A Terrible Country

Someone asked me the other day what is *the one* book on Russia I would suggest that they read.   My answer without hesitation: A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen. Not one by Dostoevsky, or Tolstoy, or Chekhov, but an easily readable literary fiction written in English about life in contemporary Moscow by a Russian-American writer.   If nothing else, I guaranteed that they will actually finish the book. And laugh while they are it. And cry a little, of course, because if a book on Russia doesn’t make you wipe away even one subtle tear, then it possibly is more propaganda than fiction.

 

You will find yourself intrigued by the contrasts between the older generation living just above poverty even while they inhabit coveted apartments near the Kremlin and the well-heeled Moscow youth carrying a glock under their Gucci suits while getting their $8 cappuccinos. You will come to see how our Russian-American protagonist Andrei, in the market for a U.S. English department faculty position, can barely afford the internet connection needed to conduct his Russian literature MOOC. There is no Navalny-like character, possibly because recorded Russian history has not yet registered someone like Navalny until now, with everything to lose, including his life, and nothing to gain. But there is Sergei, a politically-principled intellectual with nothing to lose except his life and nothing to gain except a stint in Siberia -- it may be the 2000s in the book and the economic model is new and defies known rules, but some things in Russia never change, the author seems to say through Sergei.  And then there is Dima the brother, coldly practical, worldly-wise, and knows when it is time to get out of Russia with or without some wealth stashed away.  

 

Keith Gessen is on faculty at Columbia University’s Journalism School.  Among his literary contributions is his translation of Nobel prize winner Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl. Keith is the brother of respected political journalist and prolific writer Masha Gessen.

Lahiri's 'The Lowland': A Three-Way Portrait About Human Individuality, Strength and Resilience

Jhumpa Lahiri's second novel and fourth book, 'The Lowland' does not appear to have won all hearts over or run away with numerous awards as her previous books have done (although a finalist for the Booker and also the National Book Award, she did not go home with those honors); yet to me it is her best book thus far.

The characters are unique and the story line suggests that she has been willing to take a risk and deviate from the insular world of accomplished Bengali Americans and their generally privileged American Bengali progeny.  The stories of Udayan and Gauri are anything but predictable or safe choices for a writer beloved by critics and American readers alike. Instead, each of the main characters, including Subhash and Bela, are memorable and distinct, complex and tragic, and they live with the reader long after the last page has been closed. How Lahiri, who comes across as having had the best of most things -- including a stable and secure upbringing in the New England area -- can get into the heart and head of Gauri, the troubled female protagonist from another world, another time, is a puzzle to me. Lahiri exemplifies what she has always been good at -- i.e., depicting the inner lives and turmoils of her characters and deftly drawing you in to care about them forever.

It seems that the main discontentment (in reviews and online comments) with this book is about her understanding of the Naxalite movement (as an 'outsider'), her depiction of the Calcutta politics of the '60s and '70s (as an 'outsider'), and the impression that she writes for a non-Indian audience.  But my own brief disenchantment arose due to the quality of her writing in the first 30 pages or so.  It seemed passive, distant, hurried, with a singular goal of establishing the sociopolitical milieu, painting the landscape and explaining the geography, all in a whirlwind of numerous sentences beginning with the word 'They'. She gave an impression of going through the motions of setting up the atmosphere without ever breathing it in.  It was almost as if it was written as an afterthought in response to an editor's note that some introduction into the Calcutta of yore is needed.  But once she (and we as the readers) get through this necessary exercise, a private world of deeply-wounded and remarkably stoic characters opens up to us and we end up being enmeshed into their extraordinary, unexpected and melancholic stories. 

We become privy to her characters' pain -- their sorrows, their sadnesses, their loneliness--at once together and apart from each other.  From then on, it is not just the politics of West Bengal and Calcutta,it is the politics of the old and the new, of ideology in the home and outside, of parents and sons, of in-laws. There is so much deeply-moving character and content, and the author carefully lays it all out for us to read, feel, see and never conclude. Or at least conclude only when all is gradually revealed at the end, as she subtly and carefully peels a layer here, shares a detail there, leaves a gentle clue or two. For example, when Gauri was questioned by the investigators there was only one name that she did not truthfully know. This fact nagged at me while I was reading, but I realized the significance of the detail only towards the end.  Apart from it being a crucial detail to the novel, it made me stop and think. We may not all be revolutionaries (or destructive social elements -- depending on our viewpoints) and commit heroic (or unspeakable acts), but when we decide to act at any level, we affect people, even those whose names we may not have cared to know. Patience is required of us as readers and it is well worth our while as our understanding descends eventually but gently about the controversial choices made. Our compassion sets in for all those individual lives affected immediately (and for a generation or two to come) by the course of unwavering and steady but cold social reality since the dawn of the people's history.     

