American Humor: A Study of the National Character by Constance Rourke

Source of book: I own this

 

From time to time, I read old books that have fallen into relative obscurity. I do this for a few reasons. First, I like the perspectives of the past. I think they are helpful in understanding the present, and often serve as a correction to the whitewashed narratives we learn in school. 

 

Second, I believe that the lesser-known voices often capture the times better than the famous ones. In fact, the more enduring works are often timeless, which is in conflict with being of the time they were written in, if that makes sense. One man’s “dated” is another man’s “genuine picture of the spirit of the age.” 

 

Third, the voices that fall into neglect are all too often those of women, minorities, and outsiders to the establishment. Their voices matter too. 

In the case of American Humor, it would be accurate to say that it is dated. It was published in 1931, and thus lacks any idea of what would come afterward. It is mostly backwards-look, but from the specific perspective of its time. 

 

It would also be accurate to say that it does in fact capture that time rather well, particularly the viewpoint of what American writing in the 19th century was all about. We may look at that era very differently for a variety of reasons, but that doesn’t mean that we are more “right” than earlier writers. We just see things differently. 

 

Perhaps the best example of this is that, from our vantage point, we can see pretty clearly that America has always had its own culture, and draw a fairly straight line from, say, Washington Irving, through Hemingway and Fitzgerald, to our modern diverse literary scene. But a century ago, there was plenty of debate on whether America had culture at all, or if we were just recycling European stuff, just at lower quality. 

 

Constance Rourke held the opposite view, and this book is, at its core, an argument that there is a unique and valuable American style, and that our humor is unique. 

 

Rourke wrote a variety of books. Her biographies were respected in their day, her literary criticism and biographical sketches for magazines were popular, and her cultural works like this book (which has never gone out of print) influential. She taught at Vassar, and worked on the Index of American Design with the WPA during the Depression. She should be remembered as an important literary figure of her time. 

 

In most summaries of the book you can find, you get the early part of the book, where she describes what she sees as the three quintessential American character types in humor: the Yankee salesman, the frontier backwoodsman, and the blackface minstrel. 

 

However, this is just the starting point, and she gets into a whole lot more than that, including several chapters on American writers, which are fascinating and at times hilarious. She can snark as well as any man, and even when I disagree with her assessments, I have to admit she makes a case for her views. 

 

Also, because she spends a good bit of time on Henry James, and proves to actually understand that his books are full of humor, I can’t help but like her. 

 

I should give fair warning that this book will make a whole lot more sense if you have a working knowledge of 19th century American literature. And not just the big names, but the humorists like Bret Harte (totally underrated) and Artimus Ward. You can still enjoy the book without that, but you will enjoy it much more if you do. And really, many of these lesser lights from the past that Rourke talks about are well worth reading. 

 

The one thing that, to me, seems the most dated about the book is the lack of engagement with non-white authors and humor. Some of this, I presume, is simple ignorance. It wouldn’t be until a few years later that Zora Neale Hurston wrote her book on the African American story tradition, Mules and Men. What Rourke does do is note that the white humorists she writes about often borrowed from African Americans and Native Americans, which, for her time, was pretty progressive of an admission. 

 

At the time the book was being written, of course, African American artistry was taking America by storm. Ragtime and Jazz had gone mainstream, causing much pearl clutching from racist white fundamentalists. The Harlem Renaissance is still one of the greatest flowerings of artistic output in our history, and brought black writers to the attention of white readers. 

 

Rourke was writing mostly about the past, so it is perhaps at least understandable that she missed the important developments of the present. 

 

In any case, Rourke was pretty progressive for her time, so the book seemed to me to be dated rather than offensive in its attitudes. 

 

Rather than try to summarize chapters, I am just going to give a random selection of lines and passages that I thought were interesting and good. 

 

First is a reference to Bronson Alcott as a real-life example of the yankee salesman. I read March recently with a couple of friends, and thus made the connection. 

 

I also liked this line, regarding the influence of Irish immigrants, and their brief time as a stock character in American humor. 

 

Irish immigrants settled in New Hampshire about 1820, bringing with them potatoes and fairies; the potatoes flourished, but the fairies died out. 

 

The Irish also are discussed in the chapter on the backwoodsman. Rourke notes that just as old time music (which evolved into bluegrass and country later) was created by the fusion of African American music and Irish music, the character of the woodsman drew heavily from both traditions. 

 

One more Irish reference caught my eye. 

 

A horn of hard liquor was known in the West as a little of “the creature” or of “the element.” 

 

Any of us children of the 1980s can remember that phrase, right? Crooked Irish politician Honest John in An American Tail offers the socialite Gussie Mouseheimer “a wee drop of the creature,” which is strong enough to burn holes in the floor. (That movie has aged really well, actually…) 

 

Surprisingly, the chapter on minstrelsy was both fascinating and illuminating. Rourke gives a lot of details for performers now mostly forgotten, including where and how they likely got their material.

