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The Meagre Tarmac
Shortlisted for the 2011 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee
Longlisted for the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award
"Clark Blaise’s brilliantly imagined The Meagre Tarmac is a novel in short-story form, warmly intimate, startling in its quick jumps and revelations, a portrait of individuals for whom we come to care deeply – and a portrait of an Indo-American way of life that shimmers before our eyes with the rich and compelling detail for which Clark Blaise’s fiction is renowned .… The Meagre Tarmac is a remarkable accomplishment."—Joyce Carol Oates
An Indo-American Canterbury Tales, The Meagre Tarmac explores the places where tradition, innovation, culture, and power meet with explosive force. It begins with Vivek Waldekar, who refused to attend his father’s funeral because he was “trying to please an American girl who thought starting a fire in his father’s body too gross a sacrilege to contemplate.” It ends with Pranab Dasgupta, the Rockefeller of India, who can only describe himself as “‘a very lonely, very rich, very guilty immigrant.’” And in between is a cluster of remarkable characters, incensed by the conflict between personal desire and responsibility, who exhaust themselves in pursuit of the miraculous. Fearless and ferociously intelligent, these stories are vintage Blaise, whose outsider’s view of the changing heart of America has always been ruthless and moving and tender.
2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize Nominee
Longlisted for the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award
"Clark Blaise’s brilliantly imagined The Meagre Tarmac is a novel in short-story form, warmly intimate, startling in its quick jumps and revelations, a portrait of individuals for whom we come to care deeply – and a portrait of an Indo-American way of life that shimmers before our eyes with the rich and compelling detail for which Clark Blaise’s fiction is renowned .… The Meagre Tarmac is a remarkable accomplishment."—Joyce Carol Oates
An Indo-American Canterbury Tales, The Meagre Tarmac explores the places where tradition, innovation, culture, and power meet with explosive force. It begins with Vivek Waldekar, who refused to attend his father’s funeral because he was “trying to please an American girl who thought starting a fire in his father’s body too gross a sacrilege to contemplate.” It ends with Pranab Dasgupta, the Rockefeller of India, who can only describe himself as “‘a very lonely, very rich, very guilty immigrant.’” And in between is a cluster of remarkable characters, incensed by the conflict between personal desire and responsibility, who exhaust themselves in pursuit of the miraculous. Fearless and ferociously intelligent, these stories are vintage Blaise, whose outsider’s view of the changing heart of America has always been ruthless and moving and tender.
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
104 people want to read
About the author
Clark Blaise
41 books15 followersClark Blaise, OC (born 10 April 1940) is a Canadian author.
Born in Fargo, North Dakota, he currently lives in San Francisco, California. He has been married since 1963 to writer Bharati Mukherjee. They have two sons. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, Blaise was also the director of the International Writing Program. While living in Montreal in the early 1970s he joined with authors Raymond Fraser, Hugh Hood, John Metcalf and Ray Smith to form the celebrated Montreal Story Tellers Fiction Performance Group.
In 2009, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for his contributions to Canadian letters as an author, essayist, teacher, and founder of the post-graduate program in creative writing at Concordia University".
Born in Fargo, North Dakota, he currently lives in San Francisco, California. He has been married since 1963 to writer Bharati Mukherjee. They have two sons. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, Blaise was also the director of the International Writing Program. While living in Montreal in the early 1970s he joined with authors Raymond Fraser, Hugh Hood, John Metcalf and Ray Smith to form the celebrated Montreal Story Tellers Fiction Performance Group.
In 2009, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for his contributions to Canadian letters as an author, essayist, teacher, and founder of the post-graduate program in creative writing at Concordia University".
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
September 27, 2011
Thank you Giller longlist for introducing me to the work of Clark Blaise! Blaise is a skilled craftsman in the short story. With surgical precision he carves out glimpses into the lives of these Indian immigrants, all of whom are of the professional upper classes. Entering the West to pursue particularly Indian dreams of engineering graduate degrees and mbas paired with ambitions of wealth and increasing their social status, they enter a world where these dreams and ambitions have a different salience, and maybe don't carry the same weight as they do in India. So what kind of life does one create for oneself, what kinds of choices do you make?
I like that Blaise has chosen a class of privileged immigrants lives to explore - it goes against the trope of the third world / first world divide. He is able to penetrate this world, largely a mystery to the likes of most of us I expect, with amazing depth.
I like that Blaise has chosen a class of privileged immigrants lives to explore - it goes against the trope of the third world / first world divide. He is able to penetrate this world, largely a mystery to the likes of most of us I expect, with amazing depth.
December 20, 2011
It's been a long time since I've read any Clark Blaise, and this one doesn't disappoint. Many of these short stories are interconnected, but all of them stand alone, and all exhibit a wry, puzzled humour that's a huge part of their charm.