If the child is the father of a man, what becomes of the girl-child without a childhood?  
The story of Bela is a quintessential painful and poignant story of resilience in a child -- yet not a single review I had browsed earlier on, touched upon it or alluded to it (which was a good thing, because I stumbled upon it without any expectations; it is a story that will always be remembered by me and passed on to others broken and recovering from family tragedies). Even though I was bewildered by Gauri's choice -- the one that was finally truly hers to make, own, and live by, however controversial and irreversible -- and every vulnerable fiber in my body rebelled against it, I came to understand in the end that this is the punishment she metes out to herself and her kind. Painful though it is, the logic of depriving your own flesh and blood what was deprived by you to another offspring's life, seeps through, and I came to understand that this is only way in which Gauri redeems herself, at least in my eyes. Yes, but Bela pays the price.

Even before the secret that holds Gauri apart is revealed to us, Lahiri tells us so much more about her early life. Just the details of young Gauri explain to us the comment that Udayan's mother makes to Subhash: She's too withdrawn, too aloof to be a mother.  She is talking about a young woman who was born to an ailing, older couple, who send her and Manash (the only sibling somewhat close to her age) to live with the grandparents. And how much attention could they have given her despite their love? Her numerous older sisters are forever absent from her life and the only person who is a constant in her childhood and youth is Manash. Hansel and Gretel usually make a great fairy tale, but not always natural-born parents. It is telling that in a city teeming with life, Gauri was depicted as usually gazing at it from the distance of her small balcony -- when she wasn't absorbed in her books. A young partner, newly in love, could have potentially drawn her into the midst of this promising, busy world, but Udayan too frequently kept disappearing on her while he was still alive. Her in-laws kept their own aloofness which turned into full-fledged resentment after Udayan's death. So much so that when Udayan looks at her face just before being killed -- which he regretfully understands as his final abandonment of her -- he sees only a look of disillusion. After all this, how could a young woman, as alone in this world as her, handle motherhood with ease?  To give as a mother, it is usually necessary to receive as a child. This is one area in which Bela, under Subhash's undivided attention, fierce protection, and steady, solid love, actually fares much better than Gauri.

A few words about what Gauri's character means to me:
A month or so before I began to read 'The Lowland', I lamented the fact that South Asian diasporic fiction focuses on women who follow their husbands across continents and experience domestic and cross-cultural adjustments. I regretted that women like me -- having arrived for grad school on our own, just like the men -- are rarely depicted. Juggling grad school, career and personal life, the additional pressures and extra avenues for isolation we face, are less well-known than those that our men face. Ironically, I declared that even Jhumpa Lahiri does not write about my kind of first generation women. Yet, here is Gauri, slowly but surely submerging herself into her intellectual passions, earning a PhD scholarship, riding the ebb and flow of her academic life, glowing in the seasonal fluctuations of her students' respect and love when knowing fully well that they will be gone at the end of their course, if not at the end of the semester.  For the two children whose adversity she must feel responsible for, she balances out by helping a few college kids, I suppose. Still, I could so easily be her. A thin line separates her madness from mine. With my love for all things academic and my passion for what I imagine is an unfettered intellectual life, I would so want to be her, minus her wrongs and humiliations.  

One of the strongest and most interesting female characters in South Asian diasporic fiction, Gauri may be somewhat flawed but she comes equipped with her own internal moral compass. Her strength comes from her willingness to be alone, to take the more difficult and less-trodden (and near-empty) path, and to live out her life on her own terms even if it means being alone with her own thoughts and regrets.       

