A Perfect Pledge by Rabindranath Maharaj

1.  Maharaj captures the local dialect very well and when I was reading the book, I was almost swayed into the lilting delivery I imagined might be spoken by each character.  In contrast, the voice of the author, not of Jeeves, is quite articulate.  I found his knowledge of plants and insect life extensive.  This made me wonder how many people might know some of this information.  Were you at all surprised by the language?  How so?  What was of interest to you?

 

2.  Narpat is a most demanding father with peculiarities which he inflicts on his children.  Take his dietary mania about eating well. “  You notice how the pepper causing you to drink water?  The best thing for digestion.  Clear out all the circuits.  Keep the engine from overheating.  Prevent anger, jealousy, and deceit.”  The children were also introduced to a variety of beans, grains, and legumes, which swam in their plates like drowning insect.  “Proteins. Fibre. Vitamins.” (p. 241)  Narpat reminds me of Polonius, from Hamlet, where his advice is one part sense and another part nonsense, mixed with ego and hypocrisy.  He means well yet in the end goes too far.  What do you make of Narpat.  Find a section where his character comes through in his actions or his words.

 

3.  There is a strong strain of irony in the story, making it somewhat bittersweet truth or attitude about life.  Sometimes I think the theme of the novel is “good intentions don’t amount to a hill of beans without proper planning and preparation.”  Take for example, Narpat’s preoccupation to build a factory.  Much as he might slight the lack of initiative in the locals, he himself is as unproductive as any of them in the end.

 

4.  Of the opposite extreme is Mr. Doon, the would be writer who toils away at the manuscript, with the the twins Dolly (Dostoevsky) and Tolly (Tolstory) then nagging wife and mother who he sees as “Bitches.  They climbing on me like ants…”  He too is a comic figure set up for his snobbery, only to be cast down by his wifes sarcasm.  

 

5.  Maharaj has set his novel in an earlier time, the 1950’s Trinidad, with Jeeves as the key character who develops throughout the story’s twenty or so years.  The novel’s five part structure might also be seen as a quest story, where each one of the stages of the hero’s progress is defined through a passage.  The crisis point is the mother’s death.  So I think.  After this, Jeeves sees his father differently and so does the reader.

 

6.  Narpat’s treatment of his wife  is in miniature the moral code of family destruction and disintegration which tears apart a society in the larger framework.  There is a partial truce at the end of the novel as a war between the sexes which must be negotiated.  That the claims of family sometimes inhibit progress, or that  men must negotiate their aspirations with caution.  What do you think Maharaj sees as the future for Trinidad?

 

The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman

1.  If you’ve seen the movie I Am Legend, you’ll have a picture in your mind’s eye of what the landscape may look like in this speculative examination of what the world would look like without humans.  Weisman takes us back into time and examines several cultures over time and the mistakes made which caused such harm to wildlife, nature, our habitat and the spread of pollution to date.  Before starting the book, can you speculate what may have been the most dangerous inventions of all time?

2.  Take a minute to think about some of the ridiculous inventions we have read about today that are purposeless and wasteful.  My example would be a robot which gets us a glass of water.  True story, I read it today in the paper. Which one do you suggest?

3.  Weisman undoes one of the basic myths we’ve come to believe, that nature takes back it’s own, that our structures crumble and eventually nature will win back its own territory.  But, given the exotic plastics and micro pollution we’ve generated, some of the  garbage and litter will last forever.  Consider how many plastic bags will be at the bottom of the ocean?

4.  While reading the book, consider some real life examples you’ve seen of damages caused by our “so called progressive” inventions and the cost on the environment.  My example would be:  on Burlington beach I saw several bird carcases on the ground.  They had be shocked by sitting on the high powered wires.  Couldn’t a barrier have been put up to save them from the damage?  Do you have any examples?

5.  Do you read the labels of products to see what damage they can do to the environment?  I’ve bought bags for composting which supposedly just become more minute in the soil once they decompose still causing damage seepage into the soil.

