After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

Shelby Wynn Schwartz’s ‘After Saphho,’ a Booker Prize winner, is designed like a kaleidoscope made of broken glass fragments, each reflecting a different image and generating an ever-changing pattern. Schwartz probably decided to write the story in a fragmented fashion, for she was writing about the path created by Sappho, and we have only got a few fragments of Sappho’s poetry. For those who don’t know, Sappho was a Greek lyrical poet from ancient times who lived on the Greek Island of Lesbos. According to Wikipedia, Sappho was regarded as one of the greatest lyric poets, but unfortunately, only a few fragments of her poetry have survived, and it is these fragments that Schwartz uses in her book to put forward her reading of history. Sappho was also known for her love towards other women, and it is from her name that the word sapphic and from her island, the term lesbian has been derived.

What Schwartz does in ‘After Sappho’ gives us a brief glimpse into the world of women and lesbians in Europe at the turn of the twentieth century. However, it is a novel with a grand scope for Schwartz to tell us about the development of both the feminist and the lesbian movements through fragments of the life history of those involved in these movements. All the while, Schwartz links all these developments, especially in the lesbian space, back to Sappho and her poetry. The novel starts with the status of women in late 1800s Europe, where in Italy, a girl who has been raped is forced to marry her rapist, and it has the sanction of the state. (Indians would be familiar with this aspect, having watched such scenes unfold in various movies.) The novel then reveals multiple efforts made by women to get the laws changed and the obduracy of men in not allowing for any changes in the prevailing laws, for men believed women were incapable of making big decisions. Hence, women were not allowed to vote and had no say in making laws, many of which benefitted the men and kept women subjugated.

In ‘After Sappho,’ women seek freedom beyond just the right to vote; they seek the right to love whomsoever they want. This is the crux of the novel, the idea that women in love with women can be extremely happy, and the whole language is designed to communicate this happiness without resorting to titillation. Schwartz follows the lives of some famous lesbians of those times, like Lina Polleti, Anna Kuliscoff, Sibilla Alermo, Natalie Barney, Virginia Wolff, Radclyffe Hill, Sarah Bernhardt, and others. She then goes on to show how their lives mingled, how they helped each other, and how each one progressed in life. You get to see the extreme vibrancy and the buoyant mood of those times, led by women like Natalie Barney and Sarah Bernhardt. Each of them becomes a centre that attracts others towards it and provides the support and the required nourishment. The mood of optimism pervades throughout the book, and you are transported right into the middle of this era and are now watching the period unfold through the lens of these women. It is like a glorious backlit picture, reminding you of a golden age, though the current of anger and, sometimes, despondency comes through effectively. Schwartz does not go much into how the personal relationship between the women progressed, in the sense that: did they fight with each other, were they jealous of their lovers, and so on, but I think Schwartz was not trying to explore these relationships but rather how their relationships shaped the movement.

Schwartz takes the risky way of achieving the imposing goal by speaking in fragments. Each fragment, or a mini-chapter if you like, does not extend beyond a page; many finish within half a page. Schwartz’s brilliant writing luminously illuminates these small vignettes; her control over language enables her to paint any shade of colour that she desires on a page. She uses magnificent metaphors to create images that shed light on the inner magic land inhabited by the women who are the protagonists of this novel. The concise nature of each incident ensures the reader keeps turning the page, and, at the same time, the depth achieved by the writing prevents the book from just being a page-turner.

Schwartz’s brilliant prose hides many things from us: her excellent scholarship and anger. Beneath the beautiful images she conjures for us, lies a burning anger directed at men who had prevented women from expressing themselves as women. She doesn’t let her scholarship intrude into the narrative, but her knowledge of languages, literature, and the lesbian movement informs almost every fragment of this novel. This book could have only been written by a woman scholar, for the subject is not treated as a dry academic one but as something that deserves all our empathy. I believe this is where Schwartz succeeds.

From what I read on the net, the main criticism of this book comes in two forms. One regards the structure of this novel; many feel that these disparate fragments confuse them, and they cannot form a coherent picture from these fragments. I would think it is not an unfair criticism, for you do need to go back and forth to understand which life is continuing from which page. Yet, I understand the author’s decision to reflect on Sappho’s fragments and tell the tale through fragments to give it a poetic feel. The truth is that Schwartz makes the whole book read like one long poem due to her luminous prose.
The other criticism is political: in this novel black lesbian women and men are entirely absent. I have no idea on this subject, so I will not comment on it. I just left it here to highlight the criticism of the novel.

Overall, it is a book worth reading for its prose and scholarship. You will also get educated on many subjects and get to know many women you have probably never heard of.

Gurdial Singh: Alms in the Name of a Blind Horse

Gurdial Singh

The more I read Gurdial Singh, the more my love and affection for his writings grow. After having read ‘Parsa’, ‘Last Flicker’ and ‘Handful of Sand,’ I was looking for more of Gurdial Singh’s works in translation. Recently, at the Sahitya Akademi conference, I met Rana Nayyar, the man who translated more than one book of Gurdial Singh. He pointed me to the novel ‘Alms in the Name of a Blind Horse.’ I procured it, and it was a lovely read.

( Rana Nayyar, in the introduction, does an excellent deconstruction of this novel that I mulled not writing this article. Then I realized that I had not written in detail about any of Gurdial Singh’s novels on my site. Hence this article. )

I recently read a short story translation wherein most stories are like pamphlets for a particular ideology. I remember reading a quote from Milosz wherein he says that the major danger for a modern fiction writer is that he can turn into a journalist. (I am unable to get the exact quote which was much more effective than what I said here.) What he meant was that when you write about some of the ills of society, how do you distinguish yourself from a journalist. When does what you write become a story or a novel, not just an elaborate newspaper article. Gurdial Singh shows the way. This book deals with the lives of Dalit Sikhs and the horrible conditions they live in, but it does not read like an article or a pamphlet of any ideology. It reads like a top-class novel.

The basic premise that Gurdial Sing sets belong to the story of the ‘kshera sagara madanam,’ the churning of the ocean by the Devas and Asuras. When nectar is extracted, Vishnu, in the guise of Mohini, dispenses the Amrit to Devas, leaving the Asuras with disappointment and a sense of injustice. Here, Gurdial Singh symbolizes Vishnu in the form of the Government, rich landlords, factory owners, and such. The Dalits become the Asuras, who have to depend on the alms of the Govt. Well, if this reads as if this will be another propaganda novel, rest assured that my condensation of the novella is ineffective. Gurdial Singh’s novel rises above the symbolization and gives us a glimpse into lives most of us would never live.