The push/pull of old and new homes is the central theme of these stories about those who've left India for 'better lives' and aren't quite sure they've found them in the UK or North America. On the other hand, the India of their memories isn't the same country they left behind 20, 30, 40, 50 years on.
The push/pull of old and new homes is the central theme of these stories about those who've left India for 'better lives' and aren't quite sure they've found them in the UK or North America. On the other hand, the India of their memories isn't the same country they left behind 20, 30, 40, 50 years on.
January 14, 2012
AMAZING book. Fantastically written and completely engaging. Blaise creates deeper, richer characters within these connected short stories than most writers can manage across the span of full novels. How this didn't win the Giller Prize is beyond me. Brilliant and absolutely recommended as a must-read.
May 19, 2013
The Meagre Tarmac
by Clark Blaise
Biblioasis, 2011
Masterpiece. That's a big word. In 20 years of writing book reviews I don't think I've ever used it, but I'm throwing the dart at Clark Blaise's new short story collection, The Meagre Tarmac (Biblioasis, 2011).
Born in the USA in 1940 to a French-speaking Canadian father and an English-speaking Canadian mother, Blaise lived part of his childhood in French in Quebec and other parts in English in the USA. His entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia says he lived in "at least" 25 cities before he finished high school in Pittsburgh.
Determined to be a writer, in the 1960s he attended the famous writer's workshop at the University of Iowa, where he met his life-partner, novelist Bharati Mukherjee, and also Philip Roth, among other literary notables.
Primarily a short story writer, Blaise has often explored the period of this upbringing and his multiple identities and senses of self. He has also been an administrator of writing programs and a notable essayist and non-fiction author. He is currently the President of the Society for the Study of the Short Story.
The eleven short stories in The Meagre Tarmac continue Blaise's interest in the social construction of identity. This time, however, his characters are not exploring the two solitudes of North America's English/French divide. The characters in this book are nearly all Indo-American. The two solitudes on display here are the East and West. Also, cultural tradition versus liberal capitalism.
Post-Obama, are we post-racial? Blaise's book argues emphatically, no. But it's a no that is dense with complication.
In an earlier age, this book would be a lightening rod for an "appropriation of voice" debate. How can this white dude write from within the perspective of the Indo-American population? And he does it over and over, in precise detail, and so well!
Clearly, the author has experience of Indo-American culture through his in-laws, but (more importantly) he has brought to it a lifetime of experience, a lifetime of thinking through precise cultural differences, a lifetime of mastering the short story.
And it is a mastery, here, that ought to be celebrated. And read. And studied.
The table of contents includes a note: "These stories are meant to be read in order." The back cover includes a blurb from Joyce Carol Oates calling it "a novel in short story form." The reader can choose how she would prefer to proceed. The stories link and inter-relate, but you could probably skip about and still make sense of the whole.
Many of the narrators are older men, nearing the end of their prosperous careers in America, yearning to return to India (and complete a plan begun earlier in life), their minds seeking a simpler time, one when the supremacy of the elder male wasn't in question.
The collapse of patriarchy is a significant subtext. Over and over male narrators talk about loss of prestige. American is partly to blame. Western liberalism with the stress on the individual. Marriage is the metaphor that rises to prominence next. Marriage is how the family perpetuates itself. On the subcontinent marriages are arranged. How or whether marriages will continue to be arranged is a question that repeats through many of these stories.
Money is often discussed, but it is the challenges of the rich, not the challenges of the poor, that consume (no pun intended) these characters. America has held up its end of the bargain. The families moved from the East to the West to seek economic opportunity and were amply rewarded. In the process, to oversimplify, they lost their souls.
But then, there is no opportunity to return to the land of their youth, because the New India (Mumbai, not Bombay) is rife with corruption (see recent new stories) and booming with its own out-of-control capitalism. Where East meets West, West tends to win, and the ensuing complications (loss of identity, collapse of family, cultural fragmentation) follow.
Canadian geography features in the book. That is, some of the action takes place in Toronto and Montreal. But the Canada here is indistinguishable from America. The West is the West, though one Indo-Canadian family settles in Montreal and one of its sons becomes a high-ranking official in the Parti Quebecois! (Another son, a gay man and actor, makes his fortune in Hollywood.)
The women in this book are brilliant. Not just sharply drawn, exquisitely portrayed and smart (one thirteen-year-old girl is on her way to Stanford, if her father doesn't first take her back to India so he can marry her off), they are also emote sensitively and diversely. That is, there are traditional mothers, untraditional mothers, dutiful daughters, undutiful daughters, Western beauties seeking Eastern wisdom, Eastern women corrupted by … what? the West? No, greed. Corrupted by corruption. By human nature.
