First things first. This has nothing to do with the rest of the post – or maybe it does – but I hope this is a public and official enough place for me to declare that if I am unconsciouss for more than 6 months, somebody pull the damn plug. That’s no comment on the Schiavo case. Though I do think it’s interesting that more Americans put stock into her husband’s decision instead of her parents’. I wonder if that wouldn’t be reversed here in Mexico.

OK, so to review: 6 months unconsciouss = kill me. Thanks. I knew I could count on you guys.

Character is destiny

That’s a quote we hear a lot. It was said in the 6^th century BC by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who, Moreno informs me, was the husband of Clitoris. It’s a catchy little saying and one we’re reminded of when we’re sitting in the drunk tank at 6 a.m. hoping a friend will come pick us up.

But it’s also a very Western sentiment. That it is our personality, our character, which determines our destiny rather than our caste and class in society. Supposedly there’s no ceilings around our parts.

I had never read anything of V.S. Naipaul’s before so I didn’t know what to expect of the front jacket description of “Naipaul’s masterful theme of inheritance.” But now I do.

There would have been more than a hundred people in the room. Many of them were Portuguese, and I doubt whether any of them thought as I was thinking. The world was closing down for them in Africa; I don’t think anyone there would have questioned that, in spite of all the speeches and the ceremonial; but they were all easy, enjoying the moment, filling the old room with talk and laughter, like people who don’t mind, like people who knew how to live with history. I never admired the Portuguese as much as I admired them then. I wished it was possible for me to live as easily with the past; but of course we were starting from opposite points.

Opposite points. The narrator comes from a tradition of caste in India where your life destiny is dictated by your ancestry. But the Portuguese (where “caste” is derived from “casta”) are supposedly free to choose their own destiny.

But is that really how it works out? Aren’t we all born into a caste in one way or another? Class, ethnicity, neighborhood, networks of friends and families. Don’t those all determine our destiny just as much if not more than what we call character?

The book, Half a Life, follows the first 45 years of Willie Chandron who is continuing a war of character versus class that his Brahman father first started when marrying Willie’s Untouchable mother (a decision he regretted throughout his life).

Neither Willie nor his father know what to expect of Willie’s life as a half-Brahman, half-Untouchable and eventually he ships off to London in search of greater opportunities where his caste will not follow him. And he encounters a society which judges him not by his birth right, but rather his personality … still an unfinished product. He goes bumbling through his life, trying to find who he is and forget where he came from.

I can’t say I related much to Willie throughout the book, but I do relate to his struggle between caste and character. Expectations are always put on us even before we are born. Ask any pregnant woman and I can guarantee you she’s fantasized about what her son or daughter will become. Friends and aunts and grandparents all chime in too. It’s such a fun game for them. They look at the parents’ characters and talents and class and location. Then they take into account your own character and by the time you’re taking the SAT, you hear it over and over again: you’d make such a good X.

Character + Caste = Career

It’s a formula I’ve always resisted, wanting instead to forge out my own destiny completely apart from what I was born into. Ironically, that’s probably my character carving out my destiny.

Other reviews of Half a Life: