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LITERARYREVIEW
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Sunday, July 23, 2017

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Here, in Austen’s first published

THE LEAD novel, Sense and Sensibility (1811), is a
one-line summary of a dinner party so
L BY UMA MAHADEVAN-DASGUPTA typical of Austen’s ironic social per-
spective: “The dinner was a grand one,

D
uring the last two weeks, on a the servants were numerous, and
period of enforced rest to re- everything bespoke the Mistress’s in-
cover from an illness, I reread clination for shew, and the Master’s abil-
the novels of Jane Austen. I was ity to support it.”
returning to the novels after a long time. If the novels are about domestic mat-
As I began to read, I realised how much ters—two or three families, a walk in the
I had missed the finely crafted sen- park, a dinner conversation, a relation-
tences, the almost musical movement of ship—they are also about the society
the plots, the delicate irony. within which the plots are set: one that
Putting down the last novel (and my is pervaded by conspicuous consump-
favourite), Persuasion, I thought of these tion and patriarchy, and underpinned
lines written by W.H. Auden in his by a rigid class system, consciousness of
poem, ‘Letter to Lord Byron’. Auden rank and connections, and inequality
had published the poem in a travel book that makes the numerous Have-noth-
that he co-wrote with Louis MacNeice, ings scurry about serving the indolent
‘Letters from Iceland’ (1937): Haves.
“You could not shock her more than The old world is slowly coming apart.
she shocks me;/ Beside her Joyce seems It is increasingly becoming difficult to
innocent as grass./ It makes me most live with the luxurious idleness of the
uncomfortable to see/ An English spin- past; and that, hints Austen, is no bad
ster of the middle class/ Describe the thing. Old families look for smaller
amorous effects of ‘brass’,/ Reveal so places to move to. New families, with
frankly and with such sobriety/ The eco- self-made men of the new naval merito-
nomic basis of society.” cracy, take their place: such as the
Auden is talking about Jane Austen, Crofts in Persuasion, a naval couple who
of course. Although they are structured bring a whiff of sea air and brisk cosmo-
as romantic comedies, Austen’s six nov- politan- ism, as well as a new
els are really all about the same funda- kind of optimism and
mental theme: society’s obsession with the sense of a new kind
rank, privilege and money, and how this of equality in their
obsession plays out in the relationships relationship.
of men and women.
Men’s advantage

Told the truth,

Prettified Jane Elena Ferrante notes
Or, in other words, as Martin Amis sum- how the young wo-
marises the plot of Pride and Prejudice: men in Austen’s fic-
“(Darcy is) tall, dark, handsome, brood- tion live carefully
ing, clever, noble, and uninhibitedly restricted lives, not
rich. He has a vast estate, a house in going to college,
town, a ‘clear’ ten thousand per annum. not travelling

but told it slant

His sister Georgiana has thirty thousand alone, not going
pounds—whereas Elizabeth’s dowry out to work—and
amounts to about a quid a week.” fighting over the
All the more befitting, then, that 200 men, who fight
years after her death, this “English spin- over property.
ster of the middle class”, whose great But for all this,
subject has always been “the economic The £10 note with Jane Austen’s face is fitting tribute to a writer
basis of society”, should finally feature
whose books were shrewd analyses of the economics of everyday life Austen’s early comic
<
> pieces are a delight,
on the British £10 note.
Not that this decision came easily. It
was the result of a social media cam-
paign started by the British feminist-act- Two hundred years later, it’s still fas- Even the good that he can say is nothing their reflections, reminding us that the The uncommon reader (Clockwise romping through every
ivist Caroline Criado-Perez. What does it cinating to read the responses of differ- more than patronising: “Little touches novel and its narrator are a part of the from top) Anne Hathaway (with a
say, however, that in the 21st century, ent writers to her fiction. Many male of human truth, little glimpses of steady social structure that it is critiquing from book) as Jane Austen in the biopic, holy cow of the period.
Criado-Perez received online rape writers speak of it in condescending vision, little master-strokes of imagina- within. Becoming Jane, and the £10 note. Nothing was too sacred
threats for her campaign? Just think: terms; others are downright vitriolic. I tion.” Everything is “little”. But even before the six great novels, Special Arrangement

over 200 years, Jane Austen’s books wonder what made Mark Twain remark Austen had written a number of pitch- for her wit
have sold millions of copies, been trans- nastily: “Every time I read ‘Pride and Grand dinners perfect comic pieces that were later col- noble birth, being the near relation of
lated into the world’s languages, been Prejudice’ I want to dig her up and beat Surely many readers took Austen’s self- lected and published by her family. the Duchess of ----’s butler.” the women miss nothing as they watch
adapted into innumerable film, televi- her over the skull with her own shin- deprecating words too seriously when These pieces are an intelligent delight, Cassandra herself is no ordinary the men bumbling along. Ferrante re-
sion and theatrical adaptations, been bone.” she described her fiction as “the little romping through decorum, rank and young lady: “She then proceeded to a flects on the last sentence of Sense and
the themes of tour packages, tote bags, Or Tennyson, who huffily tried to re- bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I connection; through form, flourish and pastry cook’s, where she devoured six Sensibility: “And among the merits and
and book club meetings. Her novels are duce Austen’s stature: “In the narrow work with so fine a brush, as produces literary affectation; and every other ices, refused to pay for them, knocked the happiness of Elinor and Marianne,
seen as among the finest accomplish- sphere of life which she delineated, she so little effect after so much labour.” holy cow of the period. Nothing was too down the pastry cook and walked let it not be ranked as the least consider-
ments of the form. And yet: rape pictured her characters as truthfully as Miniatures can represent the world in sacred for her wit. away.” able, that though sisters, and living al-
threats, just for asking that her face ap- Shakespeare. But Austen is to ways that are as complex as broad No one who reads the first paragraph In “A Letter From A Young Lady, most within sight of each other, they
pear on a currency note. Shakespeare as asteroid to sun. Miss canvases. of “Sir William Mountague: An Unfin- Whose Feelings Being Too Strong For could live without disagreement
Two hundred years ago, Jane Austen Austen’s novels are perfect works on Not all critics missed the point of Aus- ished Performance” can imagine that Her Judgement Led Her Into The Com- between themselves, or producing cool-
published four novels anonymously small scale—beautiful bits of stippling.” ten’s fiction, however. Lionel Trilling de- Austen has anything but an ironic smile mission Of Errors Which Her Heart Dis- ness between their husbands.”
during her lifetime. It is telling that even Surprisingly, even Henry James, scribed her fiction as the first modern for pomp and rank: “Sir William Moun- approved”: “I murdered my father at a The phrase “though sisters”, remarks
today, so many women are still con- whose style draws so much from Aus- novels, describing the moral life; Vir- tague was the son of Sir Henry Moun- very early period of my life, I have since Ferrante, seems to bring us up against
strained to post anonymously on social ten’s own, is pompous and petty about ginia Woolf wrote famously that “Of all tague, who was the son of Sir John murdered my mother and I am now go- the real conflict that has been playing
media for fear of online abuse and rape/ her characters: “Her heroines… had un- great writers, she is the most difficult to Mountague, a descendant of Sir Chris- ing to murder my sister. I have changed out within the pages of the novel.
death threats. doubtedly small and second-rate minds catch in the act of greatness.” topher Mountague, who was the my religion so often that at present I Indeed, Ferrante is one of those
Also interesting, but not surprisingly, and were perfect little she-Philistines.” Tell all the truth, but tell it slant, said nephew of Sir Edward Mountague, have not an idea of any left.” writers who today continues Austen’s
the picture of Austen to be used is not Emily Dickinson decades later. One of whose ancestor was Sir James Moun- Most perfect of these little pieces is project, of which Anne Elliot tells Ad-
based on the one painted by her sister A portrait of Austen Austen’s great contributions to fiction tague, a near relation of Sir Robert
<
>
“The Adventures of Mr. Harley”—a bril- miral Croft towards the end of Persua-
Cassandra—which shows her with bags was in the development of the slanted Mountague, who inherited the title and liant story of 125 words. After reading sion: “Men have had every advantage of
under her eyes and a half-smirk on her painted by her sister perspective; the style of ‘free indirect estate from Sir Frederick Mountague.” the ‘juvenilia’ (they are anything but; us in telling their own story…the pen
thin lips—but another, painted many Cassandra shows her discourse’ in which the novel has a Or, about another character: “He was they are precocious, scathing and witty) has been in their hands.” It’s time we
years after Austen’s death, which shows third-person narrative voice but which a very rich young man and kept a great one realises what a tremendous artistic heard the women tell their own stories,
a softer, prettier expression. Such are with bags under her also takes us into the perspective of the many carriages of which I do not recol- journey Austen has covered by the time with the pens in their hands.
the challenges in the representation of eyes and a half-smirk on fictional character, letting us share their lect half.” Or this description of the fam- she completes her six novels. In her ju-
women’s achievement, even in the 21st little self-delusions, their errors of ily of “The Beautiful Cassandra: A Novel venilia, she is scathing and hilarious; in The author is in the IAS and is currently
century. her thin lips judgement, their mistakes and finally in Twelve Chapters”—“Her father was of her novels, she is subtle and mature. based in Bengaluru.

