In his Charles Baudelaire: A
Lyric Poet in the Ear of High Capitalism, Walter Benjamin
explores the devastating impact of modernization upon the
identity of human beings. As Marshall Berman explicates,
modernization, which constitutes the material aspect of the life
and experience of modernity, is “a complex of material
structures and processes—political, economic, social—which,
supposedly, once it has got under way, runs on its own momentum
with little or no input from human minds or souls” (131-32). The
revolution in the mode of production, the concomitant mechanical
and mass reproduction and the rise of commodification and
urbanization result in the large-scale flow of capital, goods,
and people. Yet not only does the “momentum” of modernization
have “little or no input from human minds or souls,” it also
gnaws at the mental or spiritual being of human beings. That is,
accompanied by modernization is the serious crisis in the life
and experience of the moderns. The tremendous transformation in
the material aspects gives rise to the sense of loss and
alienation and severely inflicts and puts into doubt the
significance of human existence. Shock experience, fragmentation
of life episodes, and the sense of loss and alienation are all
the psychological undersides of modernization. Observing such
phenomena, Benjamin therefore concludes that “the price for the
sensation of the modern age [is] the disintegration of the aura
in the experience of shock” (154).
While the Benjaminian depiction
mainly tells the story of the condition of modernity, his
observation is not inappropriate to understand the predicament
inflicting human life, experience, and identity in the age of
globalization. If, as Anthony Giddens argues, globalization is
the “consequences of modernity,” then it seems reasonable to
assert that the sense of loss and alienation, the spiritual
downside of modernity, is extended and intensified as well. And
as David Harvey proposes, globalization is a two-tune
phenomenon—both a quantitative and a qualitative
transformation—in which the quantitative change leads to the
qualitative one. In other words, the extension and
intensification of the various kinds of flows all over the world1
proceed in such a rapid way that a qualitative metamorphosis
regarding the “human minds or souls” does take place. Precisely,
with the unprecedented speed and scale of flux of people,
capital, and images, a new spiritual malady which is specific to
the age of globalization comes into being among humankind. This
brand-new disease or epidemic of globalization, I would like to
suggest, is anonymity.
Anonymity, however, does not
originate in the global era. Instead, it has been part of the
shock experience of modernity: the sense of loss and alienation
caused by the devouring crowd or by the disconnection between
the producer and the product in the modern era brings about the
feeling of anonymity among the moderns. Nevertheless, the
discourse of loss and alienation is insufficient to exhaust the
various dimensions of the qualitative change inherent in the
psychological change in the age of globalization. On the
contrary, anonymity, I would suggest, is a more proper focus
upon the “human minds and souls” of the global era.
The term anonymity means “not
identified” or “lacking individuality, distinction, or
recognizability.”2
This state of being unidentifiable and unrecognizable and of
being unidentified and unrecognized seem to be the most proper
description of the psychological malady over which human beings
agonize. Anonymity therefore has a new significance with respect
to identity. In the context of globalization, anonymity is
tainted with an unbearable lightness and can be regarded as the
sense of loss and alienation developed to the extreme. In
addition, anonymity reveals the prevalence of an unprecedented
force of defacing and phenomenon of fading away, and of an
immense disruption of connection and attachment at the
individual, communal, and local level. Against such backdrop, my
usage of anonymity hence signifies the shattering of one’s
memory and experience—the collapse of one’s connection with
his/her self and body, of interpersonal and communal
interaction, and of the alliance one has with the local.3
The disease of anonymity is
characterized by an emergence of ever-accelerating and
ever-aggrandizing distance, disconnection, detachment,
disembodiment, disembeddedness, and disappearance between and
among human beings. These phenomena of “de-“ and “dis-” are
suggestive of the state of being “off”—the condition on which
one is disconnected with his/her own body, culture, and
locality. In other words, implying one’s disappearance and
disembodiment, the erasure of one’s trace and the erasure of the
erasing of one’s trace, and being out of connection with others
and the local, anonymity then turns into the brand-new
psychological threat and plague in the global era. Endangering
the identity and existence of human beings, the malady of
anonymity becomes the most significant and urgent issue to
handle and to solve. In this paper, I would like to examine
Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost for its portrait of the
flow of the epidemic of anonymity all over the world and for its
promised possible tactics, of negotiating with and fighting
against this plague of globalization.
The Plague of Anonymity
As Teresa Derrickson points out,
critics such as Tom LeClair usually complain of Michael
Ondaatje’s “seemingly disinterested approach to the civil strife
in […] Sri Lanka” (131). LeClair criticizes that Ondaatje’s
“apolitical gaze seems irresponsible” (qtd. in Derrickson 131).
