Response to season of migration to the north, Taleb Salih
What happens when the other is/becomes the self? How does one live between east and west, ancient and modern, Islam and Christianity?
What is necessary to construct identity? How is identity related to meaningful existence? If you are unable to situate your self, are you able to lead a meaningful le?
At the end of the book, the narrator states that he wants to live even if he has no meaning, even if he is split between north and south, but the question the novel raises is how? And, the sewer seems to be not well.
History would reinforce that answer. Colonial efforts and post colonial responses do not seem to have resolved the tension of self and other, of master and servant, of farmer and intellectual.
We know almost nothing about the narrator's life. Why? Why is the focus on Mustafah? What Mustafah shows us is that in pursuing success we sow the seeds of our own destruction. This is not the way to freedom or independence. We cannot beat or destroy the other without destroying ourself. The narrator seems large,y ineffectual, unable to act, simply pulled along by the tide perhaps because there is no action that leads to "good". All one can do is keep living.
Why does Mustafah kill himself? Can he simply not live with the person he is or does he fear exposure.
Novel is depressing in that things have not gotten better, have they?
What is necessary to construct identity? How is identity related to meaningful existence? If you are unable to situate your self, are you able to lead a meaningful le?
At the end of the book, the narrator states that he wants to live even if he has no meaning, even if he is split between north and south, but the question the novel raises is how? And, the sewer seems to be not well.
History would reinforce that answer. Colonial efforts and post colonial responses do not seem to have resolved the tension of self and other, of master and servant, of farmer and intellectual.
We know almost nothing about the narrator's life. Why? Why is the focus on Mustafah? What Mustafah shows us is that in pursuing success we sow the seeds of our own destruction. This is not the way to freedom or independence. We cannot beat or destroy the other without destroying ourself. The narrator seems large,y ineffectual, unable to act, simply pulled along by the tide perhaps because there is no action that leads to "good". All one can do is keep living.
Why does Mustafah kill himself? Can he simply not live with the person he is or does he fear exposure.
Novel is depressing in that things have not gotten better, have they?
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