Isla McKetta, MFA, Author at A Geography of Reading

Predestination and Identity in The Time Traveler’s Wife

October 24, 2014 by Isla McKetta, MFA 4 Comments

I finally picked up The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger as a throwaway book for my trip to India. I’d heard so much about the book and the movie, but I just didn’t think it would be my thing. But reading this book in India had a lot more meaning for me than reading it at any other time would have.

See, I’m on a little bit of a spiritual quest here.

That isn’t why I said yes when my mom suggested traveling to India, but being here has triggered all kinds of memories and desires and spirituality that I’d let lie dormant for a very long time so in the story of Clare and Henry as they encounter each other throughout time, I couldn’t help but think about predestination and reincarnation and who I’m meant to be.

Clare and Henry

First let’s talk about the book. Henry first meets Clare when she’s a little girl. He’s got a genetic mutation that sends him traveling through time at the slightest stress and he meets her many times over the years as she ages. Sometimes he is older when he meets her and sometimes younger, because he’s drawn to moments from different times in his life. There are rules to time travel, though, and Henry can never reveal the future to Clare, the woman who will become his wife.

There was so much set in this book, that I really did start to wonder about predestination. Although Henry sometimes violates the rules a little (with no real consequences), he never veers from the path of his and Clare’s relationship. I liked that to a certain extent, but it also made me feel boxed in. I loved that they seemed to belong to one another throughout time (and would have liked it more had this book veered into reincarnation), but I longed to see what would happen if they started their relationship earlier or changed something (anything) up to see if their lives together could be better or longer (although what I thought was sweetest about the film About Time which is also about time travel and I liked better was the fact that the main character there just wants to relive the best moments of his life).

Predestination in Real Life

So here I am in Varanasi, the holiest city in India (if not the world) and I’m wondering if there is in fact a set path for each of us. I’m traveling with one woman who near the beginning of the trip was waxing lyrical about the good old days when she never wore a bra. It seemed as though she had become more conservative with age, although she had regrets. Then one day she wanted to go swimming and she jumped into the water in her t-shirt and panties and I wondered if she was finding a bit of that person she used to be.

Another fellow traveler was in the Peace Corps in India in the 1960s and I’ve been watching him dig into the languages he used to know (he’s less rusty than I am at any of mine), eat the foods he missed, and even rediscover some memories of trips he had taken way back when. It seems like he’s finding the person he once was too.

As for me, I first fell in love with the idea of India in undergrad as I took some classes in non-western art and architecture. I saw images of Khajuraho. And of Varanasi.

I even made a sculpture that resembles the offerings made to the river. And then life happened and I read books with Buddhist leanings but failed to really investigate those pulls. I ate Indian food occasionally and even visited a Gurudwara when my Indian best friends got married. But none of it was really about finding what called to me about India or who that person was who used to dream of visiting the birthplace of Hinduism and Buddhism.

My Identity

Last night I made an offering to the River Ganges. And this morning I watched the sun rise over her banks. I visited Sarnath, where the Buddha first declared his enlightenment.

And I don’t know who I am yet. I may never know fully who I am meant to be. But I do know that the things and places that called to me so long ago deserve investigation. I owe that to me. And because becoming a fuller person and allowing myself the curiosity to explore the world makes me a better wife, friend, and person, I owe that to everyone else too.

It might be a while before I embark on my next transcontinental examination of self, but someday you will find me doing the following: revisiting the feeling of the mists and butterflies of Iguacu Falls, peering into ancient volcanoes in Africa, and walking the streets of an ancient Italian hill town. With any luck, I’ll get to share all of those adventures and more with my husband. I may not ever know what any of those strong pulls mean, but I’ll never find out from the comfort of my couch.

I’m leaving The Time Traveler’s Wife in India, but I’m not sorry I read it. What experiences have you had with intersections of who you are and who you used to be? I’d love to hear your stories.

Reading Heat and Dust in the Dusty Heat of India

October 15, 2014 by Isla McKetta, MFA 2 Comments

One of the things I was most afraid of in coming to India was replicating the colonial experience. This frightened me because I despise the exploitation of other peoples and cultures and I thought with my oh-so-white skin and complete lack of skill with local languages and norms that I could not avoid being seen as one of those colonizers who expects to be treated as more and better. It also frightened me because I thought I might grow to like it.

