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16 Dissolving the Boundaries Book report: Have you read R. K. Narayan’s The English Teacher? You may recall, it’s about a man’s adjustment to living with his wife after he’s gotten used to solitude. At first he treats her as a nuisance. Then he begins to defer. Would she like a bigger house? Too late. She dies. This is India but it’s the same as here. Everyone expects him to remarry but he doesn’t. Instead he finds that if he can think of her with the right sort of receptive mind, her thoughts can carry messages across the death barrier. At the end she’s sitting on his bed in her sky-blue sari. It’s strange but not so strange. It takes a certain effort to bend but then there’s a fusion. I found the story beautiful. People are ashamed to love so exclusively. Be tough, they say. Accept your losses. Life is just a stagecoach ride, and your lovers are the horses. ...

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