Week 3: Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee (Fawcett, 1989, paperback)

I picked up this book several years ago. I was (and still am) reading books as part of my academic study on literature from American cultural groups. I also teach a class, Multicultural American Literature, in connection with studies. I focus, in my studies and in the class, on literature written by and about non-white/traditional cultural groups. This includes literature by immigrants and their descendants and focuses on the issues they face of trying to either integrate their cultural ethnicity into American society. In the class, we look at issues of race, language, relationships, and politics.

I’d started this novel several times but couldn’t get into it (a rarity for me); so I decided it was time to give it  fair read. I’m glad I did, as I’m now contemplating using it in my class because it provides an engaging and well-written insight into Middle Eastern-Americans. 

Jasmine is a novel about an woman from India that, following her husband’s death at the hand of terrorist, has illegally immigrated to America and is now living with a farmer in Iowa. She’s carrying his child, raising their adopted son from Vietnam, and struggling with her affection for a former employer in New York.

While fairly short (200 pages), the novel covers a wealth of cultural issues. We get to see Indian culture through the eyes of a young woman. She struggles with the limitations caused by poverty in India and the cultural restrictions on women. The writing about Indian is honest and authentic, as we can appreciate the beauty of Indian culture as well as its problems. Mukherjee does an effective job of making us care for Jasmine and her struggles.

The novel interweaves her past life in India with Jasmine’s current life in Iowa. Mukherjee provides an interesting comparison world in these Iowa sections, as we see a agricultural countryside struggling  with instability.  Jasmine’s partner is in a wheelchair, and as we learn the story of the violent act that put him there we can see that the differences between the first world and the third world may not be as stark as we believe. Based on my experiences living in Iowa, I thought that Mukherjee was equally effective in depicting this world as well. She presents quite a contrast of an Indian woman living in rural America–it would be fair to say that Jasmine has truly isolated herself in  world where few other Indians work and live.

This is a good novel and I’m glad I finally took the time to read it. Mukherjee provides an engaging viewpoint into different worlds through a character to which the reader can connect. It’s accessible to most readers, but the true complexity of the story and the character comes through in the final pages when Jasmine, pregnant with one man’s child, finds herself contemplating running away with another man. I’m curious, if I was to teach this novel, to see how student’s will respond to her final decision.

Next week . . .  American Born Chinese by Gene Yang.