ROCHESTER

As I started reading the Rita Bernard article I thought, how nice, I can incorporate this in my Blog on Ghostwritten.  The I went to the second page and saw that she had already done it.  But it was the most enjoyable and accessible article I have read in this class so far, not that I haven't found the others anything but edifying.  So, I will forgive Ms. Bernard her split infinitive ("to fully explore" 1).


As I was reading the novel, I kept thinking about six degrees of separation (was that a book or movie?) or the Kevin Bacon game.  Indeed, it does "reshape out received notions of human interconnection, causality, temporality, social, space, and so forth" (2).  The reemergence of various characters, connecting with others gave me those, oh, he's the guy from . . . or, I bet she's the girlfriend, moments.  And that sadistic, evil creature who kept turning up just when you think he's been done in.  I enjoy that kind of thing.  It made me realize that I am "that kind of reader [...] who may perform the necessary act of imaginative recognition through which the connections mentioned above come to seem meaningful" (1).  Maybe it's because I'm a "first-year graduate student" (1). 


Many of the bits that I wanted to include in this blog have already been chewed over by Bernard.  However, there is one chapter, "Mongolia" (147-95), that I can elaborate on.  Bernard discusses the "vast and disjunct world" (3).  I saw this in particular on the train in that chapter.  I counted 18 languages or nationalities noted or alluded to (i.e., Sherry=Portugal).  This reinforces Bernard's claim of the multilingual and multinational aspects of the novel.  Further, the disjunct world is the train, a metaphor for the fleeting and casual contact of humanity that makes this a global novel.  The train is also a symbol of the ever moving fluidity of people from one place on the globe to another.


I think there is more to the Dr. Montervary character's connection than what Bernard discusses.  I had thought that she was the Zookeeper.  There is the following interchange:
                      "My, it's a sick zoo that we've turned the world into." [Dr. Montervary]
                      Alain heard, but misunderstood me.  "No zoo kills off its own
                animals."
                       My breath fogged everything up.  "Out of our cages, and out
                of control of ourselves."  (316)
But maybe there is no connection between Dr. Montervary and the Zookeeper other than they both wanted to protect the world from blowing itself up.
         
And that's enough from me.


Cheerio!