Pointless issues

I am reading The Great House by Nicole Krauss and the book has fomented enough waves of emotions within me to pick up my fingers and bang in this post. There is absolutely no doubt that Krauss is a top rate intelligence and if the worth of a book has something to do with its ability to make one feel alive again then this is a top rate book as well. This intense feeling can either manifest itself in the form of positive emotions or negative ones - both are fair game and none makes the book any less great - the eternal failing of a purported work of art being when it leaves you merely indifferent. This book presses some of the buttons which haven't been pressed in a long while. So this post, rather than being a review of the book, is more about the red lights which those buttons have set alight.

One of the unmistakable traits of the American culture is, without doubt, its incredibly inward looking attitude. You can see it in the awareness that an average American seems to have of the affairs of the world and you can see it when the American football teams play against each other and become world champions. In general I view this trait with mild amusement, very aware of the many failings that I myself have as a human being but every now and then I come across a particular manifestation of this general trait which drives me up the wall. I think I can say, with reasonable give and take and with an acceptable degree of accuracy, that most of the problems that Americans face are ridiculous problems that pale in comparison with what a lot of people around the world have to face. When there are children dying of malnutrition in many parts of the world and when there are people getting killed almost everyday due to civil wars, I find it incomprehensible how the collective focus of this culture can revolve around such superficial issues as 'not being able to make a lot of money' or 'yet another breakup.' I don't quite want to argue that the existence of this much more sinister and much more broad reality beyond the comfortable American life must lead to some kind of guilt but I do want to just put it out there and hint at the smallness of it all.

The issues that people in this country face are mostly of their own making and they often have the power to change things for the better unlike a lot of other people around the world who are irrevocably and mercilessly condemned to a life and future beyond their control. All the huge gamut of issues which are basically a result of people running after goals and standards and expectations that others have set for them, therefore, evince nothing but a sneering chuckle from me. These standards not only include the corporate structures that one is expected to follow but also the lifestyle that one must keep. Getting a house in a fashionable area, being able to buy expensive branded clothes, drinking 20 dollars cocktails in the hippest new clubs, weekend getaways - all at the cost of a hateful job and a ridiculous soulless grind of a life. This is essentially the story of many on the professional side of an urban environment. To complete the hellish circle, the culture promotes an inclination to be casual towards one's relationships, thereby, filling in all the ingredients necessary for a life continuously caught between the rock of anxiety and the hard place of dissatisfaction. The Indian life is by no means the ideal one, being plagued by some of the same ailments as the American one although in a different form, but I can safely say that people appear happier and more satisfied on average even though they have much less and have to deal with graver issues than people here.

The reason I bring it all up now is because the book The Great House repeatedly brings up characters who appear sad and aloof and inclined to concentrate on the loss of it all. Their stories are touchingly told and Krauss has a great knack at writing highly fluid English. Her powers of observations make me incredibly jealous. But, somehow, I fail to sympathize with the sadness of the characters that she writes so beautifully about. What I do feel is an intense anger at the thanklessness of her characters even though they are born in an affluent country where they do not have to wonder if they will get enough to eat. I keep muttering under my breath, godammit, stop this relentless onslaught of self-pity and loss and try to be happy and thankful for what you've got. Most of her characters don't really have issues. At least issues not grave enough to warrant my sympathy. Just like so many people living here who don't really have issues but would not hesitate to go on and on about their predicaments which, when you consider closely, they themselves generated in the first place and are completely within their powers to change for the better... But the book is good!

Edit: I want to mention again that this is a very good book with some of the most poignant passages I have ever come across. My visceral reactions which lie beneath the surface of general equanimity lie there in an uneasy calm and require but the faintest whiff of the wrong kind of smell to burst forth in a varicolored display. In the present case they are triggered by certain characters whom I find ungrateful and I object to their sympathetic treatment, both in fiction and in life. There are other characters, however, who are absolutely beautifully rendered.