The pickup

The Pickup (2001) by Nadine GordimerIt tells the story of a couple: Julie Summers, a white woman from a financially secure family, and Abdu, an illegal Arab immigrant in South Africa. After Abdu's visa is refused, the couple returns to his unnamed homeland, where she is the alien. Her experiences and growth as an alien in another culture form the heart of the work. The Pickup considers the issues of displacement, alienation, and immigration, class and economic power, religious faith, and the ability of people to see and love across these divides. This novel won the 2002 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Best Book from Africa.

Quotes

• elective siblings who have distanced themselves from the ways of the past, their families
  • Page 23
• one of those partitioned by colonial powers on their departure [...] one of those countries where you can’t tell religion apart from politics .
  • Page 11
• grease-monkey
  • Page 92.
• There was talk: That relationship’s getting heavy, our girl’s really gone on that oriental prince of hers. Where was it she picked him up, again?
  • Page 36.
• he must depart within 14 days or face charges and deportation to his country of origin
  • Page 52
• That was the message of that grasp on her forearm: I am a man. I am the one who is not for you but who possesses you every night: listen to me
  • Page 82.
• as for women: you, you to whom independence, freedom, mean so much, eh, there women are treated like slaves […] you are out of your mind
  • Page 97.
• struggles to come to grips with Julie’s decision to abandon her friends, family and privileged life
  • Page 64.
• Julie’s stepmother, Danielle,is portrayed as a perfect accessory to her father’s success; “she was beautiful; trust her father for that”
  • Page 41.
• tell her once and for all what her ignorant obstinacy of coming with him to this place means, when she failed, with all her privilege at getting him accepted into hers.
  • Page 121
• Of course. Of course. Independent. This is the way she’s accustomed to living, pleasing herself. Again. But that’s impossible, here. He has to be with her, some member of the family, if there could be one who could be understood, has to accompany her everywhere beyond a few neighbourhood streets, that’s how it is in the place he thought he had left behind him. It’s not usual for women to sit down to eat with the men, today was a special exception for the occasion – does she understand. It’s enough, for these people, that she goes about with an uncovered head – that they can tolerate with a white face, maybe.
  • Page 122
• the women crowded about to prevent her from so much as putting her hands in water” ** page 136.
• the two with arms again about each other on the sofa quietly as if Ibrahim’s wife were a sister”
  • Page 162
• Julie’s ability to communicate with members of the community is rudimentary – the only clearly positive relationship she has is with Maryam – no men interact with her and all other women keep her at arm’s length – her possible place in the society is potentially self-affirming
  • Page 104
• they wonder why you do not get a baby. Then perhaps you will first marry here, our way”
  • Page 166.
• The desert is always; it doesn’t die it doesn’t change, it exists. But a human being, she, she, cannot simply exist; she is a hurricane, every thought bending and crossing its coherence inside her, nothing will let her be, not for a moment. Every emotion, every thought, is invaded by another”
  • Page 229
• there is no last time, for the desert. The desert is always”
  • Page 246
• tell it to the desert; that is safe”
  • Page 245.
• she, who always has advice and a solution has none for him.Ah, an ally, that’s it; but not his. An ally of the foreigner, she will be the one to restore the son to the mother”
  • Page 258.
• kept away from her let her have an idea of what she doesn’t realize that she will be in this house without the love-making she needs so much without his love for her”
  • Page 265
• has never come to the lean-to, put an arm around her conspiratorially” and in Arabic, which “the foreigner understands enough, now,” she tells Julie: “He’ll come back”
  • Page 267
• began to feel that his manhood was in question,” because she would not go to America with him
  • Page 175
• The two young women looked at one another with deep incomprehensibility,each unable to imagine the life of the other; smiling.it was perhaps right then that she made the decision.i have to learn the language
  • Page 121
• It is part of morality not to be at home in ones own house
  • Page 184
• Matrix within all the original capacities of the human race may develop
  • Page 51
• The right kind of foreigner
  • Page 140
• The capacity returned to him for this foreigner makes him whole.thst night he made love to her with the reciprocal tenderness -call it whatever old name you like -that he had guarded against -with a few lapses couldn't afford it's commitment
  • Page 96
• there is anyway no discription that is the discription.everyone who sees a different face the face he sees is the definitive face for the present situation.the two tickets he holds in his hands turns over ,unfolds verifies materialize a face,her face for him that didn't exist before ,the face for what's impossible can't be
  • Page 93
• She became stiff and clipped with anger. Nobody has to be responsible for me.i am responsible for myself . For yourself always yourself. You think that is very brave .I must tell you something. You only know how to be responsible for yourself here this place your cafe friends your country where you have everything,I can't be responsible I don't want it
  • Page 95
  • And then she is taken by remorse because by saying this she has made him understand,it's because he is not one of them.
  • Page 38
• She is ashamed of her parents he thinks she is ashamed of him ,neither knows either about the other
  • Page 38
• He is ashamed and at the same time angrily resentful that she is seeing it it will be an image of His county,his people what he comes from and what he really is
  • Page 133
• . You are not there I am not there to see it is a traffic tangle in the streets , hands going up in capability, surrender,owing this open to publicity is not the spectacle available late-night on adult TV
  • Page 23
• But a human being, she, she, cannot simply exist; she is a hurricane, every thought bending and crossing its coherence inside her, nothing will let her be, not for a moment. Every emotion, every thought, is invaded by another.
  • the pick up

External links

• The Pickup

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