The ridiculousness of naming myself the English Genie, a form of reinvention or self-ridicule, is not lost on me. I am reminded of Piscine Molitor Patel of Life of Pi fame – the campaign against bullying on the front foot, introducing himself to his new classmates, not as Piscine, but writing confidently on the classroom blackboard ‘Pi’, as in 3.142. And a letter in the Greek alphabet. Finding ‘refuge’ in ‘that Greek letter that looks like a shack with a corrugated tin roof, in that elusive, irrational number with which scientists try to understand the universe’, the intentionality of determining the trajectory of his life doesn’t really bode well for Pi who ends up on a boat with a couple of animals in the Pacific Ocean for 277 days. The act of reinvention in The Great Gatsby doesn’t augur well for the pedestrian Jay Gatz either. An encounter with Dan Cody and an indomitable self-belief leads to the transformation of a man named James Gatz of poor Dakota farming pedigree. My story is of little consequence. Bereft of tragedy or heroism there is nothing epic about my tale. I am just Jane, but there is fun to head with a Genie out of the box, and there I am thinking of Plath and the undisclosed contents of a bee-box.
A bit about the name..