The novel is set in an era when great changes happened in society. Industries started coming up, and the value of land went up enormously. This led to breaking of many bonds in the villages, especially the bond between the landlord and those dependent on him. The novel starts with the destruction of a worker’s hut, a worker who was asked by his landlord to build a hut on his land and take care of the fields. Now with the landlord selling his land to a factory, the hut is ruthlessly demolished by the factory owners with the help of the police. No amount of unity helps the Dalits fight against the system. The same happens to rickshaw pullers in the nearby town. There is a sense of inevitability to the incidents in this novel, and it is this sense of inevitably that will hurt you the most, for this is what actually happens in our society.

Gurdial Singh builds an amazing portrait of both the village and town life, especially the lives of Sikh Dalits. He has this brilliant ability to place us right into the milieu of Punjab. (I have seen this aspect in his works that I had read earlier.) This is also aided by translator Rana Nayyar’s decision to leave some of the Punjabi words untranslated. Not only are we in Punjab, but we also have a clear idea about the lives being led by the Dalits in this area and their relationship with the landlords. Overall the oppressors, which includes the state, are not seen much in the novel. We see all the happening from the eyes of the suppressed class of people.

The novel also discusses the inevitable migration from villages into big towns and cities. At the same time, it also brings out the tragedy of the working class in the big towns. Melu, whose family the novella follows, unable to earn properly being a farm laborer, moves to the town only to experience disappointment. Here too, the changing society plays a big role. Melu becomes a rickshaw driver, and over the years, autos start dominating, leading to rickshaw pullers earning lesser and lesser as time goes by. Here, the non-availability of capital becomes a big issue when rickshaw pullers want to become auto drivers. Melu’s brother-in-law asks Melu’s wife, “Why can’t you buy an auto?” When she replies with what it costs, her brother is stunned.

Another aspect of the novel that stunned me was that almost half a century back, Gurdial Singh could predict what would ail Punjab in the future. In the novel, Melu and his friend, all rickshaw pullers, get addicted to drugs. His friends get involved in a drunken brawl, and the police arrest them. Alcohol and Drugs are a potent combination. Many who talk about Punjab of today speak about both these issues: alcoholism and drugs. Gurdial Singh was able to see far into the future.

The novella is structured as the happenings of a single lunar eclipse day in Punjab. It is the day Dalits go around asking for ‘Alms in the Name of a Blind Horse.’ The novel has a free-flowing structure. It starts by following Melu’s father as he tries to help the Dalit whose house has been destroyed. Then it follows his daughter-in-law to her home in the town and gives us an idea of her poverty. Then the novel travels with Melu and his friends before coming back to the village. What is interesting is that even minor characters have their own small story. (Rana Nayyar calls these as micro-stories) Through these small stories, Gurdial Singh gives a complete picture of the Dalit society in that area, though the novella’s main characters belong to Melu’s family. Through this superb technique, Gurdial Singh goes beyond just one family but rather offers us a great tapestry of Dalit life.

Rana Nayyar has done a terrific job in translating this novella. He is able to convey to us the spirit and uniqueness of the land inhabited by the characters. He also effectively communicates the anguish of the people. We must be grateful to Rana Nayyar for translating this novella.

Gurdial Singh’s novella is a mix of tragedy and hope. It does not crush you with great tragedy. Instead, the humanity of the characters somehow makes you feel that they will overcome the current situation. At the same time, it leaves a deep wound in you that though the novel was written half a century, many more people still depend on the state and the rich for their livelihood. As Rana Nayyar says, those are the people whose voice is still not heard.

If you love Indian Literature, I highly recommend reading this novel.

Kula Saikia’s Short Stories: Some thoughts

I attended the Unmesha conference of Sahitya Akademi in mid-June of this year, and I got to meet Mr. Kula Saikia and his wife during that time. Kula Saikia was an extremely pleasant person to interact with. He is an Assamese writer, a Sahitya Akademi-winning author who is also a former DGP of Assam. We had many good conversations, though I must confess it not much about literature. After I came back to Bangalore, he was kind enough to send me two of his short story collections: ‘If A River” and “Painting of the Sky.” Both were autographed by him.

I had never read him earlier, and it was a joy to read his stories. Kula Saikia keeps his stories short, with the main aim of the story being to illuminate some aspect of the lives of his characters. It is not a twist that happens in the O Henry mode but a gentle reveal- or a shining of a small torchlight- of a past incident or the state of mind of a character. Kula Saikia’s voice is muted in all the stories. It is a gentle murmur that we hear and there is never a strident note in any of his stories.

Kula Saikia adopts a structure that is free-flowing. He lets the character’s thoughts take over and proceed on their own path before arriving at the destination. Yet, it doesn’t become rambling at any place. It is a well-controlled flow, revealing the inner dilemmas of the characters. There is a story of a lady waiting for a bus late at night at an isolated bus stop. Kula Saikia wonderfully recreates the fear the lady is feeling. Or the feeling of loneliness of a station master in a remote station somewhere in the corner of our country.

While Kula Saikia writes in Assamese, his themes are universal, and so are his stories. In the sense that the place of happening doesn’t have much of a bearing on the story. Many stories are about the past, about unfilled hopes, loss, and lost opportunities. In the case of the story, ‘Painting of the Sky’, the action takes place inside an airplane. Another story happens when people are standing in a queue. Yet, when required, Kula Saikia is able to effectively recreate the atmosphere of a place. An example would be the desert environment that he creates in the title story, “If A River.”

In the case of both the books the translation is top-notch. ‘If A River’ has multiple translators, while the stories in ‘Painting of the Sky’ are done superbly by Parbina Rashid.

Here is a link to buy ‘If A River’

Mritunjay: The dilemma Gandhi poses

The action in B K Bhattacharya’s Assamese novel ‘Mruntunjay’ happen around the Quit India movement time, around 1942. The novel is about a group of revolutionaries, who plan to derail a British Army train. How they go about this plan and what human cost is the core plot of the novel. As with all great novels, this is not about the plot. The questions raised and the emotions go far beyond the plot, thus giving us an excellent novel.

The brilliance of B K Bhattacharya lies in the fact that he is able to give an epic touch to what could easily be seen as exposition of an incident. Instead Bhattacharya expands the canvas, bringing in the whole freedom movement to the fore and the various conflicts inherent in the movement. The overall picture that is painted, goes far beyond Assam and puts into relief the pan Indian freedom movement and the sacrifice of people across the country to achieve the goal.

The novel starts with the revolutionaries led by Dhanpur going to meet the Gossain. Gossain is a religious head in Assam. Things have come to such a pass that many, including the peaceful Gossain, feel that violence is the only answer. Their task now is to derail the Army train. I use the term revolutionary here in a very loose sense. While all people want to undertake the mission, they have their own doubts. Only Dhanpur is painted as a true blue revolutionary, who is clear about the mission. Others have their own doubts about the violent method to be adopted but they see no way out.

