Revolving
Days – David Malouf - Part – 2 (continued – Poetry)
David Malouf (1934) is
an acclaimed Australian poet, novelist and short story writer. His writings convey a lyrical wisdom about
human experience with in the Australian landscape. David Malouf’s ‘Revoling
Days’ revolves round a romantic affair of his early days that has left an
indelible imprint in his mind. Vivid snap
shots of those sensory moments of the past and the way he concludes the poem
prove his genuine love.
David Malouf recollects
the days when he was in love with a blue eyed girl. As he had nowhere to go, he fell in love
then. The enduring power of memory still
shows in his memory screen the different shirts he had worn to impress
her. One shirt was mint green, another
one was pink, the third named ivy-league was tan with darker stripes. That was actually his first button-down
collar shirt. When he was knotting his
tie before a mirror, he had expected her stepping into the room. Though they had promised many things, they
got separated. The poet doesn’t know
where she is now and who is staring into her blue eyes. Though he mentions about all these in this
poem, he says that he won’t appear out of the old time to discomfort her. Even he is not holding his breath for a reply.
Symbolism has
effectively been used in the colour of the shirts. Alliteration, apostrophe and enjambment
beautify the poem. An underlying
melancholy is there in the poem when the poet talks about the transitory nature
of the youthful relationships. But the poet
has succeeded to immortalize his genuine love with the help of the enduring
power of memory used in this poem.
Threshold
– Ocean Vuong
Ocean
Vuong, an eminent Vietnamese-American poet, was born in Saigon, Vietnam in 1988
and his parents immigrated to the United States when he was two years old. His poetry explores the themes of cultural
identity, sexuality, family relationships and displacement. He has won Whiting Award and T.S. Eliot prize
for his poetry collection, ‘Night Sky with exit wounds (2016)’. ‘Threshold’ is
the very first poem in that anthology.
It portrays the poet’s secretly observing a man singing in the shower as
an important moment of transformation in his life.
As
the poet was looking through the keyhole of the door of the shower, he couldn’t
clearly see the singing man, most likely his father. Water was falling on his round shoulder like
snapped strings of a guitar. Then the
boy was standing on his knees as a beggar.
The song from the shower filled the boy to the core like a skeleton
getting filled with flesh. Even his name
knelt down inside him asking him to be spared.
Actually the boy did not know what price he had to pay for entering the
song. However, then he lost his boyhood
and became a grown up when he had his eyes kept wide open. Something awakened in him and brought about a
transformation, a sexual and psychological maturity.
He
realized that he was no more a Colt but a horse. His new understanding changed his
perspective. He lost his boyhood of
innocence and curiosity and entered the new realm of Adulthood.
The
opening line “In the body, where everything has a price’ is the theme of the
poem. Body becomes a site of identity
and vulnerability in the poem. The poet
effectively depicts the connection between the body and mind through various
images and symbols in this poem.
Module
II – Stories -
Uncle
Podger Hangs a Picture – Jerome. K. Jerome
Jerome
Klapka Jerome (1859-1927) was a famous humorist and a writer of comic
novels. His well known works are, ‘Idle
thoughts of an idle fellow’, ‘Three Men in a Boat’ and ‘Three men on the Bummel’. His ‘Uncle Podger hangs a picture’ is a comic
portrayal of Uncle Podger, who believes that he was the most suitable person
for the job of hanging a picture on the wall, whereas, he messes up everything
and at the end hangs the picture in a crooked manner.
Uncle
Podger is known for his exaggerated sense of self importance and his tendency
to make a simple task into a trouble-some work to all in the family. One day he decides to hang a picture on the
wall of his living room. He takes off
his coat and starts his work. He sends
the maid to buy some nails. The he sends
one of the boys after her to tell her what size to get. He asks Will to get him
a hammer. He tells Tom to get the
rule. He also asks Jim to go to Mr.
Boggles and get the spirit level. Then,
when he tries to get the picture from Tom, it slips and somehow the glass comes
out from the frame and cuts Uncle Podger’s finger. He shouts for his coat to get his hand
kerchief from the pocket to stop the bleeding.
Actually he is sitting on the coat when all are looking for it. However, a new glass is brought and when he
tries to make a mark on the wall again he falls upon the Piano. And then, when he tries to hammer, it is
dropped on the toe of someone. Aunt
Maria is so unhappy on seeing all these.
