same way as Shah’s pious relative. To sum up: the desire that Dwight felt to the girls and for the feeling of being a hero, led him to create a monster both out of himself and out of the “victims.” Quickly too, similarly to the girls, by sending Shah to the states, Dwight changed him, making him into someone who “had been persuaded that he was interesting” (168). But I want to move on the The Elephant God. 

 

Excuse the slightly briefer discussion of the next story. Regardless, In The Elephant God, Alice too creates a monster out of Amitabh. She teaches him to speak in an American sounding way to sound better on the telephone lines for his job. While she intends to just help him with his accent, she accidentally modifies his personality along with it. He goes from being polite and earnest to being stubborn and abusive. At his worst, he rapes her and turns her into a victim of the law system. The desire to seek revenge on Amitabh is what leads her to forcing the elephant on him, and even though she was in an ashram that insists upon peacefulness, she is driven by her strong emotions to kill him. 

 

 

Throughout Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, Gustav von Aschenbach is often referred to as a traveler. The narrator calls him “the beguiled traveler,” “the ever obstinate traveler,” “the solitary traveler” and “the love smitten traveler.” (101,118,124,134) Why traveler? Ignoring the questions that come up because this is a translation, why would Mann use the word travel? Does he want to emphasize the fact that this particular voyage is one that involves work (travailer in French means to work) and is not one that he took for pleasure? 

 

In a way, obsession in itself is like work. Actively following Tadzio in a gondola because, “all he cared about was keeping track of the vision he was so ardently pursuing,” Aschenbach gives up his desire for the “bit of spontaneity, an idle existence,” that prompted him to take a trip in the first place. If he had not been enthralled with the young boy to such a crazed extent, he probably would not have stayed in Venice during the epidemic and may not have died. 

 

Which leads to my next quandary. Why did Tadzio’s family stay in Venice for as long as they did? Everyone else had either left or died. What prompted them to ignore the warnings and continue their trip? Aschenbach obviously stayed to keep an eye on the boy, but what was the family’s motivation? This is a legit question, not a rhetorical one so feel free to comment and provide thoughts and reflections. 

 

Bear with me as I make an odd comparison. There is something bizarrely similar about Death in Venice and American Beauty. Yes the men are in different times and very different places, but they both find this reason to live by obsessing about young beauties. While Kevin Spacey’s character is drawn out of his mid-life depression mode by his daughter’s friend, Aschenbach uses the Polish boy to give him a purpose and a meaning to get up in the morning. The routine that Tadzio provides is comforting to the protagonist in a way that only a schedule could be. Without the boy, Aschenbach would be wasting away his day. 

 

In fact, he is only called the “traveler” by the narrater after his full on obsession takes hold. Before, he was called “the writer.” Is Mann trying to say that being a traveler is a full on occupation? If Aschenbach had not found Tadzio, would he still be the traveler in the working sense or would he just be a writer on vacation? Essentially, a vacation is what he originally wants. A vacation has the connotation of an escape and Mann describes Aschenbach of having “an urge to flee...this yearning for freedom, release, oblivion--an urge to flee his work” (8).  He wants to get away from his work, but immediately gets caught up in his self created mission. Donc, il travail encore. (So, he continues working)

Deep inside everyone is the central belief that there is something out there that is the true purpose of life. It might be different from one person to the next, but no matter what, having the drive to find “it” is universal. In both Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky, the protagonists search for their own personal meaning in foreign territory. While the novels are not set with the same backdrop, both casts of characters take on the same challenge. Navigating their way through the landscapes of the “out West” in the United States as well as the vast Sahara Desert in Africa, both are finally able to grasp “it,” but not without serious repercussions. In exchange for their newfound realizations, both Kit and Port in The Sheltering Sky strive to reach the ultimate abyss, leading to death and for Kit, something close to insanity. In On the Road, Dean succumbs to the influence of drugs, and Sal loses a friend. A difference worth noting between the two searches and their results is that while Dean and Sal’s “IT” is found among the crowded jazz club in Frisco, the “IT” for Port and Kit can only be reached through the loneliness of the abyss. But in someway, even though on first glance an abyss is the exact opposite of a lively club, both locations have the power to stop time and transform the individual. 