6.  This book has been a Times best book for 2007 and likened to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, both of which we have in the library for checkout.  Though the writer, Weisman is not a scientist, he is a journalist and has done a thorough job on his research as you can see by the 23 pages of bibliography following the story.  The book is classified as non-fiction because of the reliance on factual evidence but the premise is speculative, much like the writings of Michael Crichton, hence might be termed an eco thriller.  Yet, the purpose here is more to inform while the latter writer aims to entertain.  Nevertheless, both genres may appeal to the same readership?  Do you know of any other writers like this?

7.  Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma may be a closer match to this book in that it shows how genetically modified food has changed the agricultural business and destroyed the natural balance of slow farming methods.  Both books might make a good comparison.  Pollan offers very clear solutions.  Does Weisman offer any hope for us as a species?

8.   One particularly vivid section for me is the part about the elephants in Kenya who stomp down the growing trees creating grasslands whereas the grazing gazelles need the trees to ground the soil and maintain a balance of nutrients.  The symbiotic relationship is evident.  Which section did you find most astounding?

9.  Another high impact section deals with the African Aids epidemic.  There are whole towns with only children left without parents since all have died of Aids.  Only the Masai are not sick with the virus.  What other possible afflictions might we discover that may prove a threat to our species and lead to extinction?

Inheritance of Loss by Anita Desai

1.  The novel embraces several all encompassing themes, modernity, class, gender politics,

 terrorism, colonialism and patriarchy.  Told from multiple threaded narratives and alternating

between the expatriate son in New York and the cook who mythologizes this escape and the regressive dreamer who is stuck in an old world British system. 

2.   One of the appeals of reading world literature is to get a taste of life elsewhere

with all its imperfections and exotica.  Here’s one particularly evocative description.

  Can you suggest any that particularly struck you?

(p.153)”We used to travel on horseback, carrying sacks of peas for the ponies,

maps, hip flasks of whiskey.  In the rainy season, leeches would free-fall from

 the trees onto us, timing precisely the perfect acrobat moment.  We would wash

in saltwater to keep them off, salt our shoes and socks, and even our hair.”

3.  The effects of colonialism are felt in the small town.  Investigate what you know

of the history of the British Raj and explain why independence may seem more

complicated for some  Indians as they transition to freedom.

 “He came of a generation, all over the world, for whom it was easier to forget

 than to remember, and the more their children pressed, the more their memory

 dissipated. 

 Once Gyan had asked:  “uncle, but what is England like?”

  And he said: “I don’t know…”

  “How can you not know???”

  “But I have never been.”

 All these years in the British army and he had never been to England!  How

 could this be?  They thought he had prospered and forgotten them, living like a

London lord…” 

 (p.143)

4.          (pg. 155)  “He was the real hero, Tenzing, ” Gyan had said.  “Hilary couldn’t have

made it without sherpas carrying his bags.”  Everyone around had agreed.  Tenzing was

certainly first, or else he was made to wait with the bags so Hilary could take the first

step on behalf of the colonial enterprise of sticking your flag on what was not yours.” 

Again, the resentment and sense of injustice is voiced by Gyan.  Does education and

 knowledge lead to insight or cynicism?

5.          (pg.  205 )  “But profit could only be harvested in the gap between nations, 

 working one against the other.  They were damning the third world to being third-world. 

They were forcing Bose and his son into an inferior position- thus far and no further- and

he couldn’t take it.  Not after believing he was their friend.  He thought of how the English

government and its civil servants had sailed away throwing their topis overboard, leaving

behind only those ridiculous Indians who couldn’t rid themselves of what they had broken

their souls to learn.”

The novel’s dichotomy between reverence and admiration for British culture  and values

alternates throughout the storyline.  The intellectual argument resides with Gyan while the

emotional centre with the judge making it near impossible to extricate the two. 

  

6.  Is there any hope at all for the characters or are they doomed to repeat foolishness and

 continue to replicate the loss of each of their dreams?

   

A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns

 

1.  Nana, Mariam’s mother teaches her daughter how to disrespect those she has sees as inferior to her.

 “Nana yelled at the boys as she carried bags of rice inside, and called them names Mariam didn’t understand.  She cursed their mothers, made hateful faces at them.  The boys never returned the insults.” 

