{"id":120607,"date":"2018-01-23T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2018-01-23T14:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=120607"},"modified":"2018-01-24T10:10:58","modified_gmt":"2018-01-24T15:10:58","slug":"the-moment-of-the-houses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/","title":{"rendered":"The Moment of the Houses"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the first installment\u00a0of Amit Chaudhuri\u2019s new column, The Moment<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When do we start noticing a house? We know it\u2019s there, but don\u2019t look at it. We might die without actually having seen it.<\/p>\n

I ask this because of my interest in Calcutta\u2019s residential houses. Calcutta is where I was born, but I grew up in Bombay. I rehearse this sentence yet again for strangers to explain my discombobulated sensibility. I used to visit my uncle\u2019s three-story house in Calcutta over my summer holidays as a child, and think of it as home\u2014because my aunt and uncle and three cousins exuded a Bengali dysfunctionality that I associated with that word. But, in comparison to the twelfth-story flat where I grew up in Bombay, in Malabar Hill, and from where, when I was ten years old, I had an uninterrupted view of the sea, the house in Calcutta absorbed me.<\/p>\n

At some point, I must have gained clarity about two things: first, that the low houses of South Calcutta, and the opportunities they offered me to study the street outside and the houses opposite\u2014to eavesdrop and spy\u2014were preferable, to me, to the panoramic and godlike perspective that the twelfth-story flat provided. Second, I understood retrospectively that these Calcutta houses meant something not solely because of my personal memory but because they comprised areas that bore the imprint of a modernity that was to be found in some other cities, too\u2014in Istanbul, Montevideo, Berlin, New York\u2014though not, when I was growing up there, in the bit of Bombay in which I lived. These areas involved an encounter with the \u201chistorical.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s now difficult for me to say whether these thoughts came to me at a single moment\u2014related to an instant at which I began to look<\/em> at the houses I already loved\u2014or if there were a series of such moments. When I began to notice them only eleven or twelve years ago, it had to do with their destruction: over the first decade of the new millennium, the houses were making way for property development. This was happening in other parts of India, too, but the decimation was clearest to me in Calcutta, especially South Calcutta, where commercial activity was located and demand for new residential property strongest. These houses, built in the first half of the twentieth century, were smaller in scale than the colonial institutional buildings, built by the British, in the central business districts of the city. They had few neoclassical features, unlike the colonial buildings or the nineteenth-century landowners\u2019 mansions in North Calcutta. They had a particular mix of characteristics\u2014red oxide stone floors; slatted windows, mostly green; round knockers on doors; ventilators on walls made up of perforations, each house with a subtly different pattern of perforations; verandas with wrought iron railings; open rooftop terraces that looked out on other rooftop terraces. Many houses had Art Deco features\u2014porthole windows; curved balconies; the sunrise motif on grilles; residences that were called, because of their eccentric structure, Jahaaj Badi<\/em>, or \u201cship houses\u201d; vertical strips on facades that recalled the Odeon cinemas in London, but were actually an echo of the Metro, Calcutta\u2019s own cinema hall near the Esplanade; vertical glass panes, again on the facade, partly occluding and partly disclosing a stairwell. When I began first recounting these characteristics, I called them \u201cfamily resemblances,\u201d\u00a0because though many houses shared these features, no two houses in a lane were built to the same design. Each house was, in terms of shape and spatial proportions, an experiment. Nowhere have I encountered such heterogeneity in a single lane.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been writing about these houses for five years. A sort of campaign has begun in Calcutta to save these buildings that are neither historical monuments nor, in a conventional sense, \u201cheritage\u201d buildings but were erected through partnerships between anonymous builders and the Bengali professionals\u2014lawyers, doctors, civil servants, even academics\u2014who lived in them from the 1920s onward. My concern here is with that moment<\/em> of noticing when you also become simultaneously aware that you had previously ignored what now reveals itself to you in detail. How is it possible not to see something at one moment and to see it inexhaustibly at another?<\/p>\n

The change of perception that occurs then leads to a realignment. That is, it has to do with a reordering of ideas you already have about what\u2019s unimportant and what\u2019s consequential. So it was with these houses. For years you don\u2019t see them because they are not monuments. You don\u2019t already know what to think about them, as you do when viewing a landmark. And, being modern, they belong to the realm of the everyday; they don\u2019t embody heritage or a glorious past. So you don\u2019t study them. Then a moment occurs when you do<\/em> see them. This moment introduces an inversion. The everyday now seems unfamiliar; famous landmarks appear, in comparison, tedious. The moment in which radical realignment takes place is, then, akin to a work of the imagination. In every domain of knowledge\u2014in the sciences, in history, in the news\u2014there is relative consensus about what constitutes significance. Only in imaginative works\u2014in poetry and fiction\u2014is there a reformulation of what we think to be important or unimportant.<\/p>\n

