November SAT discussions (international)

mcpheevn
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:42:15 +0000

I can’t recall any zubin’s novel mentioned in the passage and on the question itself so I could not disprove your choice. However, if memory serves me right, the Mark Twain quote was something like “If you want to get praised for your work, praise other authors’”, and the Indian writer uses this quote to internalize the observations coming from the white people as half of them, he thought, did not know this (so they didn’t applaud his work) and half of them knew this and were overzealous. So he used this quote to describe a pertinent (as both the quote and his observation involve praises) observation.

All the details are of course really fuzzy to me right now. To be honest, I’m not sure the question asked about this Mark Twain quote or the other one, so don’t count on me.