 

Rice and Emmett can only have borrowed the fables, probably with their tunes. 

 

Which they then mixed with their own compositions, making an amalgam. Rourke notes that the African American stuff was a lot better than what Rice and Emmett invented themselves. 

 

It wasn’t just the obscure artists either. Rourke notes that Stephen Foster borrowed or stole pretty liberally, and his best tunes all came from spirituals that were repurposed. 

 

Songs and poetry also get extended discussions. One of the particularly interesting ones involved a long and digressive musical telling of the story of Pocahantas. It included a pretty pointed condemnation of what Rourke calls “the predatory purpose of the American invaders,” which she quotes a bit of:

 

Grab away

While you may

In this game, luck is all

And the prize

Tempting lies

In the rich City Hall.

Grab away

While you may

Every day there’s a job.

It’s a fact,

By contract

All intact you may rob.

 

In this chapter on the “strollers” - traveling humorists, she also notes that it was part of the spirit of the age. 

 

Other strollers besides those of the stage appeared in this long era, with an expression drawn in similar curves. These were the revivalists, the groups of millennium-seekers, the believers in cults. In a fundamental and not irreverent sense they belonged to the theater; they too followed the arc of romantic feeling; and they moved toward comedy, even toward burlesque. 

 

You think? That is still a hallmark of American religion - it is still a stage act, built on emotion and vibe. And there’s more:

 

Most of the new religious communities created almost overnight in the ‘30s and ‘40s agreed to release mankind from sin, poverty, or mortal care. They all possessed formulas, religious, economic, or social; and they all anticipated conclusions such as the world had never known. Triumph was their note. Biblical proof was adduced to show that the Americans were a chosen people, that the continent - even the Mississippi valley - was the predestined scene for the Second Coming and that the happy thousand years were to begin there. 

 

The more things change…

 

I really enjoyed the chapters on American writers. Chapter 6, for example, covers Emerson, Whitman, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and Audubon, pointing out the humor - uniquely American - in their works. 

 

Chapter 7 looks at “Western” writers, from Twain to Harte and others. It also includes an anonymous description of California from the Gold Rush days that may be even more true today. 

 

“One of the most heterogeneous masses that ever existed since the building of the tower of Babel.” 

 

I was also happy to see a discussion of Innocents Abroad, one of the most hilarious books ever written, and, as Rourke notes, one that contains the quintessential American character and humor. 

 

Chapter 8 has a lot about Henry James. Rourke makes a point I hadn’t entirely thought of, that, particularly for his time, James sure featured women as the main characters a lot. Maybe that is one reason I love his books: he writes excellent, nuanced, and complicated female characters, who can be heroes, villains, and most often everything in between. A lot of the women are also the kind that I am attracted to. 

 

Occasionally James pictured the child of nature - fully feminine at last - as in Daisy Miller or Pandora Day, thus following another tradition; but in the main the women with whom he was most deeply engaged took the aloof, the conscious, the slightly studious part.

 

There is also an extended discussion of William Dean Howells, an author that I think should be better known, not just for his books, but for his role in promoting other authors of his time. He is one of the most important names in American literature, but I find few have heard of him these days. You can read about him and his best known book, The Rise of Silas Lapham, in this post. 

 

There is also an entire chapter on poets, featuring one of my all-time favorites, Emily Dickinson. In it, Rourke quotes (among others) an "irreverent" poem that gets to the pithy center of why a certain Evangelical doctrine makes no moral sense. 

 

“Heavenly Father,” take to thee

The supreme iniquity,

Fashioned by thy candid hand

In a moment contraband.

 

Though to trust us seem to us

More respectful - “We are dust.”

We apologize to Thee

For thine own Duplicity.

 

A few more of the authors mentioned: E. A. Robinson, Vachel Lindsey (who Rourke pretty much tears a well deserved new one), Robert Frost (who had yet to write many of his best-known poems), Carl Sandberg, Edgar Lee Masters, Willa Cather, Sinclair Lewis, and Will Rogers. 

 

Overall, an interesting book, and one I am glad I took the time to read. 

 

Helium by Rudy Francisco

Source of book: I own this

 

Rudy Francisco is a poet and spoken word artist from San Diego. I can’t remember exactly how I discovered him, but last year I ran across a poem of his and decided I needed to add him to my poetry collection. Helium was published in 2017, with most of the poems written before Trump’s first election. I mention this because some of the political references make more sense if you understand they pre-date the Trump Era. 

 

At the outset, let me say that I really loved this book. Francisco has a way of putting into words things that I have tried to express myself, but never in such poetic and metaphorical language. While I wasn’t able to find information on his religious background, it seems clear from his poems that he, like me, was raised Christian, but has struggled with the way most American Christianity is just a cesspit of right-wing politics, white supremacy, patriarchy, and worship of money and power. 

