Sunday, February 21, 2010
Intense Amount of Thoughts
The basic functions of humans, defecating for example, or eating or standing - these are the things that Tambu has to give great amounts of thought everyday. She has to make sure she stands in exactly the right place in line to avoid contact with the white students. She wonders and debates about where to defecate, and debates to no end whether or not to accept a spoon of chocolate from a white student. That is so strange for me to grasp. It makes sense, when she has to think about these natural actions to such an extent, that she would have a fragile sense of mind. Her breakdown, then, makes perfect sense, and was not in the least surprising. In that sense, I am trying to make sense of the novel's title, "The Book of NOT." The last book's title made perfect sense, as Nyasha's bulimia and the delicate state of family affairs made "Nervous Conditions" perfectly apt. What then, does the "NOT" refer to? To the lack of Tambu's peace of mind? Something to do with Netsai? The book of NOT belonging anywhere? Of NOT having control over one's future or present?
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It seems to me Tambu thinks a lot about these things because she has an enormous sense of propriety at all times when around her white classmates. She wants to do everything appropriately, she's eager to impress, and doesn't want to be seen as a peasant girl. She wants to appear deserving of her position and not lucky of it.
ReplyDeleteTambu is embarrassed over the Nesquik in the same way that she is embarrassed about her father's reliance on Baba, and about her dirty toliet at the homestead. These things run contrary to the new sense of self she is striving for. To Tambu, Ntombi was in effect drooling, and begging for the nesquik, and this, she thinks, not only violated an unspoken standard of interaction between the white girls and the black girls, but made Ntombi out to look like the poor little she is running away from. If you remember her first meal at uncle Baba's, she had to try hard not to eat too much and appear as wowed by the spread as she actually was.
All these thoughts Tambu had were because she wanted so badly to fit in. She feels if she does everything the way she is supposed to, she will finally be successful. This belief is shown in here striving to achieve "unhu." Her utmost goal in life is to not end up like her mother, but essentially all her hard work will have gone to waste. All her efforts to be the best come crashing down when she does not get recognition for her "O level results." I think that the title might mean the idea of not belonging anywhere no matter how hard you try. After all, if you don't belong at your own home then where do you belong?
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