"A Christmas Memory"

When I read this story by Truman Capote as a teenager, it didn’t make much of an impression.  Reading it again recently, I dismissed it at first as a “nice, sentimental story,” but really nothing of significance.

I know better than that though.  There is always something of significance to be found in the texts that humans produce, even if they are unintended, sometimes especially if they are unintended.  In “A Christmas Memory” there is, of course, the irony of the seven-year-old boy and the 60+-year-old woman, who is “still a child,” being best friends, and there is the pathos of the two marginalized family members clinging to each other’s companionship.  But beyond irony and poignancy, where is the significance to be found?

In rereading and rethinking the story, I noticed that while the first-person narrator is called by the nickname “Buddy,” we don’t know his real name (though we assume it is the author), and the woman, his distant cousin, is never named.  Buddy refers to her throughout as “my friend.”  The other “relatives” in the house are also unnamed, but they are the ones who seem to occupy the center of the household, in which Buddy and his friend are outsiders.

The lack of names for the relatives can be explained from the perspective of the narrator and his friend:  “…though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole too much aware of them.”  But why the lack of specific identity for the two main characters?  Perhaps their namelessness underscores their status as near outcasts in the family (at least in their eyes).  Could part of the significance lie in the importance of belonging and community, even if it is a family community, to individual identity?  As Buddy and his friend turn to each other to reinforce their sense of self, we recognize the formative power of relationships.  Though their family situation is sad, the two characters experience great joy and delight together.

And it is this irony which brings us to the larger significance of the story.  While there are religious references in this “Christmas” story, there is no mention of Christ’s birth, though such a reference would fit well with the larger pattern in the narrative of life and light emerging from darkness.

Christ’s birth, however, is less important than the season of the natural year, the darkening days, the coming winter solstice, and the return of the sun’s light.  The most meaningful religious pattern in the story is more pagan than Christian.

This pantheistic theme is reinforced by the most explicit religious reference in the story when Buddy’s friend exclaims, while gesturing toward “clouds and kites and grass”:  “I’ll wager at the very end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself.  That things as they are…just what they’ve always seen, was seeing Him.  As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes.”

And, years later, when Buddy learns of his friend’s death, on a December morning, it is the kites they made for each other their last Christmas together that he imagines “rather like hearts…hurrying toward heaven.”

Like the rebirth of light in the midst of winter’s darkness, it is the memory of human joy and delight two unlikely friends created together that somehow brightens the reality of death and loss.

Thus does “A Christmas Memory” reenact the ancient mythic theme of spring emerging from winter, light from darkness, and life from death.  Such is the significance of the story, and in that spirit, I wish you all a most Happy Winter Solstice!

"The Invisible Man"

This short story is one of a series of Father Brown detective stories by G. K. Chesterton. See my "Dracula I" blog post (September 2010) for an overview of the genre invented by Edgar Allen Poe.

The typical detective story begins with a scene of relative normality followed by the crime and an investigation by an unconventional detective, who uses his/her, special powers of deduction and observation to solve the crime.

One part of the appeal of the genre is the contrast between rational order and the irrationality of the crime. Historically, the detective story participates in a cultural debate over human nature. Is it rational or irrational? If both, which is stronger? In the gothic tale, the protagonist may escape the irrational forces, but those forces remain unexplained and/or undefeated. In the detective story, on the other hand, the rational powers of the detective overcome the irrationality of the crime. Psychologically, the irrationality creates anxiety, which is relieved when the superior detective solves the mystery and restores the reader to rational order.

On another level, the conflict between the rational and irrational is akin to the conflict between good and evil, with the power of evil ascendant in the gothic tale and overcome by the power of good in the detective story. Unlike the religious representation of good and evil as angelic or demonic in traditional morality narratives, in the gothic tale and detective story, evil is represented either by human psychology and behavior or by the secular supernatural, such as monsters, ghosts, etc.

