Family history, of course, has its proper dietary laws. One is supposed to swallow and digest only the permitted parts of it, the halal portions of the past, drained of their redness, their blood. Unfortunately thus makes the stories less juicy; so I am about to become the first and only member of my family to flout the laws of halal. Letting no blood escape from the body of the tale, I arrive at the unspeakable part; and, undaunted, press on.
pp.71-72
All games have morals; and the game of Snakes and Ladders captures, as no other activity can hope to do, the eternal truth that for every ladder you climb, a snake is waiting just around the corner; and for every snake, a ladder will compensate...implicit in the game is the unchanging twoness of things, the duality of up against down, good against evil; to solid rationality of ladders balances the occult sinuosities of the serpent...it is a also possible to slither down a ladder and climb to triumph on the venom of a snake.
pp.179-180
It won't do any justice to judge a book by its cover; nor does it do any better to judge a book by its metaphors alone. However my purpose here is not to judge, but to remark on the extraordinary complexity these metaphors display.
Let me begin with a disclaimer: by metaphors I mean metaphors and company; analogy, parable, metonymy, synaecdoche -- all those that compare, parrallelise. Such is the power of good literary authorship, in this case Rushdie's, that the technique refuses to be pigeon-holed into a category. I can only safely say it is a comparison. However it is not a simple one- or two-way comparison; it is beyond that.
Take a look at the two bulky quotes above. They do not employ the same complexity. The complexities arise from different aspects of a metaphor. Let's try to unravel them.
The first parallel: "family history" and food in the context of Islamic "dietary laws".
The ultimate purpose of comparing a thing to another is to invoke aspects not immediately apparent, but are obvious in juxtaposition.
The simplest, and most commonly encountered, effect is to make concrete. Suppose you have an abstract concept -- compare it to a physical body, then suddenly the abstractness disappears, the concept becomes possible to be sensed. In essence, rather than having the concept high in the clouds, a make-concrete metaphor transforms it to be a part of empirical experience. In literary works, it is not uncommon to see Death and Nature, initials of both capitalised. Why? The only category of nouns whose initials are capitalised even when they do not begin a sentence is the proper nouns. People's names, cities', countries'. There are physical entities behind those names; the names are just labels, for convenience of reference. Likewise, if you are talking about Death and Nature, you are not talking about bodiless concepts. Rather it suggests that there are physical entities who embody those names. Usually the more anthropomorphic the 'bodies' are, the metaphors are even more powerful. Imagine an Angel of Death or Mother Nature, for example.
The first quote: there is no difference here. Family history is quite abstract while food is concrete. To swallow the food is to understand the history. To complicate matter, Rushdie inserts the halal law here so that the food can only be consumed in certain manners conforming to the law. Certain parts are not supposed to be swallowed, to be understood: the "redness", the "blood". Following this, the halal law on the metaphorical plane must also have a parallel on the reality plane: the taboo of uncovering family's shameful, painful past. It is no easy matter to formulate an allegory, an extended metaphor like this, in which several aspects of body A are parallelised to several those of body B. It is of course much easier to just compare an aspect of body A to another in body B. Then move on, another aspect of body A to another in body C, and so on. Of course the impact will be diminished because the metaphors become disjointed instead of interlinked. Consistency and coherence give more than the sum of the separate metaphors. This coherent collection of metaphors is termed an allegory. Depending on the author, how far a metaphor can be extended varies -- but the extent is his imagination alone.
Second quote: I will skip the bring explanation as it is quite clear that ups and downs in life can be compared to snakes and ladders. The extraordinary thing that is impossible to capture by quotes is that this metaphor will be invoked several more times. Not only as mere metaphors but there are episodes involving real snakes and ladders. For example, Saleem was cured by snake venom when he was about to die of his illness -- "climbing up the snake". In this way the metaphor transcends the separation between metaphorical and literal planes. Rushdie switches between the two with ease.
