In the middle of The Pickup (p. 143) we find Julie reading passages from a copy of The Koran that she had asked her distant mother to send to her. They are verses that Ibrahim's mother knows by heart. With these gestures Julie has moved closer to both her mother and her mother-in-law.
What are we to make of these quotations that Gordimer has placed at the very center of her story? They are from the sacred writings of Islam, but they are versions of the Biblical stories of Job and the Annunciation of the birth of Jesus. Julie wonders what they "might mean to the one who still could recite [them]." And we wonder what do they mean to Julie?
The third quotation states: "The God of Mercy hath taught the Koran." (p. 146) Julie is using the Koran to both learn about her new family and to teach them about her and her language. Later Ibrahim's father gives the couple a "beautiful old Koran...for the education of [their] children and [their] children's children." (p. 240)
Julie is changed by reading from this book, The Book. It is not a spiritual conversion, but it is profound. She is reaching out to Ibrahim and his family and their culture. Yet she leaves the book open to these verses from The Prophets:
"...He hath let loose the two seas which meet each other: Yet between them is a barrier which they overpass not."

Recent Comments