The rationale for people opting for violence is superbly setup by the author. The way the story of the gang rape of Subhadra by the army people is told is sure to move any reader and the reader could easily relate to why retaliation is necessary. The brutality of British police, army and the Indians in the police and army are so well delineated that we feel as if we are living in such a police state. It takes a master to make us understand and more importantly feel the atmosphere of those time and here Bhattacharya’s craft shines as he captures all the brutality in its totality.

The novel travels on multiple tracks simultaneously. On one hand, the author keeps telling us the intricate details of the plan, how sudden road blocks appear, how they are overcome and how they proceed towards the final execution. Another track is the debate within the participants. Not everyone is convinced that they should take up violence. Will violence provide a permanent solution? Are they on the right path? Many of them were followers of Gandhi, so Gandhi keeps appearing again and again in their discussions. Dhanpur refuses to be swayed by any such sentiment while Gossain and Ahina Konwar keep asking themselves these questions. It shows how deeply Gandhi’s philosophy had penetrated to every corner of the country. Each of them tries to answer Gandhi in their own way. Rupanarayan, another staunch revolutionary, who believes in violent action and is impatient about such debates, himself once asks, “Can everyone be like Gandhi?”

Religion is an aspect that cannot be avoided in the Indian context and Gandhi knew it well. The novel also keeps religion in mind and religion is intricately woven into the fabric of most of the characters. Gossain is ofcourse, a religious head. Ahina Konwar is a religious man, quoting the scriptures and singing religious songs. Dhanpur is the personification of rationality, who questions various beliefs and is more in tune with modern education. This clash of modernity with ancient belief is another thread which runs throughout the novel.

Bhattacharya’s skill shines when describes nature and the way he sets up scenes. The scenes in the night, especially that in which Dhanpur talks to Dimi under the moonlight, can be converted to a film screenplay without much effort. He brings in amazing tenderness in midst of the violence. The love angle in the novel are memorable for the way Bhattacharya conceives the situations. Dhanpur meeting Dimi as a young boy, later he being involved in trying to help Subhadra , Dimi’s affection to Dhanpur, when he is dying, the final parting scene between Aarti and Rupanarayan will be etched in our memories. As will be the scenes of Dhanpur and Ahina Konwar waiting in the dark night for Dhanpur and Bhibiram to arrive, the scene where the actual derailment takes places and many more. Bhattacharya keeps our interest intact throughout the novel by ensuring such memorable scenes happen throughout the story.

The overall theme of the novel is the freedom movement and we come to know the various threads of the movement. On one hand the leaders are in jail for the Quit India movement and there is no leadership to direct people now. Infact one of the characters says, “Atleast Gandhi should not have gone to jail. We would have had a leader”. The Japanese keep pushing towards India from Burma and there is an apprehension that Assam would fall to the Japanese. Everyone is convinced that Japanese are not going to be any different from the English. As Rupanarayan says, the only way out is Independence and self rule. As Congress keeps fighting the non-violent way, Subhas Bose’s INA fights with the Japanese against British and other people in Assam for ‘Mrityu Vahini’ to fight the British using violent means. The complexity of the movement and how each tries to contribute to this movement in their own way is what the novel is all about. The clash of ideologies is the main concern of the novel. The book also talks about betrayal of the movement by the people within and about the turncoats who help the police but down the movement.

Each of the character is delineated in detail, enabling us to understand their drive and concerns. Each comes from a different background and have different values. Dhanpur is the staunch revolutionary who has seen both caste based violence and the violence perpetrated by British. Ahina Konwar is a brahmin, who tries his best to maintain the caste superiority even when they are in a dangerous mission. He reluctantly gives up his privilege when Gossain himself does so. (This is when Dimi, the lower caste woman prepares tea for them and Gossain is okay with drinking it, something unheard of during those times). Gossain, the religious head, does his duty but can’t forgive himself for killing a human being. As one character remarks, Gossain dies once he commits the crime. His physical death was just a matter of time. Inspite of all arguments, Gossain is unable to reconcile with killing human beings. In other words, he does what the Bhagavat Gita tells him to do. He does his duty but unfortunately it clashes with his conscience. He is like Arjuna in the battlefield, who under Krishna’s instructions, has started the war but cannot stand the bloodshed. It tells us how difficult it is for people to reconcile between dry philosophy and actual action. Even the villains in the novel, though they appear only briefly, are delineated effectively, be it the policeman Saikia or the turncoat Kamaleshwar.

In many such novels women are absent or make a fleeting presence. In this novel, women play an important part throughout the novel. There are multiple ways that women help the freedom fighters. Some passively, like the wife of Gossain. Some actively like Koli and Dimi. They are always around helping people and being part of the whole scheme and not just as love interest. In fact the latter part of the novel is all about the suffering of women. First there is Subhadra, who is gang raped by the army. Later when Gossain dies, his wife is pregnant and gives birth to a child after Gossain passes away. Her brother, who was a police officer, is killed by the revolutionaries as retaliation and her sister in law is left a widow. Both Gossain’s wife and her sister in law have to live under the same roof without totally different reaction towards the freedom fighter. Then there is Dimi, the strong woman who helps the revolutionaries in their plan and later is able to bear the brutality of police but doesn’t reveal the names of the revolutionaries.

This is not a standard layout novel. You can either be confused by lack of a central character or you can appreciate how Bhattacharya has adopted a novel way to tell the tale. The central character, if you need one, is the freedom movement. The human characters on whom the floodlights shine keep changing. Initially the novel starts as if it is about Dhanpur, then moves to Gossain, then for some time to Ahina Konawar, then to Dimi, then Rupanarayan becomes the ‘hero’ and then the novel shifts to Gossain’s wife and her sister in law. Characters keep appearing till the end, like Tikou and the sister in law. Inspite of that there is an unity in the novel and that is again an testimony to the great craft of Bhattacharya.

