"Araby" by James Joyce (1914, from Dunliners)

2013-06-16T05:23:00.002+08:00

Every year on June 16 Bloomsday is observed all around the world in any place where the legacy of James Joyce is held in high esteem. June 16 1904 is the day on which Ulysses takes place. Starting in 2010 I have observed Bloomsday by posting on one of the short stories in Dubliners. The more I read in Irish literature, the bigger the shadow of Joyce's stories I see. The pervasive melancholy and sense of the confining quality of life brought on by history permeates Irish writers whether or not they have read Joyce or not. In doing Q and A sessions with 80 Irish writers very few mentioned Joyce as an influence. I think this is really a testament to his overwhelming power. Fish do not see the water in their world. Recently I had the very meaningful to me experience of seeing where "The Dead" was set and walked the streets of Dublin.

"Araby" centers on a young boy, maybe thirteen or so who lives with his aunt and uncle, his parents being dead.. (I see this as another small manifestation of the theme of the missing father, which some see as a very important theme in Irish literature.). It is a kind if coming of age story. The boy has his first infatuation with a neighbor girl.

The story is told in the first person, the neighborhood is bleak and adults struggle to grind out a living. The boy convinces himself he is in love with a friend's sister. He creates adolescent fantasies about courtly romance with her. When he at last tremblingly speaks with her, she tells him she is sad because she cannot go to the annual Araby fair. He promises to go and buy her a present. Because of his uncle coming home late from work when he gets to the festival it is almost closed. Compared to his mental image, it is a shabby event. Sadness as he sees the folly in his fantasy brings him to a realization of the limits of life and a vision of his own future.

I wish everyone a happy Bloomsday! Next year will be the the centenary of the publication of The Dubliners and I look forward to immense activity on Bloomsday next year.

Mel u

"Indian Dreams" by M. J. Akbar (1977)

2013-06-14T15:45:00.001+08:00

I have on my IPAD five anthologies of Indian short stories, all in all about 140 stories. I hope to read and post on some of these works in 2013. One reason for doing this is to give me a non-European assembly of short stories as a cultural reference to help me see differences in short stories of different cultures. The main reason is to read works by a lot of mostly new to me writers. I will begin my reading with Best Indian Short Stories, Vol. 1 and 2, edited and selected by Khushwant Singh. All of the stories in these collections were originally published in The Illustrated Weekly of India from 1969 to 1979 when Singh was editor.

M. J. Akbar (Calcutta, 1951) has had a long very distinguished career as a journalist and author. "Indian Dreams" centers on a young Muslim man we meet just as he graduates from college. He and his two best friends spent as much time in a local coffee shop discussing the preoccupations of the men, sex being one of the biggest, as they do in school. The man has gone to a second class school and does not speak the socially desirable version of British English. He knows he has to find a good job if he is to be considered as a husband of a young upper class woman he is infatuated with. The problem is that for every job there are 100s, even 1000s of applicants. His bitterness grows with every rejection. Meanwhile his friends tease him about being a virgin, urging him to go see a prostitute they frequent, Lilly. Finally he does go visit her, she is lovely and a decent acting woman who knows it is his first time. He feels somehow guilty over having sex with her. It is a violation of the teachings of his religion and he feels he has been unfaithful to the woman he loves even though he never meets her. The story ends with his suicide and his friends confusion over it.

"Indian Dreams" is a very well done story that lets us inside a troubled mind.

Mel u

The Reading Life

"Araby" by James Joyce (1914, from Dunliners)

"Indian Dreams" by M. J. Akbar (1977)