21st Century Literature discussion

Please add any comments you like about your impressions of Book Four or the book as a whole.

The 'narrator' is once again prominent, after being absent for large swathes of the novel. At the very end, we learn for sure something that is implied in the seven-page introductory sentence (and I recommend re-reading it once you finish the final chapter): that the 'narrator' sees the real narrator as the pipe.

Page 292: 'This is the story the pipe told me. All I did was write it down, one word after the other, beginning and ending with the same one, Bombay.'

What do you think of this?

I think the narrator is kidding himself! I strongly suspect that in order to 'hear' the pipe's story he had to take up smoking opium again.

I think the framing device is clever, and I did enjoy that touch at the end, but somehow I feel I missed some of the pipe's importance. Perhaps it is the fact that opium and the pipe, like the narrator, disappeared from the story and everything spiraled downward from there. By the end of the novel, after the garad and Chemical and all the terrible violence, the pipe and the way the opium den used to be seemed, and I know this sounds crazy, like the good-old days of innocence without consequence. Is the latter half of this novel the pipe's lament? I don't know. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

Matthew wrote: "...I know this sounds crazy, like the good-old days of innocence without consequence. Is the latter half of this novel the pipe's lament? I don't know."

Thank you for articulating what I now realise I thought when I put this book down. I too felt that the notion that this was the pipe's story had been lost. What you say makes a lot of sense.

I sort of agree that the pipe's story went out of focus, but for me this works in terms of just that -- focus. It was there all along, but the focus on it segued to focus on the little stories in between the start and end, and for me this works well in portraying drug experiences -- the forgetting of the frame, the reality, the larger context, only for that to come back into focus when the high subsides and the little diversions fade.

Terry wrote: "I sort of agree that the pipe's story went out of focus, but for me this works in terms of just that -- focus. It was there all along, but the focus on it segued to focus on the little stories in b..."

That's an interesting thought. I didn't think of it that way. After considering your comment about the frame and the larger context, I thought the narrator's role in the end of the book. The return to Bombay, trying to piece everything together after the fact. What he finds is that the people who never left are either gone or missing part of themselves. Rashid eventually does return us to that frame with the suggestion that, if not for garad, he might still operate that little opium den. After Rashid's strange refusal to engage with the narrator, this admission seems almost like a moment of clarity. Yes, I can see how the reality and the larger context come rushing at us in the end, brought to us by the pipe.