Dear all,
That is what I love, lively, spirited debate even before the debate a sort of
pre-debate. Do come along on 11 Feb at 11am to Dogears Bookshop Margao, the
perfect time, just after mass at Holy Spirit Church and just before your Sunday
choriz pulau and copache, Jose Lourenco and I promise to engage in robust
verbal fisticuffs about this very topic. There might be coffee, there might be
fights, there will definitely be books. No choriz pulau and copache not
included.
All best,Selma
On Tuesday, 30 January 2024 at 16:54:55 GMT, Jeanne Hromnik
<[email protected]> wrote:
Thank you, Ben!I'm also uncomfortable with sweeping views on marriage,
irrespective of time, society, culture, country ...I don't get carried away,
but I'm interested in the particular, which is what novels are all about,
although they should connect with universal feelings of pain, love, neglect,
abuse etc. Which is what marriage is about!I guess I'm getting carried away.Xxj
On Mon, 29 Jan 2024, 03:25 Ben Antao, <[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Selma
I have read your comments on marriage so many times now that I feel compelled
to respond. You come across as an intelligent, knowledgeable and know-it-all
communicator. However, you don’t tell us to what segment of society your views
spring from. Are they related to UK Asians and if so which generation? Are they
related to Goans in the UK, Goans in India (Mumbai and Goa) and to your
generation (born in the 1960s.) As I have not read your novel yet, I can only
say the novel is a right form to explore such views.
Now allow me to say how marriage is viewed among young people in Toronto. In
the late 1960s when I married, young women would say they are against marriage
as an institution. Is a piece of paper going to change how I love, said one
23-year-old to me at a party. So she and others of her generation preferred to
live together in common law. I was a reporter at that time and wrote that
common law marriages are there to stay and that federal government in Canada
should introduce legislation to make it legal. And what do you know? Ten years
later the Liberals brought in legislation to legalize common law marriages.
Today a generation or more later, young people are thinking of marriage as an
investment. Two changes have appeared on the scene—- the feminist movement and
women acquiring higher education and well-paying jobs. The Goan community
comprising mostly of those who immigrated from East Africa have put down roots
but their progeny have decided to look outside the community for marriage
including inter-racial and inter-religious. Some 15 years ago I was invited to
interview a Konkani speaking Goan in Toronto. During a small chat following the
interview, the woman slightly older than me told me that her daughter does not
want to marry a Goan. I found this interesting and after a few years another
Goan friend said his daughter had married a Filipino. I always knew that Goans
are open-minded and not biased.
Coming back to marriage, today’s young couples are keen on acquiring a house
even before marrying. House prices have gone through the roof in Toronto, with
an average 3-bedroom detached house going for $1.5 million. It is insane
what’s happening to house prices. Rich Immigrants from China and Iran are
causes for high prices, according to real estate agents.
The baby boom generations to which my wife belongs (1945-64) are sighing with
despair that their children cannot afford a house.
You can learn a lot about the current state of sex, love and marriage on the
Internet, which is why I have decided not to write a novel about this
phenomenon.
Sorry, Selma, I didn’t mean to write all this but got carried away. LOL
Have a good week.
Ben
.
On Jan 28, 2024 at 4:47 AM -0500, 'Selma Carvalho' via The Goa Book Club
<[email protected]>, wrote:
So many middle-class marriages are held together by pretence, the big, fat lie
of the perfect family, the Instagram pages of exotic holidays, the Facebook
lovey-dovey messages, when underneath the surface things are roiling. We are
confronted by unreality, we are overwhelmed with the pressure of seeming to
have it all, we have become mask-wearing humans. But those lines from my book
are so true of marriage; the banal truism of nobody knows what goes on behind
closed doors still holds. Nobody knows of the wounding and the healing, the
forming and the dissipating, the failures and triumphs. Marriages are these
miraculous organisms which have the ability to repair and regrow; they are a
place of sanctuary, a place for us to discover our grace, generosity, and
resilience. Within marriage, our worst lives become liveable, our worst selves
become redeemable. This was the theme I wanted to explore within the elasticity
that a fictional story allows us.
Read full interview
here:https://www.navhindtimes.in/2024/01/27/magazines/zest/the-portrait-of-a-marriage/
Available at Dogears or online. Do drop in at Dogears on 11 Feb 11am to catch
Jose Lourenco and me in conversation about the book or catch me at GALF.
Take care,Selma
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