--Book Review--
English Lessons and Other Stories
by Shauna Singh Baldwin
(Canada, Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane, 1996)
176 pages $ 13.95
Reviewed by Monika Fludernik
[Editor's note: Professor Dr. Monika Fludernik teaches
postcolonialist literature at the University of Freiburg, Germany.
She is the author of Toward a Natural Narratology
(Routledge, 1996).]
This is a wonderful new collection of stories about Indian women trying to
come to grips with their situation of cultural displacement in North America.
The stories are written in subtle prose, employing a variety of narrative strategies,
some of them quite unusual. The tone is that of brisk unsentimental survival,
sometimes bordering on (though not quite descending into) tragedy. Much of
the writing is witty.The collection opens with "Rawalpindi 1919," which is followed by
"Montreal 1962." In the first story we get a view into the mind of Choudhary
Amir Singh's wife who while making chapattis is pondering her son's departure
for England. Her bewilderment at these goings-on is neatly captured in the idiom
of her naive thoughts which intermix with the narrator's language. Thirty years
later, the unnamed narrator of "Montreal 1962" addresses her husband in a kind
of dramatic monologue (spoken to herself, I presume) in which she rebels against
Canada, the country to which they have emigrated. Rather than allowing her Sikh
husband to cut his hair and conform to Canadian dress and business codes, she
insists on lovingly washing, drying and folding her husband's turbans, vowing to
go out to work to save him from the humiliation of losing his cultural and religious
roots.In "Simran," two strands of narrative alternate: Amrit's bossy, fussy and blatantly
benighted discourse (colloquially addressed to a neighbour? or just in self-justification
to herself?); and Mirza's even more egotistical narrative about how he met Simran.
Both Amrit, Simran's mother, and Mirza, a colleague at college, interfere with Simran's
life, whose chances of a Western university education (for which she seems very
qualified) are ruined in the process. Simran has come home for her vacation, and her
mother is scrutinizing her unceasingly, weighing all indications of possible negative
influence from her stay abroad. Mirza, who has run into Simran at college and believes
that his patronizing and indeed condescending attitude towards her will win him her
favors, has been disappointed by Simran's non-committal treatment of him, her acceptance
of his presents without any indication of her ever reciprocating by returning his love.
Mirza, who has started out by trying to acquire another conquest, ends up falling head
over heels in love with the reluctant Simran, and he becomes so obsessed by his feelings
that he calls her at home in Delhi. Her mother of course knows the score, or thinks she
does, refusing Simran the right to talk to Mirza, jumping to the conclusion that she must
have lost her virginity and that she has disgraced the family. As a consequence, poor
Simran is forbidden to return to her studies. Mirza is distraught at seeing the janitor
pack up Simran's clothes to send them back to India, but he still hopes for her affection:
"Then I smiled at the January sun. She would find a way to contact her Mirza.
I just knew it.""Toronto 1984 " is another witty comment on women's manipulation by their families.
Again the story has a number of sections allotted to the two major characters whose
interior monologues we follow. There is Piya, the female protagonist, a savvy computer
specialist who has just been hired by a Canadian firm and is doing very well. She has to
contend with Bibiji, who is trying to marry her off, and with her brother, Bhaiya, who is
working in a factory and does what his mother tells him to do (at least as regards marriage
plans for Piya). Bibiji's monologue is ostensibly addressed to Bhaiya while he is eating
his daal, but he does not really listen: "Haan, where was I? Your sister, son. Everything
till now has been good. First you got us immigration here, she did her classes at the
Polytechnic. But now I don't like this too-much freedom. I'm telling you something bad
will happen. Now she's talking of buying a car -- did she ask you? No. She says, 'I need a
car -- I think I will buy one.' And she's gone to the dealers, looking, you know." While
Bibiji is planning her marriage intrigue, forcing Piya to take two weeks off work to go to
India, Piya herself is in trouble at the firm because she refused to stand for the Canadian
national anthem. She is not going to bow to the British queen. After that she knows she
will have to be extra good at her work, and taking off two weeks is not what she can afford
to do at that point.Piya is let off the hook: the assassination of Indira Gandhi makes it
quite unsafe for a Sikh family to go to India.The title story, "English Lessons," humorously demonstrates some sly female
counterstrategies against male domination. The narrator, a wife who is supposed to be
kept in her place, wants to take English lessons. Her husband does not like this very
much; indeed, he is afraid her English might get to be better than his. In a flashback,
the narrator reveals that she killed her brother-in-law who had raped her by locking
him up in the closet where he was hiding from the police rounding up all Sikhs.
When the police set the house on fire, the brother-in-law lost his life. When the
English teacher comes, Tony, the husband instructs the teacher: "My girlfriend
[the narrator is of course his wife!] is just new from India. As soon as her green card
comes we will be getting married, so till then I think English lessons will help her pass
the time." And he reveals his ulterior motives as well, "I will not like it if you teach her
more than I know. But just enough for her to get a good-paying job at Dunkin' Donuts
or maybe the Holiday Inn. She will learn quickly, but you must not teach her too many
American ideas. " The narrator's concluding remarks, however, explode the patriarchal
framework. She knows exactly what she wants, and she is going to get it: "The English
teacher smiled at me. Tomorrow, I will ask her where I can learn how to drive."Baldwin's talent is undeniable. It is to be hoped that this collection will soon be followed
with more of her wry humour and warm-hearted understanding.