Word: vegetarian
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...firm's new nine-story building, and is negotiating with IBM for a computer to handle payrolls and inventory. The Mafatlals, on the other hand, follow the tradition of communal living: the brothers and their families all occupy one five-story, 20-bedroom house. Arvind Mafatlal is a vegetarian, prays an hour every morning, insists on consulting an astrologer before he signs a contract or breaks ground for a new plant. "We make our own business decisions," he explains, "but once we have, we want to invoke the blessing...
...when we learn how most of them behave we believe in them even less. The vegetarian and his wife, for example, have one important character trait. They "believe passionately in the integrity of all the world." Although they have spent their lives crusading vainly and have witnessed a great deal of violence and cruelty, they are convinced that everyone is basically good. Smiling, they distribute money to armless, legless beggars and cluck sadly at racial violence in the South. When they are pushed around for no reason by expressionless secret police and their innocent friends are beaten and locked...
Greene handles most of his scenes with astonding naivete. As the narrator is being beaten and questioned by the secret police, the vegetarian wife, her hair in curlers, slowly descends the stairs uttering brusque commands in abysmal French. The secret police, rifles in hand, mumble and blush and leave abashed. After reading half the book, one learns that all situations have neutral endings--nothing is settled, no crisis is reached or even begun. Any interest the bizarre characters or ludicrous events might have created ebbs, leaving nothing in its wake...
...Presidential candidate on the Vegetarian ticket and his stiff-upper-lipped wife; a mysterious adventurer, escaping from Philadelphia; a Negro undertaker who utters only "yes" and "no" and bursts into tears at the end of the trip almost a floating "I Lover Luey." thing. They can be profound, can't they? This one contrasts two kinds of people, the committed and the uncommitted. The narrator represents the alienated side, naturally. He was born in Monaco, and thus has no real nationality. His mother ran away when he was young and he never knew his father. He is a man without...
...contrast are the vegetarian and assorted rebellious Haitians. These people do have a purpose in life, and I guess we are supposed to notice how much richer their lives are even though their projects fail. But this obvious meaning sticks in our throats. Greene has so infused his narrator's personality with ennui and detachment that we cannot imagine his caring about anything under any circumstances, with any upbringing. And the people who are committed are all such pitiful, blundering fools that we almost prefer the narrator to them. Perhaps their lives have more meaning, but when forced to compare...