of normal places

Ack! Every post gets longer. I will try to keep this last one more succinct.

The last critical article we looked at was Michel Foucault's "Of Other Spaces," wherein he assigns the term 'heterotopia' to a number of different cultural spaces. He defines these as places of otherness or difference, constituted by a set of temporal associations that are outside of "normal" ordering. It was noted in class that a recurring criticism of Foucault's concept is the difficulty of defining 'normality.'

It's interesting to think about suburbs in relation to some of the ideas Foucault discusses. They perform the function of bringing together disparate elements, notably 'country & city,' 'private & public,' 'work & home.' Yet unlike the theatre stage as a heterotopia, or the garden, suburbs don't merely place these concepts side by side, but attempt to meld them. In a way they are actually creative spaces, endeavoring to mythically reconcile conflicting ideas within a single context.

Furthermore, the temporality associated with suburbs expands beyond Foucault's requirements for a heterotopia. While places like libraries and museums are heterotopic because they accumulate layers of time within an immobile place, suburbs are seen as places where time actually is immobile. Conceptions of past and future are again creatively hybridized, engulfed in a sense of the endless present.

As his last point in a list of ever expanding examples, Foucault asserts that heterotopias "have a function in relation to all the space that remains." One way they can achieve this relation is to "create a space that is other, another real space, as perfect, as meticulous, as well arranged as ours is messy, ill constructed, and jumbled." He calls this type of space a heterotopia of compensation, citing certain Puritan and Jesuit colonies as examples.

I wonder if suburbs might be a more extreme example of the heterotopia of compensation. They are places that attempt to create order out of real space. They do so not only by ordering differences, but by blending, and essentially eradicating them. Maybe, then, suburbs aren't heterotopias at all, but represent the elusive 'normal ordering' that escapes Foucault's definition.

how to care for your fingernails

I have a small observation to make about some of the imagery at work in Jane Gardam’s The Queen of the Tambourine. It was mentioned in class that for most of the novel the central events go unnamed. Eliza’s miscarriage, her hysterectomy, and Henry’s affair with Annie are evident only through symbols that represent the traumatic events. One example of these recurring signs is Eliza’s preoccupation with fingernails. Her frequent references to her own and others’ “chalky half-moons” (73) hold an obscured significance that fluctuates throughout the book.

One way in which fingernails are significant is with regards to the trajectory of Eliza’s mental health. Upon the first signs of her growing obsession with the elusive Joan, Eliza proclaims: “’I understand Joan now to the ends of her fingernails’ … Looking at my own fingernails at this point, I noticed a strangeness in them” (42). If Joan is a manifestation of Eliza’s ‘Other,’ Eliza’s unfamiliarity with her own fingertips reflects her growing mental dissociation. In fact, many of her subsequent episodes and hallucinations are accompanied by a comment on the uncanny vividness of her nails. During her encounter with Dr. Hookaneye, she remarks: “I examined my fingernails and found them interesting. They had a hazy green line beneath each rim, pale, marine and eerie” (55). Similarly, on a particularly wild visit to the hospice she says of her fingernails: “They have begun to look unfamiliar lately” (109).

As the novel progresses, Eliza has a number of experiences that contribute to her growing sense of autonomy. She begins to speak up for herself and to take ownership of her place in the world. After the episode when she drops Annie’s sewing bag and Henry’s money into the lake, and gives a neighbour’s baby a bizarre baptism, the fingernail imagery changes. She now calls them ‘my nails,’ writing: “I shall have to cut these pretty flowers” (205). When Barry dies and Eliza admits that the hallucinations were all her own creations, her fingernails return to normal. She says: “I looked at where number thirty-four used to stand. Nothing. I examined my clean fingernails, thin white arcs” (224). The repossession and the renewed purity of Eliza’s nails corresponds with the return of her mental health.

While the progression of Gardam’s fingernail imagery in some ways reflects linearity in the plot, its use also contributes to the sense of circularity. The fact that fingernails are comprised of half-moons or circles, that they are associated with flowers, and that they may look immobile but are always growing, has a significance for Eliza's story, where growth and escape take place within a seemingly stagnant environment.

Furthermore, fingertips are a point of mediation between ourselves and the outside world. Though Eliza's experience of madness may have been triggered by external events, her reaction to those events takes what is internal and projects it outwards. Even as the disturbing changes in her fingernails reflect the toxicity of her secrets, their regenerative growth seems to carry it out of her body.

body politics

In his novel The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi associates display with the search for identity. Almost every character in the book struggles to define themselves, whether through the clothes they wear, the books they read, or the politics they support. One way in which Kureishi explores this link between identity and the physical world is through his portrayal of bodies, as characters exhibit different ways the body may be used to shape individuality.

For Jamila, the body is a site of political action. She exercises and trains her muscles through running and karate, "preparing for the guerrilla war she knew would be necessary" (56). Jamila's asserts her body in a way that challenges Haroon's belief that female children are produced by "weak seed" (57), making her father uncomfortable when he sees her on her long runs through the neighbourhood. Physical strength endows Jamila with an agency that allows her to dominate her life and relationships, as she continualy shapes her identity into what she wants it to be. She provokes in Karim the feeling that "she was so powerful ... so in control and certain what to do about everything" (55).

Interestingly, Anwar also uses his body for political purposes, using a completely opposite approach. In an attempt to force his daughter to obey his wishes, Anwar starves himself and deprives his body, proclaiming: "She must do what I say or I will die. She will kill me" (60). His actions, or inactions, provide an extreme example of the power of the body's visibility. As he grows thinner and thinner, Jamila is forced to make the decision to comply to her father's wishes. Without actually doing anything, Anwar is able to exert control, albeit in a way that is ultimately unsuccessful.

Karim provides a mediating example between these two extremes. He recognizes the potential of physical action, and respects Jamila's sense of agency, writing: "Like her I wanted to express myself physically in some way" (60). However, at other times Karim seems content to revel in the world of surface appearances, thrilling in the power of being looked at. He writes: "At that moment I glimpsed myself in a shop window and was pleased with what I saw. I had no job, no education, and no prospects, but I looked pretty good, oh yes" (99). Physical appearance allows Karim to manoeuvre among the world of artists and theatre directors, creating possibilities for him in the world of acting.

Karim's main advantage in the novel is his ability to move in and out of different ways of being. Perhaps gaining knowledge of the different ways bodies shape and can be used to shape one's character is another way in which Karim benefits from the fluidity of his identity, and constitutes a further possibility that may allow him to "live more deeply" in the future (284).