REVIEW

Ambitious but ill-equipped

Basu’s prose is refined, she can even be genuinely funny, but she fails to enter her characters’ world or minds
L BY KESHAVA GUHA and Mrs. Jha’s best friend in Mayur Palli, L The Windfall amazed to discover that the Chopras’
Reema Ray, a widow who finds a second Diksha Basu guard was hired through an agency:

D
iksha Basu’s second novel—mis- chance at romantic happiness with Mr. Bloomsbury “What kind of agency do they come
leadingly marketed as a de- Chopra’s brother Upen. The closing ₹499 from? He’s not a model, for God’s sake.”
but—is a story of migration chapters, which are straight out of This from a man who has just sold a list-
between two worlds, both of Karan Johar, unite the three strands. ings website for ₹130 crore!
which happen to be in the National Cap- The Windfall has romance, hints of
ital Region. The novel opens in Mayur tragedy—safely in the characters’ pasts— Occasional charm
Palli, a fictional middle-class locality in and plenty of melodrama, but it is prin- In its milieux and its Bollywood plot-
East Delhi (think Patparganj or Mayur cipally a comedy, of manners and their ting, The Windfall may remind readers
Vihar). absence. It is about wealth: its uneasy of Chetan Bhagat. Basu’s literary ambi-
The Jha family—Anil, Bindu, and their relationship to happiness, and the aes- tions are far greater, her prose more re-
son Rupak—have lived in Mayur Palli for thetic and moral confusion it imposes cows; the notion that families who drink fined, and she can be genuinely funny,
decades. They are solidly middle-class: on those who suddenly acquire it. Some white wine and Black Label never go to such as when lampooning the rich of
Mr. Jha, an electrical engineer, runs a people are better equipped to handle malls (because only the rich do that) is Gurgaon. But this novel’s failings serve
branch of an IT training institute, and this than others. ludicrous; so too the notion that as a reminder of the one virtue of Bhag-
Mrs. Jha is a social worker in the hand- In The Windfall, the chief victims of wealthy Delhiites try to cook Indian at’s fiction, 2 States above all: its sure
loom sector. Their lives are trans- wealth are the two men who amassed it, food in olive oil. grasp of middle-class attitudes and the
formed, financially and geographically, Mr. Jha and Mr. Chopra. Mr. Chopra is Gurgaon, a diverse city of a million details of middle-class life.
by the ‘windfall’ of the title, although paranoid about falling back down the people with a distinct history and iden- The Windfall is best when it moves
they would dispute the term. Mr. Jha class ladder; Mr. Jha wants to live as the tity, is rendered in the novel as a leafy away from social comedy to romance.
sells a listings website to a larger rival Platonic ideal of a rich man; both be- ‘neighbourhood’ of Delhi, analogous in The courtship and marriage of Reema
for $20 million. The Jhas are now come cartoonishly obsessed with the scale to Mayur Palli. And in a novel Dhiraj Singh Ray and Upen Chopra is charmingly
wealthy, and they decide to move to projection of luxury. Their wives, Mrs. about money, Basu is alarmingly cava- done, unsentimental but tender, and
Traffic in middle-class East Delhi is not routinely
<
>
Gurgaon. Jha in particular, are much more lier with her figures. Mr. Jha, a man with deserved a novel in its own right rather
grounded. an MS in electrical engineering, who than a subplot. They are The Windfall’s
Down the ladder There is rich potential in this mater- sends his son to an elite private school, obstructed by cows, and the notion that wealthy Delhiites most engaging and authentic charac-
The first third or so of the novel intro- ial, for comedy and for social observa- has a monthly income, before his wind- try to cook Indian food in olive oil is ludicrous ters. Rupak’s Ithaca love triangle is also
duces us to the Jhas, their friends, and tion. The Windfall fails on both counts. fall, of $200 or ₹13,000. intriguing, before Basu abruptly aban-
the life they are leaving behind in East The essence of social comedy is detail, The imprecision of social details is the novelist from her characters. Except dons that plotline.
tion that Indian fiction has largely out-
Delhi. Then the action proceeds on and the novel’s uncertain hold on the matched by the language, which veers when dealing with the oafish Messrs Jha The middle third of the novel, more
grown, and not “she took out the bowl
three parallel tracks. The Jhas in Gur- nuances of its character’s lives is appar- erratically between Indian and Amer- and Chopra, she is unfailingly sympath- American than Indian, more romance
of raita.” Elsewhere, Hindi and Indian
gaon, getting to know their neighbours, ent from the outset. ican diction. Early in the novel, Basu etic, but unable to convincingly enter than comedy, suggests that the rest, the
English words are used more easily; but,
the Chopras; Rupak in upstate New The details of life in the Mayur Palli writes that Mrs. Jha “took out the bowl the characters’ world or minds. At study of money and status in Delhi, is a
throughout, the diction is more Amer-
York, a failing MBA student torn housing complex are both implausible of chilled yogurt mixed with onions, cu- times, straining for comedy, she sur- mismatch of writer and subject.
ican than Indian, especially in the
between two women, an all-American and incoherent. Traffic in middle-class cumbers, tomatoes, and spices,” using renders all narrative logic and control.
dialogue.
blonde and a drama student from Delhi; East Delhi is not routinely obstructed by the awkward register of cultural transla- On his arrival in Gurgaon, Mr. Jha is The author is a writer based in Delhi.
The combined effect is to distance
CM ND-X
YK
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2 BIBLIO NOIDA/DELHI THE HINDU LITERARY REVIEW

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SUNDAY, JULY 23, 2017

PUB CRAWL INTERVIEW

In what could be a watershed
moment for Indian language
publishing, the English rights for the
subcontinent for Perumal
Murugan’s new novel Poonachi or
The Story of a Goat have been sold
‘I was and remain an excellent liar’
for an unprecedented seven-figure advance to Paro Anand feels that stories are the best way to make children aware of what’s going on around them
Westland by Kalachuvadu Publications. The rights
auction, rare for Indian languages, was attended by L BY R. KRITHIKA
four major publishers. “We hope this brings more

