Alex Lotti

“We can’t lay claim to Olympus…” (Rushdie 1310)

Salman Rushdie’s writing is incredibly poetic throughout this entire essay, so while it may be ironic that such a short phrase stood out to me, the fact it is so simple is the reason it did. Among the flowery figurative language that continuously decorates his argument is this brief metaphor that packs the biggest punch. Olympus is the city of the gods, standing above all human civilization as impossible for mere man to reach, let alone conquer. Just as no man can lay claim to Olympus, no British Indian writer can lay claim to India through his or her work. To compare India to Olympus means to also revere the country, so though he may consider his homeland imaginary, Rushdie never dares disrespect it, nor does he ever complain. Rushdie not only accepts the fragmentation that stole his ability to lay claim to Olympus, but goes so far as to embrace it so that he may take advantage of the unique perspective of India it inspires within him.

“An old photograph in a cheap frame hangs on a wall of the room where i work. It’s a picture dating from 1946 of a house into which, at the time of its taking, I had not yet been born.”

In this excerpt from “Imaginary Homelands” the narrator returns to this house that he seems to be obsessed with. The narrator speaks as if this place he was visiting was a museum instead of the home in which his family lived. The sight of this house appeared to fill in a gap in the narrator’s memory. The refusal to call the house the narrator sought out to visit a home shows how disconnected from the past the narrator has become over the years. A foreigner he or she calls themselves. A foreigner to the house in the old photograph in the cheap frame.

The information given in this reading is quite compelling to say the least. Rushdie’s description of his half-remembered home as well has his other partial memories have an enticing nature to them. The relatability of trying to remember one’s own childhood makes these anecdotes endearing. The premise of using “Fragmented” memories as inspiration for his novel is such an interesting concept. Memory is of course something that has come up in quite a few of our previous readings, but no doubt the way it is used in this story shall likely be a completely different experience from the others. Reading Rushdie’s opinions on immigration and how that process can impact literature, was also insightful. His idea that “We can’t simply use the language in the way the British did; that it needs remaking for our own purposes” is a powerful sentiment that should really be considered by all writers. It is a promotion of personal identity in one’s own writing and use of language in general. Reading this background information on Rushdie, and learning some of his ideals has made the anticipation of reading Midnight’s Children all the more exciting.

The word haunting sounds well, haunting. But haunting doesn’t have to carry the negative connotations associated with it. To be haunted could also mean to be nostalgic. And as the author works to remember and reclaim a place she once knew as home, she’s definitely full of nostalgic moments. There was genuine amazement at how much the author could still perceive. These past experiences, this “broken mirror” as was said, did carry with it certain valuable treasures which could be utilized alongside what was considered unflawed.  I think this broken mirror of perception the author spoke of ties closey with this quote mentioned later on human beings lens of perception. “But human beings do not percieve things whole; we are not gods but wounded creatures, cracked lenses, capable only of fractured perceptions” (Rushdie 1310). But as was said, perhaps these fractured pieces are important to piece together the cracked lenses so that we may begin to percieve through different lenses and thus stop being haunted by what wounds us, our morals, and the perceptions that divide us. 

Cultural 

I love this selection and that Rushdie openly acknowledges that he can only write about the India that he experiences and remembers. Not only does it make it clear that his India is probably different than what other people know or have experienced, but it makes the work seem that much more personal. I also find it interesting that Rushdie mentions the weight that it adds to be writing in English. He addresses the cultural connotations of writing in English, as well as mentioning that it’s not so much a choice as it is a necessity. Overall this essay made me excited to consider all cultural aspects of his work as well as literature in general.

Hayley Gillespie

“…our physical alienation from India inevitably means that we will not be capable of reclaiming precisely the thing that was lost; that we will, in short, create fictions, not actual cities or villages, but invisible ones, imaginary homelands, Indias of the mind,” (1308). 

This quote captures what I feel to be the main takeaway from this piece. Rushdie discusses the effects time has on our brains by referencing fragmentation. We remember things in a vague, almost dream state. Our distant memories are not remembered exactly the same way as they transpired; we miss pieces and chunks of scenes. Like a dream, our memories are bits and pieces placed together that might not always be coherent pictures, but our minds fill in the gaps to make sense of it. She discusses this with her talks of her homeland and remembering a home in black and white rather than the actual vibrant coloring of the house because of pictures she remembers more clearly. Our pasts and memories are a collection of bits and pieces rather than a distinctive whole. 

“It is normally supposed that something always gets lost in translation: I cling, obstinately, to the notion that something can also be gained.”

Rushdie begins this passage by talking about his memories of his past in Bombay. Our memories, however, are not always reliable. Memories change. What was once vivid and clear becomes muddled with the passage of time. One may remember a certain event happening one way while another person remembers it differently. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Though the volatility of our own memories may frighten us, there is in fact something to gain: a new perspective. Juxtaposing what you remember with what actually happened gives you a new viewpoint to consider. A child would often remember an event in a more optimistic perspective. Revisiting that place or memory as an adult allows you to go back and look at what you may have missed.

Emma D. (2/20)

Our pasts can be haunting, in fact, I think it is fair to say that our pasts haunt each of us (in a way). People always say it is important to focus on the here and now, and that looking back does us no good. Is this true? And, even if we were to not look back, doesn’t our past affect how we view things that are currently happening? In Imaginary Homelands by Salman Rushdie, (I believe) Rushdie is battling his fragmented past, “The shards of memory acquired greater status, greater resonance, because they were remains; fragmentation made trivial things seem like symbols, and the mundane acquired numinous qualities” (Rushdie).

So, I did a little research on Rushdie to see if he would have been considered a writer of the modernist era since the idea of fragmentation seems to be evident in this piece. Rushdie was born in 1947 in India… so, we are talking about two years after the end of WW2. This places Rushdie in the postmodernism era. In the piece Rushdie states, “Writers are no longer sages, dispensing the wisdom of the centuries. And those of us who have been forced by cultural displacement to accepts the provisional nature of all truths, all certainties, have perhaps had modernism forced upon us.” I may be reading too much into this, but I believe Rushdie feels that modernism was a trap to writers. And, I think he is speaking to this first-hand as an Indian writer living in England. Fragmentation seems to be a theme in both modernism and postmodernism writing. I am looking forward to reading Midnight’s Children to see if fragmentation appears there, too.

“Imaginary Homelands” addresses the English language in what i think is a very interesting way. Rushdie talks about it at the top of the fourth page and says that he thinks that perhaps “to conquer English may be to complete the process of making ourselves free.” In the very same paragraph, he talk about how it is a linguistic struggle to use the language, and that he thinks it needs to be remade before it can properly be used for the purposes he intends. Personally I find this fascinating. Reclaiming language, specifically in the case of slurs, is not an unheard of concept, but to propose undertaking a similar procedure for an entire language is incredible. That said, the point he makes is a fair one, English as a language is very widespread, and for oppressed minorities to conquer it makes sense. 

     In the Demon Lover and The Happy Autumn Fields, we see how war afflicted Mrs. Drover and Mary’s mental health. The Demon Lover reads more like a traditional ghost story with Mrs. Drover being haunted by a supernatural force, which is the spirit of her ex-lover who had died in the war. The Happy Autumn Fields deals with the psychological effects Mary experienced by living in a war-torn area. Mary experiences hallucinatory visions of a life she has not lived herself, yet she holds those memories as if they are her own. Mrs. Drover goes through a more dramatized ghost experience in the setting of an abandoned, torn house, which puts her in a state of hysteria. Both stories deal with the trauma of war and the ghosts that are left behind as a result.