The Pickup

The Book within the book

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."

Somewhere Else

For all of their obvious differences: gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, culture, religions, and motivations--all of the borders and boundaries between them--what is most interesting to me about Julie and Ibrahim are their similarities. They appear to be two halves of a single whole that offer two perspectives of the same thing.

Look at the parallels: They are both in their late 20s; they both have college educations that they have not put to full use (for very different reasons); they both have strained or difficult relationships with their parents; and they both have generous uncles who offer them help and support. Neither of them practice their formal religion, and both have rejected their roles in their traditional families. They have both chosen to leave their homelands and familiar societies.  It is a matter of belonging. 

As Ibrahim says of Julie: "Like me, like me, she won't go back where she belongs...She looks for somewhere else." (p.262) Both of them are just trying to find a place, a situation, a  home where they fit in. A place where they belong.

It is the quest in the heart of all individuals, the search for self. It is the hope of a new beginning that is the essence of all migrations--"immigration as a human solution." (p.48) It is "the great adventure, the achievement that is emigration, not understood but sensed." (p. 266)  Do they travel together or apart?

Let us go to another country...The rest is understood

Who is Abdu?

In her country, he is Abdu. As the reading guide provided by the book's publisher tells us,"In Arabic, the name "Abdu" literally means "servant" (and is often an abbreviated form of "Abdullah," meaning "servant of God")." While his status and work there are servile, he is not a servant to anyone or to any thing--not family, country, or god. And perhaps not even to his new wife or marriage. Abdu is for Abdu. He is ambitious and very determined to succeed at those ambitions.

In his country he is Ibrahim ibn Musa. That is "Abraham son of Moses"--the "name that he has come back to be rightfully known by." (p. 133) It is a name that denotes family heritage, cultural traditions, and faith. See PERIOD ARABIC NAMES AND NAMING PRACTICES by Da'ud ibn Auda (David B. Appleton) to learn more about how to "read" and understand Arabic names. But it is a name and identity that seems to burden him. From the moment he steps off the plane and sees his family again, he is pained and angered and embarrassed by them and "what he comes from."

Ibrahim is caught between the modern world that he aspires to and is rejected by, and the traditional world that he has rejected and tried to flee. Given these circumstances, and the timing of the book's publication, it is important to note what Ibrahim is not. The Pickup was first published in America on September 12, 2001. Ibrahim is not an "Islamic fundamentalist" nor a terrorist. 

Ibrahim is for Abdu.