 

The poems are also deeply personal and introspective. He is open about his struggles with mental health, his failed relationships, and his despair at the state of the world. I found that I was deeply touched by his words, and recognized so much of my own feelings. 

 

This is what poetry does best: telling the truth slant, expressing the unutterable, finding metaphors that can bring us together through our common human experience. 

 

I shared a couple of these poems on Facebook, and got a lot of response from friends of various ages and backgrounds. Francisco has really captured something here. 

 

I also want to make it clear that I strongly encourage my readers to purchase the collections by living poets that I feature. Don’t just enjoy the ones on my blog (which isn’t monetized). Please support those who make our world better with their art. 

 

The world needs more poetry in it, in my opinion. Sadly, even English teachers that my kids have had have often neglected poetry. I don’t get that. Not all writing should be prose. Poetry has a unique role in human expression, and it isn’t a secondary one that can be ignored. I will specifically mention my youngest kid’s 9th grade English teacher, Mr. Purdy, who did a whole unit on poetry that included writing formal poems and reading them at a poetry cafe on campus, hot chocolate included. This is what the world needs more of, and I love it when teachers make poetry fun and interesting. 

 

Back to this book. I will definitely be adding additional collections by Rudy Francisco after reading this one. 

 

Here are the poems that I decided to feature. Again, as often happens, I could have picked any of the poems, because there are so many great ones. 

 

This first one caught my eye because of the unusual metaphor at the end, and also that hilarious line by the brother. Fortunately, my own swimming experience wasn’t nearly so traumatic. 

 

Water

 

When I was six years old,

my brother and my cousins

tried to teach me how to swim.

 

They did this by throwing me into a pool.

Immediately, my arms became two skinny

brown flailing distress signals.

 

I think I heard my brother say,

“If he dies, I’m going to be in so much trouble.”

I remember them pulling me from the jaws

of the liquid beast before it could devour me whole.

That was the day I almost lost my life.

 

To anyone brave enough to love me,

 

Do you know the human body is approximately 

sixty percent water? When I walk into a room

full of people, all I see is an ocean. 

 

That’s so good. 

 

This next one really resonates for me, as a middle-aged man whose body tends to do this all the time. 

 

Ouch

 

Yesterday, I injured myself

and the explanation didn’t make sense.

 

I said, “Well, I was walking…”

and that was the end of the story.

 

At this age,

my body is a stranger that I

keep meeting over and over again.

 

The words “I am” are slowly 

transforming into “I used to be.”

 

because every year,

the past tense finds a larger house

inside the neighborhood of my 

everyday vernacular.

 

I am slowly realizing that

when the skeleton is new

and the bones are vibrant,

 

they coerce the mind into 

thinking the days will pass,

but the flesh will not.

 

Youth promises us immortality,

but it doesn’t have the means to

uphold its end of the bargain.

 

Here is another one that resonates with me at my time of life, having spent the last 15+ years deconstructing and realizing more and more of my past mistakes. 

 

Instructions

 

Gather your mistakes,

rinse them with honesty

and self-reflection,

 

let dry until you

can see every choice

and the regret

becomes brittle,

 

cover the

entire surface 

in forgiveness,

 

remind yourself

that you are human

 

and this too

is a gift.

 

And, of course, trying to do better as I get older. 

 

This next one is bittersweet, and it unfortunately reflects the way my parents alienated first my wife, then my children, and eventually me as well. 

 

Vanish

 

They will push you away, tell you

to leave, but have no idea how good

you are at following instructions.

 

When you vanish, but your ghost

becomes a guest they cannot get rid of

 

and the memory of you plays

resurrection with their smile,

 

they will ask where you went,

if you will come back and why

you gave up so easily,

 

as if they didn’t own the voice

that requested your disappearance.

 

They now know solitude does not

scare people like us

 

and our absence is something

that we are not afraid to give

to those who call for it.

 

To this day, my parents seem unable to understand that it was their voices that requested that my wife disappear from the family, and that that was ultimately what doomed our relationship. 

 

Some of the poems are overtly political, and they are outstanding, in the way that Langston Hughes’ political poems speak to more than the moment they were written in. Here are my favorites of many. The first is all about toxic masculinity, and seems more relevant than ever.

 

Chameleon

 

When I was in the 5th grade I knew a kid

named Javier. He was black, which was confusing.

 

He was an African-American kid who spoke

Spanish, loved country music, wore cowboy

 

boots, played jump rope and had a look on his

face that said: I wish a motherfucker would say

 

something. None of us said anything. For show

and tell, he brings in his pet chameleon. When he

 

walks in, the eyes of every kid glaze over like the

windows to our souls shook hands with the winter

 

for the first time. A girl with box springs in her throat

felt the silence and it was just too heavy for her fingertips

 

to hold onto so she drops the quiet like a suitcase full of 

habits that no one wants to keep and says, “So what’s his name?”