Too many descriptions of the book out there, emphasize, so predictably and in a banal way, the love beyond death between Gauri and Udayan -- yet, I don't see it as that simplistic.  There was love and then there is some hate. But more than anything else, what binds her to her first husband, her dead husband, is the unspeakable secret she shares with him.  Subhash is a strong enough character on his own -- even Gauri recognizes that from the beginning to the end. Yet, several reviews out there, describe him as a sibling who has had to live in the shadow created by his younger brother.  I can't understand for sure whether Lahiri is sympathetic to Udayan and his politics, but her depiction of him in the final pages is full of compassion with a tinge of sorrow about the lack of choices for youth driven with a sense of righting society's wrongs; for youth thirsting for social justice.  In the end, although Naxal politics provide a background and a springboard for this book and open a window into a Calcutta that was largely unknown to most of us who came of age after the '60s and '70s, what really captures us are the individual characters that Lahiri was bold and imaginative enough to create and stand by in a world that did not expect her to break out of her own mold. She took a risk and I love her more for it.                    

The world would be a lesser place without these books and movies.

Iranian movie: Border Cafe
If you want to understand how 'benign' masculine protection turns into insidious control of the feminine, how social structures ultimately protect the economic interests of the patriarchy, why women's issues have no boundaries, how dry, difficult and dense political science can be conveyed effectively through cinematic art, why Iranian movies occupy a special place in my heart, then you have to see this (not-so-recent) movie, 'Border Cafe'. Story-telling at its best.


'The Wandering Falcon' by Jamil Ahmad.
This book is a precious gift to this world!  I wasn't aware that I could find common grounds and identify with some of the simple yet richly complex characters from the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran border region, but I do.  I don't think anyone could have resisted being in the shoes of any of Ahmad's characters.  Such is the power of his stories and story-telling ability. 

The language--lyrical; the writing style--beautifully brief; the writer's heart--always tangible.

Please pick it up if you haven't read it, but don't look for reviews online.  All the ones I found give away too much of the book' structure and details of the story.  Reviewers who cannot write reviews without spoilers in every sentence need to be left wandering in the desolate lands of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.  You need to enter the world depicted in this book without knowing anything about it.    

The story of Ahmad's book seeing the light of day is a story in its own right.
  

Our Lady of Alice Bhatti by Mohammed Hanif
What a stark and audaciously biting novel about human strengths vs. vulnerabilities. This book is testament to Hanif's ability to turn tragedy into comedy for just as long as it takes you to swallow the bitter truth about nations and humanity. The deeper message about the limitations of all semblance of order in this universe (especially the hospital universe), however, lingers on long past you put down the book. I respect that he bravely took digs at stingy Caucasian nuns willing to let brown people starve. I love that his absentee fathers can write soulful petitions when necessary. I agree that tender love lasts only as long as viciousness, with or without reason, stays away. I am not quite sure why we rushed through the last scene abruptly or the timeline of what exactly happened above the hospital roof, but, perhaps, short, swift novel ending is metaphor for how quickly everything comes to a close if you are an Alice Bhatti in this world.

There are numerous themes in this book -- class, caste, religion, misogyny, poverty, marginalization, sickness, hospital management, physicians, professionalism or lack thereof among physicians, police power -- but the ones I picked out in the previous paragraph are not necessarily in order of importance or coverage in the book. Above all, the book is about how unconnected women learn to survive, live, thrive in a patriarchal society. If they make it past survival, that is.

The book is not all raw and stark; there are layers of nuance. And you will come to know a bit more about a little known demographic -- Pakistani Christians from the sweeper class/caste.


'In This World' directed by Michael Winterbottom
Last but not the least, watch this docudrama that will leave you with an idea of the tenacity and maturity that some children have as a result of being born on the other side of the fence.  

Stories from the former Soviet Baltic states

Library sales are treasure troves where one finds the most captivating books and novels from yesteryears, away from the influence of marketing forces and contemporary reading trends. The latest find for a mere 25 cents is here to stay on my shelf long enough for my children to grow up and read. It is a copy of 'The Graywolf Annual Nine: Stories from the New Europe (Graywolf Annual) (Paperback)', published in 1992.

Three of the nine stories printed here are from the former Soviet Baltic states--Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. 'Man needs dog' by Regina Ezera is my favorite, although several others follow closely as second.

Kalyna's Song

Lisa Grekul's 'Kalyna's Song' is a beautiful and funny book about growing up Ukrainian-Canadian in a country where rules about when to be Ukrainian and when to be English are never to be bungled or broken. Canadian books, however deserving, are rarely as well-known around the world as American, and it breaks my heart when this order of world affairs defies my impulse to set things right. So here I am doing my little part: recommending you to pick it up if you ever come across a copy of it.