 

Dean and Sal’s search for the all-consuming “IT,” literally and figuratively drives them through the United States, exploring the different communities they pass through and providing them with a plethora of experiences. Only stopping for a few weeks at a time, the boys make their way across the country,  knocking up women, messing up other people’s houses and drinking and smoking their way into oblivion. Unlike Port and Kit, whose journey was only inhibited by the other, the sense of camaraderie shared by Sal and Dean was a vital part of their travels. Together, they kept each other in check (to varying degrees of success) and acted as a “band of brothers” (to borrow from Henry V) or “two broken-down heroes of the Western night” (190). Throughout the trip (with the exception of a few interludes here and there) Sal and Dean were a constant part in each other’s lives. It only makes sense that the moment where their “IT” was discovered was a shared experience. 

 

The jazz “joint” where the boys came upon their understanding of the meaning of everything “was a sawdust saloon...a crazy place...In the back...scores of men and women stood against the wall drinking wine-spodiodi...Everybody was rocking and roaring” (196-7).  It is here that Dean finally feels that he understands what he has been searching for. As the alto saxophonist played, Dean felt that “time stops. He’s filling empty spaces with the substance of our lives...remembrance of ideas... He has to blow across bridges and come back and do it with such infinite feeling soul exploratory for the tune of the moment that everybody knows it’s not the tune that counts but IT...”(206) Jazz has a way of transitioning the listener into an out of body experience. As the instruments emit the improvised strains and rhythms that only expert jazz musicians can produce, the audience is able to sense a complete abandonment of constraints and freedom. It’s this that probably enthralls Dean the most and brings him to understanding the “impon-de-rables.” After all, his drug trips are not that different from some types of jazz. They are at times jumpy and random and the only people who can understand them are the people who are just as involved. The majority of the most talented musicians were on drugs, so Dean feeling an unspoken connection to them is no surprise. As Sal comes to comprehend the “IT,” the two boy rejoice at the thought that they both “know what IT is and...know TIME and...know that everything is really FINE” (208). Dean and Sal are in this trip together, and even though they eventually part ways, this shared knowledge of the IT keeps them worry free and separates themselves from the others who are “anxious and whiny” and whose “souls really won’t be at peace” unless they worry (208). 

 

While Sal and Dean made their discovery of the something a bonding experience, Kit and Port’s searches, although starting together, lead their already troubled marriage further and further apart. In The Sheltering Sky, the need for the authentic leads Kit, Port and Tunner into the Sahara. Both Kit and Port hint at their unhappiness and their quest for the aspect of their lives that they believe only the “real” can unlock, but their hunts only turn dramatic and alarming after Port loses his passport. At first, he is wrought up over the loss of such a crucial document, but later he finds that “...it rather suited his fancy to be going off with no proof of his identity to a hidden desert town about which no one could tell him anything”(163). Once he no longer has hard evidence of his identity, it is easier for him to be swept away in his search for the abyss. 

 

His mission to finding the hard truths of life and the authentic “IT” bring him to the point of extreme illness both mentally and physically. As Kafka’s quotation at the beginning of the third section states, “From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.” This desperate desire for final chance to turn back is what drove Port into not getting his shots. Having opted out of receiving his medications before traveling, he clearly had the intention of going head first into the desert’s abyss even before he left. At the worst point of his sickness, he reached such an intense level that he was forced to fight against the forces pulling him into the unknown while simultaneously pushing himself over the edge. Much like the bridge the jazz musician traverses back and forth with his notes, Port struggles with straddling both sides of the chasm.  Through his final moments, even after there is anything he can do, he battles the “terrible disparity between the speed at which he was moving and the quiet immobility of that line, but he insisted. So as not to go. To stay behind” (221).  While Kit is at his bedside for some of the time, she leaves him right before he dies. There is no sharing of the discovered “IT.” Kit is left to deal with the repercussions of the quest on her own, bringing her to abandon her inhibitions and dive into a quest for the same mysterious meaning. 