 

He replies, “I call him Rudy.” When the class realized that me

and the lizard had the same name, they laughed uncontrollably.

 

Twenty years later, the irony hits me over the head like an empty 

Heineken bottle inside of the bar fight that I call my everyday life.

 

I get it. Chameleons have the ability to paintbrush themselves 

into whatever will match their surroundings. They do it so often,

 

they probably wouldn’t be able to recognize a photograph of their

own skin. They think it is far better to be invisible than it is to

 

grind their teeth into “I dare you” and to ride their bones like a 

magic carpet, no steering wheel, no tires, no brakes, no battery

 

just bravery and a chest full of “I am not dying today.”

Courage has never been a chameleon’s best attribute

 

and some days, it’s not mine either. I was mentored by black men

with brown skin who turned yellow at the sight of bellies

 

swollen with half their DNA. I was taught that a woman’s vagina

is just an underground railroad to masculinity, that real men

 

have tunnel vision and treat girls like subway cars,

like nothing more than a space to parallel park our genitals,

 

a hole to bury seeds and leave orchards in our rear-view mirrors.

They say you have to peel a woman like a tangerine

 

and your job as a man is to chameleon yourself into her trees,

bite a piece of her fruit and leave the rest hanging

 

crooked and confused. This is an apology to every woman

I changed colors just to get inside of.

 

I still haven’t stumbled across a definition of a man,

but I know that we are hotels that stand a million war stories tall.

 

I know that we carry guitar cases full of phobias

hoping we can turn fear into our strongest instrument,

 

I know that our hands break things just as frequent

as we can fix them. And we often forget that sexism

 

is a family heirloom that we’ve been passing down for generations.

As men, it is important that we start asking ourselves,

 

What will the boys learn from us.

 

This next one is all about religion and bigotry, and is honestly the most accurate description of MAGA religion I have ever heard. They truly are praying to their own shadow, standing in front of a mirror. If there is a summary of why I left organized religion nearly a decade ago, this sums it up. 

 

To the Man Standing on the Corner Holding the Sign That Said "God Hates Gays”

 

I’ve never seen exactly who it is 

that you paperclip your knees,

meld your hands together and pray to

But I think I know what he looks like:

 

I bet your God is about 5’10”.

I bet he weighs 185. Probably 

stands the way a high school 

diploma does when it’s next to a GED.

 

I bet your god has a mullet. I bet 

he wears flannel shirts with no sleeves,

a fanny pack, and says words like 

“Getrdun.” I bet your god  watches FOX news,

 

Dog the Bounty Hunter, voted for Donald Trump,

 and loves Bill O’Reilly. I bet your God 

is a politician from Arizona. I bet his 

high school served racism in the cafeteria

 

and offered “hate speech” as a second language.

I bet he has a swastika inside of his throat

and racial slurs tattooed to his tongue

just to make intolerance more comfortable 

 

in his mouth. I bet he has a burning cross 

as a middle finger and Jim Crow 

underneath his nails. Your god 

is a Confederate flags wet dream.

conceived on a day when the sky 

 

decided to slice her own wrists,

I bet your god has a drinking problem.

I bet he sees the bottom of the shot glass 

more often than his own children.

 

I bet he pours whiskey on his dreams 

until they taste like good ideas,

Probably cusses like an electric guitar

 with Tourette’s plugged into an ocean.

 

I bet he yells like a schizophrenic nail gun,

damaging all things that care about him

 enough to get close. I bet there are angels 

in Heaven with black eyes and broken halos

 

who claimed they fell down the stairs.

I bet your god would’ve made Eve 

without a mouth and taught her how 

to spread her legs like a magazine

 

that she will never ever ever be pretty enough 

to be in. Sooner or later you will realize 

that you are praying to your own shadow,

that you are standing in front of mirrors

 

and are worshipping your own reflection.

Your God stole my god’s identity 

and I bet he’s buying pieces of heaven on eBay.

So next time you bend your knees,

next time you bow your head

 

I want you to tell your god—

that my god is looking for him.

 

So many great lines in there. What Francisco does - that needs to be done - indeed shouted from the rooftops - is that all of these things are connected. Racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ bigotry, violence, wilful stupidity, rape culture, and narcissism. It’s all part of the same disease of the soul, and when you see one symptom, chances are the others are present too. 

 

I should also mention that this version of the poem, from the book, is a bit different from the original. In particular, a reference to John McCain was changed to Trump. Which obviously works better, although the original context was white bigots voting against the black guy, which I remember all too well from certain former friends from our former church.

