another subcontinent presents our latest feature: "the family dinner", short fiction by soniah kamal. this feature is now live on our home site. we invite your thoughts and feedback on it here.

Is anyone else having a hard time printing all of the story? The printed page always cuts off two or three words off the right margin for me. Is there some way to fix this, Arnab?

is the problem only when you try to print it? or is it also displaying that way? if the former it may be a matter of formatting your printer's page setup. or alternatively just cut and paste the text into a document of your own and print it.

one of the things that i found most interesting about this story is soniah's use of a first person narrative voice that is not desi. the expected telling of this story by a south asian writer would probably revolve around the noreen character, or maybe a third person narrator. i don't know to what degree this is unusual among south asian writers in the u.s. i am interested both in soniah's motives/reasons for using this narrative voice and also in how it sounds to non-desi american "ears".

I finally got the printer to work, thanks. (Now I can go back and read Mahmud's story too.)

I think it unusual, and, might I add, quite welcome!

One aspect of the story I found unique was the assertion in voice, but doubt in thought of the narrator. Does she really love her job as she professes? Is she truly content with her drug store variety of perfume and cheap jewelry? Does she really not want kids? The second-to-last paragraph (about the "great untold truth") leaves the reader wondering even about her stated certainty that all relationships are dispensable.

I often don't like the "left hanging" feeling at the end of a story. The construction of the story made it so I didn't mind it at all here; it worked well.

Yes, congratulations to Soniah on taking such a bold step. I, too, would love to hear from the author on how that choice was made. Off the top of my head (which is not a very high reach at the moment, it being laden with too much unrelated stuff) I can only think of a few who've attempted this -- Anita Desai, in Fasting Feasting (& I guess in the new Zig Zag Way which I haven't read yet) and Seth in An Equal Music, also unread by me. I'm sure there must be more who are not springing to mind at the moment, but overall it's quite uncommon in the literature that I've read (or read about).

It's an ambitious undertaking, made even more so in this story by choosing to narrate through the voice of an unsophisticated, "working class" young woman -- a sort of Jill-sixpack view of the world of desi-America. There are a couple of diction stumbles, to my ear, which got between me and the characters for a minute. But I said the same thing about Desai's effort in Fasting Feasting. I did think that chosing the name Noreen for the Pakistani woman was a pretty cute boomerang trick, as I had her as Irish-American or Southern Belle till she showed up in the health food store, and there are probably not so very many names common to both of the cultures depicted.

The story itself raises a lot of questions in my mind. The ambivalence over childbearing is one of the main ones -- along with some of the other ambiguities Roshna mentioned. More to talk about substantively later on, as the next couple of days are jam packed with non-AC activities that will keep me away from the computer.

Again, quite a rare "hall of mirrors" adventure, for which many thanks.

cj

PS Actually, was there a first-person narration in Amrikan voice in Desai's FF, or is it just some of the dialogue that I'm remembering? This is going to bother me till I find out, which I can't right now. I hope someone will have a better recall & post it by the time I'm ready to root around for the book

Brilliant!

Only nit to pick: the writing seems too good in the first-person narrative for the illusion that the author is ignorant of so much (eg "where's that at?") to really stick.

CJ,
I think FF in the second part where Arun goes to Amrika is in third person. I f you have the book please check and let us know. BUT it might also be in a close third from the American mother's pov.

Doesn't Lahiri have an American woman in first person in Sexy?

Hi Soniah,
thanks for sharing this story with us. The angle from the narrator's pov is indeed interesting and effective - the "redneck" view of foreigners and then turning the notion on its head.
There is poignancy in the way the narrator's life is presented - having a baby, working for 10 years in a no end job, such a small world. And you have captured the subtle perception this woman has of how much her life differs from Noreen in important ways. You have done a lot with this story.
It is also interesting to me that I have no real feel for Noreen herself and what I do have of her does not elicit sympathy or in fact any kind of feeling, and if any at all it is slightly negative. Yes, I "know" her - we all know such women, such parties! And we all must also have seen the one lone white woman or couple in an Indian party such as this. You have captured that very nicely.

unfortunately soniah will not be able to respond individually to questions/comments in this thread. she has, however, sent me some responses to questions already posed and these are below. please continue to post any other comments/questions you may have and i will act as conduit:

Armagod,

May sound jarring to Indians, Britons, and other grammar sticklers, but it's an extremely commonly used Americanism. I've heard the phrase uttered by highly educated and noneducated people alike.

This post has been edited by roshna: Feb 8 2005, 07:25 PM

Roshna, my point was not about the (as you say, very common) expression, it was about the question itself: "where's pakistan at".

I like the feeling of poignancy around the narrator's decision to not have children, especially as contrasted with Noreen's life... this is beautifully and subtly done.

... at times, the language used by the narrator simply does not sound like a white working class chick. It does end up sounding like a South Asian person imagining how such a person would talk...

Nice succinct story with the unusual plot element of Paula and Mike's chosen child-free state woven in.

One thing I cringed at was Paula's 'voice' at some points. I appreciated her character and the way it was developed. Her character combined both "the provincial American girl" and a woman who had some notion of and appreciation of the world beyond her immediate surroundings. I felt like some of her simplistic and incorrect speaking patterns were a bit stereotypical. I had that same uneasy sense I have when people imitate Indian accents and also throw in bad grammar as though anyone with an Indian accent certainly cannot speak proper or correct English.

Besides that, I thought Soniah's story was a nice vignette on how people, ideas and cultures intersect in contemporary America.

This post has been edited by mixedmasala: Feb 17 2005, 04:32 AM

mixedmasala, passing through: welcome aboard.

not a commentary on soniah's piece, but your posts raise an interesting point: what would our reaction be if this went in the opposite direction (which of course it has and does). that is to say if a non-desi writer attempted to write a story from the first person perspective and voice of a desi character (whether they got idioms or rhythms right or wrong)?

Just finished reading the story and most of the comments. The story did hold my interest and is well-written.

I didn't quite "buy" the narrator. I agree with the following comments:

"... at times, the language used by the narrator simply does not sound like a white working class chick. It does end up sounding like a South Asian person imagining how such a person would talk..."

"felt like some of her simplistic and incorrect speaking patterns were a bit stereotypical."

In other words one or two too many "Shitty Kitties".
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was in a flight to India once. There was a young Pakistani woman on the flight. One of the stewardesses (a young American woman) was going on and on about how great the Pakistani woman was and how she had everything (money, looks, class, connections, and smarts). This story reminded me of that incident.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
If I was young and had a lot of money, St. John's College is one of the places I would seriously consider going to.