Refuting the critique of Anil’s Ghost’s apolitical
stance, Derrickson argues that Ondaatje actually takes a
“political stance […] a sophisticated one,” which is
demonstrated by the author’s engagement in “an extended
discussion about one of the most highly contested topics to be
raised in the wake of economic globalization: the United
Nations’ universal mandate on human rights” (131-32). I agree
with Derrickson to the point that Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost
is highly political. Only that while Derrickson contends on the
basis of Ondaatje’s concern for the Western universalism
inherent in the UN-sponsored human rights investigation as
pictured in the novel, I would like to argue that Anil’s
Ghost is a political novel more in terms of its negotiation
with and resistance against the anonymity brought about by
globalization.
Written at such a critical time
characterized by the prevalence of anonymity, Ondaatje’s
Anil’s Ghost can to some extent be read allegorically as an
attempt to depict the widespread condition of and the possible
tactics of resisting this plague of anonymity. As Ondaatje
himself clarifies, his motivation for writing this novel
consists in providing an “unhistorical, unofficial” narrative,
i.e., “what goes on in private” (qtd. in Scanlan 303). His
intention of telling an “unhistorical, unofficial” story
represents his solutions to the obsessive anonymity and his wish
for the preservation or reconstruction of the memory and
experience of the individual actors. Further, as Ondaatje
continues, “the book isn’t just about Sri Lanka; it could be
Guatemala or Bosnia or Ireland” (qtd. in Scanlan 303). That is,
Ondaatje does not intend to deal with the problem of anonymity
only in Sri Lanka: his scope and target is larger, or precisely,
global. In this regard, Anil’s Ghost is truly an allegory
which aims both at a description of the horrible threat of
anonymity as demonstrated both locally and globally and at a
fictional representation of the possible tactics of countering
the malady of anonymity.
Throughout Anil’s Ghost, the
ambience of anonymity permeates. A lot of episodes in the novel
reflect the ubiquity of anonymity, and the sense of anonymity
even surges before the main story begins. The epigram of the
whole novel, the miner’s folk song in Sri Lanka, has epitomized
the forthcoming omnipresence of anonymity in Anil’s Ghost.
The lyrical speaker laments that when he goes “down the pits
seventy-two fathoms deep,” he is actually “[i]nvisible as a fly,
not seen from the pit head” (3). The miner’s lamentation over
his invisibility symbolizes the anxiety for anonymity in the age
of globalization. Superimposed by the different kinds of flows
of globalization, the individual agents, as situated in the
“pits seventy-two fathoms deep,” are easily to be ignored and
forgotten. As the distance between the pit and the pit head
metaphorically reflects, the trace of the individual’s life and
experience and the significance of his/her identity and
existence are submerged in and disconnected with the history and
memory of the time and therefore rendered anonymous.
Also, the depiction of the National
Atlas of Sri Lanka in the novel provides a metaphorical
rendering of anonymity. This National Atlas of Sri Lanka “has
seventy-three versions of the island—each template revealing
only one aspect, one obsession” (39) and the different “template[s]”
of the national atlas allegorize the spread of the various flows
all over the world. They compose, as Appadurai describes, “a
complex, overlapping, disjunctive order” under which “the
individual actor is the last locus” of attention (32, 33).
Indeed, the national atlas contain “[t]he old portraits show[ing]
the produce and former kingdoms of the country [and]
contemporary portraits show[ing] levels of wealth, poverty and
literacy.” Yet the old and contemporary portraits provide only
an official and, more importantly, impersonal archive of
the history of globalization. Since no records of people and
their agency are documented, individuals and their memories and
experiences are left obscure and even erased. Among the
“seventy-three versions of the island,” “[t]here are no city
names […] no river names [and] [n]o depiction of human life”
(39-40). The life and experiences of the individuals are not
recognized and unrecognizable; “the last locus” of attention is
just treated anonymous.
In addition to the metaphorization
of anonymity, Ondaatje also gives a concrete representation of
the social and historical context against which anonymity
sprawls: in Sri Lanka the political murder and terrorist
activities deepen the intensity of anonymity that has been
caused by the different kinds of global flows. The story begins
with the return of Anil, who is born in Sri Lanka but leaves at
the age of eighteen and studies and works abroad as an
expatriate, to her homeland for the UN-sponsored “Human Rights
investigation” in search of the evidence of government-supported
murder (13). As the story unfolds, it becomes clear to Anil that
the government is involved in political killings. That is, the
socio-political situation is far more complex than she might
have expected. In order to remind Anil of the difficulty facing
“the Human rights investigation,” Sarath Diysasena, the
archaeologist assigned by the Sri Lanka government to be teamed
with Anil in the investigation, warns her of the complexity of
the Sri Lankan war:
Every side was killing and
hiding the evidence. Every Side [sic] This is an
unofficial war, no one wants to alienate the foreign powers. So
it’s secret gangs and squads. Not like Central America. The
government was not only the one doing the killing. You had, and
still have, three camps of enemies—one in the north, two in the
south—using weapons, propaganda, fear, sophisticated posters,
censorship. Importing state-of-the-art weapons from the West, or
manufacturing homemade weapons. A couple of years ago people
just started disappearing. Or bodies kept being found burned
beyond recognition. There’s no hope of affixing blame. And no
one can tell who the victims are. […] What we’ve got here is
unknown extrajudicial executions mostly. Perhaps by the
insurgents, or by the government or the guerrilla separatists.