For "an exploration of the human condition" is ultimately where analysis of this book leads. The superficial (yet strict and real) boundaries of culture and tradition colour every page, but the underlying architecture of every story (in the book and always?) is built on questions about what it means to be human. La condition humaine.
What an old formulation! What risk of cliché! Yet, so it goes. It is what it is. Or as my seven-year-old says, you get what you get and you don't get upset.
Sadness pervades this book. As does beauty.
The conclusion is simple: read it.
http://thenewcanlit.blogspot.ca/2011/...
by Clark Blaise
Biblioasis, 2011
Masterpiece. That's a big word. In 20 years of writing book reviews I don't think I've ever used it, but I'm throwing the dart at Clark Blaise's new short story collection, The Meagre Tarmac (Biblioasis, 2011).
Born in the USA in 1940 to a French-speaking Canadian father and an English-speaking Canadian mother, Blaise lived part of his childhood in French in Quebec and other parts in English in the USA. His entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia says he lived in "at least" 25 cities before he finished high school in Pittsburgh.
Determined to be a writer, in the 1960s he attended the famous writer's workshop at the University of Iowa, where he met his life-partner, novelist Bharati Mukherjee, and also Philip Roth, among other literary notables.
Primarily a short story writer, Blaise has often explored the period of this upbringing and his multiple identities and senses of self. He has also been an administrator of writing programs and a notable essayist and non-fiction author. He is currently the President of the Society for the Study of the Short Story.
The eleven short stories in The Meagre Tarmac continue Blaise's interest in the social construction of identity. This time, however, his characters are not exploring the two solitudes of North America's English/French divide. The characters in this book are nearly all Indo-American. The two solitudes on display here are the East and West. Also, cultural tradition versus liberal capitalism.
Post-Obama, are we post-racial? Blaise's book argues emphatically, no. But it's a no that is dense with complication.
In an earlier age, this book would be a lightening rod for an "appropriation of voice" debate. How can this white dude write from within the perspective of the Indo-American population? And he does it over and over, in precise detail, and so well!
Clearly, the author has experience of Indo-American culture through his in-laws, but (more importantly) he has brought to it a lifetime of experience, a lifetime of thinking through precise cultural differences, a lifetime of mastering the short story.
And it is a mastery, here, that ought to be celebrated. And read. And studied.
The table of contents includes a note: "These stories are meant to be read in order." The back cover includes a blurb from Joyce Carol Oates calling it "a novel in short story form." The reader can choose how she would prefer to proceed. The stories link and inter-relate, but you could probably skip about and still make sense of the whole.
Many of the narrators are older men, nearing the end of their prosperous careers in America, yearning to return to India (and complete a plan begun earlier in life), their minds seeking a simpler time, one when the supremacy of the elder male wasn't in question.
The collapse of patriarchy is a significant subtext. Over and over male narrators talk about loss of prestige. American is partly to blame. Western liberalism with the stress on the individual. Marriage is the metaphor that rises to prominence next. Marriage is how the family perpetuates itself. On the subcontinent marriages are arranged. How or whether marriages will continue to be arranged is a question that repeats through many of these stories.
Money is often discussed, but it is the challenges of the rich, not the challenges of the poor, that consume (no pun intended) these characters. America has held up its end of the bargain. The families moved from the East to the West to seek economic opportunity and were amply rewarded. In the process, to oversimplify, they lost their souls.
But then, there is no opportunity to return to the land of their youth, because the New India (Mumbai, not Bombay) is rife with corruption (see recent new stories) and booming with its own out-of-control capitalism. Where East meets West, West tends to win, and the ensuing complications (loss of identity, collapse of family, cultural fragmentation) follow.
Canadian geography features in the book. That is, some of the action takes place in Toronto and Montreal. But the Canada here is indistinguishable from America. The West is the West, though one Indo-Canadian family settles in Montreal and one of its sons becomes a high-ranking official in the Parti Quebecois! (Another son, a gay man and actor, makes his fortune in Hollywood.)
The women in this book are brilliant. Not just sharply drawn, exquisitely portrayed and smart (one thirteen-year-old girl is on her way to Stanford, if her father doesn't first take her back to India so he can marry her off), they are also emote sensitively and diversely. That is, there are traditional mothers, untraditional mothers, dutiful daughters, undutiful daughters, Western beauties seeking Eastern wisdom, Eastern women corrupted by … what? the West? No, greed. Corrupted by corruption. By human nature.
For "an exploration of the human condition" is ultimately where analysis of this book leads. The superficial (yet strict and real) boundaries of culture and tradition colour every page, but the underlying architecture of every story (in the book and always?) is built on questions about what it means to be human. La condition humaine.