This moment of noticing the obvious occupies a place in our lives not far from the role Foucault\u00a0ascribed to philosophy\u2014\u201cnot to discover what is hidden, but to make visible precisely what is visible, that is to say, to show that which is so close, which is so immediate, which is so intimately linked to us, that because of that we do not perceive it.\u201d Now that people\u2014especially with the campaign gathering momentum\u2014have begun to notice the middle-class houses in South Calcutta, they wonder that there was a time when they didn\u2019t<\/em> see them.<\/p>\n

To find the banality of what\u2019s in front of you engrossing is key to a certain writerly relationship to the world. Allen Ginsberg, in his\u00a01966 interview in The\u00a0Paris Review<\/em><\/a>, delineates the events leading to this moment of self-consciousness. The year he\u2019s referring to is 1948. He was prepared for what was to be a quasi-mystical experience by Shri Matakrishnaji, a \u201clady saint\u201d from Vrindavan in India, who instructed him to take the poet William Blake \u201cfor my guru. There\u2019s all kind of gurus, there can be living and non-living gurus \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time the Blake experience occurs, Ginsberg is in Harlem. He\u2019s been dumped by his lover Neal Cassady. He\u2019s written nothing of note and is yet to find his voice. It is summer. Ginsberg, recovering from \u201ca very lonely solitary state, dark night of the soul sort of,\u201d is in bed, just having finished masturbating, \u201cmy pants open, lying around \u2026 by the windowsill, looking out into the cornices of Harlem and the sky above.\u201d Oddly, Ginsberg has been \u201cjacking off\u201d while simultaneously reading Blake: \u201cI wasn\u2019t even reading, my eyes were idling over the page of \u2018Ah, Sun-flower,\u2019 and it suddenly appeared \u2026 that the poem was talking about me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lines Ginsberg quotes to the interviewer are \u201cAh, sun-flower! weary of time, \/ Who countest the steps of the sun; \/ Seeking after the sweet golden clime, \/ Where the traveller\u2019s journey is done.\u201d Ginsberg hears the lines recited by a \u201cdeep earthen grave voice in the room,\u201d which, he realizes, is Blake\u2019s. Then another thing becomes plain: not only is the poem about him, it\u2019s about where<\/em> he is (Harlem): \u201clooking out \u2026 through the window at the sky \u2026 suddenly it seemed that I saw into the depths of the universe, by looking simply into the ancient sky. The sky suddenly seemed very ancient<\/em>. And this was the very ancient place that he was talking about, the sweet golden clime, I suddenly realized that this<\/em> existence was it<\/em>! And, that I was born in order to experience up to this very moment that I was having this experience \u2026\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

As Blake introduced the boroughs of London into his mythologies, Ginsberg opens his moment\u2014for which the window is a trope\u2014onto Harlem. \u201cWhat I was speaking about visually was, immediately, that the cornices in the old tenement building in Harlem \u2026 had been carved very finely in 1890 or 1910. And were like the solidification of a great deal of intelligence and care and love also. So that I began noticing in every corner where I looked evidences of a living hand, even in the bricks, in the arrangement of each brick. Some hand placed them there\u2014that some hand had placed the whole universe in front of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s striking is how Ginsberg\u2019s identification of the sort of writer he is\u2014one for whom \u201cthis<\/em> existence was it<\/em>!\u201d\u2014is accompanied, at once, by his uncovering of what\u2019s already present (\u201cthe cornices in the old tenement building\u201d opposite; \u201ceven \u2026 the bricks\u201d).<\/p>\n