Murders committed by all sides. (17; emphases added)4
What Sarath’s warning reveals is
that anonymity and its accompanied horror caused by the
political killings and terrorism are manifold. Firstly, since
the political murders are “committed by all sides”—the
government, the separatist guerrilla, the insurgents against
government, and the counterterrorism, the victimizers are hard
to identify. Even “the foreign powers” are engaged in the local
political killings and the “[i]mporting of the state-of-the-art
weapons from the West” furthers the uncertainty of the
victimizers. As there is “no hope of affixing blame” and no
“information of who the enemy was” (17, 11), the violent
activities are characterized by anonymity: the uncertainty of
the victimizer and the related panoptical surveillance come to
form a psychological obsession, which initiates the sense of
mistrust and necessitates self-protection among people living on
the island. As a result, even discussion in private turns into
the site inflected by the disease/dis-ease of anonymity. In his
debate with Anil over whether they should go on to prove the
governmental engagement in the murder of the Sailor, the
contemporary skeleton uncovered in the government-protected
archaeological preserve where only ancient skeletons are
supposed to be found, Sarath has to make sure that Anil has
turned off her tape recorder (45) in case their conversation
might be misinterpreted as the evidence of their critique or
even of their rebellion against the government. In other words,
the anonymity of victimizers poses such a psychological threat
that even the investigators for victimization have to keep
themselves as anonymous as possible, i.e., to remain
unrecognizable or unidentifiable. This introjection5
of anonymity, together with the sense of distrust and
self-protection, only aggrandizes the disconnection and
therefore anonymity between human beings.
Sarath’s action of self-protection,
which might suggest a political anonymity, however, is
ironically self-incriminating. Insofar as Sarath intends to
detach himself from the killing of Sailor, which is probably
launched by the Sri Lanka government, he makes the social and
cultural condition anonymous to him: his knowledge of the
possibility of political killings is rendered unrecognized and
unidentified by himself. Rather than releases him from
victimization, Sarath’s ignorance actually puts himself in the
position of the victimizers. No wonder he, either consciously or
unconsciously, concludes his debate with Anil by saying that
“[n]ow we all have blood on our clothes” (48). That is, Sarath
becomes one of the “[us who] are criminals in the eyes of the
earth, not only for having committed crimes, but because [of]
know[ing] that crimes have been committed” (54). Sarath’s
maintenance of anonymity strengthens his involvement and
engagement in the political murder of the Sailor. Rejecting the
knowledge of the truth of the political killing, Sarath turns
himself into an accomplice, a quasi-victimizer of this political
murder. Hence, not only the real victimizers, those who do
commit the action of killing, but also the quasi-victimizers are
engaged in the political homicide. As a result, “[e]very side
was killing and hiding the evidence. Every Side” (17).
Another dimension of anonymity
caused by the political murders is unrecognizability and
unidentifiability of the victims. The political attacks such as
street bombs involve a lot of innocent civilians who are not at
all engaged in the vicious cycle of the political killings. The
assassination of the President Katugala when he “go[es] out and
meet[s] the people” on the National Heroes Day (291) by the
street-bomber dramatizes the anonymity imposed upon these
innocent civilians. Although aiming at the “Silver President,”
who steps into the crowds to meet the people, when R— (another
anonymous victimizer) sets off the bomb sewn to himself, he
kills not only the “Silver President” but the crowds around the
president as well. As the narrator describes, “[t]he bomb of R—
would destroy whomever he was facing”; the result is that “more
than fifty people were killed instantly” and that “the explosion
shredded Katugala into pieces” (293, 294). Of course the
“shred[ding of] Katugala into pieces” literally shows his
disembodiment, his evaporation in the air, whereas what may be
paid less or even no attention is the “more than fifty people.”
Although the narrator further reports that “[a]round him were
the dead. Political supporters, an astrologer, three policemen.
[…] There was blood on the unbroken windows. The driver sitting
inside was unhurt except for damage to his ears from the sound”
(294, 294-95), these descriptions of the victims are only too
superficial. They merely provide a general portrait of the dead
and leave their identity unnamed and their stories of pain and
suffering untold. “[I]t was the awfulness of the noise that most
remember, those who survived” (294) and none of these victims
will be remembered. The traces of their life and experience and
their connection with the community and society will just fade
away, zooming out of the flux of official document. “[T]he dead”
around the “Silver President” therefore serve as the background,
rather than the foreground, of the political event of
street-bombing and then will be forgotten and turned anonymous
hereafter in the history of Sri Lanka.