What an old formulation! What risk of cliché! Yet, so it goes. It is what it is. Or as my seven-year-old says, you get what you get and you don't get upset.
Sadness pervades this book. As does beauty.
The conclusion is simple: read it.
http://thenewcanlit.blogspot.ca/2011/...
April 9, 2015
This collection of intertwining short stories is a strong exploration into the challenges faced by Indian immigrants moving to North America - particularly the United States (Canada's place in these stories is only cursory-at-best, and Mexico doesn't figure in them at all). To this end, they are mostly convincing. The characters are heavily conflicted about North American culture and the ways that it is impacting them and their families, forcing them to leave many of their traditions behind. With deep regret, and a deeply romantic sense of the order of things in a classical Indian family. The characters are dense with notions of who they are, what the world around them is like, and where they want to go. They never feel at home anywhere - even once some of them start returning to their homecountry in later life, they are aware of the changes that are taking place in India. Money is everywhere. Slums are replaced with towering condos for the rich who have come back. Not surprisingly, infidelity in all of its forms is a major theme here.
The writing is also quite fine. In most places it is precise and carefully constructed. In some places the reader wonders if the editor was hoping to go in for another kick at the can - the sentences don't read with the same pleasure. And very rarely is a sentence constructed with absolute precision - the sort one expects from masterful authors. No, this is a work that could have gone for another edit just to sweeten the reading a bit more.
The weakest story precedes the strongest - the first and the second. The first is only weak because it feels contrived and cliche. It is a story that I think many of us have read - the kind that hopes to convince the reader that the characters are not cliche by directly addressing the cliches that the character does not present. That said, after the first five pages it improves dramatically. For a weak story, it is still quite strong.
The second story is a far more interesting work, though it is presented as a sequel-of-sorts to the preceding one. Told from the perspective of young, genius child living in America and refusing to go back to India with her family. She is sleeping with her figure skating coach - one of a string of affairs between pupil and teacher. She is pleased by it, even though it constitutes child molestation. She is also the female character that is most convincingly written.
All of the other stories are really quite interesting. And they are all connected - reading them out of order would not be recommended as information revealed in one serves to buttress part of another story (even if the characters don't mention each other). I don't struggle recommending this story collection. It is good. Even more than good. And it is informative of the human experience that so quickly gets pushed towards the stereotypes constructed by public sociologists and political scientists. I like it for that. But there are better writers and better collections out there - and when time is so limited on reading the best available, I just don't think that Clark Blaise adds up.
Who knows, though. Perhaps I will be challenged by this work for months to come.
The writing is also quite fine. In most places it is precise and carefully constructed. In some places the reader wonders if the editor was hoping to go in for another kick at the can - the sentences don't read with the same pleasure. And very rarely is a sentence constructed with absolute precision - the sort one expects from masterful authors. No, this is a work that could have gone for another edit just to sweeten the reading a bit more.
The weakest story precedes the strongest - the first and the second. The first is only weak because it feels contrived and cliche. It is a story that I think many of us have read - the kind that hopes to convince the reader that the characters are not cliche by directly addressing the cliches that the character does not present. That said, after the first five pages it improves dramatically. For a weak story, it is still quite strong.
The second story is a far more interesting work, though it is presented as a sequel-of-sorts to the preceding one. Told from the perspective of young, genius child living in America and refusing to go back to India with her family. She is sleeping with her figure skating coach - one of a string of affairs between pupil and teacher. She is pleased by it, even though it constitutes child molestation. She is also the female character that is most convincingly written.
All of the other stories are really quite interesting. And they are all connected - reading them out of order would not be recommended as information revealed in one serves to buttress part of another story (even if the characters don't mention each other). I don't struggle recommending this story collection. It is good. Even more than good. And it is informative of the human experience that so quickly gets pushed towards the stereotypes constructed by public sociologists and political scientists. I like it for that. But there are better writers and better collections out there - and when time is so limited on reading the best available, I just don't think that Clark Blaise adds up.
Who knows, though. Perhaps I will be challenged by this work for months to come.
May 20, 2012
A great look at what the muddle of identity - be it language, nationality, religion, or where one lives - creates.
Page 97
Connie's father had been a teacher, and general promoter of the Portuguese language and Luso-Indian culture in the seaside Goan village of Caranzalem. Portuguese, he believed, had protected Goa from the tragic fate of India. Their cottage functioned as a community library of French, Spanish, and Portuguese texts and their back lawn, between monsoons, had been outfitted with a modest stage and commercial lighting. Connie and her borthers used to sit at their father's feet in the tropical, sea-breezy evenings, citronella candles sputtering, while he read passages from the French and Spanish classics and asked his children to act out the same scens in Portuguese. Despite her profession and current residence - book editor in New York - Portuguese remained her comfort language; it provides the music she plays, the wisdom she quotes and the pork and fish vindaloos that she cooks for private celebrations.
