Well, I cheated. Held off posting for an extra day to buy myself more time. But I finally caught up with you mighty Meanderers! And props to folks who are still reading and just a little bit behind. I am not in a judging mood, my friends. None of us perfectly pure. Faulty towels one and all, over-fed a tad on the piaya of prophecies, perhaps.
There was lots of truth in the thread this week, as ever — we marvel at the language. Many of us are glad to be reading this book. Many of us feel like “meander” is starting to sound a bit sarcastic.
Computillo hit it on the head when she said:
Despite the fact that many of us often feel lost in the detail of this novel, I see now that every detail has been critical. Every detail is “organized into one damn thing.”
I continue to swoon a bit over the way everything comes back again, usually 7 or 8 times.
Like Jeff, I was in a little bit of awe at the end of Book Two. Despite the carnage, I felt relief at a gazillion prophecies finally made real, resolved. Tidy.
But then of course, we met the man-dog. The hound-guy? You know who I mean. The children called him big nose. And so here we are back in the vortex with a new slew of onions to peel. Or as the pooch-person calls ’em: coming-soon featurettes…
Either way, we’re getting wildly close to the close, Meander-mates (tone: sarcasm-free!). We can do this. You can do this. I’m starting to think even I can do this!
But before we do that: Let’s meet at the end of the section entitled “The Shadow of the Mosque” (aka page 464 in the Random House paperback), where “God knows what to do with that poor girl.”
And here? Here be the post for comments on sections 3.2 through 3.4.
And also: “enuresis” is defined by Merriam-Webster as… No. No, I don’t think I’m going to define that one.
“Wrath enabled me to survive the soft siren temptations of invisibility”. Sonority, antique reference, deep feelings… Not really a quote for a t-shirt, or is it?
I want that t-shirt!
We’ll be able to create a quilt from all the Notable Quotable T-Shirts that emanate from MC.
T-shirt quotes of the day:
“What you were is forever who you are.”
“Unfairness smells like onions.”
And a heavy one:
“I am the sum total of everything that went before me. I am anything that happens after I’ve gone which would not have happened if I had not come.”
Sorry, Ute. Must have been typing the same quote around the same time!
How funny!
Our maybe we’re telepathically connected…
Loved that “I am the sum total of everything….” part.
More T-Shirt Quotes. “What you were is forever who you are.”
But this is the quote that stuck with me this week: “God Damn the Election Business, captain,” he told me. “Whenever they come, something bad happens, and our countrymen behave like clowns.”
Truth.
Like fellow meanders in weeks prior, I’ve been piqued by Saleem’s largely unfavorable depiction of women throughout MC, which is summarized in a CliffsNotes version at the top of the “A Wedding”. On reflection, it’s not as if there are many sympathetic men in the book either, besides Picture Singh, of course. This section, however, underscored that it is the faults and weaknesses of women on which the axis of Saleem’s and the world’s history appears to turn. A lot of it very Freud 101 to me. Do other meanders interpret something more complex happening here that I’m not picking up on?
Fittingly, and in honor of Wee Willie Winkie, my playlist nomination this week has got to be Lou Reed’s “Goodnight Ladies.”
Lovely song choice. I’m not sure many characters come out of it looking good. But I am sure there’s enough here to keep Freud busy for a meander of his own…
“There is no magic on earth strong enough to wipe out the legacies of one’s parents.”
Maybe an apt quote for a onesie rather than a t-shirt?
Alyssa – That was the quote that leapt out at me. I’m amazed, though, that no one in this group has suggested “Down with Fissiparousness!” as a t-shirt slogan.
The whole “In the Sundabarns” chapter seemed like a fever dream to me. All greenness, transparency, confusion, delusion. (By the way, The Sundarbans National Park, jointly managed today by India and Bangladesh, is slightly larger than Yellowstone National Park.)
It’s like printing money….
I too was struck by the sentence Alyssa calls out. That hit hard. And like Noodle I felt like the Sundarbans chapter read like a fever dream—or out or another book entirely. I’d say it seemed “out of place” but I guess when your book contains multitudes than maybe nothing is out of place? But even the writing style seemed different in that chapter. Almost fairy tale like.
I continue to enjoy the minute-to-minute experience of Rushdie’s sentences, but I think I’d have to start over and do a complete second read to start putting it all together and get What It All Means….but I doubt that will happen in this lifetime. What does come through is Rushdie’s sadness anger humor, and that for all the fantastical elements of his storytelling, it’s the poignant family scenes that resonate most for me.
Have fallen behind but still on the trail. I will not be defeated by this book!
I’m finishing late this week. But I’ve finished!
Family. “Not quite right in the head! That was tremendous coming from them–from that family beside which a tribe of gibbering cannibals would have seemed calm and civilized!” Yes, yes, indeed. Family is messy. Jeff, I agree. It’s the poignant family scenes that resonate.
“She was squatting on the pavement with a basket of invisibility by her side…” This sounds like something out of Harry Potter!
Like Jeff, and as with most meander experiences, I feel like I need to read it over, but unlike Jeff, I actually might do it after a little historical brushing up. I have finally learned how to promote maximum enjoyment: no rushing, read only one chapter at a sitting, and appreciate the journey and satisfying finish that is provided in each separate jar of pickles. Also, did anybody notice that the period of being lost in the Sundarbans was from March to October?
I don’t know if it was me, or the state of the world, or the feeling of accelerating entropy in the story, but a lot of this week’s portion felt like a fever dream in and out of that green wall of jungle. The whole Sundarbans chapter was giving me a lot of “Heart of Darkness”/“Apocalypse Now” sensations, down to the boat ride, the madness and the temple interlude deep in the jungle. Plus the mass, mass grave that SR describes as being filled with strange “crops.” The horror, the horror.
And like Alyssa, Noodle, and Jeff, I need that sentence about parental legacies on an item of clothing (in my case, a tee shirt).
Fissiparous: “Inclined to cause or to undergo division into separate parts or groups.” That’s what the Oxford Languages says, according to the google.
Horribly late and still behind. Loving the mystical forest where the amnestic buddha meets the translucent trio…a translucent leech that turns red when gorged, a shot peasant that bleeds translucent blood and a translucent snake whose venom restores his memory. I’m sensing another garden of eden reference but can’t quite get there…the lucid snake brings knowledge with the bite of apple, but in this, a translucent snake brings knowledge with a bite… The straws are there and I’m grasping…
Agree with Jeff about the Sundarbans section – I liked it! – and dare I say that the book it came from was One Hundred Years of Solitude? Ha ha, I guess I said it. I continue to be curious how and if Rushdie can keep the book afloat while translating so much of the material directly into the mythic plane and constantly reminding us of that. As an occasional & wannabe writer of fiction I must say, that is a challenge. I like that Saleem is translated to the buddha in this section when he has forgotten his name. When he runs into his forceps-headed childhood friend as part of a pyramid of death that says ‘Hullo, man, what the hell are you here for?’ I found it genuinely creepy and strange. I guess when Saleem says ‘to understand me, you’ll have to swallow a world’ he is stating the thesis of the novel.
I’m late again, naturally (and not very original)
I enjoyed this idea (pg 438-9): “The dead die, and are gradually forgotten; time does its healing, and they fade — but in Pavarti’s basket I learned that the reverse is also true; that ghosts, too, begin to forget; that the dead lose their memories of the living, and at last, when they are detached from their lives, fade away — that dying, in short, continues for a long time after death.”
And have you all noticed all the 420s from here to the end of the book? The number of items jugglers juggled, days of mourning, the number of Midnight Children….