The Buddha Of Suburbia

Angel Lucia Yiangou

07040088

Reading 20th century fiction HL1003N

Explore the representation of race

Initial novel: Sonny’s blues вЂ" James Baldwin

Secondary novel: The Buddha of Suburbia Hanif Kureishi

The journey undergone by the narrator (and elder brother) in Sonny’s blues may be short in literary terms but is said to be one of the tenderest and thought provoking pieces in modern fiction.

Indirect comparisons between life and music are rich within many of the paragraphs and pages and remain quietly present throughout the duration of the story even when less patent.

Jazz as a genre is undeniably unpredictable and often misunderstood.

The jazz listened to, played and loved by Sonny is used as a colorful metaphor right through the story.

The examples are endless. One crucial one was the almost unbearable frustration the narrator experienced while looking outside in to Sonny’s life.

He saw a chaotic, capricious mess when he looked at the life his younger brother lived; much like the erratic and confusing disarray he heard when he heard Jazz.

Although Sonny was aware of the detrimental direction his life was going in, he chose to continue to make music wit beats and rhythms not understood by his brother.

Narrator compared every angle and direction of Sonny’s choices with one another; the drugs, the music, the lack of reality in his preferences- he related each with the other and initially distanced himself from his sibling who he still loved dearly, mainly because he didn’t understand why a well adjusted young man would choose to live a life to indicate that he was a character of the contrary.

As the story grows and unravels, we witness a clear shift in emotional generosity and acceptance in Narrator; he watches and listens to his brother, learning that his story isn’t as uncompressible as he once thought.

It may always be slightly confusing to him but he learned to see depth and courage in Sonny and this is mirrored in/on the final page when almost an identical journey is taken in the few minutes that Narrator experiences his blood playing his music, his life, �He didn’t notice it, but just before they started playing again, he sipped from it and looked towards me. Then he put it back on top of the piano. For me, then, as they began to play again, it glowed and shook above my brother’s head like the very cup of trembling’. (Sonny’s blues.141). John M. Reilly writes, �this first is the theme of the individualistic narrator’s gradual discovery of the significance of his brother’s life. This theme moves to a climax in the final scene of the story when Sonny’s music impresses the narrator with a sense of the profound feeling it contains. The significance of the Blues itself becomes a powerful theme. (Sonny’s blues; James Baldwin’s images of black community. 144).

Neither journey is more important than the other; Sonny is able to combat a serious drug addiction, goes in and out of prison and regains his life but the story that unfolds with Narrator is the spine of the book. An вЂ?on the spot’ example is the conversation between himself and an old friend of Sonny’s, вЂ?But now, abruptly, I hated him. I couldn’t stand the way he looked at me, partly like a dog, partly like a cunning child… he says to him… вЂ?Look. Don’t tell me your sad story, if it was up to me, I’d give you one’ вЂ?Then I felt guiltyвЂ™Ð²Ð‚¦By the end of the scene he tells us, вЂ?All at once something inside me gave and threatened to come pouring out of me. I didn’t hate him anymore. I felt at that moment I’d start crying like a child. (Sonny’s blues. 106,108).

These paragraphs moved me more than any other in the story. A perfect example of life; your mind can be made up quite uncertainly, certain to never waver until it does. An action, a person, a rhythm will occur and your never-changing opinion is changed.

The two young, African-American men conduct their own, individual mechanisms in order to cope with feeling like outsiders in the violent, ghetto neighborhood.

Narrator states in reference to his father, �he was always on the lookout for something a little better but died before he found it’ (Sonny’s blues. 114) his sons were also striving for something else, Narrator found this somewhat in his acclaimed profession as a teacher and Sonny found it in being able to express frustration and emotion through music.

However there are implications that narrator doesn’t truly feel as secure within his upper-class existence as he would like. In reference to the essay written by John M. Reilly, he states, �Agitated though he is about Sonny’s fate, the narrator doesn’t want to feel himself involved. His own position on the middle-class ladder of success is not secure, and the supporting patterns of thought in his mind are actually rather weak’. (Sonny’s blues; James Baldwin’s images of black community. 141.)

There are references to racial uncertainties throughout the story in terms such as �black and bouncy’ and �a cigarette between her heavy, cracked lips, her hair a cuckoo’s nest… they addressed each other a s sister’. It is fair to see that narrator doesn’t feel as �black’ as many of his neighbors.

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