Playing Dress-Up

L. is getting married on Saturday, and he has invited all three of his mentors to the wedding. I have been poking through my wardrobe, trying to decide whether I need to go clothes-shopping.

I found a formal jacket that still fits me, despite the weight I've put on the past few years. The pants that go with it don't, however. I don't think I've ever actually worn that jacket. If I remember correctly, I bought it for my sister E's wedding, but the airline lost my luggage en route and I wound up wearing a rental instead. (The luggage turned up the next day.)

I do need to buy pants. I'm down to two pair that I can wear in public, and neither one is quite suited to a wedding. Shoes, too; I've been wearing my tennies everywhere - even to Convocation - but they won't do either. If the blasted weather will clear up for a while, I'll run over to Kohl's. I haven't been able to find anything in exactly my size there lately, but needs must.

Two Books

I finished reading The Satanic Verses some days ago, and decided to reread Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang. (I read it once before, probably in the mid-90s; I remember almost nothing, but must have enjoyed it somewhat - I bought McHugh's second novel, after all. I'm enjoying it quite a bit on this go-round.)

I find myself a bit surprised by the similarities between the two books. Not to overstress that: Rushdie (nominally the mainstream author) flirts with magic realism throughout, while McHugh (the writer of science fiction) is grittily realistic. Still, there are thematic connections. Among its several strands, TSV is about acculturation, about colonialism, and about the problem of finding one's self under the pressure of those forces. So too is CMZ. (Chamcha and Zhang both find themselves meditating on the fact that, no matter where they go, they are still the same person; the one thing you can't run away from is yourself.) The strains put on Gibreel and Chamcha, suspended between ex-colonial India and ex-colonizer Britain, are the same as those on Zhang, the barbarian from New York seeking his fortune in Nanjing. Not having finished CMZ (and not remembering the ending), I can't comment on how well the parallels persist, but they are there, and they are striking.