Here is a review by a librarian who is also a children's author. I disagree with this reviewer only when she she says Colleen is a character who is not entirely likeable. I find Colleen self-absorbed, yes, but which teenager isn't? I find her entirely sympatichnaya as they say in Russian.

There is a lot in the book about Ukrainian music--narodniye pecni, classicheskiye, etc. I had no idea how many Ukrainian composers' names were unknown to me until I read this book.

And finally, I have to link to Joe Wiebe's review here. His observation of a scene in Swaziland is spot-on.

Martel is in the news again

Canadian author Yann Martel has a new book out. Having won hearts and prizes through the effective portrayal of animal characters in his second book 'Life of Pi', he is now out with 'Beatrice and Virgil', a novel about a donkey and a howler monkey and the journey they take with a writer named Henry.

Martel has been in the news a lot lately in Canada. 'Life of Pi' is being made into a movie. Old news, you say? OK, here is something newer: In 2007, he started a project, 'What is Stephen Harper reading?' He sends one book every two weeks to Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, to help expand Harper's "stillness". Even a loyal Martel fan such as I can find this act somewhat presumptuous--don't even the best known books move people selectively and at a personal level?--yet I do so love his gumption! Go Martel! Never mind that Martel's patient concern for Harper's 'expansion' is being met with silence. Especially since the praise and the reward are coming from none less than The Big O. No, not Oprah! Obama! Apparently, Malia and dad loved 'Life of Pi' so much that Martel in small-city Saskatoon received a hand-written appreciation note from the most powerful man in the world. The contrast between the reactions of the two leaders has not gone unnoticed. It is a boon to our media and our liberals. And understandably, to Martel himself. Too bad for Harper that he neither sent fan-mail nor a thank-you letter in time. (If you received a book as a gift by mail, every two weeks, wouldn't you, at a minimum, send a polite thank you note to the sender?) Now whatever Harper does, he will reap no positive publicity. If he writes a thank you note politely at this late hour, he is going to end up playing second fiddle to Obama. If he does not write and continues to ignore Martel, he will always come across as colder and more aloof than Obama. Tough spot.

Moral of the story for us ordinary citizens? Whether you like somebody's gift or not, write that thank-you note promptly.

Does Rushdie's Midnight's Children add value to the Booker Prize?

Much is made of the fact that Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children has, for the second time in history, been judged the best ever winner of the Booker prize. [Link]

Victoria Glendinning, a member of the panel that drew up a list of 6 books for the shortlist, said that "the readers have spoken - in their thousands. " That is right, the honor was decided by a public vote via the internet and SMS text messaging (with a small charge).

I was rooting for Disgrace knowing that its author, J.M. Coetzee, stands no chance against the celebrity figure in Rushdie. I did not even dare contemplate J.G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur because public popularity contests are usually skewed against dead people. (Farrell passed away in 1979). Well, at least the others got the honor of being shortlisted. It seems like that is not a given any more.

Midnight's Children may be a fine piece of work. Yet I cannot help but wonder if the internet-based voters (a self-selected population) really read all six books on the shortlist before they voted for their favorite.

According to John Mullan, another judge in the panel that drew up the shortlist:

...the value of the Best of the Bookers is wider than its simple identification of a single winner: “It looks at what qualities of books survive the fashion that gives them their temporary celebrity.” [Link]

Given that there were only about 8,000 public votes in all (and 36% or 2,880 votes went to Midnight's Children), that seems like a tall claim. But this can be put to test very soon--after all, we are only 10 years away from the next major anniversary of the birth of the Man Booker Prize.

The books may all be good but the award is beginning to sound cheap.

'a complicated kindness' by Miriam Toews

Miriam Toews’ funny but heart-breaking novel ‘a complicated kindness,’ features the Mennonite church and community. It portrays Manitoban families in the fictitious East Village, cut off from a city that is only 40 miles away and ministered by the fiercely pious and overly-zealous Hans. Toews, herself a Manitoban of Mennonite descent, paints a picture of the Mennonite church as one which prepares its flock for life after death by stifling the life out of its followers' earthly existence.