P
focus and value to writings in Indian languages,” said aro Anand’s website has an
Kannan Sundaram of Kalachuvadu. answer to that perennial
question asked of authors—
Where do you get your ideas
Neil Patrick Harris is set to publish his from?—in the form of a lovely little
debut novel as part of the upcoming poem. “Sometimes you have to
series of children’s book, The Magic chase a story,” it begins, and lists
Misfits. The rights to the four-book the ways of hanging on to it: hunt it
series have been jointly acquired by down, trick it, tickle it, trap it… and
the Australian publisher, Hardie Grant goes on to talk of what happens
Egmont, and Egmont U.K. Little when a story chases you down or
Brown Books for Young Readers will lingers just out of reach.
be taking the series into the U.S. market. The book So I rephrase my question: what
banks on Harris’s extensive knowledge of stage magic. led you to become a writer? Her
It will be available worldwide on November 21. reply: “A very special skill. I was
and remain an excellent liar.” Polite
people call it imagination, she con-
“Promise me, Dad. Give me your word tinues, but it’s actually about mak-
that no matter what happens, you’re ing your lies believable.
going to be alright.” These words by The other reason has to do with
Joseph R. Biden Jr’s son, Beau, have her time as a drama teacher. “There
inspired the title of Joe Biden’s were only very archaic or Western
upcoming book. Promise me, Dad: A scripts for performance. I couldn’t
Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose is find the kind of plays I wanted to do
set to be released on November 14. In with today’s Indian children, so I
the book, Biden recounts the significant year, 2014, started writing them and then
and records the various challenges he faced both found there weren’t many story-
politically and personally. books that fitted my brief either. So
I started writing those.”

James B. Comey has been meeting Heard prejudices

editors and publishers in New York to Early in June, Anand had written
discuss the details of his upcoming about how two of her books—Like
memoir. The former FBI director, who Smoke (an updated version of Wild Breaking silly rules Paro Anand prefers a regular book to online reading. Special Arrangement
was fired in May, plans to write a Child and No Guns at my Son’s Fu-
candid account of his time in the neral)—“have been taken off read- Anand’s books has to do with the I want them (children) to ask themselves how valid culture among kids, she counters,
Justice Department, including the
investigation into the domestic
ing lists. In one school, teachers de-
cided that they were
topics she chooses for her books:
communal hatred, terrorism, fail-
<
> this hate or hurt or whatever is, rather than just
“How much are adults reading?”
and goes on to point out that
surveillance programme of 2004, under President ‘inappropriate’; in another, parents ure, being different, sexual abuse, youngsters are attending and enga-
George W. Bush, and the emails found on Hillary apparently objected to their chil- among others. But it’s not as if
take what is being said at home or by peers ging with writers at many lit fests
Clinton’s private server. As to whether Comey will dren being made to read such ‘im- youngsters don’t know about all across the country. She is not too
detail his recent altercations with Trump is still proper’ children’s books… I am this. “Young people read and hear today would not have been re- that, if it is for a certain group, then worried about the influx of techno-
unclear. now being invited to talk in schools about and even witness violence, motely possible some years ago.” there should be a certain length of logy.
on the condition that I don’t bring suicide, domestic abuse, sexual vi- She also acknowledges that many sentence and paragraph. I am con- “Just as it doesn’t matter
Graham and Debra Robertson’s up these titles under any circum- olence, gender inequality, caste di- schools discuss the subjects openly. fident that young readers don’t whether you write by hand or on a
memoir, Nipples on My Knee, which stances. I am told that I should stick vides but a story that helps them “This kind of dialogue is positive need these silly rules. Look at Harry computer, it doesn’t matter how
details “25 years in the sheep to some of my ‘safe’ ones.” grapple with them is considered ta- and healthy.” Stories, she feels, are Potter, which broke every single you read it. I have done some read-
business” is the current contender for Later the same month, Anand boo. This makes no sense. the best way to make children rule.” ing online, but personally, because
the 2017 Diagram prize for the was awarded the Bal Sahitya Puras- ‘In fact, there is a great need for aware of what’s going on around I am tech-challenged, I prefer a reg-
oddest book title of the year. The kar by Sahitya Akademi for Wild good material like this to be made them. ‘A bit of a weird writer’ ular book.”
book has been described by the prize Child, first published in 2011. Not available so that they can, may be, Stories also help create a forum The mention of Harry Potter brings She’s got quite a bit going in
coordinator, Tim Tivan, as having surprisingly, Anand feels vindic- start to find a way out of the dark- to question and re-examine beliefs us to age appropriateness, which terms of future projects. She calls
‘Carry On-esque ribaldry’, combined ated. “I wonder if the schools that ness,” says Anand. and ‘heard prejudice’. “I want them Anand pooh-poohs. Why is it that herself “a bit of a weird writer” be-
with animal husbandry. The other contenders are fought shy of the book earlier may That said, India is in a good to ask themselves how valid this we look at age for books when we cause she does at least two books at
Peter Andrews’s An Ape’s View of Human Evolution, reconsider somewhere down the space as far as children’s writing in hate or hurt or whatever is, rather don’t do the same for music, she a time. She’s got a short story col-
Lisa Lister’s Love Your Lady Landscape, Ian line. I am so pleased that children’s English is concerned. She points than just take what is being said at asks. “This over-administration of lection for Young Adults, a book
McConnelly’s Renniks Australian Pre-Decimal & literature is being recognised and out that publishers “have tried to home or by peers.” literature is not a good idea. If they about a naughty bear, a collabora-
Decimal Coin Errors: The Premier Guide for Australian being given a place in the sun. It has push boundaries”. “The kind of And how does she approach don’t understand a book, they’ll tion with a Bhutanese writer and “a
Pre-Decimal & Decimal Coin Errors and Michaela been a long time coming.” subjects—sexual orientation, viol- writing a story? “I just jump in and drop it or come back to it later.” novel that is proving quite stubborn
Giles’s The Commuter Pig-Keeper. Much of the controversy over ence, terrorism—being published write,” she replies. “I don’t decide Ask her about the lack of reading at the moment.”

A TYPOPHILE’S NOTES REVIEW

The maverick publisher If you want a dad joke

For a couple of lakhs, a copy of Ulysses signed by Matisse could be all yours All the characters speak in the author’s scholarly voice
him the money with one hand while Pi- L BY ADITYA SUDARSHAN
casso handed Macy the plate with the

T
other at the same time.” he author of this book (as
Finding favourites from LEC’s output the back-jacket informs us) is
is a challenge, she says. “My particular fa- a former Rhodes Scholar, a
vourites include the Jan van Krimpen lawyer, a policy instructor, a
Iliad and Odyssey, Daphnis and Chloe by legal scholar, a university teacher, a
L PRADEEP SEBASTIAN Ruth Reeves, Bruce Rogers’ Shakespeare reform consultant, a successful doc-
and Utopia, Valenti Angelo’s Sonnets from toral candidate and a visiting pro-