    Mariam felt sorry for the boys.  How tired their arms and legs must b e, she thought pityingly, pushing that heavy load.  She wished she were allowed to offer them water.  But she said nothing, and if they waved at her she didn’t wave back.  Once, to please Nana, Mariam even yelled at Muhsin, told him he had a mouth shaped like a lizard’s ass- and was consumed later with guilt, shame, and fear that they would tell Jalil.  Nana, though, laughed so  hard, her rotting front tooth in full display, that Mariam thought she would lapse into one of her fits.  She looked at Mariam when she was done and said, “You’re a good daughter.”"(p.14)

At what time is Mariam similarly treated throughout the book?

2.  Mariam is definitely a smart girl with a spirit of honesty.  She definitely holds no illusions about being handed a bill of goods.  The omniscient narrator reveals her thoughts regarding the imminent engagement to her husband. 

  “Yes.  But I’ve seen nine-year-old girls given to men twenty years older than your suitor, Mariam.  We all have.  What are you, fifteen?  That’s a good, solid marrying age for a girl.”  There was enthusiastic nodding at this.  It did not escape Mariam that no mention was made of her half sisters Saideh or Naheed, both her own age, both students in the Mehri School in Heart, both with plans to enrol in Kabul University.  Fifteen, evidently, was not a good, solid marrying age for them.” (pg. 44)

3.  Mariam  seems to have an insight into how the world works which is well beyond her years. Do you think the author later uses this to further highlight her eventual decline into submission and despair?  “They had been disgraced by her birth, and this was their chance to erase, once and for all, the last trace of their husband’s scandalous mistake.  She was being sent away because she was the walking, breathing embodiment of their shame.

4.  Do you know much history of the region?  It seems that the political situation is more that a backdrop to the domestic situation.  “Women have always had it hard in this country, Laila, but they’re probably more free now, under the communists, and have more rights than they’ve ever had before..it’s a good time to be a woman in Afghanistan.  And you can take advantage of that, Laila.  Of course, women’s freedom – ..is also one of the reasons people out there took up arms in the first place.  ” (p121)

5.  If one were to examine a pattern it the book, I might say that it is a constant deflation of expectations.  Once an ideal is set, it is later seen to be false, hopes are dashed, egos destroyed, futures squandered.  Does this apply to the conclusion too? “It slays Laila.  It slays her that the warlords have been allowed back to Kabul.  That her parents’ murderers live in posh homes with walled gardens, that they have been appointed minister of this and deputy minister of that, that they ride with impunity in shiny, bulletproof SUVs through neighborhoods that they demolished.  It slays her.” (p363)

6.  Gender bias is strongly suggested throughout the novel.  “Nana had said to her, “Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman.  Always.  You remember that, Mariam.” (p.323)  Is that image at all counter – balanced with positive male figures?

7.  Hosseini uses irony, dramatic irony and a Platonic truth in his imagery.  Consider some of the buried item revealing hidden gems.

Educating Peter, by Tom Cox

1.  What does the narrator have in common with this young protege? “I began to venture tentatively into the unknown and research the very age group I was most afraid of:  Generation Why, the even more confused and disenfranchised descendants of Generation X.” pg. 30

2.  This book is a comedy, very much playing on incongruity of music tastes, ability to articulate coherent values and thoughts and pass judgements based on world knowledge gained from experience.  Which sections are particularly striking to you and with whom are your allegiances? 

3.  Is this a gender book, appealing only to guys?  How accurate is this statement to you? “Of course, most music-obsessed men tend to have a mental age of fourteen, so perhaps I shouldn’t have found this camaraderie so surprising but I couldn’t help feeling hurt.”  The ecstasy that music seems to bring to affectionados may be similar to sports or love.  Is it transfered in later life?  Or do we keep it forever?  Does it wane?