So who is ‘Mrityunjay’, the immortal person? The simple reading would be that the revolutionaries are immortal. Infact, Rupanarayan once wonders if people will later realize why they have done the act and whether they will remember their actions. So in a way, each of them is searching for immortality, even if it means giving up their lives. Another way to look at it is that the reaction against oppression will always remain immortal. Saikia, the police officer, wonders why people are no longer afraid of the police, even though the police repress them. Everyone understands that the movement is reaching a very crucial phase where slowly all people are getting involved and it is only a matter of time before freedom is achieved. Or we can read this as a novel about Gandhi and that his teaching are immortal. This is because Gandhi is the one whom every violent revolutionary has to answer, even though Gandhi is not asking them questions. Gandhi had shown a path where things can be achieved in a non-violent way and that is always a counter point to the violent ways of revolutionaries. This debate is something which will not die soon and Gandhi and his vision for mankind will always remain relevant. So another reading of the novel can make us conclude that Gandhi and his teaching are ‘Mrityunjay’. Or is it that the nature of humans to be both kind and cruel that will not die, even when the situation is peaceful? As Gossain wife asks at the end of the novel, “Do you think people will become better after independence?” It is very difficult to answer this in the affirmative given what has happened in the country from the time of Independence.

The book is translated from Assamese to English by D.N.Bezboruha. He has tried to keep the local flavor intact as much as possible. In many cases using the Assamese names for certain thing work very well and we do get the flavor. In some cases though, like Ahina Konwar prefacing every sentence with, “By Krishna”, sounds a bit odd in English but then makes choices in translation is a thankless job. Overall we should thank Bezboruha for bringing this novel in English.

This novel fetched Bhattacharya the Jnanpith award. The Tamil critic, K N Subramanian (Ka.Na.Su), had rated this amongst the top Indian novels. That is how I came to know about this. It is a very Indian novel, in the sense it is not easy for non Indians to understand certain things. It is a novel which thoroughly deserves the Jnanpith and is a novel which should be placed as one of the best Indian novels.

It is not an easy novel to procure. It is published by Sterling publishers but I have never seen it in any book shop. I got it from the Sahitya Academy Library. This is the unfortunate sad state of even our greatest books.

Yasunari Kawabata: The Sound of the Mountain

Yasunari Kawabata’s ‘The Sound Of the Mountain’ is a complex tale of a family, old age and death. With his minimalistic and precise prose, Kawabata takes us deep into the complex relationships of the family of Ogata Shingo. Ogata Shingo and his wife, Yasuko, live with their son Shuichi and daughter in law, Kikuko, in Kamakura. The seemingly well to do and close-knit family has its own share of secrets with the son, Shuichi, having an affair with a war widow and Shingo’s daughters, Fusako, marriage which is crumbling. The tale is about Shingo’s reaction to all that which takes and his own inability to change the course of things.

One of the key questions asked in the novel is, ‘What constitutes success from a human point of view?”. Shingo feels that his life is not successful since his children have major problems and he holds himself responsible for their shortcomings. He loves his son and has a troubled relationship with his daughter. The daughter holds him responsible for her state of affairs, wherein the person she married turns out to be a drug dealer and she now has to divorce him. In the meanwhile, Shingo, who adores his daughter in law, is unable to tell his son strongly to end his affair. He tries setting things right in other ways but without much success.

Kawabata’s success lies in making each of these characters very real. Initially, you feel that the daughter in law character may turn out to cloyingly sweet, as in some Indian movies. While she is indeed a nice person, Kawabata ensures she has her own self-respect and the most important step she takes, which shocks her parents in law, suddenly illuminates her character brilliantly. Similarly, we can easily relate to other characters in the novel, including the secretary Eiko, who tries her best to help the family.

The novel is also a meditation on old age and death. The novel starts with Shingo forgetting the name of a maid and then he hears the Sound of the mountain. He keeps having strange dreams about various people in his life. These dreams take us into the heart of Shingo. Additionally, we see Shingo thinking of death as most of friends start dying. One of the friends, who is dying of cancer, requests Shingo to get in touch with another friend who can supply Potassium Cyanide. He cannot bear the pain of cancer and wants to kill himself. Old age and death keep repeating throughout the novel with Kawabata bringing to fore questions like ‘How do people deal with old age’? and ‘Does a memory of an incident vanish once everyone involved in the incident vanishes?’ Some of the questions trouble us a lot.

At another level, the novel is about memory. Shingo cannot let go the fact that he was in awe and secretly in love with his wife’s sister. His sister in law was a beautiful woman who died young, after being married to a handsome man. Even after he has turned sixty, Shingo recalls how he felt inadequate in front of his sister in laws husband. Shingo’s dreams and nightmares are all about memory. He is not even sure on why some memory floats up now and an almost forgotten person is resurrected in the dream.

The memory of war is another hidden theme within the novel. The woman with whom Shuichi is having an affair is a war widow and she feels that the war has done injustice to her by taking away her husband early. Her character gives us an idea of what war widows faced in those days. She refuses to go to her husband’s family or to her own family after the death of her husband. Instead, she prefers to be independent and works to ensure she can have her own freedom. Even though she appears very briefly, you get a good idea of her character and her state of mind, by the way, that Kawata portrays her.

The novel has a smooth flow. Most of the novel seems to be about domestic discussions, reading papers and arranging flowers but nothing is wasted by Kawabata. Everything has a meaning and a purpose, even the seemingly mundane interactions. Major events happen once in a while and they are not described in any earth-shattering way. Rather they also fall in with the pace that Kawabata sets.

The novel is replete with descriptions of nature. You get to know the weather, the flowering of the trees, the sound of the wind and much more. A lot of these hold symbolic value but you can enjoy the descriptions as such, even if you do not get the symbolism.

The book I read was published by Penguin. Translation by Edward.G, Seidensticker. The translation is top class. It captures the spirit of the place, Kamakura, very well. It also captures the customs and mores of Japan quite well and the prose is precise and minimalistic.

This is a complex novel. Though it is only 200 and odd pages, it packs in a lot of thought and issues. This is a novel worthy of a Nobel Prize prize winner.

The food chain of evil: Fakir Mohan Senapati’s ‘Six Acres and a Third’ (Chha Mana Atha Guntha)

Fakir Mohan Senapati’s “Six Acres and a Third” is a parable for our times, though the novel is set the 19^th century (and was probably published during late 19^th century). The relevance of the novel to the modern days rests on two aspects: the tone used and the theme of the novel.

The novel is about the zamindar, Ramachandra Mangaraj: his greed, his influence over the village, various deeds of his to usurp other people’s wealth and his eventual demise. The actual story starts when Mangaraj plots along with Champa, someone who is more than a servant maid in his house, to take over the property of the weaver Bhagia. Mangaraj has an eye on that property and on the cow of Bhagia. Champa convinces Bhagia’s, wife Saria, that she would bear a child only if she built a temple. She further suggests that she take a loan from Mangaraj for this purpose. The Weaver family falls for this ruse and ends up losing everything to Mangaraj. Herein Mangaraj’s life takes a turn for the worse.