Back in her London years she'd known exiled Indonesian writers, some of whom had been imprisoned and tortured by the colonial regime, who still - in the evening, over tumblers of Scotch - reverted to Dutch among themselves. It is a tight, mysterious fraternity, those who grew up with unconsummated love or complicated hate for their colnial masters. Understanding the dynamic had made her the person, and the editor she was.
Page 97
Connie's father had been a teacher, and general promoter of the Portuguese language and Luso-Indian culture in the seaside Goan village of Caranzalem. Portuguese, he believed, had protected Goa from the tragic fate of India. Their cottage functioned as a community library of French, Spanish, and Portuguese texts and their back lawn, between monsoons, had been outfitted with a modest stage and commercial lighting. Connie and her borthers used to sit at their father's feet in the tropical, sea-breezy evenings, citronella candles sputtering, while he read passages from the French and Spanish classics and asked his children to act out the same scens in Portuguese. Despite her profession and current residence - book editor in New York - Portuguese remained her comfort language; it provides the music she plays, the wisdom she quotes and the pork and fish vindaloos that she cooks for private celebrations.
Back in her London years she'd known exiled Indonesian writers, some of whom had been imprisoned and tortured by the colonial regime, who still - in the evening, over tumblers of Scotch - reverted to Dutch among themselves. It is a tight, mysterious fraternity, those who grew up with unconsummated love or complicated hate for their colnial masters. Understanding the dynamic had made her the person, and the editor she was.
April 16, 2012
Clark Blaise masterfully interweaves a multitude of short stories into a whole, with character traits that pull at your inner social scientist while taking you for a ride around the world. Very well written.
July 19, 2020
This is a very good book (this I say because otherwise this note will start off on a wrong footing).
An annoying remark on the first authorial page asserts that the stories "are meant to be read in order". So I read them in order, which, I now believe, gave me little advantage in appreciating them.
Most of them are dramatically taut, and connect to others, although one could distinguish several loose clusters. What I couldn't find, and kept looking for due to that infelicitous note, was a sense of overall design, some kind of round-up, but either the pattern is too subtle for me, or it is too loose to warrant special attention.
The stories are not only specifically focussed on Indian immigrants in North America, but delineate a definitive trajectory of immigration - education and professional ascent of children of wealthy families - and so seek diversification in other areas, such as ethnic variety and approach to family tradition.
The immense non-fictional background provided sometimes seems almost provocative; I have been tempted to ascribe it to the writer's will to justify the appropriation of immigrant voices; I don't think it needs justification, but the question is new to me (in a way, it belies the familiar suggestion that the writer should write about his own stuff), and I've been led by Blaise to this ultimate conclusion, not least by his knowledgeability.
An annoying remark on the first authorial page asserts that the stories "are meant to be read in order". So I read them in order, which, I now believe, gave me little advantage in appreciating them.
Most of them are dramatically taut, and connect to others, although one could distinguish several loose clusters. What I couldn't find, and kept looking for due to that infelicitous note, was a sense of overall design, some kind of round-up, but either the pattern is too subtle for me, or it is too loose to warrant special attention.
The stories are not only specifically focussed on Indian immigrants in North America, but delineate a definitive trajectory of immigration - education and professional ascent of children of wealthy families - and so seek diversification in other areas, such as ethnic variety and approach to family tradition.
The immense non-fictional background provided sometimes seems almost provocative; I have been tempted to ascribe it to the writer's will to justify the appropriation of immigrant voices; I don't think it needs justification, but the question is new to me (in a way, it belies the familiar suggestion that the writer should write about his own stuff), and I've been led by Blaise to this ultimate conclusion, not least by his knowledgeability.
February 7, 2018
The image on the cover is of a Tower of Silence, where the Parsi community in India, and remaining Zoroastrian community in Iran place the dead for "exposure" or a thorough cleaning by vultures.
Reading this collection I was more interested in side googling about Zoroastrianism than the stories. The stories were good, but what amazed me is that the pre-Muslim religion of Persia was an alternate version of Christianity which still exists today (though only numbering in the low hundreds of thousands) Fascinating.
I will however come back to Blaise. like Zoroastrianism, Blaise lives in an space that exists outside of the general population's awareness. Outside of the general canlit establishment and its press/publicity/prize machine's stable of writers. What of the writers pushing the limits but not deemed marketable? Granted Blaise was on the Giller long-list. I've got his name circled in various lists of writers to read who have been largely passed over. So lets see...
Reading this collection I was more interested in side googling about Zoroastrianism than the stories. The stories were good, but what amazed me is that the pre-Muslim religion of Persia was an alternate version of Christianity which still exists today (though only numbering in the low hundreds of thousands) Fascinating.