4.  Good writing is always based in close observation.  I like this passage. “If Peter and I were going to get on, I would have to fight my urge to fill every moment of silence with inane jabber and interrogative angling.  Worryingly quickly, I found myself back in a bastardised version of my 1989 mindset – desperate to impress the cool kids, but trying to hold back my natural tendency towards politeness and inquisitiveness, in the knowledge that I’d be like a lot less for what I did say than what I didn’t.  The bacon double cheesburger didn’t help.  I was fourteen again, and all that was missing were the Mr. Whippy hairstyle, the Campri ski jacket and the Cathy Dennis poster.”(p.47)

5.  Tom is a good study of character and portrays even minor characters with believable traits.  See the busker and his comments about “tapeworms” on page 70.

6.  How these buddy stories usually work is that the characters are opposite but reverse at the end of the comedy. 

7.  Is musical taste really based on knowledge and experience?  This is a question unspoken but latent in the music critic’s sneering at youth bands throughout the memoir.  Do you have music tastes which you now abhor years later?  Why is that?

Astonishing Splashes of Colour

1.  How would you characterize Kitty?  I don’t like her much and personally wouldn’t find her very interesting, her helpless ineffectualness is irritating.  Is here anything redeeming at all about her?

2.  The plot so far seems to be..she’s retracing her past, immediate past, a breakup with husband yet unreconciled, her childlessnes to some degree developing an understanding of whether or not she even could psychologically parent children at all, hapless and self absorbed as she is and finally finding her mother from the sketchy details she can muster from her family.  So, is death and her inability to admit it is part of life that Peter Panishness about her?

3.  How would you differentiate the personalities of the men in her life? pg. 69. “I find my brothers’ lack of interest astonishing.  They’ve closed their minds down, shut the door, moved on. But then they never talk to each other, so I suppose it would be difficult to get the memories stirred up and moving.  It’s a good thing I talk to them.  They might forget the others exist.”  The lack of communication, attention to detail, lack of intuitiveness.  Or her father, “My father gives me stories aobut my mother, but only of the time before they married.  He never talks about her as a mother, or even a wife, as if he is still angry with her for dying and can only see her in the context of a fairy-story beginning.  Even now, when I’m thirty-two, he tells me the same stories, but he muddles and embroiders them.”

4.  One of the ironies of mad people in books seems to be that they see more clearly than the sane characters about them.  Do you find her insights about others and about memory etc.  clear and true?

5.  Not until page 77 do we find out about her strange aloofness, though you’ve probably guessed by now.  She’s depressed though what circumstances led up to her ilness are yet to be revealed.  “It’s three years now since Henry died?” pg. 84.  How does the author show the circumstances of this revelation through switching point of view?  Consider why she may have chosen third person over first person narration?

6.  This novel is a good companion piece to Vernon God Little though I much prefer the latter book in all kinds of ways.  Would you agree?

7.  Memory is one of the themes of the novel.  Sometimes, she notes, memory is best not preserved too well.  “If Jack had lived, his patriotism might have turned to prejudice.  He might spend his time at the golf club, driking double whiskies, fighting a rearguard action against immigration, having affairs with a succession of secretaries, and she would be trying to stay cheerful, knowing all about his indiscretions.  She’s better off with a memory.”pg. 116.  In what way might this observation reflect on Kitty’s own memory quest?

8.  Morrall uses dramatic irony to great effect when Kitty reflects on here reflects on communication with James. “Because you spent all those years before you met me not talking, not learning how to express yourself, hiding behind your aggression and your computer.  Because you’re a coward.  You’re stuck in the old stiff upper-lip way, however hard you try to persuade me otherwise.  ‘How am I supposed to have an argument when you won’t speak?’ I say.” (p.124)  Can you see any more examples of dramatic irony? 

9.  Gardening is a metaphor for…?  Remember Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman?  How effective is this metaphor throughout the story?  Is it a counterpoint to the color imagery or a complement? Is it chaining imagery as Shakespeare uses?

10.  Timing and pace speeds up in the last few chapters.  Is the handling of events believable?  I found it exciting, but not credible the way everything seemed to resolve itself, not necessarily in a happy ending way, but tidily.  Is this novel then a post-modern genre?

11.  What about the mental illness theme?  Is the treatment realistic?  Or is it merely a plot device?

The Road

The Road1. There are no chapters, only missed possessive apostrophe’s,  and simply paragraphs with minimal exposition leaving a very spare writing style. Does this enhance or detract from your appreciation of events in the story? Why has the writer chosen to be so austere?