 

Perhaps the lesson that can be drawn from the two groups of travelers is that the environment in which they travel affects what they believe to be their final “IT.” Sal and Dean voyaged in a pack, going to dive bars, clubs and socializing with friends. Consequently, their “IT” was one that could be shared and could continue without causing death. On the other hand, for Port and Kit, their miserable marriage and lonely setting brought them to the understanding that there was nothing on this earth that was as real as death. Maybe if they had been happier and with friends, they would not have come to this conclusion. So the next time you think about going on the quest for the meaning of life, take a moral from The Sheltering Sky (and the singer Beck): don’t go at it alone. 

 

On the Road is the first book we've read so far where the characters are traveling in their own country. Rather than crossing the ocean to get to Europe or Africa, Sal and his band of merry men traverse the United States in what they hope to be a "wonderful" trip where they "follow one great red line across America" (13). Sounds simple enough, but for a group of boys with no money and limited moral values, the trip proves to be more of a challenge than they originally expected.

Sal hopes to get down to the nitty gritty of the States. He wants to experience the real and authentic rather than the touristy world that is often created. When in Cheyenne, the boys hope to see some real western tradition and instead find themselves submersed in the "absurd devices it had fallen to keep its proud tradition" (33). Random thought: I can't help but wonder why they want the authentic places and the authentic travel experience so badly but don't mind experiencing these inauthentic emotions and nights with girls they don't know. Is the false closeness of the girls inauthentic or do they consider the experience of being with prostitutes in the whorehouse in Mexico a genuine experience? Let's ponder that later...

Is there a difference between traveling in your own country for the first time vs. traveling in another country? The themes are the same: the search for the authentic, the desire to lose oneself in his surroundings, the hope of finding oneself as well. Although the language barrier isn't a problem, they still come across scorn from people in other states much like tourists do in other countries though how much of that scorn is from them being from another area of from them being drunk and high is hard to know. Which leads me to my next quandary.

Why do we care so much about this book and the characters? To me they are incredible self absorbed with no real likable characteristics. Maybe we all secretly wish that we could flee the world that we live in and get rid of any burden while driving cross country with friends. In theory this sounds delightful even for a prude like me, but I cannot get on board with feeling anything but disgust for how the boys behave themselves. They are constantly getting high and drunk, picking up girls and then letting them go, having babies and then forgetting about them, the list goes on and on. And yet this book is popular. I personally don't enjoy watching or reading about someone's life going down the drain in the way Dean's does. And I can't stand how they treat women. In Mexico they are admiring Victor's young baby and they "all wished we had a little son like that" (286). Hello!!! Dean! You have kids and have neglected them. So rather than starring at someone else's children, leave the drugs and your buddies and go home.

With any luck, the next book we read won't be so painful. Sorry Kerouac, you're not for me.  

For Port, the ultimate travel experience is to lose himself in the desert; in his mind, nothing else is as authentic. In this way, Port fits in with the concept of the "experimental tourist." As the article states that an experimental traveler will go off, "the beaten track," and will strive for, "an ultimate commitment" (195, article). This is all fine and good unless, as Erik Cohen explains, the individual has a, "decentralized personality." In this case, he, "may easily become an eternal seeker." This is exactly what Port turns into by the end of part two of Sheltering Sky. Going to Africa and escaping his "normal" way of life was not enough for him and so he forced himself to continue farther into his search for the abyss. Eventually he reaches "ultimate alienation," but rather than finding this upsetting, to him, this is an achievement. 

