Of Half-Remembered Pasts

The eponymous story in this collection—a minor galaxy, to further the metaphor the title introduces—traces an encounter with the last speaker of a language, an elderly ailing woman in an unnamed location. All we can glean is that she is remote—geographically, culturally, and, of course, linguistically—from the team of young researchers who appear with their machines to record that which is inherently impossible—‘speech’ in a language of which she is the last remaining speaker. The artifice of the ethnographic encounter, commiserating university researchers, as in this case, notwithstanding, is evident in her simple question as they ask her to sing for the microphone: ‘So the microphone understands, does it? … If only you could get microphones to talk.’ She, however, like many of the liminal and lonely characters in this collection, is not simply to be pitied. Though she knows that she will ‘be skimmed into light, vanished into the darkness of the hard drive’ and rues that ‘technology has so little romance’, she takes charge and proceeds not only to sing, but to sing many versions of a song, changing the ending as fits her mood, asking that an audio package be made and played at her funeral. ‘Swimmer among the stars’ is how her language renders the English word ‘astronaut’, a phrase that suggests both the possibilities and politics of linguistic transactions. As the author comments in academic mode: ‘no matter how innovative she is with her language, it does not have the force to take possession of an idea.’ The hegemony of English asserts itself. The stories handle politics obliquely and—the simmering fury of ‘The Loss of Muzaffar’ notwithstanding— wistfulness and loss are its dominant moods, rather than rage and rebellion.