 

I decided not to quote all of “Adrenaline Rush,” which is about police racism, but there are a few lines that I will highlight. The basic idea is that black me don’t need the adrenaline rush of extreme sports, because daily life gives them too much of that already. 

 

For example, in describing the cop who pulled him over at age 18:

 

he splashed out of the car with his hand already on his weapon,

and looked at me the way a tsunami looks at a beach house. 

Immediately, I could tell he was the kind of man

who brings a gun to a food fight. 

 

And this one:

 

because I know that this much melanin

and that uniform is a plotline to a film that 

can easily end with a chalk outline baptism,

me trying to make a body bag look stylish for the camera

 

And this badass statement:

 

Jim Crow may have left the nest,

but our streets are still covered with its feathers.

 

Finally, I want to quote a short poem that is excellent in its brief summary of the evil that still plagues our nation. 

 

Margin

 

To be marginalized in America

is to be a star on the face of midnight.

 

We constantly have to rise above everything

and shine our brightest

 

when it’s dark outside.

 

Good words for our time in history. 

 

Another long poem that I decided was a bit much to quote is “Rifle II,” which starts off talking about guns in America (and which make their way to Mexico), then turns to a sculpture that turns confiscated guns into art, before eventually tying it together with a look at how masculinity and violence have become unfortunately conflated in our culture. Again, a few lines are worth noting.

 

A bunch of dudes afraid of their own feelings, 

terrified of any emotion other than anger,

yelling at the shadows on the wall,

but still haven’t realized

that we’re the ones standing in front of the light.

 

Isn’t that the manosphere to a T? And the way testerical idiots like Kegsbreath bludgeon their way through life, destroying everything in their path? 

 

How about this for an inspirational passage near the end?

 

I am learning that this body is not a shotgun.

I am learning that this body is not a pistol.

I am learning that a man is not defined 

by what he can destroy.

 

I am learning that a person

who only knows how to fight

can only communicate in violence

and that shouldn’t be anyone’s first language.

 

There is another poem in this book that references another poet I discovered in the last five years, Nikki Giovanni. Francisco’s response is both a reply and an affirmation of Giovanni’s underlying idea. 

 

I should also mention that the only spiders I intentionally kill are black widows that have taken up residence in a place where little kids might put their hands. We don’t even bother to relocate jumping spiders - when my kids were little, they named them and considered them pets.

 

Here is the Nikki Giovanni original:

 

Allowables

 

I killed a spider
Not a murderous brown recluse
Nor even a black widow
And if the truth were told this
Was only a small
Sort of papery spider
Who should have run
When I picked up the book
But she didn’t
And she scared me
And I smashed her

 

I don’t think
I’m allowed

 

To kill something

 

Because I am

 

Frightened

 

And here is the Francisco response. 

 

Mercy

 

She asks me to kill the spider.

Instead, I get the most

peaceful weapons I can find.

 

I take a cup and a napkin.

I catch the spider, put it outside

and allow it to walk away.

 

If I am ever caught in the wrong place 

at the wrong time, just being alive

and not bothering anyone,

 

I hope I am greeted

with the same kind

of mercy.

 

Something I wish MAGA would think about. As Shakespeare put it:

 

For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,

With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,

Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes

Would feed on one another.

 

I’ll end with a more lighthearted poem. The holidays are coming up rapidly, and, as readers know, they are difficult for me because of the trajectory of my birth family. This year, we are hosting, and opening our home to those of our kids’ friends who need a safe and affirming place to be. I know I cannot have back the joy of extended family the way it was pre-Trump, but my hope is that my kids can at least have that joy from our own holidays.

 

Cookout

 

Somewhere someone’s uncle or father, 

a man wearing sandals and khaki shorts

who says “back in my day” far too often,

 

is on the grill. He is watching the foold

like he’s afraid it’ll change its mind

about being a meal and decide to run off

 

when no one’s looking. The kids are playing

a game that they made up themselves

and changing the rules every five minutes.

 

Their smiles are so big, you can fit history

inside of them and still have room for right

now and the future.

 

The adults hate all the new music,

but still want the teenagers

to teach them the dances. The Cupid Shuffle

 

is common ground and the wobble

is a peace treaty signed by both generations.

There are no rallies today, no blood

 

on this street, no hashtags here, but there is

barbecue, potato salad and greens. The only

tears you will see

 

is when someone lifts the foil

and all the mac and cheese is finished.

 

That’s what I’m talking about. Although at our family gatherings, we are so paranoid of running out of food that we overdo it, and have leftovers coming out of our ears for the next two weeks. 

 

Those are my favorites from this excellent collection. I encourage lovers of poetry to give Rudy Francisco a try. 

 

Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

This book won the International Booker Prize in 2025, which is when I added it to the list. 

 

The author and the book warrant some explanation. 