Unlike the typical detective story, “The Invisible Man” begins with a kind of bizarre courtship narrative in which a young man, Angus, enters a confectioner’s shop and proceeds to propose to the young woman who works there. She then tells her “suitor” of two other rivals for her affection (described as “freaks”) who had previously proposed to her. She had refused both of them with the excuse that she would never marry anyone who had not made his own way in the world. One of those rivals, Welkin, she claims is haunting her. She has heard his voice and his laugh but can’t see him. Just after receiving a letter from the other rival, Smythe, announcing his success as an inventor of household machines for doing domestic chores, she clearly hears the invisible Welkin say, “He shan’t have you though.”

As Miss Hope is telling this story, Smythe arrives, presumably to renew his suit, and announces that a message written on “stamp paper” has been pasted on the glass outside the store. The message reads, “If you marry Smythe, he will die.” It is the same writing as in a series of threatening letters Smythe has been receiving. All thought of courtship disappears at this point, as Angus offers to solicit the help of a brilliant detective friend to solve the mystery.

The two men stop at Smythe’s residence and discover another threatening note: “If you have been to see her today, I shall kill you.” Angus goes to fetch his detective friend, leaving four others—the janitor, the doorman, a chestnut seller, and a policeman—to keep an eye out and make sure no one enters Smythe’s door. When he returns, however, not only with the detective but also with the detective’s friend, Father Brown, they discover that Smythe has been murdered. All four of the watchmen swear they saw no one enter.

In the end, Father Brown, solves the mystery. Welkin, it seems, had disguised himself as a postman, delivered all the letters himself, put up the message on the store window, walked past the four watchmen, stabbed Smythe to death, stuffed his corpse in a mail sack, and disposed of the body in a nearby canal. The “invisible man,” as Brown says, was only “mentally invisible,” as no one notices a postman coming or going or carrying a large bag.

Mystery solved, the “detective” goes back to his rooms, Father Brown takes a walk with the murderer, presumably to reform him, and Angus goes back to courting Miss Hope.

Most everything in this story is bizarre, from the opening courtship, to the story of the two rivals, to the “invisible man,” to Smythe’s domestic inventions, to the crime itself, to the brilliant “detective” who doesn’t solve the crime, to the priest who does.

What does this detective story contribute to the historical debate over human nature? To the reader’s psychology? To the theme of good and evil? Considering that the most rational character is Father Brown, a priest, who presumably relies as much on faith in the supernatural as on rationality, the story seems to suggest that everyday “reality” and “rational order” are not that much more rational than the criminal and the crime. Considering how outlandish the story is as a whole, it is more likely to create hilarity than anxiety in most readers. Similarly, it is rather difficult to take it seriously as a moral conflict between good and evil. It might make more sense to see the story as nothing more than a spoof on the detective story genre.

Some readers might seek a religious message in that the brilliant detective turns out to be a priest, who has enough faith in humanity to seek the criminal’s reformation. However, the priest’s powers of detection are purely secular in nature and his faith in the criminal’s humanity might be as bizarre as anything else in the story.

One common feature of the detective story genre is the “double,” that is the detective and the criminal somehow mirror each other, or the notion that “it takes a thief,” by which the detective internalizes the criminal’s psychology. Although “The Invisible Man” does not suggest that Father Brown and Welkin are doubles, it’s curious to consider the possibility of a priest having a criminal psychology.  A twist on the "double" in this story is that Angus's "detective" friend is a reformed criminal.  He just doesn't solve the crime in this case.

Another common feature of the detective story genre is the sidekick.  In this case, however, the sidekick, Father Brown, not the detective, solves the crime.

Perhaps the story is designed to defy the reader's exptectations: it starts out as a courtship narrative and turns into a detective story, the victim of the crime is entirely unsympathetic, the criminal and his methods are rather ludicrous, the "detective" could be a "double" but doesn't solve the crime while the sidekick does, the priest is the most rational and realistic character of all, and the criminal might be amenable to reform (perhaps then able to become a detective in his own right and make an honest way in the world!)