2. “This was the perfect day of his childhood. This the day to shape the days upon.” (p13) suggests that there was a time when life was good, at least to some degree alive, filled with nature unspoiled and people untrammelled by hostility towards each other. And that place was the lake at his uncle’s farm. Do you sense that this novel is allegorical or literal? How do you know as so few specifics are given, little exposition gives guidance.

3. Why has the writer chosen to keep the conversation about what has happened from the reader? Why does the boy only ask about what is happening now?

4. Imagery is used sparingly yet there are flashes of ingenuity in diction and descriptive flourishes. “He rose and stood tottering in that cold autistic dark with his arms outheld for balance while the vestibular calculations in his skull cranked out their reckonings. An old chronicle. To seek out the upright. No fall but preceded by a declination.” (p 15). How does this affect your impression of the action of the story? How does it define the authorial voice?

5. “He thought the bloodcults must have all consumed one another. No one traveled this road. No road-agents, no marauders.” (p 17) What do you think may have been the historical truth?

6. Verbal expression is lacking as is the description of much of the interior life of the characters. One consequence of severe trauma is muteness. “They’ll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you wont face it. You’d rather wait for it to happen….We used to talk about death, she said. We don’t any more. Why is that?” (p57) What other gaps in the story do you find intriguing? Why leave so much potential plot depth from the storyline?

7. “Behind them came wagons drawn by slaves in harness and piled with goods of war and after that the women, perhaps a dozen in number, some of them pregnant, and lastly a supplementary consort of catamites illclothed against the cold and fitted in dogcollars and yoked each to each.” What suggestion is being made of the nature of these people and that they are a version of what “bad people” might be. What is the worst degradation of which they may be capable?

8. Should the man have shown more compassion and fought harder to save others along the road? This is an ethical question only an individual might answer. Why does the author not address it in his story?

9. Is this story in your view religious, quasi-religious, or void of any real evidence of existence of providence. Is the ending merely pious due to human mythologizing a purpose to the madness of existence?

China Inc. by Ted C. Fishman

What follows below is a chapter summary of the outline of the book.  I’d like to get your comments and feedback and maybe some discussion on thoughts which come from the ideas in the book.  Here are some guide questions.1.  Does the author attack China’s economic tactics too hard?

2.  Is he biased and how?

3.  Is his language even tempered or loaded?  Is it pro-American?

4.  Are there any times he makes you angry?

5.  Have you noticed any contradictions in the argument?

6.  Is there any misrepresentation from omission or distortion?

7.  Does he understate the genetic engineering “Frankenfoods” controversy?

8.  Does he downplay China’s “ecological footprint”?

9.  As China becomes more educated and enlightened, will it improve on its social policies, rights of workers and fairness in competition?

China Inc: Thesis: How China ascended from poverty to one of the wealthiest economic powers today and the impact on the global economy, politically, socially, environmentally, culturally, technologically and eventually on world security. “How the Chinese and the rest of the world use that resource will shape our economy and every other economy in the world as powerfully as American industrialisation and expansion have over the last hundred years.”

The World Shrinks as China Grows:description of size: 1/5 of humanity; seen as largest market ever.

•  
  • Context: US economy is 6 times China’s, China is 4^th in the world but in terms of purchasing parity closer to 4/5ths that of US.
  • Size of workforce
  • Impact on American jobs
  • Large technological items

•  
  • Expansion into foreign markets
  • Stability of government

Quote: “You need to know what is happening today in China-worker by worker, factory by factory-and why it will affect everyone.”

Taking a slow boat in a fast chinaHistorical overview from 1895: explanation of economic and political transformation. 1949 Communist regime.

•  
  • Language spread, tendency to save, gigantic projects, self promotion

Quote: “For now, big projects are the public prelude to dominance, parts of a national temple in the making.”