I
t’s no secret that a sensible, econom- the Portuguese (in both Heritage and LEC fessor at Harvard Law School. Such
ical and yet beguiling place to begin editions), Paul Landacre’s Of the Nature an impressive résumé signals a bril-
collecting finely printed and illus- of Things, Clair van Vliet’s The Circus of liant and articulate mind. And these
trated books is with the handsome Dr. Lao, Fahrenheit 451 by Christopher gifts are indeed in evidence in
books put out by the Limited Editions Austopchuk, Jacob Lawrence’s Hiroshima Osama Siddique’s first ‘novel’. Yet
Club (LEC). What’s not to like about these and Genesis designed by Ben Shiff, the inverted commas are necessary,
editions, and how could you go wrong Francesco Clemente’s Cathay, John Big- because this is something of a cau-
buying them? Its maverick publisher, gers’ Our Grandmothers, Eiko Hosoe’s A tionary tale.
George Macy, commissioned the finest Portrait of Shunkin, Faith Ringgold’s Let- Snuffing Out the Moon is a large,
printers, designers, illustrators, typo- ter from Birmingham Jail, and Declara- imaginative work of prose, but it is Ironic moral Meditating on the nature of the novel. Getty Images/ IStock
graphers and binders of the day to create tion of Independence designed by the not recognisable as a novel. Perhaps
each edition, printing them on lovely pa- Bixlers. These books are favourites be- there is no accurate word to de- ■ Snuffing Out world; two pranksters trying to con
per, clothing them in decorative boards, cause of the exceptional design and art- scribe it, but the analogy that came The Moon the emperor Jahangir; a monk med-
and as a final bonus to the collector, car- work and because they are so represent- to mind as I was reading, was of the Osama itating on the nature of evil even as
rying in the colophon the autograph sig- ative of what the club stands for.” type of joke we call ‘a dad joke.’ A Siddique war approaches; an old woman up
nature of the illustrator, printer or the study of all the production aspects in the dad joke is so very knowing about Penguin against a labyrinthine and conniving
designer. books. That in turn led to an expansion That Aha! moment what is funny that it does not even Random House legal system, and various others.
For about ₹500, a book illustrated and into 20th century fine presses, in gen- Bibliophiles will take pleasure in looking begin to be funny. ₹449 But since they are not given the
signed by Valenti Angelo could be yours, eral. The careful work that Macy did to at and handling Grossman’s book for the Likewise, this book evinces an space to breathe, they cannot abide
or for just a little more, a Shakespeare document the artistic values of his books warmth and charm of its production. acute knowledge of everything that with us long after we have finished
edition designed and signed by Bruce Ro- facilitated my efforts. When Sid Shiff “The design was totally in the hands of goes into fiction—characters, plots, reading, as vivid characters do.
gers, or, for a couple of lakhs, Joyce’s took over the club, he continued the em- the consummate Jerry Kelly. I am hon- settings, themes—but it does not
Ulysses signed by Matisse, Lysistrata phasis on fine bookmaking, but expan- oured to have had him design my book! even begin to be a novel. I do not Authority and dissent
signed by Picasso, and Carroll’s Alice ded the scope of the club by focusing Jerry has long been a fan of LEC, and it is mean it is a bad piece of work. It is only in a king’s court in medieval Ultimately, Snuffing Out the Moon
signed by the real-life Alice Hargreaves! much more on contemporary artists.” apparent in his design. It is a lovely book, more akin to a blueprint for a work, times, but also in a jungle hide— suffers from an anxiety to do too
A definitive and deeply researched his- evocative of the glories of Macy’s LEC. done up ever so lavishly, which re- more in a futuristic age, we find the much, a fairly typical issue with first
Picasso had been very
<
>
tory of LEC was long overdue, and now The binding harkens back to a classic mains a completely separate entity very same over-produced cadences, novels. One has the feeling that the
at last collectors and bibliophiles can re- LEC design of a quarter bound book with from the work itself. as in this snippet: “Exiles as they author, eager to ‘prove himself’, did
joice in Carol Porter Grossman’s just pub-
difficult to deal with, decorated paper sides. Jerry chose Gal- were, like us, like yourself, they not want to leave out any promising
lished history of the club. and insisted on getting liard as a typeface, which was first used Turbulent times faced a future of acute uncertainty storyline that had occurred to him.
by Shiff in one of his earliest books, The As you can imagine, a lot of lavish- and privation. Buddhamitra—for Typically, the demands of the
A fascinating figure paid in cash as each Lyrical Poems of François Villon. The lay- ing must be on display for this im- that was the esteemed monk’s novel form exercise a natural re-
I met Grossman some years ago at a fine engraving was finished out of the pages is also reminiscent of a personation to even have occurred. name—lived through some highly straint on this itch. In Siddique’s
press book fair, and at that time, she was classic design often employed by Macy.” There are six separate storylines turbulent times and I find his obser- case, the ingenuity and imaginative
right in the middle of working on this Apart from her own wonderful collec- here, ranging from 2084 BCE to vations quite poignant, for we also power that he clearly possesses
book, and since then I’ve been waiting Macy has always been a fascinating, tion of LEC material, Grossman’s richest 2084 CE, that play out over a com- face something that is not dissim- have worked against him, enabling
impatiently for it. The History of the Lim- colourful, and daring figure in the pub- source for digging deeper into the history mon geography—the Punjab and ilar.” The more this style repeats, him to ignore those demands and
ited Editions Club (Oak Knoll Press) turns lishing world, and the book offers a full, of this book club that also doubled as a Sindh provinces of Pakistan. How- the more we realise that it is really yet enjoy the illusion of succeeding.
out to be a handsome production (de- compelling, and detailed behind-the- fine press publishing house turned out to ever, nothing knits these stories to- just the author’s own scholarly Because he has these powers, one
signed by the contemporary scholar-ty- scenes account of how he went about be the special collection archives at rare gether into the one purported voice, serving as a place-holder for might reasonably expect a great
pographer, Jerry Kelly), reproducing sev- making this fine printing enterprise a book institutions that held original back- novel. Every storyline is continually dialogue that never actually novel from him in the future.
eral of the rich illustrations and title commercial success. I ask Grossman to ground material on Macy and LEC. “Us- interrupted by another, with a struc- appeared. Meanwhile, this book, full of
pages from various LEC editions. single out a memorable Macy moment, ing original documents for research,” ture that goes forward in time, and This lack of finish, or rather this themes of authority, faith and dis-
Grossman’s absorbing, highly enjoy- and to list her own LEC favourites. says Carol, “has been an indescribable then backward, and then forward omission to begin, which is reflec- sent, yields this ironic moral: that an
able, and finely written account of the “There is a favourite story from Macy experience. Reading through a letter on again, serving no narrative purpose, ted in the structure and the dia- author, unless he surrenders in hu-
club is also inspired by her own splendid himself, and which he put in the Quarto- one book and finding a casual reference except to assure us (with literary logue, prevents the book’s charac- mility before the authority of fic-
collection of LEC books and ephemera. Millenary. Picasso had been very difficult which provides insight on another event knowingness) that we are reading a ters from taking life. Potentially, tion, cannot lay his hands on it, not
“I have been collecting LEC books since to deal with, and insisted on getting paid result in that Aha! moment which is very single work. they are powerful characters in even to do damage to it.
my college days in the 1960s,” Grossman in cash as each engraving was finished. satisfying.” Yet the malaise is not just a mat- compelling situations—a young man
tells me. “What attracted me to the Macy had travelled to Paris to get the first ter of structure. The dialogue in this rejecting the ways of the great city A novelist, the author’s most
books initially was the artwork in the il- plate from Picasso, and in Picasso’s The author is a bibliophile, columnist book is affected from start to finish, of Mohenjodaro, but in love with a recent book is The Persecution of
lustrations. That quickly morphed into a apartment at Picasso’s insistence, gave and critic. through all history as it were. Not young woman besotted with that Madhav Tripathi.

