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Thursday, May 27, 2021
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS
On the first day of my 10th-grade
American Literature class, as an
introduction to the quintessential
high-school-English-class
novel
“The Great Gatsby,” we learned
about the ever-present American
dream, or the belief that anyone can
make it in the United States if they
just work hard enough. To my then
15-year-old self, the critique of the
American dream was foreign; my
parents, who emigrated from India,
are patriots who firmly believe in this
social ideal. Thus, I was thoroughly
intrigued by “Gold Diggers,” a 2021
magical realism novel written by
Sanjena Sathian that portrays second-
generation, Indian American youth
willing to do whatever it takes to
become successful. Sathian mixes
magical realism, historical fiction and
satire to deliver a truthful critique of
the (Indian) American dream idolized
by many immigrants in the late 20th
and early 21st century.
“Gold
Diggers”
follows
Neil
Narayan, a boy crushed by societal
expectations deeply infatuated with
his driven neighbor, Anita Dayal. The
novel is divided into two parts. The
first, set in Bush-era Atlanta suburbs,
details Neil and Anita through high
school, where Neil struggles in his
classes until discovering Anita’s secret
to success: alchemy. Anita and her
mother steal gold to brew lemonade
that “harnesses the ambition” of the
owner. Neil, desperate to fit into his
community’s ideals, begins to down
the lemonade in copious quantities
until his actions cause tragedy to
strike. The second part is set ten years
later in Silicon Valley, where most of
his peers have migrated. He reunites
with Anita to pull off “one last heist.”
I made the mistake of starting
(and finishing) the book during
finals, reading it in a single sitting.
The book bends literary conventions.
It’s difficult to find books that can
be incredibly entertaining while
seriously pondering deep questions.
It’s difficult to find books that capture
the ambition taught from a young age
within Indian American communities
without
dehumanizing
Indian
Americans into literal manifestations
of the model minority myth as socially
inept, clout-chasing side characters
that lack inner worlds. It’s difficult
to find books that bend genres like
magical realism, historical fiction
and satire in a way that is complex in
its undertaking yet is still accessible.
The deeply talented and witty Sathian
effortlessly pulls it off, creating a
masterpiece of a novel that questions
the ambition of Indian Americans and
their place in American history.
Sathian details the life of a
community
just
outside
“the
perimeter” of Atlanta and American
society. The community, like so many
others, believes that if they keep their
heads down and work, success is
inevitable. They’re often berated for
fooling around — in Neil’s mother’s
view, this might “include anything
from neglecting to take up AP Biology
to shooting up hard drugs.” Children,
pushed by their parents, try to uphold
cultural expectations while surviving
in a society they feel unaccustomed
to. Some with seemingly effortless
abilities, like Anita, breeze through
high school, while others like Neil
struggle. Neil, initially annoyed with
his “lack of intellect,” realizes that the
success around him isn’t effortless,
and is in fact just the opposite: Aside
from working ample amounts, Anita
has resources, like her lemonade.
Similarly, the American dream is
never solely based on hard work
or merit because often those who
succeed already have the upper hand.
Sathian also focuses on the place
of Indian Americans in American
history; Neil, as a high school student,
discovers the story of an Indian man
in the California Gold Rush. As a
graduate student studying history at
the University of California, Berkeley,
he becomes obsessed with finding
the man, his “Bombayan gold digger,”
who was ostracized and later lynched.
The book focuses on how many
Indian Americans weren’t viewed as
American despite their ambition and
participation within communities.
No matter how hard the characters
strive for the American dream, they
continually
struggle
financially,
emotionally
and,
eventually,
physically. Their Indian American
community constantly pushes the
narrative of the dream, and Neil and
Anita work like hell for it, hopped up
on lemonade (and, sometimes, coke).
Still, their solidified place “within
the perimeter” of the American
dream always seems just out of reach.
Sathian uses Neil’s “everyman”
character to indicate how stifling the
myth of the American dream can be.
That’s not to say Neil is devoid
of personality — the lengths that
Neil goes to maintain the illusion of
the community ideal of success are
frightening. Neil is selfish, oblivious
and
insecure.