In any case, whether taken seriously or as a “take off” on the genre, “The Invisible Man” is an entertaining variation on the popular detective story.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn III

Race? Gender? Sexuality? I’ve even read studies of Huck Finn on social class, arguing that the novel critiques the high and the low, but not the middle. These historicist and cultural studies focus on what divides us. There’s nothing wrong with them, but do they tell the whole story? Is there a dimension of Huck Finn that brings us together? Does the novel have a universal significance that transcends social categories?

Can a female and/or white reader identify with Jim in his quest for freedom? Can a female and/ or black reader identify with the moral dilemma of Huck as he struggles with the conflict between law and friendship, between society’s view of right and wrong and the individual’s?

Can we all identify with the escape, the river journey, the risks taken and obstacles overcome, the conflict with enemies, the camaraderie with friends, the encounter with death, and the rebirth into new possibilities in life?

Regardless of race, gender, sexuality, and class, there is embedded in the narrative a universal hero quest myth that never fails to capture, not only the imagination, but, perhaps, our sense of the shape of our own lives as we escape our own constraints, navigate our own journeys, pursue our own quests, take our own risks, overcome our own obstacles, contend with enemies, bond with friends, struggle with our own mortality, and seek our own redemption, whether it be in the form of freedom, love and belonging, maturation, atonement, recovery, recognition, prosperity, achievement, or enlightenment.

Similarly, we all progress from youthful inexperience and naiveté, to encounters with negative experience and struggles with decision-making, to either cynicism or healthy maturity. We can debate how much progress Huck makes in the course of the novel and where he might be headed, but we can all relate to his moral and psychological journey.

There are those who contest the very notion of “grand narratives” in the form of universal patterns and themes. From this perspective, we are all so trapped in our own historical time, place, situation, and identity, that we are incapable of transcendence. It is the differences among us that are significant, not the similarities. Taken to an extreme such a viewpoint leaves us in social isolation, incapable of human transactions across difference, maybe even incapable of love and belonging.

When it comes to Huck Finn it seems that controversy is inescapable. Rather than taking hard and fast positions—the novel is racist or it’s not, sexist or not, homoerotic or not, classist or not, universal or not—I prefer to see the value in contrasting views. The novel is racist and it’s not, it is sexist and it’s not, it is homoerotic and it’s not, classist and it’s not, universal and it’s not.

Nature and society, pleasure and pain, good and evil, freedom and power, love and belonging, absence and presence—these constants of human experience, historicized in concrete action, imagery, character, and language, are what give Huck Finn, and all great literature its lasting value.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn II

Race is not the only controversy that has swirled around Huck Finn. When it was first published in 1884, it was primarily known as a “boy’s book” and was attacked and sometimes banned because of its perceived glorification of a “bad boy,” who smoked, and stole, and used bad grammar.

Contemporary feminist readers have seen in its “quest for freedom” and “coming of age” themes a reinforcement of the “masculine myth” (see Judith Fetterley , The Resisting Reader…, 1978, and others) in which the male hero seeks to free himself from the females in his life (mother, wife, potential wife, etc.) who would domesticate and “civilize” him. (This myth is still alive and well in our own day.) From this perspective, the hero’s “coming of age” is understood in terms of achieving independence from those social forces (often represented by women) that threaten to emasculate him.

With a couple of exceptions, Nancy Walker (“Reformers and Young Maidens…” 1985) finds the women characters in Huck Finn to be based on popular stereotypes of women as either moral reformers of men or as pure, innocent, “sweet” young damsels in need of either protection or rescue. One exception is Judith Loftus who is smart enough to see through Huck’s attempted disguise as a girl and who offers to help Huck rather than turn him in.

The scene with Judith Loftus is seen by another feminist critic, Myra Jehlen (“Reading Gender…” 1990), as evidence of the novel’s consciousness of gender as a socially constructed performance.