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THE HINDU LITERARY REVIEW

SUNDAY, JULY 23, 2017
NOIDA/DELHI

REVIEWS 3
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REALISM BROWSER
When Dimple met Rishi

‘Nobody can leave an island’ Sandhya Menon

Hodder
₹399
Two first-generation Indian-
American teens, Dimple and Rishi,
Booker shortlisted The Unseen reads like a 19th-century realist novel transposed to modern times meet for a six-week summer
programme in San Francisco. Little
L BY ANUSUA MUKHERJEE ■ The Unseen did Dimple know that this was a
Roy Jacobsen scheme devised to make her find the Ideal Indian

T
owards the end of this trs Don Bartlett Husband. While she is wrapped in her world of coding
novel, which is set in a re- and Don Shaw and has a mighty dislike for this kind of planning
mote fictional island called Maclehose behind her back, Rishi is the diehard romantic. Menon
Barrøy, located somewhere Press explores themes of culture and identity as the two
on the seas lining Norway, a haar ₹599 travel the unmarked road ahead of them.
or sea fog slowly creeps inland,
covering the inhabitants in a freez-
ing grey blanket. It calls up the Yama’s Lieutenant and the
night in the middle of the day and Stone Witch
the islanders—who make up the Anuja Chandramouli
novel’s cast—give themselves a its rough embrace. Yet the novel is Penguin
break from their relentless work. also about leaving, or about the ne- ₹299
“They put down their tools in si- cessity of leaving, even if it is only Combining mythology, fantasy and
lence and wrap themselves up in to come back. reality, the second book in the
warmer clothes, sit on a rock and What must be left behind is not Yama’s Lieutenant series confronts
let their thoughts roam free, illu- just a landscape but also a time, of a scheming sorceress and her army
minated by an inner light—just as the grandfather and the father, so of demoniacal creatures who are
the blind look inwards because that the new generation can take threatening to wipe out all forms of life. Knowledge
they have no alternative”. This vis- over. While rooted to the island, the of the ancient art of stone magic aids the sorceress.
ion—of a curtain falling to shut out last ones in the line of the Barrøy Agni Prakash, Yama’s Lieutenant, has to hunt down
vision, of the waning of light that family—which gives the island its the samayakalas, the mysterious keepers of time, and
makes darkness visible—is central name—show a willingness to step reset the clock before destruction strikes. Delving
to the novel, which, with its sea- out and become part of the larger into a world of immortal creatures, this novel tests
washed, snow-striped, windswept world. the human spirit of survival and endurance.
landscape, plays out in the head They accept the changes neces-
like a black-and-white movie. sitated by modern life that the older
The Unseen constantly reminded people had resisted. The younger I Quit! Now What?
me of Bergman’s Through a Glass generation in The Unseen is curi- Zarreen Khan
Darkly—its unsettling chiaroscuro ously marked by the absence of a Daughter of the Sea An oil by the Norwegian painter, Hans Andreas Dahl. Wiki Commons Amaryllis
and its setting in an island of the father. When Hans Barrøy dies sud- ₹350
light nights. denly, his sole offspring, young In- transforming Barrøy into a whim- PowerPoint presentations, missed
Jacobsen’s imagination often wears a blue-black
<
>
As in the movie, so in this novel grid, becomes the uncrowned pering, brown-furred animal, which family gatherings, late nights,
the backdrop of the island serves queen of the island. filter, but it is perhaps the freezing climes of it will remain until next spring...” sleeplessness and exhaustion have
as a pointer to our essential isola- The translators have expertly cap- become as normal for us as
tion and the philosophical implica- Teddy-bear hands Norway that inspire it tured the nuances of the original, breathing. Briefly rebelling against
tions of this loneliness. Ingrid’s cousin, Lars, her trusted which made it to the Booker the corporate world, which feeds off the labour of
But the islanders in Barrøy lieutenant, is the child of a single ness. The scenes following the fu- sea. She is competent enough to re- shortlist. MBA graduates, the protagonist Nimisha decides to
wouldn’t be caught dead ponder- mother, Barbro, Hans’s ‘simple’ sis- neral of Martin, Hans’s father, are a tain the Barrøy family’s independ- They tackle the difficult job of take a sabbatical to relax. Away from the bidding call
ing existential questions, at least ter. After Hans’s death, Lars too masterpiece of naturalistic narra- ent ways while accepting the prac- conveying the islanders’ dialect by of her boss and white screens, she ventures into
consciously, simply because they grows up almost overnight. As he tion. The death of “Grandad” be- tical changes that Hans had making them speak a tongue that zumba, yoga, pottery and cooking. Zarreen Khan
cannot afford to. Life on Barrøy is bargains expertly with a trader for comes an occasion for a family resented. sounds like rustic English of the sort highlights the comedy and the beauty of the
hard, with the unpredictable sea getting the best price for the is- gathering, as the married daughters Bergman was sometimes ac- found in, say, Hardy’s novels. The quotidian, which is often forgotten in the mad rush of
giving as much as it takes, throwing land’s produce, and the trader asks and the son, who have migrated cused of being a “gloomy Swede”: Unseen’s central themes—the decay modern life.
up treasures of fish and jetsam and him to send his father, Lars checks from Barrøy, return briefly. Ingrid Jacobsen’s imagination too often of an older, agricultural way of life,
rising up like an implacable giant himself on the verge of uttering, “’A feels sad, missing Grandad’s com- wears a blue-black filter, but it is and the approach of modernity The Demon Hunter of
to batter the islanders from time to am my father.”’ forting “teddy bear” hands, but she perhaps the freezing climes of Nor- with its comforts and the concomit- Chottanikkara
time. For the latter, even god is, if Sentences such as these seem to too is soon “enveloped in the buzz way that inspire it. ant pain of separation from nature— S.V. Sujatha
not a luxury, then a useful fiction, discard the concept of a metaphys- of voices and laughter and The descriptions of Barrøy have would be close to Hardy’s heart. Aleph
which is insubstantial against the ical (male) god, who has been everything that belongs to life and a stark simplicity that can be So much so that one wonders ₹499
might of the sea. In this, there is a judged, and found wanting, in the not to death”. breathtaking: “...there are not about the time when the events of Set in a small village in Kerala
bit of J.M. Synge and his bleak Aran context of real life on Barrøy. Pastor Ingrid’s mother, Maria, is left many trees on the island but there the novel take place. Since Jacobsen named Chottanikkara, this
islands in The Unseen. Johannes Malmberget is a figure of bereft after her husband’s untimely are plenty of fruit bushes and dwarf gives no pointer to that, you have to supernatural thriller is full of
The title seems to allude to fate, fun, scared as he is of the sea, death. Life reclaims her slowly even birches and sallows—whose leaves assume that it is the turn of the 19th horrific demons. The village is
which is akin to the sea in its blind- which runs like blood in the veins as Ingrid discovers that she has in- in the course of late summer turn century. infested with monsters:
ness to human happiness or of the islanders. Ingrid, on the herited a burden of bad debts from yellow, then brown and red at vary- The Unseen reads like a tribute to Brahmarakshasas, priests who have turned into
misery. The island itself is fate too, other hand, is a “daughter of the her father. ing speeds—making the island, on that era’s realist novel, which tried demons and jalpisaachas, who hide in old wells and
because, we are told, “[n]obody sea”, and the sea, as a nurturer, some days in September, resemble to confer meaning to a fast-chan- possess those who jump into the water. Devi, a
can leave an island.” seems more likely to be a mother, A brown-furred animal a rainbow on earth. ging way of life by recording in de- demon hunter, is their saviour as she is skilled in the
Anyone who has loved Barrøy, albeit a difficult one, than a father. But hurdles are there to be crossed ‘And so it looks until a sudden tail its huge blows and small mer- arts of war and exorcism. Her faithful companion
spurs and all, must pay the wages The older generations are put be- and Ingrid has been trained in the storm is unleashed upon them, cies, before the 20th century’s Urga, a lion, accompanies her as she fearlessly fights
of that devotion by staying back in hind with a calm matter-of-fact- business of living by the capricious sweeping the colours into the sea, meaninglessness took over. the demons.