The protagonist, Nomi Nickel, 16, is lost within the folds of silence in her family and her community. At the beginning of her story, Nomi informs the reader that half of her family, the better-looking half, is missing. As she unravels their story, layer by layer, with a wry sense of humor and sharpness that exemplifies the gift of adolescence, you cannot help but smile, even as you feel her pain. Her dad, Ray, has his heart in the right place but finds himself stunted in his ability to be himself, to be a modern-day father and a strong husband. Yet Nomi does not love him any less on account of his shortcomings. In fact, she goes as far as taking over the responsibility of being the rock in the now two-member family. Or so she thinks. Ray, on the other hand, sees clearly what is best for his daughter, despite not knowing how to help her or even himself.

The contradictions between the lifestyle that is expected in this village (duly showcased in the museum for the benefit of American tourists) and the lifestyle that is a reality among some teens are mind-boggling. Consider this passage:

We’re Mennonites. As far as I know, we are the most embarrassing sub-sect of people to belong to if you’re a teenager. Five hundred years ago in Europe a man called Menno Simons set off to do his own peculiar religious thing…Imagine the least well-adjusted kid in your school starting a breakaway clique of people whose manifesto includes a ban on the media, dancing, smoking, temperate climates, movies, drinking, rock’n’roll, having sex for fun, swimming, make-up, jewellery, playing pool, going to cities or staying up past nine o’clock. That was Menno all over. Thanks a lot, Menno.

So East Village, on the outset, appears to be a success from Menno’s point of view. Even well-stocked libraries are banned, as in all societies governed and manipulated in a top-down manner. However, a closer inspection reveals that bored (or bewildered) teen-agers in Manitoba’s East Village may be no different from those presumed to inhabit New York City’s East Village. They wander about the streets in the night, have sex out of boredom, drink and do drugs and sometimes self-destruct in very direct and more efficient ways than you would think is humanly possible in picture-perfect societies.

Toews' writing style, employing no quotation marks, even when she is writing direct speech, throws you off a little in the beginning but you get used to it very quickly. There are scenes and passages, especially in the middle of the book, where the book seems to drag. Had Toews cut the novel by 30 or 40 pages, the story would not have suffered even a tiny bit. But despite that minor weakness, the book is well worth a read.

Also read:
An excerpt of ‘a complicated kindness.’

An author interview.

Nabokov's 'Natasha'

In its June 9, 2008 issue, The New Yorker has published 'Natasha'--a short story by Vladimir Nabokov, circa 1924; translated by son Dmitri Nabokov.

The story is a study of contrasts. Witness this early scene: Ailing Khrenov "pulled the blanket tightly around him" but "the thermometer was warm, alive—the column of mercury climbed high on the little red ladder. "

Old Khrenov, who is bed-ridden, ill and almost dying, is most in touch with reality -- he pays attention to people's movements, and presumably, to their feelings as well. He is obsessed with the world outside that can come to his bedside only via the newspaper. He makes a pronouncement early in the story that one almost misses.

Young Natasha, even while nursing and caring for her father with utmost sincerity, is quite attuned to "the warmth of her own body, her long thighs, and her bare arms...". She is lost in her own world of formication just as Baron Wolfe lives in his own fantasy world. But through Wolfe, towards the tail end of the story, we are made to confront the following life-affirming questions: is it really that simple to decide who inhabits reality and whose life is fictional? Is one man's insignificant life less complete because he merely dreams? Is another man's gigantic life a solid reality when all he does is moan, groan and complain his way through it? Again, an interesting juxtaposition of contrasting themes.

Truly, a charming, moving, riveting short story.

Cross-posted at Russian reading challenge.

The Hazards of BWM (Blogging While Mom)

I was just recovering from one of the hazards of blogging during lunch at work: I had typed 'Booker of Bookers' when I actually meant 'The Best of Bookers'. My husband had discovered the error and chided me. He is a stickler for facts. He is a writer after all. I was mad at myself. I am a stickler for facts too. I earn my living as a researcher. Plus, I hate to discover I embarrassed myself. I can be obsessive like that.

So here I am, on a Saturday morning, wanting to please myself by perfecting my next post. I treat my children to whole-wheat chocolate pancakes (healthy food laced with dessert to ensure maximum consumption by fussy toddlers) and hope they will be lulled into playing by themselves for a short while. Breakfast things uncleared, I open the laptop at the kitchen table. So let me see: what are the top 10 reasons I remain fascinated with Pi Patel's life. Hmmm ... is it because Yann Martel had the audacity to start his book with a short thesis on the biology, ecology and physiology of the sloth? Or is it ... ?