Equally arresting is his account of the context, of torpor and accidentality\u2014the room\u2019s ennui, the body\u2019s lassitude on the sheets,\u00a0the distractedness of the eye resting on the poem as the hand \u201cjacks off\u201d (\u201cThere\u2019s a kind of interesting thing about, you know, distracting your attention while you jack off\u201d). In other words, neither focus nor the will is integral to seeing<\/em>. You can\u2019t make<\/em> things visible by looking out of the window. The moment doesn\u2019t announce itself: it creeps upon and surprises you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Amit Chaudhuri is a novelist, essayist, poet, and musician. His most recent novel is\u00a0<\/em>Friend of My Youth.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the first installment\u00a0of Amit Chaudhuri\u2019s new column, The Moment.   When do we start noticing a house? We know it\u2019s there, but don\u2019t look at it. We might die without actually having seen it. I ask this because of my interest in Calcutta\u2019s residential houses. Calcutta is where I was born, but I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1370,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32655],"tags":[699,1657,12158,1804,32654,16165,32653,4035,31260],"class_list":["post-120607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-moment","tag-allen-ginsberg","tag-architecture","tag-bombay","tag-calcutta","tag-jahaaj-badi","tag-neal-cassady","tag-south-calcutta","tag-william-blake","tag-wittgenstein"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Moment of the Houses<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When do we start noticing a house? We know it\u2019s there, but don\u2019t look at it. We might die without actually having seen it.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Moment of the Houses by Amit Chaudhuri\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 23, 2018 \u2013 This is the first installment\u00a0of Amit Chaudhuri\u2019s new column, The Moment.   When do we start noticing a house? We know it\u2019s there, but don\u2019t look at\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-01-23T14:00:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-01-24T15:10:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/fire-and-ice-lane.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"998\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amit Chaudhuri\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amit Chaudhuri\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Amit Chaudhuri\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/34a44906ca80c7d2f9e4b1abe1777737\"},\"headline\":\"The Moment of the Houses\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-01-23T14:00:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-01-24T15:10:58+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/\"},\"wordCount\":1617,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/fire-and-ice-lane-1024x681.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Allen Ginsberg\",\"architecture\",\"Bombay\",\"Calcutta\",\"Jahaaj Badi\",\"Neal Cassady\",\"South Calcutta\",\"William Blake\",\"Wittgenstein\"],\"articleSection\":[\"The Moment\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/\",\"name\":\"The Moment of the Houses\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/fire-and-ice-lane-1024x681.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-01-23T14:00:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-01-24T15:10:58+00:00\",\"description\":\"When do we start noticing a house? We know it\u2019s there, but don\u2019t look at it. We might die without actually having seen it.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/fire-and-ice-lane.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/fire-and-ice-lane.jpg\",\"width\":1500,\"height\":998},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Moment of the Houses\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/34a44906ca80c7d2f9e4b1abe1777737\",\"name\":\"Amit Chaudhuri\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/323c26ffa4a1efd606d0d72b45391471b600aedf959839127b199ce8a4afe7c8?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/323c26ffa4a1efd606d0d72b45391471b600aedf959839127b199ce8a4afe7c8?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Amit Chaudhuri\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/achaudhuri\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Moment of the Houses","description":"When do we start noticing a house? We know it\u2019s there, but don\u2019t look at it. We might die without actually having seen it.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Moment of the Houses by Amit Chaudhuri","og_description":"January 23, 2018 \u2013 This is the first installment\u00a0of Amit Chaudhuri\u2019s new column, The Moment.   When do we start noticing a house? We know it\u2019s there, but don\u2019t look at","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2018-01-23T14:00:37+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-01-24T15:10:58+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1500,"height":998,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/fire-and-ice-lane.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Amit Chaudhuri","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Amit Chaudhuri","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/"},"author":{"name":"Amit Chaudhuri","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/34a44906ca80c7d2f9e4b1abe1777737"},"headline":"The Moment of the Houses","datePublished":"2018-01-23T14:00:37+00:00","dateModified":"2018-01-24T15:10:58+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/"},"wordCount":1617,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/fire-and-ice-lane-1024x681.jpg","keywords":["Allen Ginsberg","architecture","Bombay","Calcutta","Jahaaj Badi","Neal Cassady","South Calcutta","William Blake","Wittgenstein"],"articleSection":["The Moment"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/","name":"The Moment of the Houses","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/fire-and-ice-lane-1024x681.jpg","datePublished":"2018-01-23T14:00:37+00:00","dateModified":"2018-01-24T15:10:58+00:00","description":"When do we start noticing a house? We know it\u2019s there, but don\u2019t look at it. We might die without actually having seen it.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/fire-and-ice-lane.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/fire-and-ice-lane.jpg","width":1500,"height":998},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/01\/23\/the-moment-of-the-houses\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Moment of the Houses"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/34a44906ca80c7d2f9e4b1abe1777737","name":"Amit Chaudhuri","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/323c26ffa4a1efd606d0d72b45391471b600aedf959839127b199ce8a4afe7c8?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/323c26ffa4a1efd606d0d72b45391471b600aedf959839127b199ce8a4afe7c8?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Amit Chaudhuri"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/achaudhuri\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120607"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120738,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120607\/revisions\/120738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}