FAMILY SAGA IN SHORT

Remembering, but not quite Like a jigsaw puzzle

The story progresses as Mrs C declines Bump into characters you’ve seen somewhere before
L BY SHEILA KUMAR L BY LATHA ANANTHARAMAN ■ Loyal Stalkers lows. But even this set piece links
Chhimi closely to the other stories, of a se-

H A
imanjali Sankar’s first novel for proper novel is one you Tenduf-La curity guard pretending to be a po-
adults, Mrs C Remembers, is the settle into, like a journey on Macmillan liceman for his son’s sake; of a dog’s
story of an average Bengali wo- the Grand Trunk Express, ₹499 near death, revival, and second
man Anita Chatterjee, part of marking your territory and death; of an autistic boy whose par-
Calcutta haut monde circles, mother to living another life for the duration. A ents withhold love; and of a maid’s
obedient son Sudeep and rebellious short story is more like getting life in an upper-class household. The
daughter Sohini, both of whom love her dropped off at the bus stop. Loyal unusual friendship between two boys
in unquestioning and questioning fash- Stalkers offers the charms of both. who bond over cricket is another
ion. Her husband is busy climbing the This short novel, set in Sri Lanka, is thread that runs through the stories.
ladder to more success and is affection- constructed like a jigsaw puzzle. Tenduf-La plays with timelines and
ate in a careless, mostly patronising, way Each chapter stands alone as a short perspectives, and some of the stories
to his family. story, but together they form a coher- trainer stalks a single mother, hiding are worth coming back to after we’ve
The reader is drawn into the Chatter- ent larger narrative. out in her house. When he is caught, connected the dots. More than one
jee family politics in ever so gentle a man- That narrative starts with an un- it sets many other events in motion. character describes Sri Lanka as a
ner, watching as Mrs C is about to lose married teenager having a baby and The shocker in this novel is the small island, where people gossip
her ailing mother-in-law to… well, that’s then being forced to give it up. Much story of a man and woman, strangers and know what goes on in everyone’s
curious, it could be death from old age or of her story remains untold—why do to each other, who wake up after a lives.
it could be from lack of correct medica- her parents treat her like a stranger torrid night to a police SMS asking The reader of this book feels some
tion administered at correct times. Mrs C, and blame her for having been the public to be alert for a killer with of that. We keep bumping into char-
of course, is most relieved that the old raped? But that lacuna somehow a devil’s mask tattoo. acters we’ve seen somewhere before,
lady has decided to leave them; now, she sharpens the effect of what remains. They lock eyes as realisation and with each encounter we know
feels, she can live her own life, without In another segment, a personal dawns, and a cinematic chase fol- more.
those highly disapproving eyes on her
virtually all the time.

Sudden altercations Getty images/ istock

The first-person narration cuts between

Mrs C and her daughter Sohini. They
don’t always recall the same things,
■ Mrs C
Remembers
Himanjali Sankar
the family in the way Sudeep is.” This
motif is touched on through the book by
The severed soul
though the tracks do interlap. Willy-nilly, both mother and daughter, the miso-
both Sohini and Mrs C are engaged in re- Pan Macmillan
India
gynistic ways of the Chatterjee clan, Fever Dream runs at a feverish pace and keeps itself taut
membrance of things past. ₹299 which favours a son over a daughter.
How Sohini went a little wild immedi- Then there is a wonderful passage L BY SAURYA SENGUPTA ■ Fever Dream ting sparse and dark at times, and
ately after graduation, went in and out of harking back to when Sohini was six Samanta vivid at others, depending on David’s

T
a short-lived, disastrous marriage, went and Sudeep asks his mother in all seri- homas Mann’s 1940 novella Schweblin mood. Each character is in conflict
abroad to study, and is now living with ousness: “Ma, are you a god?” “No,” The Transposed Heads dealt Trs Megan with the other in some way and each
her Muslim boyfriend. How Mrs C, newly says Mrs C. “But mothers have special with an ancient folk legend—a McDowell wants to express himself or herself
free after her mother-in-law’s death, powers too.” person’s head is severed and Oneworld the loudest. Schweblin brings each
picks up the strands of her social life ent daughter-in-law, doting mother, a And therein lies the key to Sohini’s affixed to the body of another. So the ₹350 character to life and exculpates each
again, only to suffer from frequent Nancy Reagan-like adoring wife, quite deep despair at the ravages time is bodies have been interchanged. The to find a balance that is difficult to ar-
memory losses. secure in her niche in the family and in wreaking on her once-so-efficient wife now faces a conundrum—which rive at in a fiction of this length.
All too soon, the slow, inexorable real- the world? The interpersonal relation- mother. of the two people does she take to be Fever Dream runs at a feverish
isation of just what is happening dawns ships are all the more real for their en- her husband? Which of the two is the pace—pun intended—and keeps itself
on the reader. The story progresses as tire lack of drama, and for their stark Peculiar baggage original person? Samanta taut. It rests mostly in the realms of
Mrs C declines. contrast. Mrs C is unquestioning (at the Mourning those who aren’t dead comes Schweblin’s Man Booker prize long- memory and recollection but resists
The characters are drawn with a re- beginning, at least) of whatever her hus- with peculiar baggage, Sohini ruminates listed novella Fever Dream grapples While Amanda is garrulous, David is the clichéd tendency to indulge in re-
strained hand and one wonders if that re- band says and does, and is forever mak- at one point. There are enough intima- with a similar question. Carla’s son the critical listener. He draws out miniscences. The author treats the
straint is self-imposed or unwitting. Is ing excuses for him. tions of mortality in this tale but they David is afflicted with a terrible ill- memories of his past from her, ruth- past as malleable—revisiting it regu-
Mrs C really all she is set up to be: obedi- Sohini loves Omar but theirs is a rela- are not laid out in an unduly affecting ness which threatens his life. A local lessly swatting away details he does larly, but picking out only the neces-
tionship open to sudden altercations, style. Mrs C’s contemplations of ways to healer says she can ‘move’ David’s not deem necessary. Amanda is sent sary aspects. At one point, she places
Is Mrs C really all she is doubts, rows; yet it is a deeply romantic die is moving, as is Sohini musing that soul into another body, which will through the wringer as she is us in a farmhouse and draws out a
<
> set up to be: obedient one, the reader realises, when Sohini
says, “There is a must remember to tell
she would like to say, “Tough luck, Ma”
and handle the situation with clinical
halve the severity of the illness. Carla
acquiesces, but is now faced with
haunted by memories of her daugh-
ter, who too is threatened by David’s
landscape, and then turns the nar-
rator around, telling us that the gate
daughter-in-law, doting Omar diary in my head and when it practicality of the sort she had seen her someone who is not David at all. illness. Schweblin’s multifarious at the far end of the scene is unneces-
starts filling up, I die to be with him. Al- mother often practise. Fever Dream unravels from this novel effortlessly sews in myriad de- sary at that point of time. She revisits
mother and adoring ways happens when we are apart for a This study of two psyches, one which point in a intricately layered narrat- tails, with an equal regard for all the it later when it gains importance.
few days.” is slowly evaporating, one which is ive. The chief narrative device is characters. Schweblin’s third book will take you
wife, quite secure in her Elsewhere, Sohini states matter-of- slowly coming into her own, has a very made up of conversations between We traverse times, spaces and lives less than a night to read, but it will
niche in the family? factly, “I am a guest, not a member of authentic ring to it. David and Amanda in a hospital bed. of people. The author makes the set- keep you ruminating for long.