Parallel to the external war is an
internal war which further mires individual agents in anonymity.
Almost all the characters in Anil’s Ghost confine
themselves, either willingly or unwillingly and for the sake of
traumatic experience, within anonymity. In the first place, Anil
herself is anonymous. As the narrator points out,
Her name had not always been Anil.
She had been given two entirely inappropriate names and very
earl begin to desire “Anil,” which was her brother’s unused
second name […] Anil had tried to buy [this name] from him when
she was twelve years old […] and finally the siblings worked out
a trade between them. She gave her brother one hundred saved
rupees, a pen he had been eyeing for some time, a tin of fifty
Gold Leaf cigarettes she had found, and a sexual favour he had
demanded in the last hours of the impasse. (67-68)
In the course of trading for and
acquiring a new name, Anil’s original “two entirely
inappropriate names” have been totally lost and erased. Although
the successful acquisition of the name “Anil” may connote her
self-determinacy (67) or symbolize the development of the female
subjectivity, it also suggests her disconnection from part of
her own life and memory (for there is no description of the
memory and experience linked to the “two entirely inappropriate
names”). Meanwhile, corresponding to the liminality
characterizing the name Anil, which suggests both femininity and
masculinity (68), the meaning of the renaming is quite
ambivalent. Since the name “Anil” is acquired by making her
brother lose his name, i.e., by making him anonymous in a
certain sense, and by eliminating her original names and the
related traces of memory and experience, the renaming, this way,
contributes to their anonymity as well.
The anecdote of Anil’s
name-relinquishing and self-renaming echoes her separation from
the local. After the death of her parents in a car accident,
Anil keeps herself detached from the connection with her
homeland. Although she preserves the sarongs bought by her
parents, Anil seemingly intends to cut off the linkage to her
past, namely, her life in and memory of Sri Lanka. When asked by
the reception official whether she “[has] friend here,” Anil
only nonchalantly replies “Not really” (10). Shortly after the
episode of meeting at the airport, the narrator reveals that
“Anil was glad to be alone”: “There was a scattering of
relatives in Colombo, but she had not contacted them to let them
know she was returning” (10). Anil’s gladness of being alone
specifies that it is she who scatters the contact with her
relatives in Colombo. This refusal of remembering of, or the
will to forget, her connection with the locals connotes her
self-made anonymity. Anil’s rejection of the label attached on
her as “[t]he return of the prodigal” implies not so much that
she is in reality not a prodigal as that she only refuses to
admit this position and identity. Besides the willing detachment
and disconnection with her relatives, Anil even intends to
ignore “[her] early celebrity”—her “[winning] the two-mile swim
race that was held by the Mount Lavinia Hotel” (11, 10)—a
gesture of severing herself from the past. If “[t]he island no
longer held [Anil] by the past” and she “had now lived abroad
long enough to interpret Sri Lanka with a long-distance gaze”
(11), it is Anil herself who initiates the distance so as to
maintain her anonymity to others.
Of course the reason for Anil’s
self-anonymity and detachment may consist in her expatriation
for fifteen years and in her identity as a forensic
anthropologist under the government of the international human
rights organization. Yet her autochthonous counterparts do not
survive the psychological plague of anonymity, either. Anil’s
investigation colleague, Sarath, imprisons himself within
anonymity as well:
Since the death of his wife,
Sarath had never found the old road back in the world. He broke
with his in-laws. The unopened letters of condolence were
left in her study. […] He returned to archaeology and hid his
life in his work. He organized excavations in Chilaw. The young
men and women he trained knew little about what had occurred
in his life and he was therefore most comfortable among them.
[…] Everyone who worked with him accepted the moats of
privacy he had established around himself. (278; emphases
added)
The “moat of privacy” is Sarath’s
moat of anonymity. He abandons himself in his work, breaks the
linkage with his in-laws, and makes himself little known since
he wants to set himself in the stronghold of anonymity and
disconnection. Sarath certainly deviates from “the old road back
in the world”; refusing the ritual of mourning (i.e., the
letters of condolence left unopened), he keeps being on the road
for anonymity.