 

The stories were originally written in Kannada, a language mostly spoken in southern India. It is one of the Dravidian languages, related to Tamil, but not close to the best-known Indian languages of Hindi and Urdu. It is spoken by around 65 million people worldwide, according to the translator. It also was used as the official court language for dynasties of the past. 

 

So, it is a significant and important language, even though it isn’t that well known in the United States. I mention this in part because it is the first work I have read translated from Kannada, and also because there are a number of untranslated words in the book that you just have to figure out from context. 

 

Banu Mushtaq isn’t just a writer, although she has written quite a number of short stories and poems, a novel, and essays. She is also a lawyer and feminist activist. Both of these inform her writing, and the stories in this collection often involve the failures of the legal system to protect vulnerable women. 

 

Mushtaq’s personal life is also fascinating. She apparently has a great facility in languages, speaking a half dozen fluently. She was born into a devout Muslim family, but defied expectations by waiting until age 26 to marry, and then doing so for love, not as an arranged marriage. 

 

She has been involved in feminist activism for decades. In one case, she was boycotted and threatened for advocating for the admission of women to mosques. On the other side, she has also advocated for the right of Muslim women to wear the hijab in schools, in response to the Hindu majority in India suppressing minority rights. 

 

So, quite the character, and an interesting writer. 

 

Heart Lamp is a collection of twelve short stories, mostly about everyday life for working and middle class Muslim women in India. Many of them have feminist themes, but that undersells the richness of the stories. They are all about ordinary people, ordinary situations, family dynamics, social problems, the sort of things that all of us humans around the world have experienced and can understand. 

 

The stories were selected by the translator from across the author’s career. Thus, they feel very much like a “greatest hits,” rather than an album, if that makes sense. 

 

I also want to note at the outset that if you read them from the wrong perspective, you will miss the nuance that religion plays in this book. It is all too easy to lapse into islamophobia, and smugness about the supposed superiority of Western views of women. 

 

This is problematic for a few reasons. First, and one that struck me immediately, the patriarchal attitudes of the men in this book are all too familiar to those of us who grew up in the Christian Patriarchy subculture. The idea that women are essentially property, to be owned by men, is endemic to that subculture as much as it is to conservative Islam. I noted so many direct parallels between the things said in this book and things I have heard over the years from the various theobros within our modern White Christian Nationalism movement. 

 

Thus, if you aren’t paying attention, you will miss what this book has to say about our own version of patriarchy. 

 

Second, and this was fascinating to me as well, Mushtaq pushes back against patriarchy by showing that the patriarchal power structures, legal realities, and social culture are actually in violation of the official teachings of Islam. It isn’t that Islam doesn’t protect the rights of women to be supported and not abandoned, it is that the mosques, the courts, and society refuse to enforce the rights granted to women in the Koran. 

 

This is very much like the work of various feminist Christian advocates, who point out the many ways that patriarchy ignores everything from the teachings of Christ to the history of the early church, which had full leadership by women. The issue isn’t religion per se, but the way that patriarchy - and indeed hierarchies of power in general - have co-opted religion for its own ends.

 

Third, what this book brings out is the connection between power and oppression. In a society where, for a variety of cultural, legal, structural, economic, and religious reasons, one gender is denied meaningful power - social, economic, and political - that gender (or ethnicity, or religion, or other classification) will inevitably be oppressed. The power feeds the oppression, which then reinforces the power. 

 

So, the better lesson is one that history has taught us, which is that power structures need to be changed. It isn’t enough to “fix” theology to be more “kind” to the powerless. You need to actually eliminate the power differential, and change will follow. 

 

Just one way this works is that trying to change the theology of gender will never actually happen until you give women and gender/sexual minorities equal power in determining what that theology will be. And that goes equally for Christianity as for Islam. 

 

Finally, if these stories show anything, it is that the power structures themselves determine what thought is even possible. Many of the men in these stories aren’t monsters per se, but they do monstrous things because of the culture that envelopes them: the expectation of what women are and how they should act, the beliefs about what men are entitled to have and do, how both fit into the social structure. 

 

I should also add that while there are some definite villains, there are a lot more complicated people. Some of the women are pretty horrible too, some of the men are caught in situations where there is no good answer, most of the men are feckless and thoughtless, not intentionally cruel. 

 

I should also mention that the audiobook has two narrators - a woman for the stories from the female perspective, a man for the ones from the male perspective. Mushtaq doesn’t write from a single perspective - the stories are from a variety of points of view, male and female, rich(ish) and poor. 

 

With that, I want to look at each of the stories briefly. 

 

“Stone Slabs for Shaista Mahal”

 

This story is narrated by a young, educated woman - perhaps much like the author in her youth - newly married. Her husband gets a job out in the sticks, and she finds herself lonely, until she meets another, slightly older couple. 