I will however come back to Blaise. like Zoroastrianism, Blaise lives in an space that exists outside of the general population's awareness. Outside of the general canlit establishment and its press/publicity/prize machine's stable of writers. What of the writers pushing the limits but not deemed marketable? Granted Blaise was on the Giller long-list. I've got his name circled in various lists of writers to read who have been largely passed over. So lets see...
June 10, 2017
E' una raccolta di storie brevi ma si può leggere come un romanzo: personaggi che ritornano, vite che si intersecano, atmosfere che ricorrono. Il filo rosso che le unirebbe è il sentirsi eternamente stranieri anche quando le circostanze, le carriere e le fortune farebbero pensare il contrario. L'America delle infinite opportunità si trasforma in una gabbia opprimente, dunque non tutti ce la fanno.
June 30, 2011
"Despite external signs of satisfaction, good health, a challenging job, the love and support of family and friends, no depressions or mood swings, no bad habits, I would not call myself happy. I am well-adjusted. We are all extremely well-adjusted. I believe my situation is not uncommon among successful immigrants of my age and background."
Clark Blaise has created a short story collection (a few of which are linked) that explores the world of first-generations immigrants from India who now reside in the West. Most are financially successful, and are often working in the business sector of computers and banking. Extensive education in India and in London makes allows many of these immigrants to surpass the abilities of their American co-workers. Yet as the quote above reveals, high wages and business savvy do not ensure happiness.
Ties to India and family remain firm, even though their new culture has a hard time understanding the connection. A sense of family and standing within the family is underscored in many of these stories, and much of this is due to two factors: the traditions of inheritance and arranged marriage. In the case of inheritance, oldest sons seem blessed by getting most of the family wealth. To be a younger brother means continually fighting for a fair share. In many cases, extended family live together in India; sometimes, one part of each family has just a room of their own, and are subject to the whims of the senior son. In one story, a successful and mild physician at work turns into a plotting madman at home, scheming to get rid of the older brother by lawsuit or darker means.
Arranged marriages are a fascinating part of the story, especially in that even a very successful Indian businessman can feel a need to replicate the tradition and marry one of his "own" despite numerous opportunities to marry anyone he wants. Children too, of first-generation parents have their own battles. Raised in the US, they don't understand the traditions while their parents desperately want to keep their children out of harm's way. They look back to India as a place of innocence and control.
In one story, a successful Pac Bell engineer is worried by his ice-skating progidy daughter (who has her own secrets). The sure answer to him is for them to return to India, but her objections raise entirely new issues for the family to deal with. Many of the stories remind me of the style of Ha Jin's A Good Fall, which dealt with Chinese immigrants in New York. Respectability and behavior are far more important to many immigrants than they are to long-time citizens.
Another story has a hugely successful banker seeking a Parsi bride, even being middle-aged, his mother is still nagging at him to find the proper Parsi wife that will honor the family, a tough search given only about 50,000 Parsis are left. His search leaves him questioning his own beliefs and what exactly makes for a solid relationship.
Partition, castes, progress and family honor are all explored in this fascinating book that I wish had been longer. Blaise ends many stories with a question...leaving the reader to imagine the ending. I didn't mind that, but I'd love to see some of these characters again. Especially intriguing is how many of the immigrants return home regularly, offering financial assistance and with an open mind to permanently return. This was a surprise to me, as it seems that once people get acclimated to a new region, the past represents too many limits. I was also intrigued by a point made in one of the early stories that Indian transplants do not form social societies here in the US, such as other races do. Little Tokyo and Chinatown may be a way for some Asians to recreate a social and culture center here, while Indo-Americans resist unifying in social groups.
Clark Blaise has created a short story collection (a few of which are linked) that explores the world of first-generations immigrants from India who now reside in the West. Most are financially successful, and are often working in the business sector of computers and banking. Extensive education in India and in London makes allows many of these immigrants to surpass the abilities of their American co-workers. Yet as the quote above reveals, high wages and business savvy do not ensure happiness.
Ties to India and family remain firm, even though their new culture has a hard time understanding the connection. A sense of family and standing within the family is underscored in many of these stories, and much of this is due to two factors: the traditions of inheritance and arranged marriage. In the case of inheritance, oldest sons seem blessed by getting most of the family wealth. To be a younger brother means continually fighting for a fair share. In many cases, extended family live together in India; sometimes, one part of each family has just a room of their own, and are subject to the whims of the senior son. In one story, a successful and mild physician at work turns into a plotting madman at home, scheming to get rid of the older brother by lawsuit or darker means.