As a result, and as I’ve mentioned before, I steered away from bringing along books written from the British perspective (although I’ve read many before). Except one. I brought along Booker Prize winning Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala even though the prize, the cover imagery, and the jacket description all suggested it was England-approved. But the book was thin and I read so few prize-winning books (usually by choice) and I thought I’d muddle through whatever elitist whatnot the book might offer.

I’m so glad I was wrong.

Two Perspectives on India

Although there is one storyline in this book about a bored British housewife, Olivia, in 1923 India, it’s complemented perfectly by the story of Olivia’s step-granddaughter who visits a very different India in the 1970s to uncover the story of how and why Olivia ran away with an Indian royal.

Olivia’s story is actually a tale about a woman who’s questioning all the British convention she encounters as a newlywed who is first encountering British India. She doesn’t like the British society and she’s not afraid to act according to her own ideals. As much as I sometimes questioned her judgment—running off to spend all day nearly every day with a married Indian Nawab (I think this is a prince) without (and without telling) her husband—I admired her spirit—refusing to summer in Shimla just because that’s what the British ladies were expected to do.

As Olivia’s story unfolds, so does that of her granddaughter and here is where Jhabvala displays real mastery, because the two women experience many similar events at similar points in the narrative (from festivals to intrusions of unwanted guests and more) which could become quite cloying. Instead, because Jhabvala has made these stories just different enough, the intersections feel mystical and preordained and as I was reading the book I kept wondering if these two generations would fall into the same trap.

India in Real Life

My own perspective on India is much closer to Olivia’s granddaughter, in part because the India she encounters is much closer to the one I see during the day—the bustling emerging economy that’s making its own rules along the way, the street markets and roaming cows, the people who look as though they can repair anything (many things which an American would throw away), and the people who live in any spare space of traffic median they can find.

“For the first time I understood—I felt—the Hindu fear of pollution. I went home and bathed rigorously, rinsing myself over and over again. I was afraid. Pollution—infection—seemed everywhere; those flies could easily have carried it from her to me.” – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I refuse to judge the country based on traffic that scares me and mounds of garbage swept to the side of the street. It is different, but it should be different, because there’d be no point in traveling all this way if it was the same. I will not drink the water or eat the street food, but there are over a billion people here who are making the country what they want it to be. Don’t we all have some level of pollution or other problem we want to fix?

But that is not all of India. As an American tourist in Jaipur, I am staying in a hotel that used to be the residence of the prime minister of Jaipur where I swim in a large pool overlooked by peacocks and where an enormous staff is employed to cater to any need I might have and then disappear. Olivia’s set, though likely not Olivia herself, would have been at their most comfortable here behind the walls that separate us from the city.

Last night we dined with a local family in their palace in the old town of Jaipur. They are relatives (distant I think) of the Maharajah and their ancestors moved into the home in the 1760s. Nestled deep inside one of the pink blocks of market stalls and small shops, this home with three luscious courtyards houses several brothers and their families along with five dogs and a tortoise. They live behind walls and glass thick enough to block out the market noise in rooms beautiful in their simplicity that are decorated with family artifacts like pictures of the Maharajah and the Mountbattens as well as the skins and heads of leopards and tigers (decor it seemed as though our gracious hosts would not have chosen for themselves, but here family artifacts and history matter).

Today we’ll go into the jungle at Rathambore to hunt tigers with our cameras. I didn’t bring any more books about tiger hunting, so I’ll be reading a spiritual text in preparation for our visit to Varanasi or maybe a detective novel set in Mumbai.

How India is Changing Me

“She began to write to Marcia, but Marcia was in Paris and it was impossible to explain anything from here to there.” – Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I’m not sure I’m doing a good job of conveying my experiences, partly because I’m still so far inside of them and things change every day, but I’ll try.

In Heat and Dust, Jhabvala writes, “India changes people,” and I’ve been reflecting on what that means for me. I am aware here of never feeling like I belong anywhere. I don’t know the streets well enough to wander then, and even if I did I’d be an object of curiosity. And the luxurious expat lifestyle (as much as I’m enjoying it) makes this democratic, do-it-yourself girl deeply uncomfortable.