The revolution against the communist revolutionExplanation and illustration of transformation of agrarian economy to market economy

•  
  • Transiency of population
  • Communist reformation put money into hands of peasant farmers
  • Collectivisation led to economic independence (Zhou) How the Farmers Changed China
  • “Once farmers began to make some money on their own, they looked for ways to make money with their money.”
  • Docile workforce can be used to competitive advantage

Quote: “Economic liberalisation, however, made daring to move pay, and man by man the Chinese have picked up in such large numbers that the country is now in the midst of the greatest migration in human history.” To Make 16 Billion Socks First Break the LawExplanation of why rural farmers are flocking to the city.

•  
  • Even the most meagre city jobs pay better than wages in the poor agricultural areas

•  
  • Government corruption kept peasants poor.
  • Poverty rate is 4.6 % but more than 47% live on less than $2.00 a day.
  • Norms of bribes and non-compliance imbues methods of business
  • Farmer-entrepreneurs help reform business through frugality, hard work and competitiveness
  • Volume buyers like Wal-Mart are attracted to cheap labour costs
  • Copycat entrepreneurs

Quote: “All these reinforcing factors-rural poverty, huge internal migration, liberalisation of financing, a self-cannibalising frenzy of competition, intensifying urbanisation-speed the high metabolism of Chinese capitalism.”

Meet George Jetson in BeijingExamination of political conditions which led to Chinese style Capitalism under Mao and Deng Ziaoping

•  
  • Government backs reform in urban centres
  • Backing of growth infrastructure
  • Hong Kong capitalist manufacturers build in China
  • Social ills become evident: conditions for working women, aged, sex workers, one-child families; environmental costs: “China only has 80 % of the energy it needs to run smoothly.”

Chairman Mao Sells SoupExamination of foolhardy political schemes engender mistrust in political machinations. Ideological reforms and campaigns Eg. Wipe out the 4 pests: rats, flies, mosquitos and sparrows lead to disasters like to 1960 famine; Mao’s cultural revolution to wipe out the 4 olds “old culture’ “old customs”, “old ideas”, and “old habits” results in mistrust of the older generation.

•  
  • Collection of scrap steel
  • Lack of local crops
  • Youth see the Mao generation as quaint
  • Mao becomes a collectible commodity for the young

Quote: “If China can make it through another twenty or thirty years without the mid-twentieth century coming back to derail it, the country will have skirted one of the most potentially explosive national legacies in recent human memory.”

Through the Looking GlassExamination of China’s clout in consumer driven economy, its domestic production, place in WTO, theft of markets and foreign relations.

• Counterfeit soy products
• Impact on Mexican labour markets
• Poaching of products, copycat, copyright infringements
• Germany and the car market
• Japan’s ramen noodles
• Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba
• Relations with Japan

Quote: “Search the news for profits from Japanese operations in China, however, and one can find general numbers, such s that eight in ten of Japanese companies in China make money there, but little company-specific information comes up.”

The China PriceExamination of the scale of repercussions, statistics on job losses; means the lowest price possible but at what cost to manufacturing, violations of copyright

• Odds of losing a job in manufacturing in US 50% higher
• Jobs migrating to China
• Consumer electronics, DVD, VCR

Quote: “China has an unfair advantage. They don’t pay anything..not for their equipment or buildings. We can’t compete with that. They illegally ship 6 billion dollars in goods every year- that’s three hundred textile plants closed down as a result of illegal imports.”

How the race to the bottom is a race to the topMagnitude of China’s market share

• Destined to be largest auto market in world, presently 1/3
• Cellphone communications giant
• MRI computer chips
• Pharmaceuticals
• Aerospace

“The country’s growing population and shrinking stock of arable land lend urgency to this agricultural biotech research, and China already has one of the highest concentrations in the world of genetically modified crops growing in its fields.”

Pirate nationExamination of Counterfeit industry, and posits that this will increase. 9% of world trade is counterfeit. Impact on world economy.

• Microsoft refashions its software policy in order to tap the Chinese market

Quote: ..when China matches the world’s largest markets and is among the world’s most advanced and prolific manufacturers, it may well have the brand names, entertainment industry, and technology that set the world’s standards.”

The Chinese American Economy the Chinese CenturyChallenges reader to assess the costs to other countries by keeping the price of goods the lowest possible. Explanation of currency tied to American dollar.