Such will to anonymity is also
manifested in Sarath’s brother, Gamini, who works as a doctor in
charge of triage and identifying the cause of the listed
injuries on the photographs of dead bodies. When Gamini is
young, although “he had loved that family world,” he is “never
secure in the love around him” and, as specified by Ravian, his
brother’s wife, highly ignored (222). For the identity crisis
rendered by being treated as anonymous, Gamini “remained
invisible” and
[f]or year afterwards he judged
himself vain, and as a result revealed even less of himself
to others. He quietened, became barely aware of the
subtler gestures within himself. Later he would be vivid
only with strangers—in the storm of the last stages of a party
or in the chaos of emergency wards. It was here that people
could lose themselves […]. He could be at the centre and
still feel he was invisible (223)
Ignored and excluded by his family,
Gamini confines himself in the moat of anonymity as well: he
makes himself less revealed to others and even less recognized
to himself (“He […] became barely aware of the subtler gestures
within himself”). Gamini’s sense of alienation and will to
anonymity are strengthened by his work of identifying the
wounds, which is described as his “darkest hour of the week”
(213), for the necessary distance and non-recognition he has to
maintain from the dead. When Gamini has to “[go] over the
reports and the photographs of the dead, confir[m] what was
assumed, poin[t] out fresh scars caused by acid or sharp metal,”
he would “cove[r] the faces with his left hand, the pulse in his
wrist jumping” (213). The necessity of “covering the faces on
the photographs” lies in keeping Gamini away from the “danger of
his recognizing the dead” (213). Obviously for the sake of
psychological self-protection, or at least for a temporary
fetish to defend the psychological horror of recognition,6
Gamini has to “[cover] the faces on the photographs.” Yet this
necessary refusal of recognition may sharpen the sense of
anonymity: if photographs may function to preserve the
ever-fading trace of human beings,7
then the covering only intensifies the disconnection with the
individuals and hence leads to the erasure of the trace.
Other characters in the novel
suffer no less from the disease of anonymity and disconnection.
After the death of his monk brother, Nārada, and the loss of his
reputation as the leading archaeologist, Palipana, Sarath’s
teacher in the realm of archaeology, retreats with his niece,
Lakma, whose parents are killed in a civil war and hitherto
seriously traumatized to be a catatonic, into the forest
monastery, the Grove of Ascetics. This physical and
psychological disconnection results only in anonymity: the state
of being unknown to self and to others and being unknowledgeable
about others. The condition of being unknown,
unidentified/unidentifiable, and unrecognized/unrecognizable,
either to self or to others, and therefore of detachment,
disconnection, disembodiment, disembeddedeness, and even
disappearance precisely configure the plague of anonymity.
The War against Anonymity
The significance of Anil’s Ghost,
however, does not consist in just providing a portrait of the
unprecedented psychological plague in the age of globalization.
And clearly, Ondaatje in no way intends to surrender to the
plague of anonymity. As if speaking through the mouth of Anil,
Ondaatje states that “[s]ome people let their ghosts die, some
don’t” (53). “Death, loss, was ‘unfinished,’ so you could not
walk through it” (56). In this regard, the title Anil’s ghost
refers to the specter of anonymity: insofar as “not let their
ghosts die” means the confrontation with the erasing of their
life traces and experiences, Ondaatje’s representation of the
different levels of anonymity reflects his attention to and
problematization of the issue of anonymity.
Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost, as
I have argued, is a highly political novel: its political stance
derives from the proposed tactics of negotiating with and
resisting against anonymity. I choose the word “tactic” not only
it echoes the background of the story—the civil strife among the
government, the guerrilla, the insurgents, and the
counterterrorism. More importantly, since by bringing to mind
the significance and seriousness of anonymity in the ear of
globalization Ondaatje in a sense wages an “unofficial war”
against the terror of anonymity, “tactic” seems to be a proper
term to describe his method of countering anonymity in the
novel.
Anil’s Ghost indeed supplies
a variety of methods to negotiate with and to fight against
anonymity. While characters confine themselves in the moat of
anonymity, they do not necessarily succumb to the status of
being anonymous. Their variegated battles against anonymity and
their longing for connection and embeddedness are still
traceable. The search by Anil and Sarath for the identity of the
Sailor is “to reclaim [the] bones [of the Sailor] from anonymity
and for justice” (Burton 42). Composed of Anil and Sarath, the
investigation team is an assembly of forensic anthropologist
(Anil) and archaeologist (Sarath), each of which to some extent
puts into practice the task of reclamation. On the one hand, the
forensic anthropology as is represented by Anil sees the
intention of reconstructing one’s age, birthplace, occupation,
and personal history of pain and suffering, so to speak, one’s
memory and experience. Anil’s forensic “reading of the bones,”
of the Sailor’s “markers of occupation,” Sailor’s career and
makes it possible to “have a story about him” (177, 180). By
means of the story-revealing or story-reconstructing, the trace
of Sailor’s life comes to be recognizable and identifiable. On
the other hand, archaeology functions to uncover the historical
past of a region, a local, and a country. This way, it helps to
(re-)construct the communal or collective memory and experience.
Also, archaeology unveils “the hidden histories, intentionally
lost” and thus “alter[s] the perspective and knowledge of” the
present time (105). This spurs on the rewriting and the
subverting of the official archive—the grand narrative
superimposed upon the individuals—and thus discloses who the
innocent victims are and mitigates their pains. The same task
can be realized by virtue of epigraphy, as is embodied by
Palipana: he “stud[ies] the specific style of a chisel-cut from
the fourth century, then come[s] across an illegal story, one
banned by kings and states and priests, in the interlinear texts
[… containing] the darker proof” (105).