The novel derives its depth from its tone. The Omniscient narrator, who slowly unravels scene after scene with his commentary, seems to be completely detached from the proceedings, providing a contrast that is both intriguing and disquieting. A sense of irony, along with wit, pervades the commentary and highlights the absurdity of the situations that the characters encounter. This technique seems to be at variance with the technique the standard storyteller uses in our mythologies. Instead of the virtues of the protagonists being extolled what we get is tongue in cheek comments on human behaviour and farcical respect for authority. It is this tonal quality that helps the modern reader relate to the novel from the very first page, unlike some other classics of that era, which demand more patience from the reader.

This novel is generally read as a realistic novel but in my opinion to classify the novel under anyone heading is an injustice. While we can see why it is categorized as a realistic novel, it is not very hard to read this as a moral tale or as a romantic novel or to even read it as an anti-romantic novel. The central theme of the novel is one of karma and how karma seems to catch up with the evil folks. It seems that the novel is propagating the romantic notion of justice: that in spite of what happens on earth, a supreme being above is watching who will not allow anyone to escape their karma. This belief in poetic justice is embedded deeply within us. On the surface, the novel seems to reinforce it, but a deeper reading makes us wonder if Fakir Mohan is saying the opposite.

The destruction of evil in this novel happens not because of Krishna Paramatma’s ‘sambhavami yuge yuge’. An evil person is destroyed by another evil person. This turns the whole concept of ‘sambhavami yuge yuge’ on its head. Unlike entropy, which keeps on increasing, evil is kept under check by evil itself. The zamindar Mangaraj had usurped land from people who themselves were not the paragons of virtue. Mangaraj’s land is usurped by the lawyer, who is very similar to Mangaraj, in acquiring wealth by taking advantage of others distress. This food chain of evil is what the drives the whole novel. Essentially Fakir Mohan Senapati’s worldview would coincide with that of Jaimini, who famously said, “The world was never any different”.

The core theme of the novel is the loss of Six Acres and a Third of land. The naïve Bhagia and Saria fall for the machinations of Mangaraj and Champa. Unable to bear the loss, Bhagia goes mad and Saria starves herself to death. The death of Saria brings the downfall of Mangaraj and his eventual demise. While justice seems to have prevailed in a larger sense, there is no justice for the affected parties. This brings up the question of what exactly is justice? Is it the punishment of evil or is it the success of good? In most cases, as here, we must settle for the first definition for the good people have already lost their mind and their lives. The perpetrators of injustice getting punished is the only solace we seek from the cruel world. Good people, like Mangaraj’s wife and Saria,  seem to influence dharma only after their death.

The eternal debate about the legal and the moral, between neeti and dharma, comes to the fore when the court delivers the judgement on Mangaraj. The judge concludes that driving Bhagia and Saria from their land since they did not pay back the loan is perfectly legal and that case against him is dismissed. Mangaraj gets a lesser sentence for taking away the cow of Bhagia and Saria, which he had no right on. Codification of laws can only tackle a limited number of situations. For most situations, we must depend on person’s sense of dharma and hope that the person acts according to dharma. This is probably one reason why people look beyond the human justice system, for our justice system can only punish persons involved in illegal activities but not persons who are adharmic but ensure their actions are legal.

Fakir Mohan’s novel does not detail the mental state of any of his characters. Rather he lets the incidents and accompanying commentary, give us an idea of each characters compulsions. He draws up memorable characters: Mangaraj, Saria, Champa, Sheik Dildar Mian, Jobar Jena, and many more.  This helps him paint an excellent picture of the rustic world. The way the justice system works, the influence of the bureaucrats, the fear of police which drives men to hide in their homes and the false witnesses to help in framing fake cases, everything reminds us of the state of our country today. Reading the novel brings the realization that we as a country haven’t progressed much, especially when it comes to the rural areas.

Fakir Mohan Senapati is seen as the pioneer of Oriya literature and this novel is proof of why that assessment is perfect. In fact, Fakir Mohan Senapati is a precursor to the later day satirist like Srilal Shukla and Poornachandra Tejaswi. It is difficult to believe this novel was written during the end of 19^th century. It is of great relevance even now. I would say that for anyone who has a love for India literature this is a must-read classic

Recent Reads: Musil, Limbale, Le Carre & Shanbag

My brief views on the novels that I read recently

‘A Man Without Qualities’ – Robert Musil: This is a mammoth and an ambitious novel. It is 1100+ pages and is unfinished!! Musil wants to capture both the external and internal worlds. It is a novel which tries, on one hand, to capture the state of affairs of a country with all its attended complexities of class, nationalism and race. On the other hand, it shines light into the deep recess of the hearts of the characters. I have rarely read a novel which is as ambitious a this and no wonder Thomas Mann and others had great regard for Musil.
This is not a novel for those looking for a page turner. The novel has very little in the way of plot and yet Musil brings forth an entire era alive. One of the criticisms of the novel is that it is, “… oversized essay whose comprehensive diagnosis of modernity is rich in thought but poor in plot”.  (http://deutscheshaus.as.nyu.edu/object/io_1479224114461.html ) There are a lot of philosophical discussions and so if you are keen on reading the novel be prepared for heavy lifting.

‘Akkarmashi’ – Sharankumar Limbale:  This autobiography is also translated as ‘Outcaste’ in English. An extremely honest and uncompromising book which provides us with details of the terrible conditions of the lives of Dalits. The author is ‘Akkarmashi’. Born to a Dalit mother and an upper caste father, he is rejected by both the castes and thus becomes an Akkarmashi or Half-Caste. The author not only talks about his hardship but also about community and the inhuman conditions in which all their lives are lived. It is a searing tale and made more harrowing because it is real and not imagined. You can read more about this book here: Voices from Margins

 

‘Gachar Gochar’ – Vivek Shanbag: A highly praised book about a dysfunctional family, which depends on the narrator’s uncle for their livelihood. The said uncle being the sole breadwinner for the family. The novel is all about how this fact affects the behaviour of the members of this joint family is explored. The family is one of the most complex structures and the beginning promises to explore this in detail but Shanbag settles for less. The characters inner dilemmas do not leap out and we don’t empathise with anyone. The dynamics of a joint family comes out well in a couple of places. While the book is eminently readable and holds your interest throughout, I feel it could have been a lot better if Vivek Shanbag had not tried to shock us in the end and had dug deeper into his characters and their motivations.

‘Our Kind of Traitor’ – Le Carre: The blurb quoting a review says that the book is part Le Carre and part Hitchcock. Unlike his other books, Le Carre gets us straight into the action from page one itself. It has all the trademarks of Le Carre’s writing: the constant back and forth movement of the story, the secret service tradecraft, interrogations, betrayal and innocent people caught in a complex web of secrets. Somehow the book fails to grip you throughout though there are patches when it is very good. One reason could be that the characters lack the depth you expect in Le Carre’s characters.  The novel works decently at the level of a thriller and if you know your Le Carre, this is harsh criticism.

