1. The Courter (taken from EAST, WEST, 1994) by Salman Rushdie About the short story A teenage boy retells the story of the Indian woman who raised him and his siblings and her relationship to the 'porter' of the building in London, whom she calls the 'courter' by mispronouncing his title. About the author Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist best known for the novels Midnight's Children (1981) and The Satanic Verses (1988), for which he was accused of blasphemy against Islam. Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born June 19, 1947 in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. The only son of a wealthy Indian businessman and a school teacher, Rushdie was educated at a Bombay private school before attending The Rugby School, a boarding school in Warwickshire, England. He went on to attend King's College at the University of Cambridge, where he studied history. After earning his M.A. from Cambridge, Rushdie briefly lived with his family in Pakistan, where his parents had moved in 1964. There, he found work as a television writer but soon returned to England, where for much of the 1970s he worked as a copywriter for an advertising agency. While Rushdie would later become a target of Muslim extremists, the religion was very much a part of his upbringing. His grandfather, a kind man and family doctor, was a devout Muslim, who said his prayers five times a day and went to Hajj to Mecca. But his grandfather's embrace of the religion was not shrouded in intolerance, something that greatly shaped the young Rushdie. "You could sit there as an 11- or 12-year-old boy and say, 'Grandfather, I don't believe in god.' And he would say, 'Really? That's very interesting. Sit down here and tell me all about it.' And there would be no kind of attempt to ram something down your throat or criticize you. There would just be conversation." Other interesting information: http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/217/mind-sweet-mind-a-closer-look-atsalman-rushdies-invisible-homeland-in-east-west https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWislptRE8o
Topics for Discussion 1. What significance does chess have on the story? What does it represent? What does the narrator mean when he calls it “their private language”? 2. How does Rushdie portray the struggle of leaving India and living in London? What do the characters struggle with most in this process? 3. What is the difference between Certainly-Mary and the narrator that results in their differing decisions concerning identity and sense of belonging at the end of the story? 4. How do the events in this “autobiographical story” mirror the author’s life?
2. Defender of the Faith (taken from Goodbye, Columbus 1959) by Philip Roth About the short story The story—originally published in The New Yorker—deals with a Jewish American army sergeant who resists the attempted manipulation of a fellow Jew to exploit their mutual ethnicity to receive special favours. The story caused consternation among Jewish readers and religious groups, as recounted in chapter five of Roth's 1988 memoir The Facts: A Novelist's Autobiography. About the author Philip Roth is one of America’s most award-winning authors. He’s won the National Book Award twice, the National Book Critic’s Circle Award twice, three PEN/Faulkner Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Roth began his literary career shortly after receiving his master’s degree in English literature. In addition to his well-received novels, Roth has also written short stories, film reviews, and political satire. His most famous works are Goodbye, Columbus and Portnoy’s Complaint. Roth also created a character named Nathan Zuckerman that figures prominently in several of his books. Because personal angst is a hallmark of Roth’s writing, the Zuckerman character, which serves as an alter ego for the author, has been a kind of barometer for Roth’s personal and artistic growth. Other interesting information: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/04/philip-roth-no-desire-writefiction-novelist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkGqQtWn0Xc
Topics for Discussion 1. Why do you think Grossbart targeted Marx? 2. Should religion coexist with war and violence in a military setting? 3. Is Grossbart actually Jewish or is he using his religion as a manipulative tool?