Part of reaching the ultimate commitment, at least for Port, is shedding his identity. If looked at in a negative light, an identity is a burden that keeps someone back from completely exploring a new environment. They will not be able to see themselves as natives if they know that they are really just visiting. After Port loses his passport, he realizes that "it rather suited his fancy to be going off with no proof of his identity to a hidden desert town about which no one could tell him anything" (163). As he explains to Kit after their bike ride, they "have never managed...to get all the way into life. We're hanging on to the outside for all we're worth" (94). Abandoning his passport and leaving the world in a sense is going all the way into life. So much so that he eventually passes through life and ends up at the other side. 

Once Port made up his mind to reach the ultimate commitment, no one could stop him. As Port lay dying, Tunner forces Kit to confront that she can not do anything to make him come back from his almost deathly state. It also seems like even though Port made up his mind, as he gets closer to death, he becomes less and less willing to let go. Part of him desperately wants something to hold onto while another part desperately wants to keep going (221). Death was the only thing that could satisfy Port's need to "experiment with other forms of life and not just experience them" (195, article). 

An ongoing theme from class and our readings has been the use of travel in learning about oneself. Through exploring new places and cultures, we are able to become more self-aware and it "shows us all the parts of ourselves that might otherwise grow rusty." (The Iyer article from the first day of class. How I do love that one.) In Paul Bowles' novel, Port shows great insight into himself and those around him, careful not to be a disturbance to those in their natural habitat. 

 

Before meeting Smail, Port ruminates about the faces around him, wondering who they are, what they are feeling and what they know. At seeing their starving bodies, he feels a sense of guilt about being "well fed and healthy among them." (14-15) And as he keeps walking, regardless of his "fatigue," he predicts that he will turn around, but vows to keep going until then. Again and again through this one night, he makes comments to himself that reflect his insight. Upon realizing that Tunner is after his wife, he turns to leave the village that Smail was showing him. "After six steps he stopped and looked around. 'What can I do tonight?' he thought. 'I'm using this as an excuse to get out of here, because I'm afraid."

 

Even Port himself acknowledges his perceptiveness especially when away from home, as “it was often on trips that he thought most clearly, and made the decisions that he could not reach when he was stationary.” (98) And he comes to the conclusion that “walking through the countryside was a sort of epitome of the passage through life itself. One never took the time to savor the details; one said: another day, but always with the hidden knowledge that each day was unique and final, that there never would be a return, another time.” (126) This is a grand philosophy on life, one that would not come to someone that didn’t spend ample time thinking about their world. 

 

The problem with his self-awareness, is that it makes it harder to forgive him for his unfaithfulness to his wife. He should know that his actions are counterproductive to reconciling with Kit. What makes this even worse is that he so easily understands her as well. He says, “I think we’re both afraid of the same thing. And for the same reason. We’ve never managed, either one of us, to get all the way into life. We’re hanging on to the outside for all we’re worth, convinced we’re going to fall off the next bump.” (94) He knows her weaknesses and her fears and although he’s not exploiting them, he is not making himself someone that she can trust. 

 

This is not to say that I side with her either. She too was unfaithful, though while I can appreciate Port’s insightfulness and willingness to be immersed in another culture, Kit’s take on her surroundings as well as her own needs are often childish and judgmental.  Rather than accepting Port’s interest in understanding his dream, she chastises him for telling it to Tunner, saying that “it’s such a humiliating dream,” (12) later hinting that it was more so for her. Her complaints that everything eventually resembles each other are just as superficial as the comments she condones in the village while drinking tea with M. Chaoui. (123)

 

At this point in our reading, I have to wonder what a travel story would be like if it were written by a woman. So far, none of them women have been in the least bit admirable. Is that what American women really look like? 