Most of all I feel conspicuous. There are moments I’ve been able to own that feeling of being watched and to embrace what it means to be on display (including the long saunter to the pool where I take a brief swim and then lay and do nothing but be seen). But being in India is making me more and more conscious of how uncomfortable I am being seen whether as an object of curiosity or as a woman. I’m uncomfortable even writing about it here because of everything it implies. Now that India has helped me pinpoint some of the sources that discomfort, I can start to investigate what it all means.

And then there is the spiritual awakening aspect of India. I did not come here for a religious experience, though there are certainly years in my life that would have been my goal. Somerset Maugham wrote of his characters once that he was “a deeply religious man who doesn’t believe in God” and that’s been the case with me for a long time. I flirt with Buddhist philosophy, cross myself like a good little Catholic to ward off the evil eye, and am most at peace when I am subsumed by the power of sitting beneath a large sky in front of a vast ocean.

So when I walk into a temple or a mosque or a gurudwara and feel the immense energies of the places and of the people worshipping in them, I pay attention. I don’t know what is happening and I don’t plan on going home and beginning to worship Vishnu, but I am soaking up the Hindu idea that all gods are one and that we make of them what we individually need. I am attracted to the Sikh vision of equality. I’m even beginning to like the call of the muezzin who wakes us around 4:45 am because of the sincere love of faith embodied in his voice.

I can even feel India affecting my syntax and my gestures. As a mimic—a skill I think I developed to mask the feeling of not fitting in in the many places I’ve traveled—I’m very aware of these things (and have been fighting the change of syntax in this essay), but no amount of energy will allow me to resist those changes.

The one thing I am sure of is that I am not a colonial. At least not yet. So I’ll enjoy yet another sumptuous breakfast buffet where I can eat foods from all corners of the globe while the waiter brings me extra special treats. I’ll relish cool swims in pristine pools. But I will not stop wondering about the social cost of creating a service class or the environmental toll of this kind of tourism on a state with little water. The wheel of the world keeps spinning, but I am not yet ready to accept that “other” or “privileged” is a station I must embrace.

I’m grateful to you for reading along with me as I experience India through books and the windows of a tour bus. I never know when I’ll have access to internet again, so I’m posting these as I go. Sharing the journey with you in this form helps me better understand my days and nights, so thank you.

For other perspectives on what I read while in India, read my experiences of The Death of Vishnu and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall.

Navigating Diaspora in The In-Between World of Vikram Lall, Kenya, and India

October 14, 2014 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

How many book reviews can I write about diaspora? Maybe a lot because the feeling of not knowing where or what home is is something I struggle with. So when I picked up The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by MG Vassanji as part of the great India book grab, thinking that because the author’s name sounded Indian, it must be about India, I was making an assumption that shows how much I want life to fit into identifiable little boxes. Instead, I found a story much more similar to my own life, a story of a man living away from his ancestral home and trying to figure out who that makes him.

Stateless in the World

“[M]y fantasy has partly to do with desperate need to belong to the land I was born in.” – MG Vassanji

It wouldn’t be fair to say that Vikram Lall’s life is actually like mine. This protagonist is a third generation Kenyan, but as the grandson of a man who came over from Punjab to help build the railroad, his ethnicity means he will never blend with his homeland. And because the Indian town his ancestors come from is ceded to Pakistan, there is no going “home” again. To add to that feeling of statelessness, the story is told from later in Vikram’s life when he is hiding out in Canada.

“Even now, here in this Canadian wilderness, I cannot help but say my namaskars, or salaams, to the icons I carry faithfully with me, not quite understanding what they mean to me.” – MG Vassanji

My ethnicity means that physically I blend in just fine with my home town in Idaho and my adopted home of Seattle. But my experiences living abroad have stretched and changed who I am in ways I cannot explain. As a result, I often feel like I don’t quite fit in Seattle (or in Chile or Poland or anywhere). And anyway, the Chile and Poland I knew are quite different I’m sure than what they are now even without accounting for the ways the act of remembering those places has shaped them in my mind.

