(Apologizing in advance for the atrocious syntax in this comment; flu meds have scrambled my brain)
The following sentence
a multicultural story could be two people ... in a third culture, (somewhat) unfamiliar to both, and neither of their 'home' cultures has the upper hand. Nobody gets to claim the privilege of being the "standard" in re cultural or racial or ethnic or nationalistic.
makes me hopeful that you might like White Teeth by Zadie Smith. It's set in the UK, but many of the characters are immigrants or second-gen, and the story is often narrated by characters who are not culturally British. Smith is sensitive but not neurotic, and all of her characters are silly and serious and relatable, whether they come from London or from somewhere very far away from London. I think my favourite thing about the novel is how she doesn't seem to favour certain types of perspectives in her storytelling the way other writers tend to do.
I should warn you, though, that race and ethnicity are one of the central themes of the novel, and I really wish I had something else to offer you, because I'm pretty sure most people who aren't white/culturally British/culturally American have other interests than their ethnic/racial identities, you know? What really annoys me is that so often, I feel like I'm either reading about a foreign person or culture through the eyes of a person who comes from the same culture as me, or else I'm reading about my culture (or race or ethnicity or discrimination or tolerance or some other topic related to that fraught boundary of Us/Them) through the eyes of someone who's standing outside of it. And what I'd really like -- it's like the Bechdel Test, isn't it? -- is to read about two characters who are not members of the dominant culture/paradigm, who at least occasionally talk to each other about something entirely unrelated to the dominant culture/paradigm, or to their own culture/race/ethnicity's position in relation to it. Depressing that this should be so rare. Though White Teeth comes close at times, I'd say.
no subject
Date: 28 Jun 2011 06:14 pm (UTC)The following sentence
a multicultural story could be two people ... in a third culture, (somewhat) unfamiliar to both, and neither of their 'home' cultures has the upper hand. Nobody gets to claim the privilege of being the "standard" in re cultural or racial or ethnic or nationalistic.
makes me hopeful that you might like White Teeth by Zadie Smith. It's set in the UK, but many of the characters are immigrants or second-gen, and the story is often narrated by characters who are not culturally British. Smith is sensitive but not neurotic, and all of her characters are silly and serious and relatable, whether they come from London or from somewhere very far away from London. I think my favourite thing about the novel is how she doesn't seem to favour certain types of perspectives in her storytelling the way other writers tend to do.
I should warn you, though, that race and ethnicity are one of the central themes of the novel, and I really wish I had something else to offer you, because I'm pretty sure most people who aren't white/culturally British/culturally American have other interests than their ethnic/racial identities, you know? What really annoys me is that so often, I feel like I'm either reading about a foreign person or culture through the eyes of a person who comes from the same culture as me, or else I'm reading about my culture (or race or ethnicity or discrimination or tolerance or some other topic related to that fraught boundary of Us/Them) through the eyes of someone who's standing outside of it. And what I'd really like -- it's like the Bechdel Test, isn't it? -- is to read about two characters who are not members of the dominant culture/paradigm, who at least occasionally talk to each other about something entirely unrelated to the dominant culture/paradigm, or to their own culture/race/ethnicity's position in relation to it. Depressing that this should be so rare. Though White Teeth comes close at times, I'd say.