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4 BACK PAGE NOIDA/DELHI THE HINDU LITERARY REVIEW

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SUNDAY, JULY 23, 2017

THIS WORD FOR THAT THOUGHT FOR FOOD

Voices first and last

The best learning takes place in a child’s mother tongue. Why are we fighting that?
L BY MINI KRISHNAN

A
work of art was discussed at
some length in a journal. Prin-
ted alongside was an image of
the—for want of a better
word—display. It showed a model fam-
ily at dinner. Air bubbled from them as On a sunny afternoon An ideal fika break. wiki commons
they spoke and smiled but no one
could hear them. If you looked more
closely you realised that they were un-
derwater. What they don’t know and
what the viewer knows is that the fam-
Who’s dropping in for fika?
ily has drowned. I felt a sudden de-
pression settling on me when I put the
It isn’t just a coffee break, it’s a lifestyle
article away. L BY SHAHEEN PEERBHAI breaks both in the morning and in the af-
Was I looking into a mirror? Where, ternoon. Fika is an excuse for friends to

F
in our 70-year rush to industrialise and resh from a coffee-filled trip to meet up at a café and spend some time
equip ourselves scientifically, have we Stockholm, I’ve decided to con- together. Even if you take a train some-
stashed our language teachers and sciously make fika a part of my where, you pack a thermos of coffee and
their skills? We have even forgotten lifestyle. Fika (pronounced fee-ka) something baked. Fika isn’t just a coffee
where we put them, while confusing is a concept in Swedish culture with the break, it’s a lifestyle, and one that we
communication with connecting basic meaning ‘to have coffee’, often in a could all probably use a little more of in
meaningfully. Can we find the will to very relaxed atmosphere, accompanied our lives, the authors urge.
retrace our steps along that road with light pastries or their iconic kardem- Along with notes on culture and their
which led to our tryst with ourselves as ummabulle (a sweet bun laced with car- fika-filled childhoods, Brones and Kind-
English speakers and revive our links damom). Although the concept is a lot vall share recipes that allow us to indulge
with our own languages without set- getty images/ istock deeper than that. It is about taking time in the Swedish tradition in any part of the
ting aside the visitor language? to slow down, connecting with the world. The best part is that you can just
Indeed, our best creative writers who rose to fame true cultural gift we could empower people around you, and appreciating the about bake anything to have with your
Key to learning
Every committee that ever devised a
<
> some 40 years ago are bilingual
them with in an increasingly one-eyed
world.
little things in life.
And for me, fika in Stockholm was
coffee—the important part is pulling your-
self away from your desk to enjoy it.
curriculum has stated that the best Two thousand years ago the entire defined by filter coffee and cardamom While looking online for more book re-
learning takes place in a child’s mother you will not find any. they fade into the great sun of English? population of the world stood at 250 buns (sometimes filled with raspberry commendations, I got absorbed into
tongue. This key to learning is exactly Language ecology! Does any text- There is an account of a British million. Today, speakers of English as a custard, blueberry cream or apple browsing the books on Scandinavian life-
what we are doing our best to suppress book lesson on India’s diversity show a scholar of Mandarin who emerged second language number 350 million. vanilla, too) at Vete-katten, an iconic style and and ended up getting myself a
in our schools. It is why a child in class linguistic map of even the top hundred from a stroke to find that while he had This is more than the number of those bakery near Stockholm’s central train sta- book titled The Little Book of Hygge: The
3 knows the meaning of words like ‘air’ languages most widely spoken in the lost his English, he could still operate whose mother tongue it is. What’s tion. On another day, fika was some rye Danish Way to Live Well with the hope of
and ‘weight’, but cannot comprehend land? Any such lesson only says that in Mandarin. He proved beyond doubt more, there are more speakers of Eng- flour chocolate sea salt cookies, drip cof- emulating the Danes in their art of living
the sentence ‘air has weight’, nor re- we have 22 recognised languages and to his mystified nurses and to the pub- lish in India than in the U.K. And that fee and a paper map spread on my table with cosy lights and and comfy blankets.
member it, nor build on that know- that the Sahitya Akademi arranges lic in general what neurolinguists have our vigorous hybrid traditions are to plan my next stops exploring the aes- It is now queued on my audio book
ledge. So facts make no real impact. awards for work in 24. worked with for a very long time—that pounding along regardless is demon- thetically pleasing city of Stockholm. player for when I need to listen in to
They linger on some surface of the Consider an article by Krishna Ku- different parts of the human brain strated by the no-language you hear something instead of simply playing the
mind and vaporise after a written test. mar in December 2014 in which he light up when tracked for the use of when you ask about a missing clerk Anytime, any place radio.
We rob the child of his mother tongue said that the doctor who operated on different languages. Though it may not “Where’s Alice?” “Alice permission.” I was very intrigued on learning that a Now, back home with sacks of heritage
and do not teach him a step-mother the Baiga tribals had broken the law always be easy to balance more than Both the questioner and the supplier Swede can fika (the word is also used as a grain flour—oat, spelt and fine rye—in my
tongue well enough. We assume that because it was illegal to sterilise that one linguistic persona, without a of information understand that Alice verb) multiple times a day and it need not hand baggage, and filled with Scand-
adult understanding of the language community. Why? Because theirs is a doubt it makes for a richer inner life asked for permission to leave the office be in a coffee shop but can take place at inavian inspiration, I dusted off my copy
will automatically reach the immature dwindling ethnic group and their lan- and a greater capacity to deal with for an hour and was not to be marked home, at work or in the park. of The Great Scandinavian Baking Book
brain via a process of osmosis. Not guage—and the world it carries—would complex situations. Indeed, our best ‘absent.’ A brisk response I received re- To learn a bit more in preparation for and thumbed through it, bookmarking
only is very little regard paid to our re- disappear if it was not protected. This creative writers who rose to fame cently in a hospital to my query, my trip, I got myself Fika: The Art of The recipes for all my future fika afternoons:
gional languages in English-medium might be the case of many other lan- some 40 years ago are bilingual— “What’s the name of the doctor on Swedish Coffee Break by Anna Brones and walnut and cinnamon cookies, bark cook-
schools but informal English-language guages as well. Not because its speak- Manoj Das, Mridula Garg, Kamala Das, duty?” was “Not knowing. I’m new, Johann Kindvall. In this book, the authors ies, tigerkaka. Who’s dropping in for fika?
tutorials also reinforce the teaching of ers will dwindle or disappear but be- Girish Karnad. To move painlessly join.” explain how in Sweden, fika is incorpor-
A-B-C outside schools. If you look for cause they choose not to function in from one side of the wall to another is ated into everyday life in many different The writer is a London-based chef trained at
similar institutions which promote the their mother tongues. Is this going to a privilege we can yet retrieve for our The writer edits literary translations for ways. Le Cordon Bleu Paris and Alain Ducasse
teaching of Telugu or Odia or Konkani, be the fate of some of our languages as future generations; it might be the only Oxford University Press (India). At any Swedish office, they have fika Education. @purplefoodie

REPRISE BOOKENDS

A moving caravan of storytellers

These enthusiasts have already read out over a thousand stories, with more in line
L BY ANNIE ZAIDI cue the contents of the books by shoot-
ing a home video of himself reading the