Queer theorists have noted that the masculine myth of freedom and independence involves, not only an escape from women’s attempts to form and reform men, but also as homosocial, if not homoerotic, experience of male bonding in a world free of women. (Fiedler, Love and Death... 1948) Christopher Looby (“’Innocent Homosexuality’…” 1995) sees the Judith Loftus disguise scene as just one in a whole series of transvestite scenes in which male characters dress as women, which constitute a motif of “gender masquerade” that provides “an alibi for potentially transgressive male-male encounters.”

So, (1) is Huck Finn a quintessential “boy’s book” representing the psyche and experience of “natural” boyhood when freed from social constraints? Research into the human genome does support the notion of natural gender differences, but research also reveals multiple exceptions and supports the role that social construction plays in gender expression and behavior. Whether you see Huck as an archetypal “boy” or a stereotypical “boy” may depend on whether you lean more toward nature or nurture in explaining gender. My question would be, how do you explain the appeal of the river raft adventure to generations of female readers, who seem just as drawn to the quest for freedom, independence, and autonomy as males?

(2) Is there an implicit misogyny in the masculine frontier myth of freedom and independence from women? The powerful role of nurture has historically steered women into more domestic social roles and has held them to a higher standard of “virtue,” whereas men have been more encouraged and expected to pursue independence outside the domestic sphere and outside strict moral codes. While there may be some genetic basis to this difference, there is no question in my mind that society has taken a general tendency and enforced it as a prescription for gender-based socially acceptable behavior.

There is also no question in my mind that, as a result, healthy gender relations are disrupted, and to the extent that men feel pressured or seduced by women into artificial roles, misogyny can certainly result. Obviously there are many other reasons for misogyny as well since patriarchy and male supremacy send very strong messages of female inferiority. So, yes, to the extent that women in Huck Finn represent all that restricts Huck’s freedom and autonomy, there is an undercurrent of misogyny.

(3) Does the novel reinforce and perpetuate popular 19th century stereotypes of women? Yes, Nancy Walker documents this aspect of the novel very well.

(4) Does the novel offer any alternative female images? Yes, Judith Loftus and Mary Jane Wilks do not fit the common female stock characters. They are active and assertive without being controlling of Huck, and they show more ability to take care of themselves without relying on a male rescuer.

(5) Do the multiple gender disguises, particularly the Judith Loftus scene, in which she instructs Huck in how to “act” like a girl, undermine essentialist readings and expose the social construction of gender. Possibly, but I doubt it is self-conscious and that anyone but a post-modernist reader would notice. The Loftus scene could be also be read as reinforcing an essentialist reading, since Huck has a tough time acting like anything but a “boy.”

(6) Or, do those multiple scenes of gender disguise mask a homoerotic subtext? Given the frequency of these scenes, most of which occur in an all-male environment, and given what we know happens sexually in all male environments, I find this claim persuasive.

(7) Does the male bonding in the novel promote a homosocial, if not homoerotic, message? To the extent that male-male friendship is preferred over male-female relationships, yes; this does not seem to be an extravagant claim.

(8) Do all these questions over-analyze a text that is “just a story” told for entertainment purposes? If we answer “yes,” then are we trivializing the novel? Yes, Twain wrote that anyone “attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.” But, is this (obviously exaggerated) statement to be taken a face value or is it tongue-in-cheek? It could just as well be read as an ironic statement and/or an attempt by Twain to deflect criticism, especially from readers who might be offended at the way white Southerners are depicted. If the novel is to be taken seriously, if it is worthy of being taught in schools and held up as an American classic, then it is worthy of being analyzed as a novel of serious significance, not dismissed as mere entertainment.

(9) Is Huck Finn a sexist novel? Heterosexist? So, yes, it is a sexist novel, though not without redeeming merit, even in the eyes of feminist readers. And, yes and no; it is both a heterosexist novel and one that can be read as homosocial and even homoerotic.

