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My Salinger Year

                                                           









 My Salinger Year             

The title of the book by Joanna Smith Rakoff, which appeared in June 2014, created a stir in the literary circles.  J.D. Salinger fans grabbed copies of My Salinger Year to peek into the world of the reclusive writer.  Salinger, the creator of the Glass Family stories and two priceless works of writing – The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey- remained shrouded in mystery throughout his career in writing. When he died in 2010, the world knew as little about him as aliens from outer space; conjectures and speculations continued to thrive. The mere mention that this book was a chronicle of the days that Rakoff spent working as an  assistant in the literary house of the century’s giant, piqued curiosity of many readers.

 The first quick read became both a discovery and a disappointment. The latter because at the culmination of the exercise, we are nowhere near more familiar with Salinger. On the contrary, the chance meeting of Rakoff  with Salinger in the office, resounding of a loud remote voice on the phone asking for his literary agent often, and the strict dictum issued by Rakoff’s boss,  “but you must never – never, never, never – give out his address or phone number," further thickens  the  cloud of mystery around the taciturn author, without giving any further cue to his persona.

Rakoff’s admission that she had never read Salinger in her 23 years of her study life ( she thought him “insufferably cute and aggressively quirky”) transforms into  devotion during her sojourn at the agency, reading his works  and then answering the deluge of fan mail meant for Salinger. She cannot bring herself to throw letters from Holden Caulfield-like characters (who seem at their wits and desperately need to connect to the creator) into the bin after writing a perfunctory coded answer. The entire experience changes her irrevocably, and she sees herself caught in a superficial world (which applies to her dad, live- in boyfriend and the fast changing publishing world) overflowing with phoniness and brutality.  Rakoff’s  passage from naivety, idealism and purity to stoicism and acceptance, with a rough intervening phase of emotional turmoil, is  a nostalgic Franny Glass experience. It  gives the book a Salingeresque edge, of lost innocence; and becomes a pleasant discovery for the reader.

The theme of innocence lost is very interestingly also interwoven with the delineation of the ‘world of books.’ The story is set in the late nineties, the pre-digital era on the cusp of a metamorphosis and yet a space still clinging to antiquated Dictaphones and heavy typewriters and the power of words. The agency represents heavyweight older authors, defining an age where the word was sacred and supreme and writing was a culture and not a business. When the duo, the writer and the literary house, formed a committed relationship in the sanctimonious service of the word, and did not view it as a trade to a fortune. A climate where budding artists still thought that they had to work as assistants to legendary literary figures and publishers; to garner the best education; on the road to becoming great poets and authors themselves.   

That Rakoff was able to morph a 2000-word article written in 2010, after Salinger passed away(My Adventures Answering J.D. Salinger’s Mail) into a complete book is a feat in itself. But what is more amazing is her accomplishment to imbue the ambience in the book with a Salingeresque essence. Reading the coming of age story of Rakoff, the reader is transported to the world of Franny and Zooey, Seymour and Buddy and the legendary Holden Caulfield. Lives of characters who waged battles within, on the road to understanding the world for what it is: a hypocritical illusion which in the name of love trades love and souls. Veneers of false pretence, of unscrupulous crafty humans, yes, but a complete 360 degree turn and the same finger of hypocrisy points to one’s own self. Duality and falseness stripped to the core to show your naked dark self. Finally, the journey will culminate in a merging, with a love beyond barriers of all human creed, doubts and fears.  A rendezvous with Seymour’s Fat Lady; a moment where your love flows as a clear cascading stream to subsume everything you thought was repulsive and dirty.  A cleansing that renders you and the world into a sparkling hue of light.  Salingeresque achieved!

Thank you, Joanna Rakoff!          

     

                     

Book Reading - The Indian Bond - Ruskin Bond

Book Reading Session on the 16th of August. 

Let your kids go on an adventure with Ruskin Bond, the Indian Bond!  Watch Ruskin bond on screen, Hear him talk – power point on his journey through books, Book Readings, Films based on his books, Activities – Find answers and win PRIZES! Write Book Reviews.

Resource Person : Jugneeta Sudan.

Time - 3 PM - 6 PM

Age - 8 - 16 years.

Fees - Rs. 300/-

Hope to see you for the events! 

Spread the word!

Warm Regards!

Sonia Fernandes

(Coordinator at Carpe Diem)

Contact - 0832 - 2881035

Shakespeare's Shylock

Shakespeare’s Shylock

We have all read Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare in school with great censure for Shylock, who was greedy, cruel and mean. He deserved to lose his dignity, wealth and religion at the end of the trial. Justice prevails and the devil always meets a gory end. A stereotype propounded and etched in the minds of children, who grew to relate to Jews with mistrust. A play used by Nazis to stoke anti-Semitic feelings during the holocaust. Shylocks or loan sharks entered the lexicon and terms like ‘pound of flesh’ became common when someone demanded onerous returns. Is Merchant of Venice a play about anti-Semitism? A moralistic play about good and evil, mercy and justice, love and greed became a major controversial work of Shakespeare with the turn of the 20^th century.