P
eople had forgotten, he muses, stories out loud. Whether or not
that it is also possible to read younger people read the Urdu script,
through one’s ears. After all, they could still listen and watch. And
that is how most of us begin to indeed, they listened.
receive stories—listening to our grand-
parents. Jameel Gulrays was counting Read-aloud band
Wiki Commons on people’s ears rather than their eyes Not long after Gulrays started his read-

Emma when he started to read aloud Urdu

stories on a dedicated Youtube chan-
nel. Just about a year and a half later,
his channel has over 1,300 subscribers
aloud sessions, he found a band of fel-
low enthusiasts reaching out to him. Al-
though he is the prime mover, there are
other founder-members of Katha

by Jane Austen and his work has grown into a move-

ment called Katha Kathan, which in-
cludes several other readers and stories
Kathan. Listing their names—Rekha
Rao, Madhavi Ganpule, Rajesh Jha,
Sumanto Bhattacharya, Priyanka
L BY SUDIPTA DATTA plan. So cleverly is it plotted, that not from many other Indian languages. The Sharma—he quotes the popular poet-
enough clues are dropped early on no-frills homemade video series has lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri: “Main

I
n 1814, Jane Austen began writing about which turn her life will take grown into live performances at venues akela hi chala tha jaanib-e-manzil Salvaging languages Gulrays is fostering a diverse storytelling movement. Vijay Bate
her fourth novel, Emma, about a and it’s a journey of discovery as such as the National Centre for the Per- magar/ Log saath aate gaye aur kaar-
“heroine whom no one but my- much for the reader as it is for Emma. forming Arts in Mumbai; a Delhi vaan banta gaya.” (I had set out alone and several other writers they may not about salvaging Urdu and other Indian
self will much like.” As the bicen- She will finally choose Mr. Knightley, chapter has been launched in recent towards my destination/ but people have heard of. There are a few folktales languages, he says, is that a people lose
tennial of her death anniversary who is years older, and with whom weeks. started walking alongside and thus a too, whose authorship is uncertain. themselves if they lose their literature.
neared on July 18, there was fresh cel- she plays many sparring matches Despite its rapid growth, Katha caravan was made). Most of the stories on the channel, He has no squabble with English, but he
ebration of her writing, of her famous right through the book. “We always Kathan was rooted in quiet grief and re- Now this caravan of literary enthusi- however, come from the pool of Urdu worries that future generations may lose
novels, of which Emma certainly took say what we like to one another,” gret. Born to a Kashmiri father and a asts has read out over a thousand stor- or Hindustani literature. the ability to think or communicate
pride of place. Compared to some of Emma says of Mr. Knightley early on, mother from Gorakhpur, Gulrays has ies drawn from several Indian lan- Famous names like Premchand, complexity in their mother tongue.
her other heroines, like Elizabeth even pointing out, self-deprecatingly, spent his whole life in Mumbai. He guages, including Bengali, Marathi, Sahir Ludhianvi and Krishen Chander Once that happens, the language finds
Bennet in Pride and Prejudice or that she herself is a “fanciful, trouble- studied Urdu and Persian literature in Hindi, Konkani, and is expanding into crop up quite often, but the greatest itself reduced to a boli or dialect. “Most
Fanny Price in Mansfield Park, Emma some creature.” Yet, she is keenly college and loved it. But he had spent more languages as it attracts more vo- number of stories, nearly 300, are the Hindustani languages are sort of on the
Woodhouse, “handsome, clever and aware of the class she belongs to. nearly four decades in advertising lunteer readers. Listeners can find the works of Manto. In fact, Gulrays started threshold at this point. Parents are train-
rich”, is an intricate character, flawed Emma is shocked that Harriet, a where he also witnessed the decline of works of Rabindranath Tagore, Bana- with the celebrated, and in his own life- ing their children to communicate only
yet consummate. Living in the “large daughter of a tradesman, is consider- other Indian language writers. After he phool, Ashapurna Devi, Urmila Prabhu, time quite controversial, writer; he be- in English,” he says. “We often hear
and populous village” of Highbury, ing Mr. Knightley as the right match retired, he had time to sit back and take lieves that Manto continues to be mis- mothers telling infants: ‘Don’t say paani,
Emma Woodhouse and her father for her. “The stain of illegitimacy, un- stock of his old love. “I had accumu- understood despite finding new say ‘water.’”
Gulrays has no squabble
“were first of consequence there. All
looked up to them.”
bleached by nobility or wealth,
would have been a stain indeed,”
lated a large collection of books at
home,” he says. “I was thinking, what <
> with English, but he
admirers decades after his death. “Most
people haven’t really read his work.
He holds himself partly responsible
that things have come to such a pass. “It
With “Emma doing just what she Emma, or is it Austen, quips. will become of them after I’m gone? They read six or eight of his stories and was my generation, the one born just
liked” with a “disposition to think a This treasure would be lost. Nobody in worries that future decide that he is either obscene or that after India’s independence, that neg-
little too well of herself,” she loved to Satiric prose my family reads Urdu. After me, the generations may lose the he is ‘dark’. He is neither.” lected our literature. Whatever I am do-
play the busy matchmaker to her An astute observer of the complexity books would become raddi (waste). At 68, Gulrays doesn’t know how ing is an attempt to rectify this
neighbours. As the 21-year-old tells of human nature, Austen’s satiric These pages would be used to wrap up ability to communicate much time he has left but he is doing situation.”
her father: “I promise you to make prose shows Emma’s foibles, her fail- paan or someone’s purchases at a gro- complexity in their his best to foster a stronger, more di-
none for myself... but I must for other ures, and the learning from it. Austen cery shop.” verse storytelling movement. The The author writes fiction, non-fiction, drama
people, it is the greatest amusement was only 41 when she died. As Vir- He decided to do something to res- mother tongue reason he is especially concerned and films.
in the world!” ginia Woolf wrote in her essay on Aus-
ten, if she had been alive to write
New writing style more, she would have “devised a
This is an Austen character, and she method, clear and composed as ever, WHAT WE LIKE
will do things she promised she but deeper and more suggestive, for
would never do. For this one too, and conveying not only what people say, Books on a platter Comics on the phone
critics have said that she wrote Emma but what they leave unsaid; not only
at the “height of her powers,” Austen
chose to write in “free indirect
speech” with the narrator echoing
what they are, but what life is.” Woolf
said her satire would have been more
“stringent and severe” and that she
A
re you a person who gorges on books? Do you feel famished if
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I
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but she became one of its most well- is not to be taken lightly, after all, like 1,500 books it has on offer. And if would like to just pretend you’ve DC and Marvel to BOOM! Oni Press, Archie Comics,
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loses Miss Taylor, her governess and making sense of the quotidian, every- directly to your phone. What we like most, though, is that you can also just listen to a and manga. It gives you a couple of volumes free with
friend, to marriage, a match made by day life, while casting an eye on social book on the phone, while driving or waiting. There’s a free three-day trial, after which every series to help you decide if you want to invest, plus
her, she takes 17-year-old Harriet mores? you may subscribe to a plan of your choice, or not. If you aren’t in the mood to shell frequent promotional deals and discounts. There’s an offline reading feature
Smith under her wing. Emma wants out money, continue with the free plan, which gives you one pre-selected book a day. as well, so you can keep reading even after you’ve put your phone on flight
Harriet to marry the eligible vicar, but The writer looks back at one classic each How much more can they encourage reading in a smartphone universe? mode. There’s a reason why Amazon acquired it so quickly.
affairs of the heart don’t always go to fortnight.

CM ND-X
YK