 

Ashokamitran : A wound that never heals

At first glance, Ashokamitran seems to be the definition of an author who can be easily classified. A realist who wrote about the common man, you declare. As you keep reading, your vision expands and with it the definition of Ashokamitran. Is he a writer of the absurd? An author who can take the most absurd moments in our lives and illuminate them? Doesn’t his writing involve existential crisis, you ask? You hear a resounding yes as an answer. You read more and discover magic in some of the stories. The scope keeps expanding but the unity never crumbles. Slowly you realise that you cannot contain Ashokamitran into categories.  He wrote about our lives and his works, seemingly simple on the exterior, are as complex as our lives.

Illumination has been the principal focus of Ashokamitran and achieves this in a multitude of ways. He throws light on the trivial joys, fears and disappointments inherent in our day to day lives. A tiny incident would reveal a lot about the characters. In one of the stories, a person who doesn’t have money with him on that day goes to his friend’s house to borrow 25 paise, the cost of a bus ticket those days, so that he can take the bus home. He arrives at the friend’s house and finds out he is not home. His wife who is buying vegetables from the vegetable vendor drops a 25 paise coin during the transaction and then picks it up. The whole story hinges on the 25 paise coin falling from the lady’s hand. It was all the money that the man required and yet something stops him from asking for it. He goes home walking. The story then keeps expanding in us.

This is that unique quality of Ashokamitran’s writing. The stories lodge themselves inside us, refusing to go away. Like the title of one of his stories, ‘Still Bleeding from the wound’ (‘pun umizh kurudhi’) they bleed in us. ‘Still Bleeding from the wound’ is an excellent example of the predicament of human beings: the elusiveness of the absolute truth. A poor man, who paints houses for a living, gets into a bus. An old man is kind to him in the bus, the painter gets down from the bus to discover that the money in his pocket has been robbed. He thinks the old man is the robber and accosts him another day. The old man pleads ignorance. The painter remains confused. The truth is out of reach but the wound is never healing. Most of our life is run by such doubts. By never knowing the truth and yet believing in some idea we behave like the painter. The great Portugal poet Pessoa once said, “”Everything stated or expressed by man is a note in the margin of a completely erased text. From what’s in the note we can extract the gist of what must have been in the text, but there’s always a doubt, and the possible meanings are many.”  This can stand as a perfect description for this story.

It is not as if Ashokamitran was just the poet of vignettes. In some cases, a whole life unfolds before you in a simple incident. Take the case of the story ‘Thoppi’ (The Cap). A man arrives at a place where his father was once insulted. He was then a small boy. Yet the inability of his in defending his father is eating his soul away.  The whole setting of the scene and the writing reminded of Rulfo and his magical realism. This story was definitely not in the magical realism mould but the way it was narrated was very close to what I experienced in Rulfo. Here too the man lives with a wound that never heals. It reflects our own lives. Many of us would have been involved in an incident which keeps gnawing at our soul and ends up defining us.

It is the same in ‘Paavam Delpathado’ (‘Poor Delpathado’). Once again, a magical setting wherein an old man is trying to come to grips the loss of his daughter. The story can be read as a straight story but I tend to read this as a fantasy. Do the events really occur in real life or do they occur in the mind of the protagonist who is blaming himself for the destruction to calm his soul? This novella is a disturbing one and keeps bleeding in you. The absurdity of life and death hits you. Our emotional lives depend only on a few people and you can never recover from losing one of them. A wound that never heals.

Ashokamitran was the poet of the absurd as well. Leaning almost towards nihilism, stories like ‘Payanam’ (Journey) question the meaning and purpose of life. The absurd end to a great Guru, a yogi and a revered person, makes us question everything about our life. The sudden death of the mother in ‘Manal’ which changes everything for Sarojini, the fate of Swaminathan in ‘Innum Sila Naatkal’, the life of Malathi in the eponymous novella, the life of the lady whose husband vanishes a day before the wedding of their child, all bring forth the absurdity of human life.  None of them is able to avoid their fate. Yet, Ashokamitran was not a fatalist. His characters, Sarojini and Malathi, struggle against the situation and you hope that they will end up winning. That, though, is not the central concern of Ashokamitran. To prepare us for the wounds that life inflicts on us is the central concern.

God is mostly absent from all Ashokamitran’s works. He rarely spoke about faith and religion. That was never a central concern. In most cases, neither God nor religion comes to rescue the characters caught in difficult situations. In his stories, Ashokamtran eschews religion and God and instead sees everything through the eyes of a rationalist. His searing gaze has no need for God. He saw human beings as human beings. He stripped them off all identities and saw their humanness. That is why the Muslim who is thrilled to get a new order (and later disappointed the order is not for him), the worker who lays roads and wears boots made of rubber from lorry tubes, the painter who loses his money and every other character resonates with us. They appear so real because Ashokamitran shows them to us as normal human beings, not as human beings divided by their identities.

It is this humanism which allows Ashokamitran to see beyond the obvious. A short story in which a girl is getting married to a person she loves has second thoughts about her decision as the wedding proceeds. What should have been described as a happy occasion is described by Ashokamitran as an occasion of self-doubt, the doubts that are infused by the proceedings. Similar is the case of a starlet, who is acting in her first scene. Once again, Ashokamitran watches this girl’s mother and ends the story with the sadness of the mother.

Paul Zachariah, who wrote a foreword to a translated collection of Ashokamitran’s stories, writes about how Ashokamitran dealt with women in his stories. The of sympathy that Ashokamitran had for women is enormous. He understands that fate and society are far cruel to them than to man. The understanding brings empathy in its wake and this empathy shapes the characters. This aspect extends far beyond our shores and shows up in America, where he deals with women from different countries in his book ‘Otran’.

This empathy is what restricts him from seeing anything as an epic. When he takes up the impact of Independence on the State of Hyderabad, he does not see this as an opportunity to present an epic. It has all the ingredients required for an epic. The Hindu-Muslim Faultline, the murderous Razakkar movement, Indian Independence, assassination of a Mahatma, military action against the Hyderabad state, the capitulation of the Nizam and the subsequent Hindu-Muslim riots. Instead of writing an epic, Ashokamitran sees the whole unravelling of history through the eyes of a young boy who is unaware that he is part of history in the making. ‘Pathinettam Atchakkodu’ (Eighteenth Parallel) is Ashokamitran’s best novel and the sympathetic treatment sets it apart from novels which deal with such turmoil and end up taking sides. The climax is one of the most disturbing ever. It is one in which the protagonist finally turns into an adult, who suddenly understands the horror around him. He soul is gravely wounded from which he will never recover.

