Photo by Sister72
Just over a week ago, I saw the movie (I mean film!) Gone Baby Gone and knew from the very first voice-over that I would love it. I wish I had tried to write the line down in the darkened theatre, but I have not yet taken the advice of my favorite fellow bloggers to carry a notebook at all times, so I will attempt to do the line justice from memory. The spirit of the observation was how much of our identity we invest in the place of our birth, even though it is one of the few circumstances we have absolutely no control over. The line surprised me since, knowing that Ben Affleck had a hand in the film, I assumed it would be another testament to how wonderful the city of Boston is. Although Boston does have a palpable presence in the film, Affleck’s portrayal is anything but sycophantic. The film is beautifully raw and uncompromising — the writing, directing and acting — and it is truly one of the best films I’ve seen in many months.
So, this line has haunted me lately. As a transplant who spent her childhood in Michigan, her college years in Indiana, chose Minnesota for the past sixteen years, and has recently fallen in love with Wisconsin, I don’t have the same loyalty to one place that others do. This may also be in part to my parents’ gift of travel in my childhood — all 50 states before the age of twenty and many other countries, as well. Last week I finished a kit on Heart of Darkness and was haunted by the Polish-born Joseph Conrad’s line — “I am more English than you are, because I chose it.” I agree with this sentiment and believe that as we grow into our identities, we are better able to appreciate our past, and better able to choose our future — with regard to setting as well as actions.
But it seems most writers do embrace a sense of place — whether their own or of others. The critically heralded Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson certainly does – John Casey in Critical Mass highlights this beautifully. And, obviously, Khaled Hosseini is intimately concerned with his birthplace. So with these thoughts rattling around my mind, I was particularly interested in the CBS Sunday Morning Show’s interview of Khaled Hosseini. Since I had just finished a kit on A Thousand Splendid Suns – and had therefore researched his life — I was in the interesting and unusual situation of knowing all of the biographical information beforehand. But what I noticed during the show, is how attached he is to his homeland (Afghanistan) despite having lived in America since the age of fifteen. In fact, his family left Afghanistan when he was nine. In both of his novels, he is able to portray the complexities of his ravaged Afghanistan — feared and distrusted by his adopted home — and somehow avoid turning his characters or the setting into a mere cariactures or a political symbols. In the interview, he stated that he believes his focus on human nature — both loving and cruel — is the key to his popularity. So the setting, while important and very interesting, is only one aspect of these characters. I wonder why we so often forget that our setting is only one aspect of who we are…
I have always had one of the most peculiar feelings. I was born in Italy in a small-ish town, and I spent my childhood roaming around the farm my grandparents owned in the countryside nearby. It was a beautiful childhood, and that farm, that house, although all the life has left it now, still feel like a warm welcoming home to me. At the age of 15, I took my first trip to London and I felt (peculiarly enough, as I was saying) that I had come home. I will never forget one night on a late flight from Italy to London, when I spotted that we were leaving France and flying over the Channel, I whispered to myself “I am coming home”. Now I live in London, and I feel like this vast and diverse city is a friend of mine, a faithful one that has never let me down. At the same time, I miss my farm, and no day goes by without me thinking of it. In the end, the woman who now runs to take the tube in the morning has grown up running in the corn fields of a farm, and my story has two (and many more) settings, and it wouldn’t be the same without any of them. And all these places come together in one single story.
Thank you for your lovely comment! When I left London after spending six months in Cambridge for a semester abroad, tears coursed down my cheeks — truly a city that felt like home at that time in my life. Ironically, Italy also had that affect on me — especially the countryside. We must be kindred spirits!