Arranged marriages are a fascinating part of the story, especially in that even a very successful Indian businessman can feel a need to replicate the tradition and marry one of his "own" despite numerous opportunities to marry anyone he wants. Children too, of first-generation parents have their own battles. Raised in the US, they don't understand the traditions while their parents desperately want to keep their children out of harm's way. They look back to India as a place of innocence and control.
In one story, a successful Pac Bell engineer is worried by his ice-skating progidy daughter (who has her own secrets). The sure answer to him is for them to return to India, but her objections raise entirely new issues for the family to deal with. Many of the stories remind me of the style of Ha Jin's A Good Fall, which dealt with Chinese immigrants in New York. Respectability and behavior are far more important to many immigrants than they are to long-time citizens.
Another story has a hugely successful banker seeking a Parsi bride, even being middle-aged, his mother is still nagging at him to find the proper Parsi wife that will honor the family, a tough search given only about 50,000 Parsis are left. His search leaves him questioning his own beliefs and what exactly makes for a solid relationship.
Partition, castes, progress and family honor are all explored in this fascinating book that I wish had been longer. Blaise ends many stories with a question...leaving the reader to imagine the ending. I didn't mind that, but I'd love to see some of these characters again. Especially intriguing is how many of the immigrants return home regularly, offering financial assistance and with an open mind to permanently return. This was a surprise to me, as it seems that once people get acclimated to a new region, the past represents too many limits. I was also intrigued by a point made in one of the early stories that Indian transplants do not form social societies here in the US, such as other races do. Little Tokyo and Chinatown may be a way for some Asians to recreate a social and culture center here, while Indo-Americans resist unifying in social groups.
August 6, 2012
I read this book partly on the basis on an enthusiastic review by Margaret Atwood. I should have known better because I usually find Atwood’s characters and plots wanting because they are mere embodiments of ideas rather than the actions of real humans. So it is with these short stories. To take a small example, a woman is a highly successful editor in the New York publishing world. She has had both men and women as lovers in the past but has been living for many years with a woman; the pair moved together from London. She is editing a book by a flamboyant dyke. It makes her reflect on her sexual identity. She muses that she has never considered the question of her sexual identity and maybe she should. No, Mr. Blaise, that is not at all plausible. Not in the upper circles of New York publishing. Her implausible musings serve to illuminate issues of concern to the author, but they fuzz the action.
In the same story her publisher is bought out by a large company that has no interest in publishing, mainly for the building. The literary memorabilia and the like are trashed. That makes a sharp point about the attitude of some companies toward literature, but again it is not plausible. First, very few New York companies own the building they occupy, and, second, companies that make such acquisitions know well how to squeeze ever drop from the turnips they snap up.
These stories mostly are about men born to the traditional middle classes in India, talented, well educated in fields like computer engineering, who have made it big the US or Canada, sometimes made it very big. These people’s loyalties and interests are painfully divided between North America and the Subcontinent, but they are not fully people; they are figures that exhibit such conflicts and make valid pints about the relation between cultures and the like. I know something of these kind of people and the details are accurate, but the characterization and plotting are shallow and contrived. The prose is OK.
If you’re interested in a novel about Indians in Silicon Valley centered on their human struggles, check out: Gilded Age by Monua Janah.
In the same story her publisher is bought out by a large company that has no interest in publishing, mainly for the building. The literary memorabilia and the like are trashed. That makes a sharp point about the attitude of some companies toward literature, but again it is not plausible. First, very few New York companies own the building they occupy, and, second, companies that make such acquisitions know well how to squeeze ever drop from the turnips they snap up.
These stories mostly are about men born to the traditional middle classes in India, talented, well educated in fields like computer engineering, who have made it big the US or Canada, sometimes made it very big. These people’s loyalties and interests are painfully divided between North America and the Subcontinent, but they are not fully people; they are figures that exhibit such conflicts and make valid pints about the relation between cultures and the like. I know something of these kind of people and the details are accurate, but the characterization and plotting are shallow and contrived. The prose is OK.
If you’re interested in a novel about Indians in Silicon Valley centered on their human struggles, check out: Gilded Age by Monua Janah.
March 17, 2012
The blurb on the back of this book says "a novel in short-story form". I completely disagree. The first three stories are told from the viewpoint of the father, daughter and mother of a family, shocking in the revelations that are held back from one another. I was particularly captivated by Pramila, the youngest person to be admitted to Standford. What a delight to be inside the mind of a young, brilliant mathematician. I turn the page, hoping for a story from the fourth member of the family, the son. Why does his sister call him "The Beast"?
However, from then on the stories have only the most tenuous connections to the opening ones and to each other. In fact, the main characters seemed so similar that I started to wonder if they weren't meant to have all come from the same class at Stanford, or to have been casually mentioned in other stories. They blurred together. There were few moments of recognition.
