For those of you with poor long-term memories: in an entry in late March, I described my recent attempts to gain insight into the anatomy of joy using literature. Frankly, it's turned out to be an absolute disaster - if anything, my perusal of C.S. Lewis' Surprised by Joy only served to increase my confusion on the topic. If utter failure was ever the best thing that could happen to me, though, it was in this case; by neglecting to define joy in any objective manner, I feel that Lewis revealed to me the possibility that joy is a wholly subjective, or personal, thing. I'm happy to say that Dominique LaPierre's City of Joy, while causing me to become even more intrigued about the idea of joy, didn't contribute any more to my cheeky original purpose.
City of Joy is a story set in the Indian city of Calcutta, based in the 1970's (I think; the date is never explicitly revealed). It is primarily told from the perspectives of two people - a Polish priest called Stephan Kovalski, and urban immigrant Hasari Pal - whose lives, despite being separate at the beginning of the book, symbolically converge as the narrative unfolds. One thing that they have in common throughout the whole book is that they live amongst the most destitute people in one of the most destitute cities in the world, with the most salient difference being that while Pal is forced by circumstance to live as a street-dweller, Kovalski is compelled by his Catholicism to voluntarily immerse himself in the lives of "the least of these". About midway through the book, a young American doctor, Max Loeb, joins Kovalski in his occupation of the notorious slum of Anand Nagar, the name of which the book's title is some kind of translation.
If you were to glance at a set of Coles Notes for City of Joy (heaven forbid their existence), you would probably envision a place totally devoid of anything positive. Slumlords, clogged sewers, lepers - the depiction of scathing droughts being immediately succeeded by invasive floods, along with being literal, serves as a metaphor for the cruel irony that characterizes the locale. Indeed, at times the story was downright depressing; just as the reader is getting to know a character, for example, the latter will be stolen by the scourge of tuberculosis. The suffering of children is perhaps the most unfathomable: those who happen to survive through the brief period of juvinility granted to them by the slum are, more often than not, thrust into an adolescence of begging and garbage picking. Suffice it to say, an Amazon.ca "Sneak Peek" probably wouldn't increase sales in this case.
It is upon closer examination of the relationships of this book that the story becomes more compelling. The spiritual bonds that endure in what could otherwise be described as a physical mess are the remarkable aspects of this account; indeed, I'd go so far as to say they offer a glimpse of an irrational, bizarre, supernatural thing that may best be described as joy. What would compel Muslim and Hindu residents of the slum, one day fighting over deep-seeded disparities, to celebrate a Christian festival together the next? Lepers, burdened by unimaginable physical incapacities and social stigmas, to drag themselves along with smiles on their faces? A large family, living on a pittance of resources, to offer the best of their dinner to the young, healthy European priest in basketball shoes? Some might deem it ignorance, others blame it on insanity - I'm convinced that it's something more, something given to humans by God.
Without succumbing to the temptation of trying to define this thing - joy? - I'd like to suggest that it is most vividly eminent in people who are determined to live their lives fully, regardless of their situation. As well as seeing this throughout City of Joy, I observed it at times during my own travels in India: people, mired in the webs of class and caste, living lives characterized by cheerfulness and a contented demeanor. I'm not saying this was the case with everyone, and I certainly don't believe the strangleholds of class and caste are morally right; however, there seems to be something that glows here, that isn't as readily seen in the West.
In Becoming Human, which I also just finished reading, Jean Vanier talks of freedom as being "the acceptance of the world as it is together with the will to struggle to make the world a better place for us to live" (p. 121, see Mar 1/09 post for citation info). At first, I considered this passage depressingly defeatist - how can I, as an outisider, accept the world of Anand Nagar as being how it is, much less the people that actually live there and experience it? However, as I considered it more, I realized how essential the first clause is to victory in the "struggle" Vanier mentions in the second part of the sentence. If the people of the City of Joy don't learn to live the fullest life and love with the little that they currently have, how are they going to work together to make their world an even better place? The same logic applies, of course, to us in the West; if we don't nurture the small amount of spiritual awareness we possess in our society, how will it possibly erupt into a blazing flame? Perhaps it is when we learn to appreciate the presence of God in our lives, no matter how small, that we truly experience joy.
Sincerely speaking, I really don't know. Joy remains as mysterious a concept to me as it did before I naively picked up two books that just happened to have it in their titles. The Bible is, no doubt, a good place to dig further; I've read it with this intention before, but I'll have to do some more focused study with joy in mind. Thankfully, I feel as if I'm coming to the humble realization that joy is not to be found in crash-course format. It looks as if I, like Father Kovalski and rickshaw-wallah Hasari, am just going to have to live it out.
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