“It has occurred to me—how can it not?—that my picture of the past could well have, like the stories of my grandfather, acquired the patina of nostalgia, become idealized. But then, I have to convince myself, perhaps a greater and conscious discipline and the practice of writing mitigate that danger.” – MG Vassanji

I don’t know what any of this means, really, to me or to you, but it does help explain why I keep reading about people who are shaped by more than one culture—in some ways it is inside those stories that I feel most at home. It also explains why I’m making notes for a memoir about how living abroad changed my life—research that’s much easier to do when I’m once again on foreign soil.

Reading Beyond the Colonists

You’d think that a book like Out of Africa might really do it for me then. Isak Dinesen was certainly stateless as she farmed in Kenya. But there’s something about the colonial spirit that I can never get inside of or fully enjoy. In fact, as I prepared the great India reading list, I did everything I could to balance out the British take on India like Far Pavilions and A Passage to India that I’ve read so much of before.

One of the great pleasures, then of reading The In-Between World of Vikram Lall is that while it starts out in British Kenya, it is not from the point of view of a colonist. Nor is it anti-colonist, as the girl Vikram longs after for all of his life (a childhood friend) is British. But because Vikram is also close with a Kikuyu boy (who is a full, round character in ways that the Kikuyu in Out of Africa never quite achieve), I felt like I was getting a much fuller picture.

Traversing the History of Kenya

“[F]or Indians abroad in Africa, it has been said that it was poverty at home that pushed them across the ocean. That may be true, but surely there’s that wanderlust first, that itch in the sole, that hankering in the soul that puffs out the sails for a journey into the totally unknown” – MG Vassanji

Not only was I getting a diverse series of perspectives, but The In-Between World of Vikram Lall gives the reader glimpses into a wide span of Kenyan history. When we’re learning about Vikram’s grandfather, we may as well be reading Man Eaters of Tsavo alongside it with the insights into the building of the railroad. Then Vikram gets too close to the Mau Mau massacres of British citizens and later we get to read about Kenya under African rule.

Back to India

Although this book is not set in India, there is a certain longing for home culture on the part of Vikram and his family that gave me insight into Indian life. From the fact that most of the girls he’s attracted to have waist-long black braids to the power structure within a family, I feel like I learned a lot. The fact that I was reading about how Vikram’s family approached arranged marriage at the same time our tour guide was explaining arranged marriage only made both more interesting.

I’m in Jaipur right now, a long way from Kenya and an even farther distance from home, but I’m having a good time stretching and growing as I learn about yet another culture. I guess if you’re going to be a citizen of the world, you might as well just dive in and itch the scratch on those soles.

For other perspectives on what I read while in India, read my experiences of Heat and Dust and The Death of Vishnu.

The Death of Vishnu and the Realities of Life in India

October 11, 2014 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

As preparation for this trip to India that I’m on, I gathered as much Indian literature around me as I thought I might be able to carry. I planned to read the books along the journey and then to leave them or share them with other travelers on the way. But one book, The Death of Vishnu called me to read it before I even left for the US and I’m so glad I did.

The Quiet Death of Contemporary Literature

The reason I stopped reading most literary magazines and why I’m very careful about what books I spend my time on is a trend toward complete lifelessness in much contemporary fiction as one character (usually a thinly veiled stand in for the author) contemplates his or her navel as not much happens. It’s all meant to be portentous or something but usually the connections are only in the author’s mind and not the page and the readers are left flat.

The flooding of the literary market with these kinds of stories and books leaves me adrift in a sea where I’m looking for meaning in all this quiet contemplation (a state of being I deeply love) but because the meaning is not actually processed enough to be communicated, most contemporary quiet fiction makes me feel desperately lonely and disconnected from humanity.

The Death of Vishnu is the exact opposite of that experience. Instead, the story of an impoverished man dying on the steps of an apartment building as the building’s residents go about their daily lives is rich in social commentary, quotidian detail (of the informative type), mythological importance, and even humanity. It’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

Life in India

Mind you, I’ve been out of the enclave that houses the world’s embassies to Delhi for almost one full day, so everything I purport to know about real life in India is deeply flawed, but having read The Death of Vishnu before arriving, I feel like I understand everything better.