By now, all the usual noises in our home -- the plonking of piano keys by chubby toddler fingers, the thuds of graceless falls by a 4-year-old acrobat practicing on the couch, the outraged squeals of a 5-year old discovering that evil sibling has (once again) raided the forbidden treasure box -- have all been forcibly pushed to the background. Yann Martel, Pi Patel. Piscine Molitor P. Richard Parker. Gather. Focus. Type ...

But wait. What is that noise? A chair being dragged across the kitchen floor. Okay, just this one reason before I look up: Religion vs. Zoology. What an excellent juxtaposition.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

That doesn't sound good at all.

I ... have ... to ... go. Wait, no one else has argued for the concept of zoos this eloquently, not even the most pessimistic ...

Hey, what's that whirring sound? The microwave is on? Am I defrosting something?

No, no, no. NO, you two-year-old monkey! Get down from there! What are you cooking in the microwave?

I dart across the kitchen floor. Press the Stop button. Can't help noticing that there are 7 mins and 8 secs left to complete what I think is my toddler's microwave recipe of cooked air. Turn to leave. On second thoughts: I open the door of the microwave oven. And there, awaiting its next avatar as melted plastic-and-metal goo, is our molded plastic-and-metal can opener.

'Life of Pi,' my choice for Best of the Booker

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Man Booker Prize, a Best of the Booker will be awarded this year to one of the 41 Booker winning books (there were ties in 1974 and 1992). A panel of judges will select a short list of six novels, then the public will vote on the official website, which means, of course, that the best book won't necessarily win.

I have not read all 41 books to make a truly informed choice, yet I am vain enough to have a personal choice at this point: Yann Martel's 'Life of Pi'.

No one else has blended the field of animal behavior with literature as well as he has. No other book gave me reason to pause and wonder if it was equally suitable for my other blog.

For now, I will just have to wait and see if 'Life of Pi' makes it to the short list.

Here is an essay that gives us a peek into how he wrote this exceptional book.

One little-known South Indian book

A comment on Sepia Mutiny:

"...I'd like to feel refreshed and uplifted upon finishing a South Indian authored book, not weighed down and vaguely guilty about something I can't quite put my finger on."

One book, little-known in contemporary reading-circles, seems to be Kamala Markandaya's 'Nectar in a Sieve.' I believe that if you choose to read just one South-Indian authored book (in the English language) in your lifetime, it should be none other than Markandaya's almost-poetic, sensitive portrayal of a landless peasant woman's life in an India that was rapidly changing. R.K. Narayanan fans may disagree with me on this but comparing the subject matter, social relevance, characterization, writing style and its ability to move and connect you with the characters, the place, and their hardships, I would still recommend Markandaya first. If you, like me, have some connections to impoverished rural India (even if that link has weakened with each successive generation), then you owe it to your people to learn about their perseverance in the face of hardships if only to cherish their dreams and hopes that have been passed on to you.

Make no mistake: Markandaya dishes up plenty of suffering in this book. But strangely enough her book left me feeling utterly grateful for everything I have been given in life--food in abundance; a roof over my head; a language associated with economic power in India; education; opportunities; some level of control over my life; my ability to keep moving periodically and reinventing myself--without my asking for some of this or even deserving any of this. I figured that one way for us to give back is to learn to have compassion for those that have been left behind (or stayed behind--whichever way you like to look at it) and, at the very least, to find it in our hearts to remember such stories and pass them on. Not for sentimental, sanctimonious reasons but for very practical reasons. A respectful appreciation, if nothing else, for the people who accept and endure devastating, multiple hardships and humiliations, can only lead us to see that our glasses are full enough. An understanding of the tenacity of the people who experience the loss of everything they own, know about, or connect with, except their ability to hope, can teach us to move our own personal mountains in ways that prayers cannot.

I discovered Markandaya's 'Nectar in a Sieve' on my own, by chance--in a library sale in West Lafayette, Indiana. At the time of my reading (over 10 years ago), my mind (with respect to both author and the specific book) was a blank slate. No reviewer had influenced me, no marketing gimmick wooed me, no school teacher had demanded a synopsis out of me, no academic had taught me how to interpret the characters or where to place the book in the grand scheme of literature. Yet the book resonated positively with me like few others did. It was a rare, pristine experience that I may never experience, ever again. Since then I have come to know that the book has been studied, approved, criticized and embraced by many. Here is an anthropologist's view on the characters Rukmani and Ira.