 

The husband, Iftikhar, seems devoted to his wife, Shaista, particularly by the standards of the culture. However, he seems to envision his daughters getting married off early, without any education. 

 

Shaista already has six children, and the eldest daughter is tasked with helping to raise them, despite her obvious aptitude for academics.

 

Shaista intends to get sterilized after her pregnancy finishes, even though her husband doesn’t agree. This is a factor in multiple stories, by the way - the connection of contraception to women’s rights, particularly the right to their own bodies. 

 

“Fire Rain”

 

This is a law-oriented story, from the perspective of the local mutawalli, who seems to be a civic functionary connected to the mosque. He apparently lends money and resolves minor disputes. 

 

There are several interconnected issues of justice that arise. First of all, his sister has demanded that she receive her lawful share of the inheritance. Under Sharia Law, she is entitled to it (something islamophobes don’t realize about their favorite bogeyman), but “tradition” has tended to let the oldest son manage the money for everyone else. 

 

The story, even with its heavy themes, turns humorous when the central issue ends up being a ne’r-do-well who goes missing, and it appears his body was buried in the Hindu cemetery, without the proper rights. This becomes a whole case, an exhumation, and the embarrassment when the “dead” man turns up. Oh well… 

 

But throughout this story (which I thought was a particularly good one) is the question of how to do justice. There is always a tension between community expectations, the letter of the law, and what true justice would be, particularly for women. 

 

Something to think about.

 

“Black Cobras”

 

Another law-related story, and one that is pretty heart-rending and infuriating. A young woman is abandoned with her three daughters when her husband decides to take a second wife. Because she only gave birth to daughters, of course.

 

Sharia Law is clear here: the first wife is to receive exactly the same as any subsequent wife, to the very letter of each item. 

 

But the husband has no intention of providing anything. He totally abandons his wife and children to starvation, despite what Sharia actually says. And the local mosque leader looks the other way, claiming that the wife should have worked harder to satisfy her husband. 

 

This one had so many trigger points from my own fundamentalist background, including that admonition that the woman bears the responsibility when she is abandoned, abused, or cheated on. 

 

Another trigger was this: the first wife was raised in a super-devout family, deprived of sex education, and taught to repress her sexuality. So naturally, after three daughters in a short time, when her body shows signs of age and neglect, the husband trades her in on a younger, more sexually open woman. Yeah, this is pretty much what Fundie religious leaders do. 

 

A fascinating result of the horrible events of this story is that the women themselves take action, including getting sterilized. 

 

“A Decision of the Heart”

 

This is one of the more subtle stories, and involves two women, both of which have some issues, and a man caught in the middle. 

 

Yusef was raised by his widowed mother, Mehaboob Bi, who he now cares for. His wife, Akhila, is absurdly jealous of this, and starts a fight over it. To be fair, mommy isn’t great at defusing things either, and poor Yusef can’t seem to do anything right.

 

Finally, fed up, he is baited into arranging a marriage for his mother, so that she will have a husband to care for her. 

 

Ultimately, the situation is resolved in a reasonable manner, but one does have to wonder why the women - particularly the wife - had to be so horrible about it. 

 

But here too, society plays a problematic role. Without a social safety net, all widows have is their sons to support them. And if there is only one son…

 

But likewise, a wife loses social status if she isn’t taken care of in style, and people talk when the mother looks like number one. 

 

And Yusef, having little in the way of resources himself, has to balance the demands of his wife with the needs of his mother. There is no real way to win for him.

 

“Red Lungi”

 

This is another story with a certain amount of humor. Razia, a relatively wealthy woman, gets stressed out when relatives - including a LOT of young boy cousins - descend on her house for an event, decides to sponsor a mass circumcision ceremony - bankrolling the cost for a lot of poor residents of the town. 

 

This story is a bit graphic, though, so be warned, particularly since in the Islamic tradition, this is done when boys are older, not infants. 

 

In addition to the humor and the interesting slice of culture, there is also a subplot regarding wealth and privilege, and the duty we owe to the poorer members of our communities. 

 

“Heart Lamp”

 

This story is openly feminist, with a look at the impossible pressures placed on women in a patriarchal society. I wonder if it is based on one of the author’s cases.

 

Yet again, you have a man who has largely abandoned his family for a new wife. In this case, the first wife attempts to flee back to her family, but they reject her. Again, it is her fault that she has been abandoned for a younger woman. 

 

In this case, one feels particularly sympathy for the first wife, because she was forced to give up her education by her family, in favor of an arranged marriage that has clearly not worked out for her. And, as in the earlier story, her own family refuses to confront the man and demand what their own sister and daughter is entitled to under Sharia Law. 

 

The ending is very nearly tragic, and in fact is still somewhat tragic, even if not as horrid as it threatens to be. 