Controversy does not have to lead to polarization if one takes a "both...and" approach rather than an "either...or" approach and preserves what is of value in each contrasting position.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn I

Recent controversy over The Help by Kathryn Stockett has reminded me of the continuing controversy over The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

It seems reasonable to me that a novel by a white author representing African American characters and experience would be subjected to critical scrutiny. It also seems reasonable to expect that a white writer will depict that experience through a white lens, just as black writers will portray white characters and experience through a black lens. Does that mean that whites should not write about blacks and vice versa? I hope not. Even if that means white novels will bear vestiges, at the very least, of racism and black novels will exhibit prejudice toward whites.

One problem of American publishing history, however, in a white dominated culture, is that black writers have had to get past white editors and publishers while white writers have rarely been screened by black publishing filters. As a result, historically, more racism in white novels has been published than has the critique of white supremacy in black novels. It should be no surprise that black readers will react more strongly to and scrutinize more closely the way their experience is depicted by white writers.

Instead of being hypersensitive and resentful, white readers and writers might want to pay attention. They could learn something.

For the most part, though, criticism of Huck Finn as a racist novel has been met with furious defensiveness. Mark Twain, after all, is an American literary hero and Huck Finn has been considered his “masterpiece” (interesting word choice). To label Twain and his novel as “racist” seems unpatriotic at best and downright sacrilegious at worst.

How could Huck Finn be racist? The escaped slave, Jim, is a sympathetic character and the white Southerners are mostly unsympathetic objects of ridicule and satire. But, is an anti-slavery message the same as an anti-racist message? Can an abolitionist still be a white supremacist? Slavery had been abolished some twenty years before the 1884 publication of Huck Finn, but racism continued to run rampant. Does the anti-slavery message absolve the novel of racism?

Defenders argue that Jim is not only sympathetic but humanized as a man equally deserving of freedom as the white runaway, Huck. Huck, himself, must struggle with and overcome his own conditioned racism in order, not only to help Jim escape, but also to bond with him as a companion and fellow seeker of freedom. Some even see Jim as a father figure to Huck, putting Jim in a psychologically superior position.

Detractors counter that (1) Jim is hardly represented as “equal” to Huck, (2) even if he were, then he, a grown man with a wife and children, is being equated with a child, thus reinforcing a common stereotype of blacks as “childlike,” and (3) while Jim may be allowed moments of genuine humanity, he is largely portrayed as a caricature based on popular minstrel show “Jim Crow” stereotypes. Critics also question Huck’s moral progress and human bond with Jim, given the way Huck joins with Tom Sawyer in tormenting Jim when he is held captive at the Phelps farm at the end of the novel.

Defenders counter that, after all, how much moral progress can you expect a fourteen-year-old boy to make in such a short time span? Just the fact that Huck does have those pangs of conscience over Jim’s treatment is anti-racist enough. And, while Twain may not have completely transcended his own white supremacist and racist environment, he went further in challenging that ideology than any other white writer of the 19th century. (I would submit that Herman Melville, writing before abolition, went further than Twain did, though his subtlety in Benito Cereno, for example, would have escaped many readers.)

I wonder if the defenders and detractors are both right. I wonder if Twain himself was torn between challenging the morality of his white readers and placating them in order to promote his own popularity and book sales. The result is a novel that promises much in terms of an anti-racist message but falls far short of full delivery.

Van Wyck Brooks, in his critical study The Ordeal of Mark Twain (1933), claims that, just as this iconic author had two names, Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain, so he had a conflicted psyche, one that aspired to be, on one hand, a serious artist using satire to critique his contemporary society, and on the other hand, a popular humorist, using folksiness to endear and promote himself to the reading public. Brooks traces this split throughout Twain’s career and argues that his increasing cynicism and misanthropy was the result of his own self-hatred for having “sold out” his highest and best artistic and moral promise. If Brooks is right, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is but one episode in the sad psychological story of our revered American author Mark Twain.

This commentary is not meant to reflect on The Help. That will have to wait for a future blog post.