Don't let the cover illustration of the current edition fool you. The book is set in South-India. Rukmani and her husband work in their paddy-fields, growing rice. There are several Tamil words throughout the book, although I don't specifically recall the characters describing themselves as Tamil. Two sons leave to find work as indentured labourers in the tea plantations of upcountry Ceylon (now Sri Lanka)--which also added to the impression that Markandaya was writing about rural Tamils.

Naipaul's Half a Life

Whichever book of Naipaul’s I read, I am struck by the ease with which he writes. This book, in which Willie Chandran learns about his “tainted” origins in India, comes of age in England and buries himself in Portuguese Africa for 18 years, is no exception.

Whatever you think of Naipaul and his politics, you have to admire his writing genius, the command he has over his writing, his unwavering, assured confidence. Although sometimes I am not sure whether the awe his style inspires in me is merely my own reaction to his stature and position in the world of literature. Would I accept without question similar techniques from a novice or less-acclaimed writer? Possibly, yes. Consider for instance how (smoothly and effortlessly) he changes the narrative voice in this book (3 times, in fact):

And this was the story Willie Chandran’s father began to tell. It took a long time. The story changed as Willie grew up. Things were added, and by the time Willie left India to go to England this was the story he had heard.
*
The writer (Willie Chandran’s father said) came to India to get material for a novel about spirituality. This was in the 1930s…I was doing penance for something I had done, and I was living as a mendicant in the outer courtyard of the big temple…

About 30 pages later:

This was the story that Willie Chandran’s father told. It took about 10 years. Different things had to be said at different times.

The omniscient, third-person voice takes over the story-telling for the next 100 or so pages again, after which,

And just as once his father, had told Willie about his life, so now, over many days of the Berlin winter, in cafés and restaurants and the half-empty flat, Willie began slowly to tell Sarojini of his life in Africa.

In keeping with the nature of those who believe in the caste system (such as Willie’s father), Naipaul unwaveringly, unself-consciously and unapologetically depicts the raw, sordid, unsanitized details of the upper/lower caste relationship.

It was the kind of voice I associated with people of her kind. I thought it might have been something that as a scholarship girl she had left behind…

…All my anxiety, when little Willie was born, was to see how much of the backward could be read in his features. Anyone seeing me bend over the infant would have thought I was looking at the little creature with pride. In fact, my thoughts were all inward, and my heart was sinking.

A little later, as he started to grow up, I would look at him without saying anything and feel myself close to tears. I would think, “Little Willie, little Willie, what have I done to you? Why have I forced this taint on you?” And then I would think, “But that is nonsense. He is not you or yours. His face makes that plain. You have forced no taint on him. Whatever you gave him has disappeared in his wider inheritance.”

The cold, self-centered, dysfunctional father is unable to see his own son as a normal human being full of prospects, potential and inherent worth. Willie the hybrid, bereft of his father’s help and guidance and unable to look up to his dad, looks towards the mission school for direction and support. To me, Willie’s life, his search to find his place in this world – all are a fitting metaphor for the social and political, historical and modern-day relationships between the upper and lower castes/classes in Indian society.

The other characters of note in this book are Ana and Sarojini—women who come across as stronger than Willie. Their half-lives are perhaps more wholesome than Willie’s half a life.

The Exile of the Mind

On the outset, Links by Nuruddin Farah delves into the thoughts and emotions of the Somali exile arriving in Mogadiscio after 20 years. On a deeper level, the book depicts the sense of alienation and despair prevalent among resident Somalis in the land of their birth. A work of fiction, set against the background of actual events, the novel captures life at its rawest where warlords are “in the business not of building institutions but of demolishing them.” As readers we witness scenes, make attempts to assess people, and clutch at multiple realities through the eyes of Jeebleh, the protagonist. It is, therefore, fitting that no character (except perhaps that of Seamus) is easy to comprehend. We are left to wonder what is to become of the human persona caught in a never-ending siege of the land and the mind.