In The Death of Vishnu, the households of the apartment are supported by a range of people from the cigarette walla (who brings cigarettes) to the ganga (who brings milk) to Vishnu, the man who washes the families’ dishes. During the few days Vishnu is dying on the steps, we get to know two Hindu families (who are quarreling over such things as the amount of water they can pull from the kitchen they share), a Muslim family (whose son is carrying on a Romeo and Juliet type romance with the daughter of one of the Hindu families and whose father has been exploring enlightenment in other religions), an older man (who lives entirely wrapped in the memory of the woman he loved), and Vishnu (who may or may not be the reincarnation of the god Vishnu).

The details of life I encountered in this book, from the petty squabbles and keeping up with the Joneses of a ladies’ poker party to the way the ambulance system functions (where first the ambulance needs to be paid for and then the payment of resulting medical services guaranteed before the patient can even be removed from the premises) were astounding. I couldn’t believe the way the author packed so much life into so few days. And yes, the story overall is quiet with its petty squabbles and small joys, but the way the author fits the entirety of these characters’ lives into these few pages becomes an amazing reminder that all of these small things are the entirety of life for most of us, no matter where we live.

Halfway around the world from where I belong, I’m finding those small details of the lives of others completely fascinating. From the way the young, thin rickshaw driver pedaled my mom and me around a small section of Old Delhi yesterday—displaying an assuredness that showed how well he could navigate any system and made me imagine how he could (if he would want to) break out of what seemed to me to be a life of hand to mouth existence—to the ingenuity displayed by a group of young men when our bus was blocked into a tight curve by a car—they rocked the car to the point that it was moved out of the way—I feel like there is so much to learn from careful observation of life—both abroad and at home.

Yesterday I saw crazy amounts of wire strewn across tiny streets. I saw crowds of people gathered around watching us watching them. I saw couples on motorbikes and goats staked to the side of the road before they would be eaten. I also saw that this is a country in which things are still repaired rather than being replaced and how many people are employed to do a job that in the US we’d ask one to do. That last bit made me wonder if full employment, or at least the sharing out of some work, doesn’t make everyone happier because the responsibilities are shared and each person in the system is valued. I saw people begging on the streets and hawkers selling everything from washcloths to coconuts in traffic.

Making Meaning of it All

I don’t have the answers to what any of life here, or life in the US, means. And I don’t want to pretend here that I do. But one of the things I learned from reading The Death of Vishnu is that by providing enough pertinent detail, readers can make their own meaning. So when I think that life is missing from much contemporary fiction, maybe what I mean is that detail of experience is missing. Or that we’re so busy listing what’s in a character’s bedroom (a common writing prompt) that we fail to then let him experience life outside of that bedroom—something that would make all of those previous details have import.

Mythological Underpinnings

One thing the author of The Death of Vishnu relies on to add richness to this story is a relationship to the Bhagavad Gita a sacred Hindu text. And I feel like there are aspects of this book I would have cherished all the more if I were at all familiar with that text. But the author does a wonderful job of weaving in enough information that I could follow along, even if I missed a majority of the allusions. I miss this kind of writing, where one story is leveraged on another, older story. It’s something I tried to do in Polska, 1994 by tying aspects of Magda’s journey to moments in Christ’s life. I don’t think most readers will take that from my book, but for those who do, the meaning will be even greater.

On Being Vague in Book Reviews

You’ll notice I’ve named only one character here and not even the author. That’s the perils of being without my books. I made notes somewhere about all of those things so I’d have them with me, but it’s the middle of the night here and I’d probably wake my mom if I went looking for them. Oh, and I don’t have much internet access, so I’m forced to rely on the (not-so) trusty memory bank.

What I hope for you is that if you’re at all interested in life in India or if you want to know how to make a quiet story read loud, you’ll open this book and discover its characters and all the life therein for yourself. I promise it will be worth your time.

Leave of Absence

While I’m very glad that I read The Death of Vishnu in the US and have the book at home in my collection to read and re-read, I’m now back to reading the novels I had little enough confidence in that I thought I could leave them at home. If I get lucky and find enough joy in one of them (and an internet connection to boot), I’ll share them with you here. And if not, I’ll see you all in November. Thanks for sharing books, and the world, with me.