• Dumping of goods on market and Wal-Mart experience

• Spendthrift habits of the US
• Manipulation of the yuan

Quote: This means that billions of dollars’ worth of investments belonging to the Chinese are plowed, indirectly, into the American real estate market, and that an ever increasing share of American’s mortgage payments pour into the coffers of the government of China.”

The Chinese CenturyMaking predictions, issuing a warning, suggesting impact.

• Lessons to be learned for developed countries
• “The freedom of Americans to overspend on unproductive consumption at the expense of education leaves schools underfunded.”
• Preparation for global economy
• Even a farmer is a knowledge worker
• “For America to stay productively employed, its skills, sophistication, and imaginative power must remain world-class, every day better than ever before.”
• Implications on foreign policy-triangular offense
• Chinese nationalism; will it assert its political clout?

One Last StoryRe-evaluation of the individual contribution in the China economy; super-imposition of the American dream “We might remember that America grew strong on the enterprise of its own immigrants who arrived with little and whose American dreams often began by selling goods from wagons and suitcases. Most of China’s dreams also begin with modest means.”

American Shaolin by Matthew Polly

1.  One of Matt’s goals for self improvement includes becoming more compatible with women. “The problem was we were genre incompatible.  I was starring in a quest movie:  young man travels to exotic land, overcomes obstacles, acquires cool skills, learns important life lessons, comes of age.  She was looking for love;  I was looking for Yoda.  She needed rescue; I needed my rest.”  pg39  The other test he sets for himself is to become a man not a boy.  To what extent to you see him aware of his own limitations throughout the book?

2.  Americans abroad have a reputation of being called “ugly Americans” because they are brash, loud, boastful and inconsiderate.  Is Matt all of the above?  A laowai is the Chinese word for American foreigner.  How does he seem to them?  What are the perceptions Matt conveys of the Chinese which you find particularly striking?

3.  To what degree has modernity impacted upon the Kungfu school?  The Chinese small town setting must appear quite provincial to him, even though he is from small town Minnesota himself. “The one exception to all the tourist trappiness was the six or seven private kungfu schools with similar names-Shaonlin Kungfu University, Shaolin Wushu Academy, Shaolin Wushu and Kungfu School.  ..School uniforms were jogging suits made in the school’s colors- just like Enter the Dragon- so, scattered among the thousands of tourists clogging the road were gaggles of students in red or yellow or blue suits, skinny and dusty and clutching various kungfu weapons:  wooden staffs, tin swords, dull-pointed spears.”  p45.  Do you notice that the fame of movies has diminished or enhanced the Shaolin tradition?

4.  In memoirs, pictures relay what words inadequately describe and I find myself looking at them after a passage in the book, namely to see what Cheng looked like for example.  Were there any other pictures you would have wanted to see?

5.  Matt has found that men as a species are hard wirded to be as they are, competitive and sometimes destructive.  Yet he is sensitive to what the Budhist monk philosophy preaches about face, humility, honour.  What does he discover are his own limitations and does that pose a threat to his instruction? “The difference between a man and a monster is demarcated by moral lines, and I’d drawn mine around the leitai.  In that instant, I’d crossed over, becoming the thing I had hated most, a bully, looking for weakness and feeding on it.  i was the villain.  Most physical wounds heal, but those to the pride rarely do.”

6.  Explain the mushroom phenomenon, or the evolution of the Chinese westernized man personified by John Lee.  “The truth was that John’s father was like many successful Asian immigrants.  He was educated, an engineer, so his move to America was a matter of choice, not desperation, and therefore represented the gamble of a lifetime, a bet that his and his family’s life would be better in America than back in Taiwan.” pg267.

7.  John Lee’s life experience is a good foil to that of Matt in all respects but one.  He is not a serious kungfu student.  He does not apply his whole heart and soul.  pg. 266. “His weight-lifted, corn-fed, beef-eating muscles were thick and marbled, a filet mignon compared to the monks’ rump steak.  This was a flesh-and-blood demonstration of the prosperity effect.  No wonder ambitious Chinese wanted to go to America.  Who wouldn’t want their children to be taller and stronger than they had been?”