A theme often brought up in travel fiction and especially in The Sun Also Rises is the idea of escapism. People want to leave their past and their selves behind in hopes of discovering a better alternative to what they currently know. For some, traveling to a different location is enough to start anew, for others, as hard as they try, they cannot shake the past. Right off the bat, Jake informs Robert Cohn that "you can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another," and throughout the novel, Jake and his friends try other methods to flee from themselves. (19)

During what seems like every meal and snack, drinks are served all around to the point where I questioned Jake, Brett and the other's abilities to function without the help of alcohol. For Brett, her drunk self and her sober self are both known to those around her. As the count says to Jake, "she is the only lady I have ever known who was as charming when she was drunk as when she was sober." (66) And when Brett comes over to Jake's flat he, "saw she was quite drunk." (40) He says this in such a nonchalant way I assume that this was not the first time he saw her like this, and rather than trying to get her to calm down or sleep it off, he continues providing her with more drinks. He too drinks during this encounter and almost every other. It seems like they all hope that alcohol separates themselves from emotions, though as the count warns, you cannot enjoy the fine drinks when one's feelings get in the way. (66)

For a few brief moments, Jake tries to use religion as a form of escapism as well. After meeting with the "old gentleman who subscribes for the bull-fight tickets...every year," he goes into a cathedral and begins to pray. Generally speaking, during prayer, you are supposed to connect with god and forget your daily troubles, but as Barnes prays, thoughts from his more materialistic life begin to seep through. Eventually, he finds himself no longer praying and thinking about how he was going to make money, and Brett instead. Rather than trying to begin again, Jake gave up and moved on. (103) He describes himself as a "rotten Catholic" and seems to hold his religious values in high standing though he uses Cohn's religion against him. This is my clumsy transition from the topic of escapism to the topic of anti-semitism in the novel. 

In the very first paragraph describing Robert Cohn, we learn that he is a Princeton alum and Jewish. In the same paragraph, we begin to sense the anti-semitic tendencies of Jake (the narrator) and probably Hemingway as well. As Jake (who hasn't been introduced at this point) informs the reader about Cohn's boxing days, he describes how Cohn got "his nose permanently flattened" which, "certainly improved (it)." (11) Making fun of a Jew's nose is such a common anti-semitic jab that Jake clearly has been surrounded by this sort of sentiment before. He and his friends use the term Jewish as some sort of explanation for Cohn's behavior. When he proclaims that he wants to go to South America, Jake attributes his insistence on his "hard, Jewish, stubborn streak." (18) And upon seeing Cohn walk towards him, he says to Bill, "let him not get superior and Jewish." (102) I have trouble understanding why Cohn's religion is such a key element to his character. My most basic idea is that because he is supposed to be an unlikable figure, his being Jewish is just further evidence that he is not "one of them." This may also explain why Jake is so annoyed with Cohn's relationship with Brett. He doesn't mind when others carry on affairs with her, but because he is not like the rest of his friends, he does not deserve her. (http://www.bookrags.com/notes/sar/TOP1.htm)

According to a New York Times Book article on Hemingway, a Professor Baker explains that Hemingway ''was born into a time when such epithets were regrettably commonplace on most levels of American society.'' So apologies to Hemingway for judging him. 

Image: This is Norman Rockwell's The Runaway. Knowing the name, it makes more sense. 

"For what we all too often ignore when we go abroad is that we are objects of scrutiny as much as the people we scrutinize," claims Pico Iyer from his essay Why We Travel. This idea rings true in the novella Daisy Miller. As Daisy outrageously flirts with Mr. Giovanelli and banters back and forth with Winterbourne, word of her behavior does not go by unnoticed. Her audacious ways bring attention to her American background and as an already disliked nation, she is not helping them in anyway. "'But don't they all do these things- the young girls in America?' Winterbourne inquired" to his aunt. He then realizes that his American cousins are flirtatious as well thus giving him evidence that Daisy was no different. (19, James) Still, her background drew attention to herself and provided others with pre-conceived notions. Having never met her, Mrs. Costello makes the bold statement that "'they are very common, and they are the sort of Americans that one does one's duty by not-- not accepting.'"(17, James) Later, Daisy informs them that she "always had a great deal of gentlemen's society," so in Europe it is only natural that this continues. (11, James) It's odd that Daisy scrutinizes very little even though she is the one touring this new society though as Winterbourne mentioned, she is "uncultivated" and would not find interest in monuments are museums other than castles.   