"The Overcoat" (and more on The Namesake)

The Namesake (see previous post) makes multiple references to Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Overcoat.” Professional scholars of literature have special terminology for such reference. “Allusion” is one term, but the other is “intertextuality,” the latter suggesting a closer relationship between the two texts besides one merely mentioning the other. Just as Beloved (see previous posts) can be understood in a larger context of mythological and Biblical traditions, so The Namesake can be read, not only in the context of the hero’s quest myth and coming of age stories, but also, given the significance that Nikolai Gogol plays in the narrative, in relationship to the Russian writer’s works.

Unlike Gogol in The Namesake, the main character of “The Overcoat” is the son of a native Russian family who lives and works in St. Petersburg. Gogol’s short story is not a multicultural one of immigration and assimilation, but it is a story of identity. Unlike Gogol in The Namesake, however, Akakiy Akakievitch does not have to struggle with multiple identities. Quite the opposite. He struggles to achieve any sense of identity at all.

Both narratives include a scene in which the main character receives his birth name, Gogol, after the Russian writer, and Akakiy, after his own father. In each case, the main character receives his name somewhat as an afterthought, without careful intention, though the name “Gogol” has special significance to Gogol’s father, whereas Akakiy receives his name more or less by default, other choices suggested by his godparents having been rejected by his mother. Gogol’s father is a major presence and influence in his life, but Akakiy’s father never appears in the story at all and is never referred to except in the naming scene.

We do know that Akakiy’s father was a government official, and Akakiy himself is a “perpetual titular councilor” in an unnamed government department who seems to live in complete isolation without family or friends. At work he is an object of derision when he is recognized at all. His job consists of copying documents, like a human Xerox machine. He is so devoted to his work that he takes it home with him, apparently having nothing else to live for. When asked to do anything slightly original, he begs to be given his copying tasks back. Other than an occasional pathetic outburst when the ridicule by his peers at work becomes too much, Akakiy is as nameless and faceless as the government bureaucracy in which he toils.

Only when Akakiy’s overcoat becomes so worn that it can no longer keep out the cold, does he begin to show an interest in anything outside of work. He bargains with the tailor to get a good price, scrimps, sacrifices, and goes without in order to save up enough money, and is eventually able to acquire a handsome new coat. His new attire brings unaccustomed attention, congratulations, and pleasantries from his coworkers. They insist the coat must be “christened” (as Akakiy was after his name was decided upon) and invite him to a party. This “christening” party offers symbolic hope that Akakiy might receive a new identity and a new life.

At the party, he is overwhelmed by the noise and sociability, drinks more than he is used to, and stays up well past his usual bedtime. On the way home through dark and deserted streets, he is accosted and robbed of his attractive new coat (his new identity?). He tries to assert himself, seeking help from the night watchman and the next night from the district of police and finally from a “certain prominent personage.” But they all rebuff him, insisting that he has not followed proper procedures or filled out the proper forms, and then, heading home in a snowstorm wearing his old coat, he catches a fever, grows delirious, and finally breathes his last.

At this point Gogol’s somewhat “realistic” story, though a bit bizarre, to say the least, turns into a gothic tale, for a dead man, resembling Akakiy, begins to be seen on the Kalinkin Bridge accosting passersby and stealing their coats. Eventually Akakiy takes his final revenge, as his ghost steals the coat of that “prominent personage” who had treated him so rudely, an event that somewhat humbles the behavior of that “prominent personage.” Meanwhile, the ghost disappears and is seen no more.

Symbolically, the ghost could be said to represent the regrets of all those who had abused Akakiy in life, including the “prominent personage,” who had felt some temporary remorse after mistreating the poor copyist in search of his overcoat. Or the ghost could function as a kind of revenge fantasy for all those nameless, faceless civil servants performing their mechanical tasks in their unknown bureaucratic departments, suffering daily slights and abuses from their superiors and coworkers alike. Or perhaps the ghost is poor Akakiy’s buried humanity, his only identity, finally asserting itself postmortem.

Unlike Gogol in The Namesake, on a quest for self-definition among competing identities, Akakiy seeks only to provide himself with the basic necessities of survival and to preserve some semblance of human dignity. By comparison, Gogol’s “identity crisis” seems like self-indulgence, a luxury afforded only to the fortunate.