There are other good examples in this book, but let me choose one that befits the title of the best. It is becoming so clear as you progress through the pages that the book itself is one helluva big allegory. The birth of Saleem at midnight of Independence ties him with India the nation. Saleem, the protagonist, himself parallels India.
If a book can be so astounding by one aspect alone, imagine about the others. It is really no wonder that it won a Booker Prize (1981), then Booker of Bookers Prize (1993), and most recently Best of the Bookers (2008). A standard text in university syllabus, it is really a highly recommended read.
Let me begin with a disclaimer: by metaphors I mean metaphors and company; analogy, parable, metonymy, synaecdoche -- all those that compare, parrallelise. Such is the power of good literary authorship, in this case Rushdie's, that the technique refuses to be pigeon-holed into a category. I can only safely say it is a comparison. However it is not a simple one- or two-way comparison; it is beyond that.
Take a look at the two bulky quotes above. They do not employ the same complexity. The complexities arise from different aspects of a metaphor. Let's try to unravel them.
The first parallel: "family history" and food in the context of Islamic "dietary laws".
The ultimate purpose of comparing a thing to another is to invoke aspects not immediately apparent, but are obvious in juxtaposition.
The simplest, and most commonly encountered, effect is to make concrete. Suppose you have an abstract concept -- compare it to a physical body, then suddenly the abstractness disappears, the concept becomes possible to be sensed. In essence, rather than having the concept high in the clouds, a make-concrete metaphor transforms it to be a part of empirical experience. In literary works, it is not uncommon to see Death and Nature, initials of both capitalised. Why? The only category of nouns whose initials are capitalised even when they do not begin a sentence is the proper nouns. People's names, cities', countries'. There are physical entities behind those names; the names are just labels, for convenience of reference. Likewise, if you are talking about Death and Nature, you are not talking about bodiless concepts. Rather it suggests that there are physical entities who embody those names. Usually the more anthropomorphic the 'bodies' are, the metaphors are even more powerful. Imagine an Angel of Death or Mother Nature, for example.
The first quote: there is no difference here. Family history is quite abstract while food is concrete. To swallow the food is to understand the history. To complicate matter, Rushdie inserts the halal law here so that the food can only be consumed in certain manners conforming to the law. Certain parts are not supposed to be swallowed, to be understood: the "redness", the "blood". Following this, the halal law on the metaphorical plane must also have a parallel on the reality plane: the taboo of uncovering family's shameful, painful past. It is no easy matter to formulate an allegory, an extended metaphor like this, in which several aspects of body A are parallelised to several those of body B. It is of course much easier to just compare an aspect of body A to another in body B. Then move on, another aspect of body A to another in body C, and so on. Of course the impact will be diminished because the metaphors become disjointed instead of interlinked. Consistency and coherence give more than the sum of the separate metaphors. This coherent collection of metaphors is termed an allegory. Depending on the author, how far a metaphor can be extended varies -- but the extent is his imagination alone.
Second quote: I will skip the bring explanation as it is quite clear that ups and downs in life can be compared to snakes and ladders. The extraordinary thing that is impossible to capture by quotes is that this metaphor will be invoked several more times. Not only as mere metaphors but there are episodes involving real snakes and ladders. For example, Saleem was cured by snake venom when he was about to die of his illness -- "climbing up the snake". In this way the metaphor transcends the separation between metaphorical and literal planes. Rushdie switches between the two with ease.
There are other good examples in this book, but let me choose one that befits the title of the best. It is becoming so clear as you progress through the pages that the book itself is one helluva big allegory. The birth of Saleem at midnight of Independence ties him with India the nation. Saleem, the protagonist, himself parallels India.
If a book can be so astounding by one aspect alone, imagine about the others. It is really no wonder that it won a Booker Prize (1981), then Booker of Bookers Prize (1993), and most recently Best of the Bookers (2008). A standard text in university syllabus, it is really a highly recommended read.
1 comment:
sound very interesting=)
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