8.  Matt doesn’t say much about his relationships with women by the end of the book, meaning instead to concentrate on the benefits he achieved by actively seeking out a challenge for himself and mastering it.  Has he gained your respect as a writer and as a person by the end of the book?  Was the conclusion satisfying?

The Collaborator

1. The inciting incident takes place in the first chapter. Of what symbolic significance is the British Webley VI antique revolver mounted on the wall in the Saba household?

2. “His father cowered in the bedroom because he was accustomed to the corruption and violence of their town. He lived as quietly and invisibly as he could, because Christians were a minority in Bethlehem, and so Habib Saba was careful not to upset the Muslims by standing up to them. George learned a different way of life during his years away from Palestine. He put his hand on his father’s shoulder and then touched the old man’s rough cheek.” [p10] Do you sense that the story takes sides with the Arabs and Israelis or is it impartial? The area is obviously contentious. Do you get the author’s view early in the story?

3. “Behind the Abdel Rahman house at the head of the valley were the ancient wells known as Solomon’s Pools, which fed the main aqueduct of Herod’s Jerusalem. With springs across the vale, the people of Irtas allowed themselves a luxury barred to other rural Palestinians, who strained to eke out the fetid contents of their cisterns through the eight dry months of summer: in Irtas there were tall, shady pine trees, as well as the squat, functional olives to which most villages were limited.” [14] How does the sense of place inform on the people? Is setting character? Does history dictate a social perspective?

4. Omar Yussef is first introduced in Chapter 3.”He spent a great deal of his time, too much of it, angry with these children. He tried not to be, but he couldn’t stand to listen to them when they rolled through the political cliches of the poor, victimized Arab nation, subjugated by everyone from the Crusaders and the Mongols to the Turks and the British, all the way to the intifada. It wasn’t wrong to see the Arabs as victims of a harsh history, but it was a mistake to assume that they bore no repsonsibility for their own sufferings.” [p19]To what extent has he, as a teacher, been able to impact his ideas upon his young students? If not successful, then why not?

5. What is Omar’s relationship with Steadman, the head of the school? Do you think either has a point? Is it time for Omar to retire? Is Steadman out of touch?

6. ” Do you see that if I let these things happen without taking any action, I’ve been lying to thousands of little children for decades? Most of all, I’ve been lying to myself.” What prompts Omar to motivate himself to act beyond the classroom?

7. Khaled Shukri’s benevolence and goodness falls on poor ground and grows nothing. “The curfews and gunfights had destroyed his career, murdered his father and made his mother suicidal. This was the reward for goodness. Yet the gunmen thrived, they whose accomplishments and talents were of the basest nature, they who would have been obliterated had there been law and order and honour in the town.” [p126] Though it may appear to be ironic how good is not rewarded, would you say that there is no evidence of change, of decency or humanity evident or of any moral compass at play in this chaotic world?

8. The title of collaborator is aimed at George Saba and Omar takes on the job of detective to clear his name. Who is the real collaborator?

9. Omar looks upon the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as villainous characters who are misinformed. “There were factors common to most of the Dehaisha youths who died like this, as far as Omar Yussef deduced. Usually they had something to prove. Sometimes they were mentally unbalanced after they had witnessed the death of someone close to them in an Israeli attack. But most of the bombers wanted to show everyone that they were not the person people believed them to be, that they were selfless and honourable and brace. Their lives generally were worthless, or had become so, because of some social transgression or indiscretion, and they tried to redeem themselves and the reputation of their families through martyrdom.” Would you debate his observation at all?

10. The final confrontation takes place in a church. “This building is the history of Christianity in the Holy Land. You always taught me that history was the essence of life, that its study gave us the key to a better future….This place represents a past when the Muslims and Christians lived together peacefully and the chance that it could be so again, when all of this madness is over.” [p199]. Is there any concession to this point of view by the end of the novel, or does it remain relentlessly fatalistic to the end?

11. Of what symbolic significance is the inscription in the bible on page 235?

12. Of what significance is the title?