All those who spew divisive venom must be made to read this novel and especially the climax. Divisiveness leads us only to death, destruction and loss of our own humanity. Ashokamitran says this in a very soft voice and it reverberates inside us. If we do not turn to be better human beings and having empathy towards others after reading Ashokamitran, something is very wrong with us.

Ashokamitran never wrote epics. He did not take up grand themes. There was no explicit philosophy in his works. His language did not stun you or dazzle you or mesmerise you. He never spoke loudly. He murmured. Yet he wounded us. He left a deep gash in our souls. He left behind wounds that never heal and hopefully those wounds which will make us better human beings.

PS: I wrote about Ashokamitran’s ‘Eighteenth Parallel’ long time ago. In case you are interested, please read it here: https://mysteryofbooks.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/ashokamitran-his-secunderabad-and-mine/ 

PPS: To those who want to read Ashokamitran in English, there are a reasonable number of very good translations available. Kalyanaraman (@kalyansc on twitter) has been one of the leading translators of Ashokamitran’s work. The following works of Ashokamitran are available in English:

To those who want to read Ashokamitran in English, there are a reasonable number of very good translations available. Kalyanaraman (@kalyansc on twitter) has been one of the leading translators of Ashokamitran’s work. The following works of Ashokamitran are available in English:

1. Mole (translation of ‘Otran’ by Kalyanaraman) – http://www.amazon.in/Mole-Ashokmitran-K/dp/8125026827
2. The Ghosts of Meenambakkan (translation of ‘Paavam Delpathado’ by Kalyanaraman) – http://www.amazon.in/Ghosts-Meenambakkam-Ashokamitran/dp/0143423274/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490590210&sr=1-1&keywords=ghosts+of+meenambakkam
3. Still Bleeding from the Wound (translation of Short Stories by Kalyanaraman) – http://www.amazon.in/Still-Bleeding-Wound-Ashokamitram/dp/0143423282/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=0SF7H8M5ZAA1GZ02AD5H
4. Fourteen years with the boss – Collection of essays – Based on Ashokamitran’s experience working in Gemini studios
5. Sand and other stories – (translation of some novellas by Kalyanaraman and Gomathi Narayanan) – http://www.amazon.in/Sand-Other-Stories-Ashokamitran/dp/8125022686/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490590422&sr=1-1&keywords=Sand+and+other+stories
6. Manasarovar (translation of the novel by Kalyanaraman) – http://www.amazon.in/Manasarovar-Ashokamitran/dp/014306746X/ref=pd_sbs_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=1SJAYZG4070HW5JP3T57
7. Eighteenth Parallel (translation of ‘Pathinettam Atchakkodu’) : http://www.amazon.in/Eighteenth-Parallel-Disha-Books/dp/0863113443/ref=pd_sim_14_5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=020N00VZARM6F7EW83CX
8. My Father’s Friend (translation of ‘Appavin Snegidhar’ and other stories by Lakshmi Holmstrom) – http://www.amazon.in/My-Fathers-Friend-Ashokamitran/dp/8126013478/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490590692&sr=1-14&keywords=ashokamitran
9. Star Cross (translation of the novel ‘Karainda Nizhalgal’ by V. Ramanarayan) – https://www.amazon.in/Star-Crossed-Ashokamitran-ebook/dp/B008G1STGC?_encoding=UTF8&keywords=ashokamitran&qid=1490590692&ref_=sr_1_16&s=books&sr=1-16
10. Water (translation of the novel ‘Thaneer’ by Lakshmi Holmstrom) – http://www.amazon.in/Water-Ashokamitran/dp/8187649135/ref=sr_1_21?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490590924&sr=1-21&keywords=ashokamitran
11. Today (translation of his novel ‘Indru’) – http://www.amazon.in/Today-Ashokamitran/dp/8183683843/ref=sr_1_20?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490590924&sr=1-20&keywords=ashokamitran
12. Colors of Evil (translation of short stories by Kalyanaraman) – http://www.amazon.in/Colours-Evil-Ashokamitran/dp/8186852050/ref=sr_1_33?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490591076&sr=1-33&keywords=ashokamitran

Kiarostami – The man with the human touch

There is a simple scene in the movie titled ‘Life and Nothing More’. An old man, a director, is driving along the Iranian countryside, which has been devastated by an earthquake recently. He stops at an old lady’s house and starts talking to her. The old lady is lifting some heavy load. The conversation goes like this.

Man: “I wish I could help you but my back gives me problems”

Old Lady: “That is OK. I can do this”

Man: “I am sorry I cannot help you. If my back was fine, I would have helped you”

A very simple scene in a documentary-like film and suddenly you realize what all troubles the earthquake victims must be going through. The film magically transforms itself from an Iranian film to a universal film.

To me, most Kiarostami’s films  start after they end. They make me think. This film gives you a portrait of Iran which you will never get from the Western press. Beyond all the politics it talks about ordinary people and their ordinary struggles. The realization dawns on us that their lives are not very different from ours. What realms and realms of propaganda cannot achieve, Kiarostami achieves in a few frames. He breaks many walls and makes us empathize with a fellow human being beyond all the identities we cloak ourselves with.

Title: THROUGH THE OLIVE TREES / UNDER THE OLIVE TREES ¥ Year: 1994 ¥ Dir: KIAROSTAMI, ABBAS ¥ Ref: THR132AB ¥ Credit: [ FARABI CINEMA/KIAROSTAMI / THE KOBAL COLLECTION ]

In the movie, ‘Through the Olive Trees’, a film crew is traveling in the back of a small lorry and they give a ride to a mother and her young daughter. Among the film crew is a youngster who wants to get married. After the mother and daughter get down at their destination, the director of the film crew asks the young actor,

Dir: “What about the girl who just got down. Why don’t you marry her? She is very pretty”

Actor: “But she is uneducated. I want to marry an educated woman”

Dir: “Why”

Actor: “Because if both of us are not educated, how will we educate our children. So I want to marry an educated woman”

Dir: “You are uneducated. Wouldn’t an educated girl want to marry an educated guy? Why will she choose to marry you?”

A small smile appears on the actor’s lips.

Actor: “That is true but I want to marry an educated girl”

These aspirations are universal. Kiarostami is able to focus on such small incidents which connect with everyone instantly. It is this concern for the normal human being which probably ensured that the movies he made outside of Iran looked so authentic. They did not feel that they were made by a director who has never lived in that place.

