#147 Private Tuition By Mr. Bose- Anita Desai

#147 Private Tuition By Mr. Bose- Anita Desai

Mr. Bose is a private tutor, teaching language and poetry from his home. Because of the small size of his apartment, and the heat, he conducts his lessons outside of the roof. From there he can see his wife cook and care for their child. Between lessons, he briefly visits with them and wished for more time:

“He wanted so much to touch her hair, the strand that lay over her shoulder in a black loop, and did not know how to—she was so busy.”

At times, the day gets hectic, the child gets unruly as children get, tensions grow and tempers flair. Mr. Bose wishes he did not have to teach these intemperate privileged children, wishes they did not see his meager home, he wishes, he wishes, he wishes…but the weight of his surrounding pile on:

“But the darkness was filled with hideous sounds of business and anger and command. The Radio news commentator barked, the baby wailed, the kitchen pots clashed. He even heard his wife’s voice raised, angrily, at the child like a threatening stick.”

We do what we must to get by. At the end of the day, the child goes to be, dinner is served and the tensions of the day alleviated. The anger—gone, the resentment—gone, all that remains is love and family.

Word of the Day: Tuition- I never knew this word had a second meaning. Besides meaning the cost of education, it can also be used to describe the actual “teaching or instruction, especially of individual pupils or small groups.” Don’t I feel uneducated? I guess I should have spend more tuition getting a tuition.

Notable Passage: “Immediately, at the very sight of the tip of her sandal peeping out beneath the flowering hem of her sari, he was a man broken to pieces, flung this way and that, rattling. Rattling.”

Rating: 8-7-8-8 Total= 31

#52 Soon- Alice Munro

#52 Soon- Alice Munro

Returning to your childhood home as an adult can be tricky, the emotions confusing, the disconnect infuriating. It evokes feelings of resentment against unsaid expectations, embarrassment for past failures, and shame about unfulfilled promises. What we are as children will always define us in that place.

These are the same characters as in the previous Munro story, Chance. Juliet returns to her parent’s house as a young unwed mother. This fact has preceded her and caused chatter and conflict between her parents and the town folk.  Her place in the house has been taken by a care-taker, Irene.

Irene seems intent of being miserable. “[Her] wariness seemed hardened and deliberate.” When being asked about her husband’s fatal accident she makes Juliet feel bad by telling her: “’Yeah. Right in time for my twenty-first birthday.’ As is if misfortunes were something to accumulate, like charms on a bracelet.”

Irene’s indifferent, and uncompromising countenance seem cold and judgmental to Juliet and makes her feel inadequate. Irene seems to make the whole family feel that way. Juliet’s father removed the print she had given them, I and the Village, because it was modern and might upset Irene. 

These feelings turn from passive shame to aggressive resentment. “Just what is so wonderful about all this misery, does it make her feel like a saint.” Juliet “felt no real sympathy. She felt herself rebelling, deep down, against this retched litany.”

There’s quite a bit of Oedipal relationships developing in the house.  Juliet sees Irene as a sibling rival.  Juliet also gets jealous of the attention her father gives her mother. Her father has a crush on Irene, and that feeds further into Juliet’s jealousy of her. It’s quite a Freudian case study going on in there, too i guess. 

Faith vs. fact is also a theme.  Juliet has a drag-out argument with a minister about the existence of God, which ends with the minister nearly having a diabetic seizure. Fact literally wins out when Juliet is able to use reason to deduce the cause and cure of the ailment and save the ministers life.

Life goes on, and “home” eventually shifts from childhood house to adult house.

Word of the day: Thaumaturgy- The working of wonder or miracles, magic.

Notable Passage: (not meaningful but I found it funny) “Chagall, I like Chagall…Picasso was a bastard.”

Rating: 9-8-7-7 Total= 31