I think the biggest thing I gained from our trip to London was a better understanding of the conditions surrounding British women writers. I was fascinated by all of the tours we took. Hearing about the conditions of the poor in the manufacturing areas and seeing the recreated drawing rooms from the Victorian period helped North and South come to life. I loved being able to smell and eat the food on Brick Lane. And it was incredible to be able to have class in a room Virginia Woolf once used. I was able to connect to the literature like never before. I’ve always had a stronger connection to American writers, but I think that visiting England will expand my appreciation for British writers. The trip was an amazing experience all around, both for my education and personally. This was my first trip out of the country, and it was world expanding. I didn’t expect to feel so at home so far away, but part of me really felt a connection with London. I think the literature made me feel a little bit like I already knew London almost as much as seeing the city in person helped the reading become more real. I honestly don’t know how to articulate it any more. It was an amazing time.

In the postscript of her collection The Demon Lover, Elezabeth Bowen says of London during WWII, “We all lived in a state of lucid abnormality” (218). This is a beautifully concise way of describing “The Mysterious Kor” and, based on the postscript and our discussion, the entire collection. Everything about the story feels completely real and surreal at the same time. The characters seem to be walking in a dream, but the truth is everything happening around them is deadly serious. They speak of having “too much moon” in mystic tones, which to a modern reader may evoke ideas of spirituality or mystery, but at the time was also simply a practical danger because of the added light. Bowen also discusses her use of “hallucinations” as being “not a peril” but an “instinctive, saving resort” (219). Her characters seem to be balancing between a the surreal horrors of the war and the escape of dreams. The lines between real and unreal become blurred, and it’s easy to imagine how someone falls too far and ends up like Septimus in Mrs. Dalloway, lost in a dream and unable to cope with the real world.

One of my favorite points to come out of today’s discussion was the idea that the invalid mother was a common trope in Victorian literature. I believe I’ve heard before a similar idea that every coming of age story has to star an orphan so the protagonist has the freedom to make mistakes that make for an interesting story (this may have been an argument about Disney movies …). What strikes me about this in retrospect is the paralelle conversation about the relative weakness of Mr. Hale. As we said, he would have been considered fairly feminine at the time, so he is in effect unable to act as a father or mother to Margarette. It feels like an interesting variation of the orphan trope to have a parent present for most of the story but who is so ineffective. I wonder if that is unique, at least for the time period.

It seems strange to me how rare it is to fine good coming of age stories that feature strong parents. I’m sure some exist that I’m not thinking of. I would appreciate any suggestions.

It has been interesting so far, especially in today’s tour, to see the stark differences in buildings for the different parts of the city. Today’s walk through the lower class areas helped me understand the contrasting lifestyles presented in North and South. It was even more powerful to be able to stand outside of a building that today has been renovated as a shop or a single family home and hear how people used to live 10 or more to a room. If anything after today’s tour I felt a little like the novel undersold the living conditions. While the workers are described as poor and living in small rooms, I never felt like they were as poor of conditions as we saw and heard about today. Higgins and his daughters’ home seemed to be livable for them. Perhaps the conditions were not as crowded further north. At any rate, seeing the area and hearing the vivid descriptions had so much impact on my reading, more than my imagination could provide for sure.

I thought one of the most interesting issues to come out of today’s discussion was the questions of authenticity and stereotyping, especially from within the Bengali community. Like I said this morning, it never really occurred to me that the novel might be criticized as relying too much on stereotypes. I felt like Ali’s descriptions of the culture helped me connect with the story. I wonder how much of her characterization was deliberately crafted to appeal to a western audience and how much came from her experiences and research. The lengthy acknolwgements text at the end of the novel gave me a sense that the novel had authencity, but Dr. McLeod explained how Ali did not have the lower-class immigrant experience, so it is a legitimate question.

I wonder where the line between describing a culture for outsiders and stereotyping falls, or if there even is a difference at the end of the day. I feel like any description of a culture must trip over stereotypes at some point, but at the same time reaching across cultural boundaries is important, especially to postcolonial writers like Ali.

As a sidebar, I wanted to add how much I appreciated the lovely descriptions of food in the novel and how just smelling the restaurants of Brick Lane was powerful to me. Smell is obviously a powerful emotion, and while reading I felt almost as if I could smell the food at times. Cuisine is so much a part of a culture, and I think Ali does a fantastic job of using descriptions of food to connect the readers to the culture of the novel. Now part of me wonders if the criticisms of stereotyping extends to the use of food or is that is given a pass.