Nuce summation. I'm just about to post my review of the trilogy and since you've done a close reading, tell me, please, why do you think the husband in A Separation asked her not to tell anyone they were apart? Never explained. A curiosity.
Randy, thank you. I'm just seeing this, and I see you've published on the books already, so I'll go and read you there after this reply to you.
It's a good question. I returned to read the relevant passages, early on. It is vague but purposely so. All three of these nameless narrators tend toward reticence and passivity. This is very explicit to start in A Separation. It's one of the disconnects between the narrator and Christopher, her husband. The very idea of things not being known, made public, as a matter of personal nature is raised as central here -- a condition that readies the ground for the self as performance. Christopher raises in her the idea of divorce as an emotional, psychological process that one needs go through before one -- he, she -- feels ready to make the decision public. The narrator understands this even if she can't quite locate a more specific reason. In all three of the novels, the narrators are full of strong, assured perceptions of others and the world around them but don't really know themselves all that well, often acting without fully knowing why they act as they do.
The combination of of the personal with the review of an author whom, admittedly, I've not read, and who, according to Jay, handles the unreliable narrator or "Jamesian observer" with skill and intrigue. As Jay reviews, he does what reviewers rarely, do: he reveals the self and questions of his own identity, and I suspect that perhaps he mirrors what Kitamura has achieved?
(a) acting a little more polite or confident around others (of your own race), and
(b) being told repeatedly at school that your race (black) is always too loud and acting MUCH quieter around The Other (whites) than you ever would around your own race even at church or a movie theater
Nuce summation. I'm just about to post my review of the trilogy and since you've done a close reading, tell me, please, why do you think the husband in A Separation asked her not to tell anyone they were apart? Never explained. A curiosity.
Randy, thank you. I'm just seeing this, and I see you've published on the books already, so I'll go and read you there after this reply to you.
It's a good question. I returned to read the relevant passages, early on. It is vague but purposely so. All three of these nameless narrators tend toward reticence and passivity. This is very explicit to start in A Separation. It's one of the disconnects between the narrator and Christopher, her husband. The very idea of things not being known, made public, as a matter of personal nature is raised as central here -- a condition that readies the ground for the self as performance. Christopher raises in her the idea of divorce as an emotional, psychological process that one needs go through before one -- he, she -- feels ready to make the decision public. The narrator understands this even if she can't quite locate a more specific reason. In all three of the novels, the narrators are full of strong, assured perceptions of others and the world around them but don't really know themselves all that well, often acting without fully knowing why they act as they do.
I so much appreciate her nuance, but in this case, the intense vagueness might have been good backstory. Thx.
The combination of of the personal with the review of an author whom, admittedly, I've not read, and who, according to Jay, handles the unreliable narrator or "Jamesian observer" with skill and intrigue. As Jay reviews, he does what reviewers rarely, do: he reveals the self and questions of his own identity, and I suspect that perhaps he mirrors what Kitamura has achieved?
In any case, well-done, good sir.
there's a performative difference between
(a) acting a little more polite or confident around others (of your own race), and
(b) being told repeatedly at school that your race (black) is always too loud and acting MUCH quieter around The Other (whites) than you ever would around your own race even at church or a movie theater