If Nobody Speaks Or Remarkable Things Essay

Throughout our lives we are faced with people, object, scenery, and events that we neglect. It is only when these ignored things are bought to our attention that we stop and reflect upon them. In the novel, “If Nobody Speaks or Remarkable Things”, the tragic event that is the main pivot point in the novel takes place on the same day that another, significant yet never mentioned, event occurs. This neglect of mentioning this figure highlights to the reader a significant theme weaved throughout this novel, the notion of human ignorance. This theme makes the reader recollect with the idea that for one to cherish something ones attention must be brought to it. The novel in the end makes the reader reflect on everyday issues, events and objects, no matter how mundane or unattractive they are they must be cherished because these things are all short lived and will be missed once gone. The reader comes to the attention of Princess Diana’s death when the boy in number eighteen inscribes the date of the accident on a Polaroid photograph (McGregor, 28). This date, especially for the English, immediately recognize this as the date Princess Diana died. Yet through out this novel here death is not even stated or gestured towards, and any significance of this day is diverted to the believed tragedy of the boy Shahid Mohammad Nawaz, though it was not stated at the end what the fate of Shahid would be. The characters ignoring the Princesses death are themselves not ignorant of the rest of the world, especially the media. There were scenes at the beginning of the book where the characters would watch the TV. There was also a scene at the middle of the book when the main character was at her parent’s house that her father would be watch one of the famous matches of the box matches involving Mohammad Ali (Page). The characters therefore are not ignorant of the world around them, but the fact that each character remembers the tragic day where the boy Shahid Mohammad Nawaz died shows that they are choosing to not remember that day as the one where the princess died, but that of Shahid’s death. This can be seen and the characters choosing to be ignorance paralleling to the idea of humans ignoring to the world around them. The reason why the characters are choosing to ignore Diana’s death is because another even caught their attention first. And this over-exaggerated ignorance points the reader to the subtler idea of human ignorance with regards attention. At the end of the book, the man with the burnt hands states to his daughter “If nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be remarkable” (272). This statement brings up the point that for us humans to believe see something as extraordinary, ones attention must be brought to it. A person does not naturally stop and recollect with many mundane object. The object or things needs to grab the attention of the person. This can be paralleled with the tragedy of Shahid, where his accident took place in front of the whole neighborhood. This scene immediately caught the attention of the neighborhood, and suggested by the main character, is still suck and resonates with them years later. Yet it was not just the death that suggests that ones attention needs to be brought to a particular thing for the person to see it. We can see this with the captivation of angels with the little girl of the man with the burnt hands. It wasn’t until Shahid’s …show more content…
In the book “If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things”, we are faced with these themes and are forced to ask the questions why we as humans ignore that many wonders of the world. The books shows examples where the boy Shahid’s existence was not known until his believed death, and beautiful and mundane things are not though of like crushed glass, the idea of existence, naming, and unique characters until they are pointed out. This book in the end makes us as the reader recollect with the notion of our own ignorance and how we should avoid it, so we do not miss a Shahid, or a boy from number