For this reader—an outsider somewhat introduced to Somalia through American narratives, specifically, Black Hawk Down—it was easy to visualize the frustrated trigger-happy youth killing, among other reasons, for fun; the zealous, territorial clan militia; the bizarrely efficient underground economies; and the elaborately set up organ cartels in a dysfunctional nation. However, grasping the significance of Raasta, the miracle child, to the decimated locals, was more of a challenge. That I didn’t warm up to the concept of “special children born to societies torn apart by internal conflict” itself goes to show that casual outsiders (like me), despite our best intentions to understand, may never recognize the tender longing of a conflict-ridden people to believe in the most innocent, precious and hopeful dream. This need to believe in something or someone good beyond the imagination may ultimately represent the desire of even the most wretched society to heal from within.

Farah’s narrative style is not consistent with respect to the craft of story-telling. There are passages where the book reads like a long, unedited interview. Yet there are other sections that are urgent and gripping and they let you live through Jeebleh’s horror or fear like they were your own. In the end, despite some weaknesses in plot and narration, the book stays with you, albeit sadly and heavily, and makes you look around your own somewhat-frayed society with newly wise eyes. For this reason the book is well worth the read for anyone who wishes to know more about a crumbling society from someone who is from that social world. No words can express my thoughts on this as well as Farah’s:

[Jeebleh] … saw a slim book in Italian written by Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, a Somali of Persian origin. He recalled reading the book in New York, and thinking that it was no mean feat for a housewife to write about her life in Mogadiscio, and then her exile in Italy. He was pleased that Somalis were recording their ideas about themselves and their country, sometimes in their own language, sometimes in foreign tongues. These efforts, meager as they might seem, pointed to the gaps in the world’s knowledge about Somalia. Reading the slim volume had been salutary, because unlike many books by authors with clan-sharpened axes to grind, this was not a grievance-driven pamphlet. It was charming, in that you felt that the author was the first to write a book about the civil war from a Somali perspective.

Rattawut Lapcharoensap, a young writer of note

Rattawut Lapcharoensap, the Thai-American writer, was featured in Granta 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2. The first of his short stories I read, which appeared in Zoetrope: All Story, was called At the Cafe Lovely. I thought it was powerful writing and it stayed on my mind for a few weeks. I later came to know that he was only 25 when that story was published. (He was born in 1979. Read an interesting interview here.) He has since published a collection of short stories called Sightseeing.

His stories Farangs and (an extract of) Valets brought out similar reactions in me, but Cafe Lovely remains my favorite.

To round out my post, though, here is a critic's viewpoint on Sightseeing.

Botswana on my mind

The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, a fiction series by Alexander McCall Smith, is a charming, humorous, light read about the life of Precious Ramotswe, the first lady private detective in Botswana. Mma Ramotswe is kind, compassionate and self-assured. She has a clear understanding of what is right and what is wrong with Botswana today. If there arose any new moral situations, she would peel the layers of the dilemma until clarity is restored, just in time for her next cup of red bush tea.

The series, I imagine, captures and reflects the way of life in a “fine African country” that remains largely peaceful in a region so unlike it. The style and pace of the language in the book reflects the picture of a country where people “still spoke to others with the proper courtesy, treated others, whom they did not know, in the way which was proper according to the standards of the old Botswana morality.”

Here is an appropriate illustration, although this particular conversation takes place outside of Botswana, in South Africa, where Mma Ramotswe finds herself while shadowing a subject.

[Mma Ramotswe] approached one of the woman traders and spoke to her in Setswana.

“Are you well today, Mma?” she said politely.

“I am well, and you are well too, Mma?”

“I am well, and I have slept very well.”

“Good.”

The greeting over, she said: “People tell me that there is a doctor here who is very good. Do you know where his place is?”

Women in the book are usually strong and naturally smart in a decidedly simple and feminine way, as in this passage below:

Grace Gakatsla, the owner of a dress shop, had sold a dress on a Friday to a Government Minister’s wife. The Minister’s wife brought it back the following Monday, saying that it did not really fit. Yet Grace had been at the wedding on Saturday when the dress had been worn, and it had looked perfect.

“Of course I couldn’t tell her to her face she was liar and that I wasn’t a dress-hire shop,” said Grace. “So I asked her if she had enjoyed the wedding. She smiled and said that she had. So I said that I enjoyed it too. She obviously hadn’t seen me there. She stopped smiling and she said that maybe she’d give the dress another chance.”

If this subtlety in human relations appeals to you, then the series is definitely your cup of red bush tea.