“It [quiet speaking] was a way of moving about the world, my father’s way of moving through the world. It was a survival strategy for a recent immigrant to a new continent of opportunity, a land of possibility, to the science fictional area where he had come, on scholarship, with nothing to his name but a small green suitcase, a lamp that his aunt gave him, and fifty dollars, which became forty-seven after exchanging currency at the airport” (71).

This observation from Yu about how his father behaved once he immigrated reminded me of how the characters from Americanah changed once they made it to either Britain or America. Whether it is “quiet speaking” like Yu’s father or altering their accent like Ifemelu, immigrants end up having to change something about themselves for cultural assimilation. They feel like they can’t openly be their authentic selves. However, what’s even more interesting about these realizations is how these characters find ways to resist against them, regardless of the consequences. For Yu’s father, it’s his passionate admission to his son about his dream invention and his lifelong efforts to fulfill said ambition; for Ifemelu, it’s her decision to no longer try to force an American accent or pattern of speech. In both cases, there is an investment in genuineness over anything else.

In chapter 12 of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, it caught my interest when Charles Yu described the difference in worldly perspective of the people in his father’s home country in comparison to how his father viewed the world. Describing the country as “a different part of the planet, really, a different time” (70), Yu explains how the people of this country had no interest in the inventions of advanced technology, that “the technology of the day was enough, the technology of the sunrise and sunset, the week of work and rest in cycles, in rhythm, sixteen hours of hard rice-farming labor, the remainder of the time in a day left for eating and sleeping, the seasons, the years passing by, each one a perfect machine” (70).

I found this passage to be interesting because it describes a seemingly different world altogether to the world that Yu lives in, when in reality, it’s just a difference in culture. The culture of the homeland that Yu’s father originated from appears to be based in a particular (possibly centuries-old) history and a reliance on the sun to guide them in their daily work. Chances are, as a result of this reliance on nature rather than machines, there are some that might see their actions as fruitless labor (read: work for the lower class) due to it being involved in agriculture rather than a type of science. To be honest, I believe this is how Yu’s father viewed the farmers as well: poor and simple.

I say this because of his aversion towards being questioned about their lack of wealth by his son (“Dad, are we poor?” (74) and how he works very hard to be recognized by his company for the efforts he make, and how he usually ends up bitterly disappointed by his managers’ tendencies to still not acknowledge him. In some ways, he reminds me of Bobby from Tropic of Orange in how much he works to escape from the former ties of his country and how he desires to work independently, but in other ways he is dissimilar since he does have dreams beyond raising his family’s socioeconomic status.

All in all, it’s interesting to see the mindset of those who immigrate to a place they deem a “land of opportunity” and how they work to overcome the barriers set in place against them.

“Neighborhoods fell to the militants in startlingly quick succession, so that Saeed’s mother’s mental map of the place where she had spent her entire life now resembled an old quilt, with patches of government land and patches of militant land. The frayed seams between the patches were the most deadly spaces, and to be avoided at all costs. Her butcher and the man who dyed the fabrics from which she had once made her festive clothes disappeared into such gaps, their places of business shattered and covered in rubble and glass” (Hamid 69).

The mentioning of a “mental map” in this passage immediately reminded me of the T-shaped map that was hidden within the footage in Pattern Recognition. Both maps hold importance in framing the significance of space and violence; by this, I mean that they revealed how violence shapes and re-shapes a person’s perception of space. In the case of Nora in Pattern Recognition, we see this in the line, “Her consciousness, Cayce understands, somehow bounded by or bound to the T-shaped fragment in her brain: part of the arming mechanism of the Claymore mine that killed her parents, balanced too deeply, too precariously within her skull, to ever be removed” (Gibson 315).

For both novels, there’s an intimate correlation made between violence and a place. By those standards, I would say that a clear, real-life example of this would be a soldier’s view of enemy territory. It’s a high alert observation of the area; the person is noting all the safe zones and danger zones until it becomes long-term memory for them. We see this same idea integrated into Exit West as Saeed’s mother keeps in mind the former places that she knows are now a hazard. Why describe this as a map though? Why not something else, like a maze of sorts?

Well, if maps are typically meant to be guides for traveling to and in-between spaces, then they may be the best objects to use in revealing the barriers in a space as well. In the case of Saeed and his loved ones, they need to see the defined lines between government and militant-owned territories.

“She looks at the phone and wonders who Parkaboy is. Other, that is, than Parkaboy, ascerbic obsessive theorist of the footage. What does he do when he’s not doing this? She has no idea, and no idea what he looks like, or really, how he came to be as devoted as she knows he is to pursuing any further understanding of the footage. But now, in some way she can’t quite grasp, the universe of F:F:F: is everting. Manifesting physically in the world. Darryl Mushashi’s pissed-off Japanese-Texan barmaid seems to be an aspect of this” (Gibson 206).

There are multiple points here in this one passage that everyone should take note. One, that Cayce is reflecting on the fact that she really doesn’t know “Parkaboy” and why he is determined to find the truth behind the footages. For all she knows, he could be working for a company as well to search out potential business endeavors (how ironic would that be?). Two, Cayce is finally beginning to realize that her innocent (and private) connection with F:F:F is becoming corrupted and quite public, and not all by the doings of others either. Her interactions with Taki has made her an unsuspecting participant in her own downfall. Which leads us to point three, that now that Cayce is placing faces and lives onto some involved with the footage, it’s subtly breaking down the barrier of anonymity that made it easier for her to explore the F:F:F world to begin with. But was it truly all anonymity for Cayce herself?

I think not! This is to say that I believe that Cayce attached a sense of (unspoken) identity to the Forum that is now being tampered with as her place-of-escape is infiltrated by those with different (and in her mind, wrong) intentions. Her identity as a footagehead and as a real person is being broken down and reshaped for others’ profit and gain; she knows this, but yet she chooses not to doing anything about it except passively accept it as… a meaningful sacrifice? Part of the deal? Who really knows besides her? Honestly, she reminds me a puppet on strings, tugged in whichever direction others want her to be.

However, now that her identity has been called into question, her distance views of everyone else will most likely change over the course of the book….