Or, does the significance lie in the difference between the burdens bequeathed to them by their fathers: Gogol carrying the name of the Russian writer whose book, Gogol’s father believes, had once saved his life, and the legacy of his Bengali immigrant experience in the U.S.; Akakiy carrying the name of a silent, faceless, absent father with no legacy at all to pass on to his son? Better a complicated legacy from one’s past than none at all? Perhaps the intertextual relationship between the two works is one more of contrast than similarity.

Another major contrast is the style of the two works. The Namesake relates its story in an understated, matter-of-fact manner that makes the unusual multicultural experience of the Ganguli family seem ordinary. “The Overcoat,” on the other hand, for all Nikolai Gogol’s reputation as a realist, is exclamatory, melodramatic, and fantastic in style, making the unremarkable life of a minor Russian bureaucrat seem extraordinary.

Regardless of the contrasts, both stories dramatize the universal dilemma of identity, whether it be culturally complex or a matter of simple humanity.

The Namesake

This 2003 novel by Jhumpa Lahiri captures both late 20th century American immigrant experience and a timeless coming of age narrative, with all the complexities, conflicts, confusions, and compromises that both stories entail.

The immigration of an Indian family to the American Northeast is complicated by the father’s love of Russian literature and the somewhat accidental naming of his son after Nikolai Gogol, transforming an immigration and assimilation story into one of more broadly multicultural significance. The three cultures-- Indian, American, and Russian—could hardly be more different. Yet Gogol must navigate himself and his identity through these conflicting shoals of influence to find his way toward authentic selfhood.

His parents were joined in a traditional arranged marriage and remained faithful to each other throughout their life together. Gogol and his sister, born and raised in the U.S., marry for romantic love. Gogol, by the time he marries, has already engaged in pre-marital sexual relationships, including an affair with a married woman. His own marriage to another second-generation Bengali immigrant ends in divorce after he learns of her adulterous affair.

Marital fidelity is just one manifestation of a larger fidelity theme—fidelity to the past, family, and cultural heritage, not to mention one’s name. Gogol resents his name, and, it seems, his Indian heritage, which sets him apart from his American peers. He loves his parents, though, and constantly struggles between loyalty to them and rebellion against them.

At an early age, he rejects the formal name, Nikhil, that his parents seek to bestow on him, preferring Gogol, but later, as an adolescent he comes to hate the name Gogol and eventually changes his legal name to Nikhil. Such is the confusion and conflict that plagues his struggle to define his own identity, as a Bengali, as an American, and as the son of a father who reveres a Russian writer.

Grief-stricken by his father’s sudden death, Gogol finds consolation in his family and Indian heritage. Later he falls in love with, and marries, a Bengali woman, whom he has known from childhood, after his mother urges him to call her, a kind of compromise between a traditional arranged marriage and a Western style romantic marriage. They even observe the traditional Bengali wedding rituals.

Though Gogol is the main protagonist, the novel is structured by shifting points of view--from the perspective of his mother as a newly married woman in a strange country, where her husband is an engineering student at MIT, to his own perspective as a youth and young man finding his way in his multicultural world, to the perspective of his Bengali wife, Moushumi, a feminist studying for her doctorate in French literature (yet another cultural influence in Gogol’s life).

This organization throws into relief the contrast, not only between first and second generation immigrants, but also between the traditional Indian wife and the modern “liberated” wife. It’s hard to say which is the greater burden—obedience and fidelity or modernity and liberation.

In the end, Gogol, having rejected two serious Western girlfriends and divorced his Bengali wife, seeks reconciliation with his past, his family, his culture, and his namesake. At the age of 32, for the first time, he opens the book by Nikolai Gogol his father had given him long before and begins to read.

We can only speculate on how the young man will come to terms with all that he has inherited, all that he has chosen, all that he has become, and all that he may yet be. What one hopes is that he will come to accept himself as a global citizen.