Even if Daisy was aware of the judgement being placed on her, "Winterbourne wondered how she felt about all the cold shoulders that were turned towards her, and sometimes it annoyed him to suspect that she did not feel at all. He said to himself that she was too light and childish, too uncultivated and unreasoning, too provincial, to have reflected upon her ostracism or even to have perceived it." (56, Miller) But Daisy's social awareness is so primitive as scarcely to exist. (Daisy Miller: A Study of Changing Intentions http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?action=interpret&id=GALE%7CH1420025342&v=2.1&u=new64731&markList=true&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&authCount=1) She does not go out of her way to seek the opinions that others cast on her, but when prompted, she does wish to know although she does not take Winterbourne's words seriously. She believes that the natives are "only pretending to be shocked." She is egotistical to think that they care enough to put effort into faking emotion. If those around her actually did not care, they would ignore her. However, her antics made her the topic of conversation and when she asked Mrs. Walker whether there would be anyone she knows at the party, Walker replies "I think everyone knows you!"


Why do the other Americans like Mrs. Walter and Mrs. Costello find Daisy to cause them a great deal of frustration? They are not natives either, but perhaps because they have been in Europe for longer, they look down on Daisy's unruly behavior like it is giving them a bad name. Aldous Huxley points out in his essay, Why Not Stay at Home, that people travel because, "the best people do it." Are Walter and Costello worried that Daisy is in their same tier and that they are in fact no better?

Sadly, Daisy's untimely death leaves us with no more time to get to know the young protagonist in Henry James's novella for just as her namesake shrivels up from the cold, Daisy too moves on to a different world. 

“Keep it in your bag,” I warn as my mother begins looking around. “We don’t need it.” Still, she reaches into her purse and pulls out the crisp paper. Folded only in the way a fresh one could be. I walk down the sidewalk pretending to be another native, peeking into store windows and glancing not at the merchandise displayed, but at my mother in the background. “Really?” I mumble to myself as I see locals coming up to her and asking if she needs assistance. “Really?” The store owner notices my “interest” in the pair of shoes on the sill and beckons me in. I smile and wave my hand in a way that simultaneously signals “thank you” and “I’m fine staying here.” Disappointed, she goes back to attending the customers wandering around in the dimly lit shoe “gallery.” With prices that high, it almost seemed plausible that Picasso himself had signed the soles of the heels. 

I survey the street, taking in the fashionable women, the dark handsome business men, the babies in strollers pushed by what I can only assume to be their nannies. Then my eyes are drawn back to my mother holding her map proudly like a tourist and not like the New Yorker she actually was. I was getting antsy and wanted to keep going. I knew the area well enough to guide her, but she wanted to get a sense of where she was. That was code for “I don’t really trust you” and I was well aware of it. Aimlessly going through the menu on my cell phone, I search for a way to appear like I have a sense of purpose and am not really a tourist. Whatever. This was taking too long and I was getting hungry. By now we could have circled the block twice, sat down, and sipped our fruity beverages filled with more ice than juice until the cups were empty (and we were still not satiated.)

Finally, she begrudgingly folded back up the map and followed me. And hey. What do you know, the restaurant was only a block away. Crazy how that works out. 

I’ve had enough experience to know that to really enjoy a place, you have to leave the maps, gps, and whatever apps you have to guide you back in the hotel room when you go out. Otherwise, the small details that make up a city will pass you by. A little blue dot is no substitute for seeing the architecture of the Guggenheim, and whatever the reviews are on Yelp, it is always better to let your friends take you to their favorite haunts. But one of the greatest things I’ve learned is that by just walking aimlessly, you can watch a culture forming in front of your eyes. 

Just look up.