Everyday items and high-tech
products are also helpful in resisting anonymity and preserving
the trace. Postcard, clips of newspaper, photographs, video
camera, tape-recording can help to record and maintain the
episodes of life and trace. However, of all the tactics of
negotiation with anonymity, the most significant is naming.
Since “anonymous” is “a-nonymous,” which literally means without
name, the ritual of naming and the search for the name therefore
become the most important and straightforward method of
countering anonymity. The naming as the Sailor the contemporary
skeleton found in the government-protected archaeological
preserve reflects the will (here mainly Anil’s) to naming in
order to alleviate the malady of anonymity. Similarly, the
episode of Gamini’s operation of the cardiac surgery upon a boy
with an anonymous nurse demonstrates the accessibility of the
elixir for anonymity. After successfully operating with the
anonymous nurse, Gamini meets her again in the cafeteria of the
base hospital. The nurse tells him that the boy’s family
“renamed [him] Gamini” (247). Certainly, the ritual of renaming
of the child after Gemini despite the concomitance of “a lot of
trouble, red tape” (247) reflects the family’s intention of
commemorating Gamini—to make the memory of the greatness of
Gamini and their gratitude for him traceable all the time. More
importantly, this enactment of renaming along with the
accompanied gratitude comes to bridge the gap between human
beings caused by violence and anonymity in the context of
political killings and civil wars. Also, the interaction of
Gamini and the anonymous nurse allays the horror of anonymity.
Gamini’s cooperation with the anonymous nurse gives him the
sense of trust, and therefore, in contrast to Sarath, “there was
blood on everyone except him” (242). This sense of trust and
cooperation stimulates Gamini’s will to name and to connection:
to know the anonymous nurse, to return to “the old road back in
the world,” to “[look] for a flurry of entires […],” and to
“[go] down the list of interns and nurses [… and] discove[r] her
name” (248).
Yet this paranoia for name and
naming is far from being the perfect cure for anonymity. Not
that the will to name and naming in no way helps to reconnect
the broken joints between human beings; instead, it is merely
still insufficient and its effect sometimes too ambivalent. In
the first place, because the “name” the Sailor is given by Anil,
it does not really represent his own identity. Also, the label
“Sailor” is suggestive of wander, uncertainty, and then
disembeddedness. Of course this reflects that the label “Sailor”
and the action of naming are only temporary. Yet it also
maintains the anonymity of the contemporary skeleton.
Furthermore, as Anil’s self-naming reveals, the action of naming
sometimes makes others anonymous: the process of renaming may
bury the original name, as it reburies an unearthed corpse.
Since naming does not overcome anonymity, it does not
necessarily promise the restoration of the flesh and the blood,
the reconstruction of embeddedness and connection.
If naming is not the best policy,
then what might be Ondaatje’s best way, if there is any, of
fighting against anonymity? I would contend that the most
effective and qualified tactic of mitigating disconnection and
anonymity is intimacy. Here the intimacy does not refer to the
sexual contact, as represented by the relation of Anil with her
ex-husband and with Cullis or by the sexual pièta
perceived by Gamini between Sarath and Ravina. As a matter of
fact, the intimacy brought by the sexual contact is doomed to
fail: Anil divorces her husband and she cannot settle down with
Cullis; the sexual pièta in no way
prevents Ravina from committing suicide.
In a contrast, the intimacy that
ably mitigates the sense of anonymity and alienation is the
physical and psychological touch replete with the wholehearted
trust and cooperation and with shared experience and memory. The
most obvious illustration is Gamini and Ravina’s operating
together: it provides Gamini with the sense of trust and opens
up his contact with the outer world. Meanwhile, the established
connection lights up Ravina’s passion for and belief in life and
leads her to become a doctor so as to save more lives from the
terrorist attacks. Similarly, the working together of the
doctors in the base hospital, the care of the doctors over the
child patients, the mutual interdependence between Palipana and
Lakma all exemplify intimacy as the effective weapon against
anonymity.
Anil’s life and memory with Leaf
Niedecker, her “closest friend and constant companion, their
“work[ing] side by side” and “talk[ing] continually on the phone
to each other when one was on assignment elsewhere” (235)
seemingly implies a stable connection, at least the longing for
it, between her and Leaf. After arriving in Sri Lanka, it is
Leaf’s call which Anil misses and expects most and it is Leaf’s
postcard which Anil cherishes most. That they “always would
phone each other and talk till [they] fell asleep, laughing or
crying, trading [their] stories” divulges their sharing of life
and exchange of experiences, their close and intimate
relationship, and their tight connection with each other. As a
result, unlike the way she treats Cullis, i.e., leaving “nothing
of herself for him to hold on to” (264), Anil will “[watch] over
[Leaf], not far from those telescopes in New Mexico” (257). The
“not far from those telescopes in New Mexico” does not
necessarily suggest that Anil will live together with Leaf after
this bout of investigation (though there is the possibility).