Academically,
by
his community’s standards, he’s
considered
shockingly
mediocre
(which is an experience that I am
not unfamiliar with). He’s a jerk
and also one of the most realistic
characters I’ve encountered in fiction.
He constantly compares himself to
Shruti, a girl who he ridicules but is
jealous of, calling her “discomfiting”
and “embarrassing.” Her refusal to
adhere to the American social, beauty
and femininity standards of the early
2000s annoy others, especially Neil,
and thus, he uses her as a scapegoat
to vent his frustrations with Indian
culture. In order to pursue the dream,
Neil engages in petty, selfish high
school drama with Shruti, which leads
to an extremely devastating calamity
when mixed with supernatural forces.
Sathian details horrors and truths too
often swept under the rug in pursuing
the American dream, indicating just
how much of a toll the ideal can exert.
Many were deeply impressed
with the novel; Ann Arbor’s local
Literati Bookstore hosted an event
with Sathian, which was organized
by
Sarah
Thankam
Matthews.
Additionally, the book is being
adapted into television by Mindy
Kaling’s production company, Kaling
International.
Taylor Swift’s re-recordings: reflection, nostalgia and deja-vu
I was only eight years old when
Taylor Swift first released Fearless.
At the time, Swift and her songs about
heartbreak were too mature for my
childhood self who still adamantly
believed that boys had cooties.
As some of my childhood heroes
outgrew their roles — Miley Cyrus
hanging up Hannah Montana and
the devastating breakup of the Jonas
Brothers — I found myself gravitating
toward Swift and her lovable country
sweetheart persona. Even though I
didn’t know what love was or what
it was like to have my heart broken,
I clung to Swift and vicariously lived
my perception of high school through
her music. Fourteen years later,
Swift’s re-release of Fearless has
taken on an entirely new meaning,
now that I’ve lived through many of
the triumphant and tragic love stories
that were completely unrelatable for
me as a kid.
Listening to the re-release of
“Fifteen” has shown me how much
I’ve grown since the album’s first
version. The song was one of my
favorites at 8 years old, allowing me
to imagine what it would be like to
date “the boy on the football team.”
Now at 21, I know what it’s like to fall
in love with the captain of a sports
team and have my heart broken.
As an adult, I wish I could tell my
younger self that yes, the magic in
“Fifteen” is real, but the line “Wish
you could go back / And tell yourself
what you know now” is the backbone
of this story. While my younger self
clung to the excitement of love and
the anticipation of school dances and
dating in high school, as an adult I
cling to the hard truth that young love
is fleeting. I see now that, as you age,
you discover that it’s more important
to develop yourself than to rest all of
your hope in one person.
While songs like “Fifteen” remind
me of how much older I am and
how much life I’ve lived since the
first release of Fearless, other tracks
like “You Belong With Me” are still
timeless classics that transport me
back to my childhood. Since the
re-release of Fearless, my sister and
I have spent many car rides blasting
the album, belting the lyrics we’ve
known by heart for over a decade. It’s
when I’m singing “You Belong with
Me” with my sister or hearing “The
Way I Loved You” at the store that
I experience a strange familiarity
to when we were kids singing
tracks from Fearless on our karaoke
machine, pretending we knew what
Swift meant when she says that love
is “a roller coaster kind of rush.”
Perhaps this is one of the strangest
phenomena of Swift’s re-recordings:
their suspension of time. My first
time listening to the re-recordings
felt a lot like the first time I listened to
the original album, and even though I
knew what songs to expect, there was
still a familiar sense of excitement and
wonder as each track faded into the
next. In fact, the way Swift mimics
nearly all elements of the original
recordings preserves a sacred time of
my life. In many ways, the album is a
space to reflect and recognize where
I’ve been and how far I’ve come.
While many of the conversations
surrounding Fearless are centered
on the question of artists’ rights
and fairness in the music industry,
there’s much more at play here
than Swift reclaiming the rights to
her work. Like her fans, I’m sure
Swift experienced the same sort of
nostalgia as she recreated the music
that defined her as a teenager; this
album has undoubtedly taken on an
entirely new meaning for her as an
artist.
KAITLYN FOX
Daily Arts Writer
“Gold Diggers” brews dazzling satire of the American dream
MEERA KUMAR
Daily Arts Writer
Design by Yassmine El-Rewini
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