Finally about midnight somehow the picture is hung on the wall in a
crooked and insecure manner.
Just
to hang a picture on the wall, Uncle Podger gets helps from all the people in
the house including the charwoman. But he takes all the credit and says with
pride at the end, “why, some people would have had a man into do a little thing
like that!” Thus, the story ends with a
statement that reveals the character of Uncle Podger in an effective and humorous
way.
War
– Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello
(1867-1936) was an eminent Italian dramatist, novelist, poet and short story
writer, who was awarded Nobel Prize in 1934.
His tragic farces are often seen as forerunners of the absurd plays.
‘Six characters in search of an author is one of his best modernist plays. His ‘War’ written in 1918, focuses its
attention on a group of people on a train, who either have their loved ones
fight in the war or have lost a loved one due to the war.
A night express train
from Rome stopped at the station Fabriona. There were five people in the
carriage. A bulky woman and a tiny man
looking shy and uneasy got into the carriage from Fabriona. All the five came
to know from them that their only son, a student, was about to be sent to the
war front. So, they were going to see
him off. Having heard this one passenger
said that he had two sons and three nephews at the warfront. Thus this
discussion moved towards who was sacrificing the most. If a man with two sons lost one, the other
son would be there to comfort him. He
had to live with the pain of the death of his son. But the man with only one
son could end his miserable life having had his son dead in the war. Then a fat man said that dying young and
happy spared the young men from boredom and disillusionment of life. So, they gladly fought and died for the love
of their country. Actually, they were not theirs but their country’s
children. That was why he said that he
didn’t even mourn the death of his own son.
Having heard this, all passengers agreed with him. The inconsolable wife and husband found strength then. All congratulated that brave father who could so stoically speak of his child’s death. But, when the woman asked whether his son was really dead, the stoic man took his hand –kerchief and broke into harrowing, heart sending, un-controllable sobs. Thus, Pirandello portrays the nature of loss and how for each individual, their own loss seems more substantial than that of the others, along with the nature and necessity of wars.
The
Green Leaves – Grace Ogot
Grace
Ogot (1930-2015) was a well known writer, radio announcer, cabinet minister and
a diplomat of Kenya. Her works like ‘The
Promised Land’, ‘Land without Thunder’, ‘The other woman’ and ‘The Island of
Tears’ chronicle the folklore and mythologies of Luo people and their cultural
conflicts with the colonial rule. The
Green Leaves’ taken from ‘Land without Thunder’ of Ogot, narrates how mankind
is inextricably linked to greed, crime and superstitions along with Polygamy’s
dominant role in a man’s social status.
Heavy
footsteps and voices outside make Nyagar get up from his bed. As he can’t find his wife Nyamundhe, he grabs
his spear and club and goes outside.
Someone yells out that three men have stolen his cattle. As the cattle thieves have taken the wrong
turn, they miss the bridge that separates the Masala from the Mirogi
people. One escapes and the other stabs
Omoro’s shoulder blade and jumps in the fast moving water. Nyagar takes the knife
and attempts to stop the bleeding of Omoro.
The villagers beat the third one until the man no longer moves. Omero says that if the thief dies in front of
them, his spirit will rest upon the village of the clan. So, he asks all to go
back to their huts after heaping some green leaves on the body. All leave from that place then.
On
his return to the hut, Nyagar takes out his medicine bag and takes some ash
from a bamboo container. He swallows
some of it and blows some in the direction of the gate to prevent the ghost of
the dead man coming to him. But as he
needs the money of the dead man, he goes and searches the pocket of the dead
man and finds nothing. When he tries to
remove a bag from the neck of the dead man, the thief who is not dead drives a
thick stick through his eyes and Nyagar dies on the spot. The thief hides the body with green leaves
and escapes. Thus, the greedy Nyagar who
has 3 wives and 12 children dies unexpectedly.
In the next morning, the European Policemen, Olielo, the clan leader, Nyamundhe and all the villagers are shocked to find Nyagar’s body instead of the thief, when they brush the leaves away. The green leaves are actually the symbol of deceits and concealment in the story. What they conceal is also not what it seems. Nyamundhe’s song of mourning in the end too sheds light on the multiple levels of oppression faced by African women in the structure of Patriarchy.
----Thulasidharan V
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