For other perspectives on what I read while in India, read my experiences of Heat and Dust and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall.

Finding Nouf and Peeking Inside the Walls of a Closed Society

October 5, 2014 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

If it wasn’t for the semi-annual book swap I attend, I never would have read Finding Nouf by Zoë Ferraris. But someone in that group of fabulously well-traveled and intelligent ladies had read this book and wanted to share it. She’d wrapped it up like a gift and put it in with the other books for selection that night, and my luck was to pick this book from the pile and to keep it despite several rounds of white elephant style takebacksies. Finding Nouf sat on my to-read shelf for only a month or so and even then I picked it up a couple of times every week to see if I was ready to read it. Soon I was and I’m so glad I did.

A Saudi Detective Novel

Finding Nouf is the story of Nouf, a young girl from a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia who has run away from her family compound in Jeddah in the days leading up to her wedding. It is also the story of Nayir, a Palestinian man who is so in tune with the desert that everyone assumes he’s Bedouin. He is hired to find Nouf. And it is the story of Katya, a Saudi woman who is engaged to Nouf’s cousin and who also, surprisingly, works with the coroner.

It might sound like this is just a detective novel, and there is a certain amount (though not too much) of a CSI fix in the book. But what makes the book great is the myriad perspectives into a country I would otherwise never know.

Nouf, who is quickly found dead, is firmly entrenched in the female coterie of her household, but that comes with its fair share of silent rebellions. Nayir is an outsider but he is so devoutly Muslim that in many ways he fits better with Nouf’s family, at least the male side, than Nouf does. And Katya is both respectful of the traditions around her and also, because of circumstance and personal preference, reaching to reinvent traditions to suit her life. Together, these voices form a picture in the round of life in Saudi Arabia. The characters are round and human and interesting and even side characters from other classes and cultures help flesh those perspectives more fully.

The Missing Perspective

Because the lifestyle in Saudi Arabia is so very foreign to me, I was very sensitive to getting an unbiased view, which is, of course, impossible from just one source. So while I absolutely loved the cultural details Ferraris wove in (details so fine they could only have been written by someone who had been there) and the fact that the plot was just the right amount of plotted, I was always sensitive to the fact that the book is written by an American. An American who lived in Saudi with her then husband for a time, but an American nonetheless. (And yes, as an American author whose first novel is about Poland, I understand the irony of even making this argument).

Where this becomes really important is that when Nouf or Katya pushed against the limitations put on them because of their gender by driving, going to work, or even flipping up a burqa, I kept wondering why the whole group of women doesn’t overthrow those conventions. So what was missing for me was a deeper insight into the women who want to live their lives that way and whether they are a part of reenforcing the norms westerners consider limiting.

I fully acknowledge that there might be a feeling of powerlessness that would make women who want to rebel unable to do so, but I believe there is also a contingent of women who want to live the way they do. It’s a balance that was better struck in A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea, likely because that author came from within Iran. I really cannot say either way, but the time I spent wondering about the power dynamics in Saudi Arabia did distract me from the book.

I was also grateful for that distraction because it made me look more closely at the world around me. I live near a mosque in Seattle and I’d say that the number of women I see on the bus who either cover their hair or wear a full abaya has increased dramatically in the last decade. I’d often considered that those women were forced by tradition or family to dress that way. But reading this book and wondering so much about Saudi culture (and Muslim culture overall) I realized I was being an idiot and that some women choose to cover themselves in the way that I choose not to wear anything shorter than mid thigh. I knew that, kind of, from the debate about French laws against the hijab, but Finding Nouf opened me up to better understand my own world, too.

My Own Circle of Women

I’m off to book swap again tonight for more book inspiration and to get advice on my trip to India. I have no idea what book I’ll come home with, but I’m certain the books and the company will stretch my thinking and open me up to books and ways of thinking I hadn’t yet considered. It’s an evening full of literature and female wisdom and I can’t wait.

If you want to use literature to catch a glimpse of life inside Saudi Arabia, pick up a copy of Finding Nouf from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.