My Brahmin Days and other stories
by Cyril Dabydeen
TSAR Publications, 2000
Reviewed by Ted Harms
One of the great dilemmas when discussing literature is how much do you
need to know about the author to comprehend or understand their work.
For a reader, the urge to label, classify, and categorize authors and
their works is an instinct. Problems may occur, though, when those
signposts go beyond the introductory to becoming the focus. However, a
good author will always rise above any simple labels or categories. Is
Jack Kerouac just a Beat, Toni Morrison just a female African-American,
or Franz Kafka just a German-speaking Jew?
I bring up Kafka because he lived his life as a stranger to his society
and his own family; moreover, much of his work can be seen as
interpreting that chasm that separated himself from his kin and
neighbours. Cyril Dabydeen's short stories in this collection are far
from being Kafka-esque, yet a similar theme runs through them: the
narrator or main character, regardless of what country or culture they
are in (even in their adopted home), is seen by themself or by others
as a foreigner. And, given Dabydeen's bio on the back of the book that
reads "these stories confront Dabydeen's Asian and
Caribbean-South American identity with his experience of life in Canada"
it becomes clear that Dabydeen is drawing on his own life.
Unfortunately, the common theme is so overt that it overshadows what are
well-written stories, full of humour, poignancy, and insight into the
feelings of those who have crossed cultures. In a country that likes to
see it self as a cultural mosaic, it becomes clear that the flipside is
that some w ill be unable to blend in or disappear into a homogenous
culture. Strange as that may seem, maybe some people want to vanish in
a crowd.
On its own, this 'otherness' is well described in the stories. 'Siddhartha' has an aspiring South American whose rejection notice from a
publisher includes, by mistake, an aspiring North American author's
rejected manuscript; 'Departure' deals with an encounter with a
much-feared immigration officer; and 'The Cottage' describes a
weekend away with a girlfriend and her family where most things go
wrong. Only one story is too much of a stretch 'Who Is Lee Harvey
Oswald' is written as a multiple narrative of Harlem residents that
gets bogged down in its forced style.
Only time will tell how much Dabydeen's background is a key to
understanding his work. Unfortunately, the continuous presence of some
form of culture clash in all the stories of My Brahmin Days becomes
too predictable. Perhaps others would find this as a common thread
running through the stories; I find it's a constricting rope, binding
the ankles of stories that would be much freer running in mixed company.
Ted Harms is a philosopher who lives in Waterloo, Ontario. |
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