Obsessed with right now: "Eisbrecher" (German growling hard rock)
Yesterday in Literary Critism we discussed "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri. Someone said that Mr. Kapasi was weird because he was fantasizing about an entire future with Mrs. Das before he even knew her.
Well, doesn't everyone do that? You meet someone. There doesn't need to be anything intrinsically special about this person (I'll say him, since my experiences usually involves a guy): he's a waiter at a restaurant you visit, a student in one of those auditorium classes with hundreds of seats, maybe someone who walks by your window one Tuesday afternoon. Who he really is doesn't matter, because the fantasy is about you and your idea of him.
Maybe you both exchange hellos and the conversation fizzles. But amoung the thousands of little paths you've visualized branching from your current life, you see what could be in a more cinematic universe:
After hello he asks your name. He's graduating/going on a mission/studying abroad/being arrested by Interpol in a few weeks, but he takes you out on the most magical afternoon date of your life. You spend hours staring into his eyes and realize that this stranger is the only man who's ever understood your passions. Or, alternately, you spend an afternoon insulting one another until the fire in your eyes consumes you both and you make out for the next few hours. You exchange addresses.
During the course of your correspondence, or maybe before it even begins, something goes wrong with the mail and you lose touch.
Years later, you are finally granted control of your very own consolate—a remote consolate in a country with growing political tensions. You are elated by the promotion, but cannot help wondering if you were chosen by pure merit or because it is much easier to accomodate a single person in this difficult area than the families that most of the other Foreign Service officers with your experience have. Out walking/jeeping through a particularly picturesque-but-dangerous barrio/mountain pass one day in a fetching outfit, you run into That Guy.
A series of formal events (for which you are elegantly dressed) and misconceptions later, you find out that he has spent years in the country; he even married a woman native to this harsh country, but she died in some tragic accident/rebel attack. The rebels attack again and you both are forced to hide out in some tiny shelter, eventually growing closer…
The story can go on from there, detailing the ups and downs of your possible life together, but the point is that this fantasy is about you. Only two hours elapsed between Mr. Kapasi creating a fantasy about future correspondence with Mrs. Das and completely detatching the real Mrs. Das from it. There is nothing weird or obsessive about this behavior at all.
Well, doesn't everyone do that? You meet someone. There doesn't need to be anything intrinsically special about this person (I'll say him, since my experiences usually involves a guy): he's a waiter at a restaurant you visit, a student in one of those auditorium classes with hundreds of seats, maybe someone who walks by your window one Tuesday afternoon. Who he really is doesn't matter, because the fantasy is about you and your idea of him.
Maybe you both exchange hellos and the conversation fizzles. But amoung the thousands of little paths you've visualized branching from your current life, you see what could be in a more cinematic universe:
After hello he asks your name. He's graduating/going on a mission/studying abroad/being arrested by Interpol in a few weeks, but he takes you out on the most magical afternoon date of your life. You spend hours staring into his eyes and realize that this stranger is the only man who's ever understood your passions. Or, alternately, you spend an afternoon insulting one another until the fire in your eyes consumes you both and you make out for the next few hours. You exchange addresses.
During the course of your correspondence, or maybe before it even begins, something goes wrong with the mail and you lose touch.
Years later, you are finally granted control of your very own consolate—a remote consolate in a country with growing political tensions. You are elated by the promotion, but cannot help wondering if you were chosen by pure merit or because it is much easier to accomodate a single person in this difficult area than the families that most of the other Foreign Service officers with your experience have. Out walking/jeeping through a particularly picturesque-but-dangerous barrio/mountain pass one day in a fetching outfit, you run into That Guy.
A series of formal events (for which you are elegantly dressed) and misconceptions later, you find out that he has spent years in the country; he even married a woman native to this harsh country, but she died in some tragic accident/rebel attack. The rebels attack again and you both are forced to hide out in some tiny shelter, eventually growing closer…
The story can go on from there, detailing the ups and downs of your possible life together, but the point is that this fantasy is about you. Only two hours elapsed between Mr. Kapasi creating a fantasy about future correspondence with Mrs. Das and completely detatching the real Mrs. Das from it. There is nothing weird or obsessive about this behavior at all.
posted by Bethylene at 12:53
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