Blaise's recipe for a short story varies little from one to the next: childhood, education, marriage, job, marriage breakup. Sometimes this happens in one story, sometimes in two.
And to hear the other side of the debate about this book, visit http://kevinfromcanada.wordpress.com/....
However, from then on the stories have only the most tenuous connections to the opening ones and to each other. In fact, the main characters seemed so similar that I started to wonder if they weren't meant to have all come from the same class at Stanford, or to have been casually mentioned in other stories. They blurred together. There were few moments of recognition.
Blaise's recipe for a short story varies little from one to the next: childhood, education, marriage, job, marriage breakup. Sometimes this happens in one story, sometimes in two.
And to hear the other side of the debate about this book, visit http://kevinfromcanada.wordpress.com/....
August 16, 2011
Absorbing short stories about Bengali Indo-Americans.
Blaise's character's seem more 'well-adjusted' (to use one of his own descriptions} than Jhumpa Lahiri's, and some of them even seem reasonably happy. I like the inter-connections between the stories although it was sometimes a little confusing to figure out who the narrator was (sometimes the same narrator recounts two stories but the change is voice is such that it seems like two different people). And it was fun to recognize Anjali and the photographer from his wife's new book "Miss Modern India"
I'm not the biggest fan of short stories but several of these left me wanting to know more, and I really enjoyed some of his observations. A tall blonde, wearing skimpy clothes, tattos and a slogan on her camisole is summed up n one sentence as: "A walking bill-board of availability'.
Blaise's character's seem more 'well-adjusted' (to use one of his own descriptions} than Jhumpa Lahiri's, and some of them even seem reasonably happy. I like the inter-connections between the stories although it was sometimes a little confusing to figure out who the narrator was (sometimes the same narrator recounts two stories but the change is voice is such that it seems like two different people). And it was fun to recognize Anjali and the photographer from his wife's new book "Miss Modern India"
I'm not the biggest fan of short stories but several of these left me wanting to know more, and I really enjoyed some of his observations. A tall blonde, wearing skimpy clothes, tattos and a slogan on her camisole is summed up n one sentence as: "A walking bill-board of availability'.
March 23, 2015
Painfully redundant and dripping with male privilege. The only engaging stories I found were the ones not about the rags-to-riches men, transforming through names and taboo interracial sex--basically, the women who struggled psychologically in the change from a patriarchal society to a society (America) which presented them more freedom. Unfortunately, those two stories are not enough to mark this book as anything but a single plot re-hashed through different stock characters. The prose borders on cliche in parts and I was numbed by the middle of the novel by the sheer repetitiveness of the themes, the characters, and the conflicts.
July 17, 2012
Quotes:
"It's very hard to be told, without warning, without explanation, that you're just ... unworthy."
The promiscuous exchange of intimacies, which passes for friendship in America, is a dangerous thing.
Sometimes it's good to be a quiet, studious, Indian daughter; I'm just furniture.
Some long shadow of shame has shaped our lives. It's about him, not me, though I'm the one who will pay the price.
I miss the pounding of male urination, because with men around I know there's something predictable in the house.
Any act of love, however innocent, could rise up like a cobra.
"It's very hard to be told, without warning, without explanation, that you're just ... unworthy."
The promiscuous exchange of intimacies, which passes for friendship in America, is a dangerous thing.
Sometimes it's good to be a quiet, studious, Indian daughter; I'm just furniture.
Some long shadow of shame has shaped our lives. It's about him, not me, though I'm the one who will pay the price.
I miss the pounding of male urination, because with men around I know there's something predictable in the house.
Any act of love, however innocent, could rise up like a cobra.
September 15, 2011
What a marvelous collection of stories all concerning immigrants from India! The stories introduce the same characters at different times in their lives in India and in the US. The situations are touching, sexy, and humorous. The strange idea of immigrants from a poor background becoming enormously wealthy in the US is quite believable. I hope everyone finds time to read this slim book.
March 7, 2012
I was really looking forward to this, based on the ecstatic reviews, and am left wondering nervously if I'm simply too shallow to appreciate it - but it didn't grab me. For me, it had a certain monotony and sameness of tone (despite the intended panoply of voices in the different stories).
June 23, 2015
What an incredible book and genius author. I read this for class with a professor who has some personal experience with Blaise and we all loved the book. But we also appreciated it deeply for its literary qualities, as Blaise is a master of compression. I am so excited to read more of his work now.
August 23, 2011
I loved this book. It's a pleasant, and interesting, read; and I really appreciated the themes of displacement and colocation.
July 16, 2011
When I say "Unlike anything I've ever read," I know that I need to read more, but wow, what an intriguing collection of connected tales.
January 17, 2012
For a short book, I love how it made me think.
July 19, 2013
This guy is my new favorite.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews