Because the feeling had come upon me that I was somehow creating a world; that the thoughts I jumped inside were mine, that the bodies I occupied acted at my command; that, as current affairs, arts, sports, the whole rich variety of a first-class radio station poured into me, I was somehow making them happen...which is to say, I had entered into the illusion of the artist, and thought of the multitudinous realities of the land as the raw unshaped material of my gift. "I can find out any damn thing!" I triumphed, "There isn't a thing I cannot know!" (199).This is intriguing on a number of levels. Saleem becomes an archivist in this moment. He has access to, perhaps, the dream archive - one which will reveal everything one could every possibly need to know. Out of this archive, he also creates the archive (very Derridian), as he has control over what happens with this information, setting the boundaries for what follows inteh collection. As he claims the thoughts as "mine," he also reflects the potential imperiality of the archive as a collection/space which can gather others' artifacts, shape/write history, and simply own others' (mental) landscapes. He is Methwold, he is the British rewriting the land and lives of the Indians (especially relevant as this is a book in part about colonialism and independence).
Additionally, this moment is doubly self-reflexive. Saleem "entered into the illusion of the artist," becoming a composer or writer of others' lives. But he is already that, as the narrator of this story of himself - he is always already entering others' thoughts and remaking them for his purposes, or "making them happen." Mirroring that is Rushdie as author - the ultimate artist who creates all of the text, characters, thoughts, ideas. This questions the relationship between author and narrator; Rushdie comments on this in his introduction to the 25th anniversary addition of the novel. He explicitly thanks "the original people from whom my fictional characters sprang," demonstrating the connection between "real life" and fiction (xi). However, his father, the source for Ahmed Sinai, was "so angry" about the fictional portrayal he inspired that, Rushdie says, "he refused to speak to me for many months" (xii).
This conflation of artist and archivist implicitly questions, challenges, informs conceptions of the archive itself. Plus, it's just damn sexy.
2 comments:
The other interjection that I loved about the text was Padma. She constantly appears throughout making some comment or another. What fun interruptions!
What does it say, in terms of colonization, of the narrative, and of the narrator/author reflexivity that Rushdie (as author) adopted British techniques of writing literature... meaning, "inspired by" real people to create fictional characters is one thing but borrowing (conciously or not) from another culture's style of writing--particularly one which has attempted to colonize yours--seems yet again like Methwold's furniture (and cocktail hour) leaving their mark.
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