The subtitle of this novel could be Confessions of a Bulimic Intellectual. There are glorious wild descriptions of food on nearly every page. An obsesThe subtitle of this novel could be Confessions of a Bulimic Intellectual. There are glorious wild descriptions of food on nearly every page. An obsession with food's smells and colors and sounds and taste all like fireworks in their vividness and their cadence. Its sentences are a nearly synesthetic paean to food and its preparation. But always along with these vivid food-sense impressions comes a coupling of descriptions of grotesque foul digestion and excrement and decay. There is no nourishment in this book that comes without the cost of corresponding filth. There is no joy without illness. There is no sex without blood. No love without death.
Reading this novel is like being force-fed a feast of words all the while knowing you'll be sick in the end. I can honestly say I fell in love with each exquisite sentence after another of this feast. I could quote whole sentences and paragraphs and chapters that left me weak-kneed with their intensity and beauty. But in the end there was no joy in this read. No sense that the author was sharing something he cared about with me, his reader. Just this, in the end: an emptiness.
I took nearly eight weeks to read these stories, not because they were difficult to read, but because they were such a deceptive pleasure. These storiI took nearly eight weeks to read these stories, not because they were difficult to read, but because they were such a deceptive pleasure. These stories can be read and enjoyed for their own sake, but I was also fascinated by what I learned about these stories along the way, as well as about the author and his intentions, from the outstanding introduction written by translator Martha Ann Selby. I kept toggling from story to introduction and back again, and taking my time made the book all the more rewarding for me.
Dilip Kumar is a native speaker of Gujarati who chooses to write in Tamil. That's interesting to Selby (and me, too) and she gives much information in the introduction about Kumar's linguistic/literary choices, and how they reflect both his personal experiences as well as his literary intent. Almost everything I've read of contemporary Indian fiction has been written in English, and with the needs of an international, English-speaking audience in mind. English is a national language of India, of course, but it isn't a native language of India, and sometimes I feel that Indian authors writing in English are using their art to explain India to the outside world. Kumar's stories in contrast are written for insiders, for Tamil readers. As an English-speaking American I'm entering these stories as a trespasser, or at best an ignorant tourist. I want to emphasize that my alienation didn't make these stories harder to read. Instead, it made them richer to read.
My thanks to Martha Ann Selby for her work in translating and explaining Kumar's stories to me, and thanks to Northwestern University Press for publishing them and for providing me with a review copy....more
Shruti Swamy writes with precision and clarity and simplicity, about complicated subjects. I really loved that combination. There is a mastery of the Shruti Swamy writes with precision and clarity and simplicity, about complicated subjects. I really loved that combination. There is a mastery of the short story form here, an almost classical approach to storytelling, that I also loved. My favorite story in the collection was "Didi," which begins with such an insightful back-and-forth scene between a husband and wife, where in spite of nothing much happening between them, an entire world of feeling and momentum has been established by the end of these opening pages:
"She lifted each item out of the grocery bag carefully, turning each orange over in her slim hands to inspect them or bless them. She took out a large wooden bowl and placed the oranges inside, and she was right to do so; they were beautiful in that bowl..."
I love this writing. It did keep me somewhat at arms' length because of its polish. It's a complicated criticism that I'm not sure I understand completely, myself, even though I'm the one making it, but I think what I mean is that the stories are a little tidy, written in a way where I was never surprised by an out-of-place shocker of a sentence, or a messy explosive scene...and sometimes I wanted to be surprised....more
Night Theater exposes everything we humans tell ourselves, about what it means to lead a good life, as meaningless.
And after that, the novel takes evNight Theater exposes everything we humans tell ourselves, about what it means to lead a good life, as meaningless.
And after that, the novel takes every article of faith that we humans like to believe, about the dignity of humanity, and the possibility of redemption, and smashes it to bits.
And then, miraculously, after every virtue is exposed as meaningless, and every hope is smashed to bits, the novel rises up from the ashes, phoenix-like, and becomes a story that's mythic, and true, and powerful. It is honestly one of the most uplifting and life-affirming books I've ever read. ...more
My main admiration for this novel is that it managed to be both masterfully written and really awful at the same time.
Farrell makes his British charaMy main admiration for this novel is that it managed to be both masterfully written and really awful at the same time.
Farrell makes his British characters pay and pay and pay for the crimes of colonization, in brutally absurd scenes. Characters are spared no degradation and yet they never lose their bone-headed, obstinate British-ness, or the certainty of their superiority. Ha, ha.
This novel's peculiar balance between: 1) "wow, this is written so well" with 2) "my god, this is making me sick" kept me reading until the end, in a rubber-necky sort of way. I was still reading with sick fascination when I came to a scene near the end when a besieged British subject confronts his enemy and kills him after a series of silly false starts--jammed guns, knives too tightly wrapped in his cummerbund to pull out when he needs them, the discovery of some handy violin strings--and he then manages to blow his enemy away so completely that only a pair of legs is left standing. Like all the other scenes in this novel, this scene is so breathtakingly well-written, and so awful.
I feel a little sick. I've discovered I don't enjoy reading cartoon scenes about a tragic historical event when many people died. I'm sure this worked better at the time when it was written, in 1973. Indeed the feeling I got from it reminded me a great deal of how I felt after consuming another masterpiece of that era, Fellini's Satyricon....more
A great story, but even more, a great linguistic adventure. Ghosh plays with the idea of the many English languages that must have been heard and spokA great story, but even more, a great linguistic adventure. Ghosh plays with the idea of the many English languages that must have been heard and spoken, and the many misunderstandings that would arise in a time where ocean trade and travel were still hazardous and unpredictable....more
A very focused and short book that hits all the right points along the way and, in spite of its charged material, manages to be something special. A tA very focused and short book that hits all the right points along the way and, in spite of its charged material, manages to be something special. A thought-provoking read. The reading experience is something like Nicholson Baker's "Checkpoint" but Hamid's novel is far more subtle and nuanced....more
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