Kurosawa famously said that when Ray died he was devastated but after watching Kiarostami he felt at peace since he had found someone who could replace Ray. Though their styles were quite different, Ray was very lyrical and Kiarostami quite formal, their compassion towards the common man remained the same. That human touch both gave to their films is what would have made Kurasowa think of Kiarostami as Ray’s replacement.

Kiarostami is a craftsman of the highest order but hides his craft successfully. In the movie, ‘Close-Up’, he builds the story brilliantly towards the climax. A man has been arrested as he had stayed with a family by impersonating the famous Iranian director Makmalbaf. The imposter hadn’t stolen anything nor had he behaved inappropriately. He just enjoys the hospitality of the family. He is arrested and a trial happens. The judge says that he can release the man if the family pardons him. This whole segment keeps you on the edge of the seat though Kiarostami doesn’t do anything to make it tense. It is just the way he presents the human situation that draws you into the drama and you are desperately hoping that the family will pardon the imposter. It is then you realize the craft of the master. On how in a film which almost plays out like a documentary he has pulled you in effortlessly.

Or take the way he plays out the drama in ‘Certified Copy’. The slow build up, the sudden twist in the tale and the subsequent happenings which leave the viewers dazed are all well thought through. Yet the impression given is one of ease. As if that is how the story would flow naturally. You don’t see the craft until you revisit it again.

‘Certified Copy’ also showed that Kiarostami was more concerned about human beings than he was about dazzling you. While the whole pretext of the movie is interesting (we have seen something similar in ‘Mood for Love’), Kiarostami’s aim is not to showcase his brilliance in screenwriting. Rather it was to bare open the soul of a single mother. A simple scene where the single mother (Binoche) is walking with the male protagonist and talking on the phone to her teenage son tells us so many things. You suddenly understand the deep frustration of the woman as well as the enormous burden she has to bear. Towards the climax when the male protagonist washes his face, you see the terror on his face. I am not sure if he is terrorized by the situation he has got himself into or whether he is terrified because he has understood what the woman is going through.

It is probably in his last feature film, a Japanese film, ‘Like Someone in Love’, that his craft comes to the fore. The film is almost like reading a top class short story. The interaction between the Professor and the boyfriend and the subsequent complexities which push the story forward are quite different from the earlier Kiarostami’s film. Here we see Kiarostami displaying his craft a bit more than he did in his earlier movies. Additionally, this is one movie, which has what we can call as a traditional story and thus easily assessable to a larger audience. (I love the way Kiarostami capture Tokyo through its sounds. More than the neon lights, it is the incessant sound which is typical of Tokyo and Kiarostami doesn’t miss a single sound)

Kiarostami was more interested in the moral and existential dilemmas than in their solutions. ‘Taste of Cherry’ is an example of this approach. The answer really doesn’t matter. What matters is how people react to certain situations which can be morally ambiguous. Similarly, we see how the situation is a very ambiguous one for the ‘hero’ in ‘Certified Copy’. Many a time Kiarostami lets us decide the climax. This can put off some people but it is very consistent with the aesthetics of Kiarostami.

Kiarostami resembles the great Indan writer, Ashokamitran, a lot. Ashokamitran’s writing too isn’t lyrical. They are quite formal I would say and he too to conveys his compassion towards fellow human beings effortlessly. Both Kiarostami and Ashokamitran show us incidents from a distance, in the sense that they are completely non-judgmental. This distance is what accentuates their humaneness. The author doesn’t speak on anybody’s behalf and yet when you complete viewing / reading their work, you unambiguously know which side they are on.

Kiarostami’s loss is a major one for he was in top form even in his last film, ‘Like Someone in Love’. It is but natural that he would have given us great films going forward. In that way, we are missing some great art. He will go down as one of all time greats of world cinema. His place in the pantheon along with filmmakers like Ray, Kurosawa, Ozu et al is assured.

It is well known that it was Kiarostami who put Iranian cinema on the world map. Unlike the Indian film scene where there weren’t many to carry Ray’s legacy forward, the Iranian film scene is more robust and boasts of filmmakers like Makmalbaf, Jafar Panahi, Majid Majidi and Asghar Farhadi. Kiarostami has been an inspiration to them and will continue to inspire more filmmakers, not only in Iran but throughout the world. May he rest in peace.

Michel Bussi – After the crash

Michel Bussi’s  ‘After the Crash’ is an imaginative thriller. The basic premise of the story is what holds this novel together.

In the December of 1980, a plane from Istanbul to Paris crashes in the mountains near the Frano-Swiss border. Everyone in the plane dies except for a 3 month old girl child. She is thrown out of the plane and in that freezing cold, is kept alive by the warmth of the burning plane.

A rich family comes forward to claim the child as their grand child. Just when the formalities are about to be completed, another family, not so well off, comes to claim the child as their own grandchild. The case goes to the court and after a long process the child is handed over to the poor family.

The rich family employs a private detective who works on the case for 18 years and is unable to solve it. In a fit of depression, he leaves his diary behind for the surviving girl to read and decides to shoot himself. As he is about to perform the act, he keeps the old local newspaper, which first reported the details of the crash in front of him. Then he sees something in the newspaper which solves the mystery for him. Before he can takes steps to inform the concerned people, he is killed.

Most of the book is about the investigation performed by this private detective. We get to see all the actions performed by him through his diary. The diary also helps in slowly unraveling the mystery. In many places rather than unravel the mystery, it deepens it.

This book depends completely on the construction and story telling. The characters are not well developed. Rather they are more like pieces of a puzzle. The puzzle is laid out in an enticing manner that you really don’t care for the characters. Rather you are more interested in the solution to the puzzle.

Bussi builds the suspense slowly. He allows the reader to think, ‘If this is what happened, why didn’t they check the obvious things?”. In the next page, the obvious things get checked and they deepen the mystery. The user then thinks of the next steps which was not done and that step gets done after a couple of pages. In short, this is a story born on the drawing board. A board on which the incident, the questions and the timelines are all laid out and then ticked off one by one. The success is how these are ticked off only after the user gets sucked into the mystery and is trying to solve it on his/her own.

This is not a standard thriller novel in the sense of there being a strong villain. Here too the villain exists but the thriller aspect doesn’t come from the villain but from the central puzzle. These sort of interesting puzzles are double edged sword for the thriller writer. Whenever the puzzle is very interesting, the denouement must be equally effective and satisfying. Else the whole novel crashes, leaving the readers unsatisfied. Bussi is able to come up with a very logical and satisfying solution, giving the reader no cause to complain.

The lack of character development keeps it rooted in the genre and hence the novel doesn’t rise above the genre, though the story has the potential. It reads like a standard but effective thriller. Worth the buy.