Shakespeare had good business sense and he wrote the play in the aftermath of the execution and public hanging of Roderigo Lopeza, a converted Portuguese Jew. The latter was the official physician of the Queen. In 1594, he was convicted of plotting to poison Queen Elizabeth I and was executed as a traitor. The Lopeza trial and execution inspired the revival of playwright Christopher Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, in which the play's title character is a Jew named Barabas, a greedy, cunning and murderous stereotype. It fanned frenzy against the Jews, though at the time only about 200 Jews lived in England, after they had been banished in 1290 under the Edict of Expulsion. Horrifying legends and gory stereotypical stories, about the absent English Jew became rampant; poisoning Christian children, using blood of murdered humans for passover rituals.......When Lord Chamberlain’s Men staged Merchant of Venice, it was a delightful success. The existing atmosphere of hatred for Jews gave the audience more fodder for glee and Shylock was perceived with added hatred and revulsion. The blinkers of vengeance made the masses completely miss the point of a more complex, sympathetic and whole Shylock.  

The tradition of playing Shylock sympathetically began in the first half of the 19th century with Edmund Kean, the famous English actor of his times. It established him as an actor. His portrayal of Shylock completely turned the tables on previous enactments by repulsive clowns or monsters of unrelieved evil. Henry Irving’s act of a proud aristocratic Jew in 1879 was hailed the ‘summit of his career.’ He was followed by Jacob Adler in the early 20^th century, who played the role in Yiddish in an otherwise English production. The new perspective morphed him into a proud man whose self-respect is maligned and destroyed by the so-called men of God. His actions of revenge ensue from pride and he demands justice for a blow to his individuality, profession and religion. The guardians of law – Portia, Antonio, Bassanio, make a mockery of justice and facilitate the passing of a harsh sentence, contrary to their qualities of goodness, love and justice. The final act bares hypocrisy of the so-called good and lends authenticity to the image of Shylock who walks out of court with his head held high -"would he not walk out of that courtroom head erect, the very apotheosis of defiant hatred and scorn?”

Henrik Eger writes- “Some theatres have gone where most directors dare not tread, including the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, by presenting a bare-chested Antonio with the knife of Shylock on his chest. However, few companies like the Quintessence Theatre Group have come as close to the Rembrandt-like scene with Antonio flat on his back, almost a corpse—all in the presence of the entire Venetian court, with Shylock approaching like Dr. Tulp, holding a huge knife in his hands, ready to cut out the promised pound of flesh. This naked determination for physical justice, against the background of years of having been bullied, maligned, and treated like a criminal, is a scene so direct that it is painful to watch.  Benim Foster (Shylock), originally a Jew on being interviewed said-“The play has always been a mystery to me. Something I feared. I avoided it, believing that it would just upset me too much, being Jewish. I also struggled with the thought of Shakespeare, himself, being an Anti-Semite. However, I have come to believe that he was just the opposite. He gives Shylock so much depth, so much humanity, love, pain, beauty and grief, plus his anger, stubbornness, and impatience that he shows us Shylock as human.”

Contemporary adaptations and films continue the trend of giving multiple voices to characters in the play. In the 2004 film adaptation starring Al Pacino as Shylock, the film begins with text and a montage of how the Jewish community is abused by the Christian population of the city. One of the last shots of the film also brings attention to the fact that, as a convert, Shylock would have been cast out of the Jewish community in Venice, no longer allowed to live in the ghetto and would still not be accepted by the Christians, as they would feel that Shylock was yet the Jew he once was.

‘Andrew Dickson, writing in his The Rough Guide to Shakespeare, found that audiences can view The Merchant of Venice from two different perspectives: Antonio's and Shylock's. Both sides of the story are there in this brilliant and troubling play and it's easy to feel that they're irreconcilable. “But,” Dickson continues, ''it is impossible to sit on the fence when watching The Merchant, and the issues it raises about religious intolerance and conflict seem more pressing now than ever before.'' Norrie Epstein, writing in the book The Friendly Shakespeare, calls The Merchant of Venice a troubling play, for the same reason that other critics have come to this conclusion. It is difficult to say, after you have seen it, if it is ''a tragedy or a comedy, a love story or a tale of hate.'' Epstein's conclusion, however, is that in the end, ''in its infinite ambiguity, it is quintessential Shakespeare. No sooner have you reached one conclusion about the play than it's immediately contradicted in the next scene--or line.'' Despite the fact that Shakespeare's audiences in Elizabethan times enjoyed coming to the theatre and ridiculing stock, stereotypical Jewish characters, as was a routine at that time, Epstein states that ''yet embedded within this caricature there's a real human being [in Shylock's character], and every so often Shakespeare lets him out.'' Shylock shows sadness, and he respects his own culture, Epstein writes. And he displays many other emotions in this play. ''He's like a survivor of the Great Depression who grows up valuing money more than love.'' Shakespeare's talent is demonstrated in that he is able to go beyond his ''age's prejudices'' and present ''the world from the alien's perspective.''

Thus, Merchant of Venice cannot be taught in classrooms without historical, circumstantial, political, economical and theatrical context, of the times. It remains a sensitive and highly controversial play 400 years down the line and must be dealt in multiple ways for students. The teaching must open channels for them to perceive it in a wholesome manner and exhort them to further research, to discern truth on their own.

In my humble endeavour to revisit and elaborate on Shakespearean works during his 450th year of celebration, we shall be meeting on 23^rd August at ICG to expound on the tragicomedy Merchant of Venice in the afternoon from 4-6pm. Do join us!