Rather, it represents that no matter where Anil goes, she will
bear Leaf in mind. Despite that Leaf has Alzheimer’s and will
sooner or later forget everything, including her memory of Anil
and of their shared experiences, Anil’s will to remember Leaf
predicts the ever-present sense of linkage and intimacy between
them.
Furthermore, the “pièta
between brothers” (288), between Sarath and Gamini when the
latter embraces the corpse of the former, best dramatizes
intimacy as both physical and psychological touch. Gamini knows
that “[i]f he did not talk to him in this moment, admit himself,
his brother would disappear from his life. So he was too, at
this moment, within the contract of pi?ta” (288). This “pièta
between brothers” is symbolic of the reconciliation and
mitigation of the distance and disconnection between Sarath and
Gamini. Gamini’s fear of the disappearance of his brother from
his life for ever in a sense transforms into some kind “love at
the last sight,” which “could be the beginning of a permanent
conversation with Sarath” (288). As the representation of the
“pièta between brothers” shows, the
(re-)construction of the brotherhood or sisterhood embodies the
relation of intimacy; it is the sense of intimacy contributed to
by trust and connection that makes possible the “sweet touch
from the world” (307). The allegorical significance of intimacy,
in this regard, is that while, as the last two sections of the
novel display (“The Life Wheel” and “Distance”), the political
or religious authority can be exploded (and even when
re-established, can be destroyed again, just like the reburial
of the uncovered corpse), the secure and stable connection
established by intimacy can prevent one from total disappearance
and then maintain the trace and significance of one’s existence.
It is only through the “sweet touch” from others that “[a] small
brave heart” (307) can be developed and sustained, which in turn
furthers the connection of intimacy and comes to form the
network of “small brave heart[s].”
Insofar as anonymity is haunting
both at the individual and collective level, the collective
“sweet touch” has to be constructed as well. As Derrickon’s
reading persuasively argues, concerning epistemology of truth,
justice, and human rights, a spacious gap exists between the
global universalism and the local understanding, between the
global elite (Anil) and the local (Palipana, Sarath, and Gamini).
In other words, the local condition of Sri Lanka is anonymous to
Anil: the “domestic and political situation” (Derrickson 141) of
Sri Lanka is unrecognized and unidentified by Anil. Lacking “a
proper understanding of the context in which [the] facts [of the
domestic and political situation,” Anil’s judgment by virtue of
her “long-distance gaze” might be too Westernized (Derrickson
141, Anil’s Ghost 11). As Sarath remarks, “I’d believe
your [Anil’s] arguments more if you lived here [Sri Lanka]”—“You
can’t just slip in, make a discovery and leave” (44). Put
differently, before Anil’s investigation can exorcise the
specter of anonymity, she has to deal with her cultural
anonymity and disembeddeness with Sri Lanka.
The process of Anil and Sarath’s
investigation provides Anil a great possibility of understanding
and even identifying with the local. Sarath’s suggestion of
their recourse to Palipana, who in turns recommends them to
resort to the eye-painter Ananda in the tradition Nētra Mangala,
is not a deflection from the truth-finding search but symbolizes
Anil’s journey toward recognition of and identification with Sri
Lanka. Also, as Scanlan illumines, Anil and Sarath’s search for
the identity of the Sailor involves “help of a handful of
people” (308). Precisely, only after Anil is able to interact,
cooperate, and identify with local Sri Lankans can she establish
the “sweet touch” with her home country. In the end of the
investigation, Anil does overcome the cultural anonymity and
returns as a prodigal. While Anil defends her own corroboration
of the government-related political killing, Sarath hears her
say “I think you murdered hundreds of us” (272). As Sarath
contemplates, “Hundreds of us. […] Fifteen years away and
she is finally us” (272). This reflects a mutual recognition and
identification—the local recognition of Anil and the global
elite’s identification of with the local. Believing in Anil’s
recuperation from social and cultural anonymity, Sarath begins
to identify with Anil and to “believe [Anil’s] arguments.” His
gift, the return of the skeleton of the Sailor to Anil, and his
sacrifice for Anil creates the “bond of alliance and
commonality” (Mauss 17)8
and the intimacy between Sri Lanka and Anil. As a result, it is
reasonable to contend that Anil will not become, as Gamini
questions,
The American or the Englishman gets
on a plane and leaves. That’s it. The camera leaves with him. He
looks out of the window at Mombasa or Vietnam or Jakarta,
someplace now he can look at through the clouds. The tired hero.
A couple of words to the girl beside him. He’s going home. So
the war, to all purposes, is over, That’s enough reality for the
West. It’s probably the history of the last two hundred years of
Western political writing. Go home. Write a book. Hit the
circuit. (285-86)
On the contrary, both “Gamini and
the memory of Sarath” and the local of Sri Lanka will “be a part
of her life” (285). The collective intimacy—the capability of
preserving and maintaining collective experience, the
recognition of and identification with the local, and the
concomitant formation of brotherhood—then signifies the most
efficient and necessary tactic in the war against anonymity.
Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost is
truly part of his tactics against the malady of anonymity in the
age of globalization. Piecing together the stories of different
characters is to assemble the multiple fragments of memory and
experience. His circular story-telling defuses the dangerous
erasure of trace and promises the accumulation of experience and
the stability of identity.9
The depiction of cultural and historical particulars in Sri
Lanka showcases its local characteristics and then enhances its
recognition all over the world. More importantly, the narration
of the political and social background, the violent political
killing, avoids the anonymity of the victims and victimizers. By
virtue of the fictional representation of the civil war that
does take place in Sri Lanka, Ondaatje mourns for and reveals
the tragedy of violence in Sri Lanka and therefore makes both
the victims/victimizers and victimization recognized and
identified by the world.
Works Cited
“Anonymous.” Merriam-Webster
Online Dictionary. 14 February 2005 <http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=anonymous>.
Appadurai, Arjun. “Disjuncture and
Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Modernity at
Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: U
of Minnesota P, 1996. 27-47.
Benjamin, Walter. Charles
Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism.
Trans. Harry Zohn. London: Verso, 1976.
---. “The Storyteller: Reflections
on the Wroks of Nikolai Leskov.” Illuminations. Trans.
Harry Zohn. Ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken Books, 1968.
83-109.
Berman, Marshall. “Baudelaire:
Modernism in the Streets.” All That is Sold Melts into Air:
The Experience of Modernity. New York: Penguin, 1982.
131-71.
Burton, Antoinette. “Archive of
Bones: Anil’s Ghost and the Ends of History.” Journal of
Commonwealth Literature 38.1 (2003): 39-56.
Derrickson, Teresa. “Will the
‘Un-Truth’ Set You Free? A Critical Look at Global Human Rights
Discourse in Michel Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost.”
Literature Interpretation Theory 15 (2004): 131-52.
Freud, Sigmund. “Three Essays on
Sexuality.” The Standard Edition of the Complete
Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (SE). Trans. and Ed.
James Strachey. Vol. 7. London: Hogarth, 1957. 24 vols. 123-245.
Giddens, Anthony. The
Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity, 1990.
Harvey, David. “Contemporary
Globalization.” Spaces of Hope. Berkeley: U of California
P, 2000. 53-72.
Mauss, Marcel. The Gift: The
Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. 1925.
Trans. W. D. Halls. London: Routledge, 1990.
Ondaatje, Michael. Anil’s Ghost.
New York: Vintage, 2000.
Scanlan, Margaret. “Anil’s Ghost
and Terrorism’s Time.” Studies in the Novel 36.3 (2004):
302-17.
Notes:
-
See Giddens’s
concept of institutional globalization and Arjun Appadurai’s
theory of five scapes of global flows. Giddens’s four
“dimensions of globalization” are world capitalist economy,
nation-state system, international division of labour, and world
military order (71). Appadurai’s five scapes include ethnoscapes,
mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes (33). 【回本文】
-
The definition is
from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. (<http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/
dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=anonymous>).【回本文】
-
My usage of the
term “the local” is in contrast with “the global” and the
contrast will be constantly referred through the paper when I
use this term.【回本文】
-
The “three camps
of enemies” referred to by Sarath are, as the narrator later
exposes, “[t]he terrorism of the separatist guerrilla groups,
who were fighting for a homeland in the north,” “[t]he
insurrection of the insurgents in the south, against the
government” and “[t]he counterterrorism of the special forces
against both of them” (42-43).【回本文】
-
I use the word
“introjection” in Freud’s sense: it means one’s identification
with the outside world, either with the other or the Other (i.e.
either identifying the desire of the other or with the law of
the society). 【回本文】
-
I use the word
“fetish” here in the psychoanalytic sense: it serves as the
temporary cover-up in case one is swallowed up by the traumatic
experience. 【回本文】
-
This argument
derives from Benjamin’s interpretation of the social function of
photograph. For details, see Benjamin’s Charles Baudelaire.
【回本文】
-
As Marcel Mauss
observes, the system of gift-exchange in the archaic societies
can help to establish the “bond of alliance and commonality”
among the individual actors and between tribes. In Anil’s
Ghost, this “bond of alliance and commonality,” I would
argue, is attained by Sarath’s gift-giving. 【回本文】
-
In his “The
Storyteller,” Benjamin suggests that story-telling promises the
“ability of exchange experiences” and therefore the accumulation
of experiences both at the individual and collective level.
Similar to what the “trad[ing] [of] stories” between Anil and
Leaf promises, Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost is an attempt to
share stories of different individuals and of Sri Lanka with
readers from other countries. As a result, this novel helps to
accumulate and spread the memory and identity of Sri Lanka and
to resist the plague of anonymity.【回本文】