 

The thing here, once again, is that what is needed is no so much a religious change as a legal one. If an abandoned wife could get instant child support and spousal support, she wouldn’t be in this awful situation. 

 

I should also mention that we Westerners shouldn’t be smug about this. It wasn’t that long ago - my parents’ lifetime - that marital rape was legal, that men could take the children from a woman who left an abusive marriage, and when a woman couldn’t even file for divorce on the grounds of mental abuse. 

 

As I pointed out years ago in a post (that got me on the bad side of my former pastor), it wasn’t “Christianity” that made the difference - it was Feminism. It was the demand by women that the law and society change. 

 

“High Heeled Shoe”

 

Another humorous story. Nayez has inferiority issues with his younger brother, who has become wealthy, while Nayez is stuck in a low bureaucratic position. At the same time, his brother is unhappy that Nayez has managed their modest inheritance without consulting him. 

 

At the center of the story is a ridiculous pair of high heeled shoes that the younger brother’s wife wears, that Nayez has become obsessed with, despite the fact that his own wife is pregnant and doesn’t like that kind of shoe. 

 

There are some echoes of Mma Makutsi in Alexander McCall Smith’s books in this story. 

 

“Soft Whispers”

 

This story is both a present-day story, and a nostalgic look back at childhood events in the life of a young girl. There is also the question as to whether a childhood nemesis has grown into a decent man - and if he even remembers the past. 

 

This one has careful detail, and memorable incidents. A very well-written story. 

 

“A Taste of Heaven”

 

Probably the most hilarious of the stories. It contains an edge of social commentary inside - the problem of a woman widowed at a young age, who never had children, and whose family has essentially failed to facilitate a remarriage. 

 

But the woman in question, Bi Dadi, also has some, well, issues. The inciting incident is one where a young and feckless nephew uses her ancient and frayed prayer mat to wipe off his motorcycle, causing her to essentially go on hunger strike no matter how many apologies she receives.

 

Oh, and she probably is in the early stages of dementia, which doesn’t help at all. After several failed attempts to get her out of her funk fail, including a change of residence, what ends up working is unexpected and indeed accidental. 

 

The children give her a drink of Pepsi, and claim it is aab-e-kausar, the sacred water of heaven. Believing that she has died, and that her late husband is there with her (even though she cannot see him), she suddenly has a zest for life again. As long as the Pepsi keeps on flowing…

 

“The Shroud”

 

This story is a commentary on class, on promises, and on carelessness. When an old servant requests that Shaziya bring back a burial shroud for her when she goes on her Haj pilgrimage, Shaziya starts off with good intentions. But then she gets distracted, and ends up with too much luggage for the return journey, and the shroud is forgotten. 

 

Shaziya’s guilt will haunt her after her servant’s death. 

 

“The Arabic Teacher and Gobi Manchuri”

 

Another humorous story, but also rather weird. Because the narrator is a lawyer much like the author, I wonder if there is a personal connection. 

 

Because of social norms, despite having the better job, the lawyer is expected to do all the childrearing. And that includes finding an Arabic teacher for the children. 

 

The one the narrator ends up with though, has a bizarre obsession with Gobi Manchuri, an Indo-Chinese food commonly sold from street stalls - and perhaps an analogue to french fries here in the US. 

 

Anyway, total junk food, and not something a self-respecting Indian wife would cook. 

 

But he teacher is obsessed, leading to a compromising situation with the daughters he is supposed to be teaching. Not that he was doing anything bad - they were trying to cook Gobi Manchuri. 

 

Things spiral out of control from there, leading the poor lawyer trying to figure out if she can save a marriage….with a simple recipe. 

 

“Be A Woman Once, Oh Lord”

 

This isn’t so much a story as a prayer. A prayer from an abandoned and abused woman to Allah, which ends with the title as the final line. 

 

And it really is a tour-de-force of the toxic combination of theology, power, and dehumanization. 

 

This is the inherent problem when the Divine is envisioned as being male. Women are inevitably seen and treated as sub-human. 

 

The specifics of the events in this story/prayer may be rooted in the culture described, but they are a sad refrain wherever women are seen as less-than men, where power is vested in males, and where the Divine itself is seen as phallic. 

 

***

 

Heart Lamp is an interesting collection, and worth the Booker prize. 

 

I want to note that the translator, Deepa Bhasthi, includes an extensive note at the end, which is also very good. In it, she talks about everything from her conversations with the author - they grew up fairly close together, although the translator is Hindu - to why words in various languages are left untranslated. It’s quite fascinating. 

 

The narrators of the audiobook are Deepti Gupta and Vikas Adam, and they did a good job of capturing the nuances of the untranslated words, as well as a certain cadence that (in my experience) captures a certain region of India - we have a lot of Indian immigrants and their descendants where I live.