shard (@ lan-*) on: Thu Jun 14 06:21:53
Quite some time ago when I was working for a publishing house I happened to meet one of the well known writers (male) of India. He went to great lengths about how AR didnot receive the booker. Some of my colleagues and I questioned him about his opinion. His answers gave us a cl;earer picture about his reasons for disliking AR and her GOST--'How dare she get the prize when there were other Male writers like himself who have been ignored so far'.
The criticism that her novels are prnographic amazes me and I went back to the novel to see if there was anything I missed. No...there was nothing that struck me as being pornographic. The narrator's strong feelings for her twin brother which seems to cross borders at times...The mother's dalliance with the lower caste handyman...I guess all these are real issues of sexuality. But then the Indian psyche has always treated sex as a solely male prerogative. As for incest...I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours is a process of growing up in most hoseholds all over the world...even India is that incest?
If the book deserved the booker? Well did Salman Rushdi deserve it...I know quite a few well known scholars who regard him as a literary shyster. A prize is always relative. I personally regard the book as a fine work and she has a powerful gift for the language.
Siby Koodalloor (@ 61.1*) on: Thu Jun 14 07:48:37
Shard,
>>>As for incest...I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours is a process of growing up in most hoseholds all over the world...even India is that incest?
Is that a process of growing up? Grown up brother and sister sharing their bodies? And it's not just showing alone.
Anyhow, hers is the best work of fiction in English, I have read, by any Indian. I enjoyed reading it through out. What came as a fly in the ointment was that incest in the last but one chapter.
Shakespeare (@ 202.*) on: Thu Jun 14 11:48:37
Siby,
>>>>>Grown up brother and sister sharing
their bodies?
Shard meant "growing up children". Anyway,
I'm surprised that childhood sibling experimentation of the "I'll show you mine
if you'll show me yours" variety surprises
you. It is a natural part of growing up
(given the opportunity) in any culture, Indian
or other. The problem here for most of us is
that it makes us uncomfortable to be made to
hark back to it. Legitimate literature, or
for that matter any frank exposition,
has this "uncomfortable" quality about it.
One will have to ask Roy but it bespeaks
great intellectual courage to to be so
forthright in a novel that will almost
certainly be judged as autobiographical.
My point is that "Portnoy's Complaint",
"Tobacco Road", "Train to Pakistan" and
others works do not cease to be great
literature just because they hold up uncomfortable facts to light.
Comfortable literature is the domain of
Readers' Digest and other journals of that ilk.
Dare I say that "comfort level" is a good
indicator of the artistic relevance of a work to its day and age?
Siby Koodalloor (@ 61.1*) on: Fri Jun 15 04:27:36
Shakespeare,
Estha & Rahel are not growing children but grown up, in their late twenties. The incident occurs when Rahel is back from US and Estha from Calcutta.
shard (@ lan-*) on: Fri Jun 15 05:04:44
I would like to thank my friend who takes the name of the bard we love for his explanation. Yes siby...it is very much a part of growing up. There is a period of adolesence (in India as in many sexually repressed countries where talking of sex is considered taboo, it even extends to early teens) where such role play (Daddy-Mummy games) and mutual exploration occurs as a kind of 'self sex-education'. It's innocent and the percentage of these games turning to something more serious is very minimal.
I don't think AR included the incest bit to tittilate...maybe shock people...but definitely not tittilate. I guess it symbolises the absolute alienation of the siblings by those around them...they seek solace in each other. Ihe mental support that they seek from and provide to each other manifests physically as a 'natural' course (IN THE NOVEL). I don't think it is incest for incest's sake. Frankly I think the entire morality issue being raised about the novel is absolute hogwash.
Naveen (@ tcac*) on: Sun Jun 17 15:55:41
Shard: I agree with your comment about the morality issue.
It's a novel, for heavens sake, and an enjoyable one. I didn't think it was a very "Indian" novel or an insightful one, but it was definitely good. Better than a lot of other Indian English novels.
Aside: I wish RK Narayan had received some recognition. I come across lots of people who have read AR and never heard of RKN. RKN was an "Indian" writer in a way that Rushdie and AR have never been.
Shakespeare (@ 202.*) on: Mon Jun 18 00:16:51
Dear Naveen,
You said, "I didn't think it was a very "Indian" novel". Can you expand on that? What, for instance, is an "Indian novel"?
Again, how is RKN more of an "Indian writer" than Rushdie or AR? Can we some more comments on this please?
Shakespeare
Naveen (@ tcac*) on: Mon Jun 18 00:59:22
Bard,
AR and Rushdie write about India and describe India very successfully, but their points of view, their influences and their sensibilities, seem to me essentially Western. To me, they seem to think and write like Westerners who never really experience India below the level of the picturesque. Even starvation is beautiful seen through train windows or from behind sun-glasses.
I am afraid I read them too long ago to be able to give references. When I say an Indian novel, I mean the kind of novel that a foreigner can read and instantly get a glimpse of what the typical Indian lives, thinks and feels like. It is possible that when I say RKN is more Indian, I actually mean that he is more South Indian than some of the other people I am comparing him to(because I am South Indian).
VS Naipaul and RK Narayan describe India (or Indianness) more authentically, through Indian eyes. Or the guy who wrote Train to Pakistan. There is a earthiness in RKN's books, for example, that instantly recalls the hot and dusty roads of South India.
This is just my memory of the impression I came away with, after reading Midnight/Satanic and God..Little. Not that I am belittling any of those books: they were wonderfully creative and immensely enjoyable. I grew up reading RKN and that may be why I am biased.
So, what do you think? Do you personally find (I assume that you're Indian?) that Rushdie's characters and situations "feel" Indian to you?
By the way, was that "we" regal or representative? :-)
shard (@ lan-*) on: Mon Jun 18 06:32:21
Naveen,
I think I will be taking the bard's side on this. It is rather difficult to label Indianness when one is talking about a novel written in English. I will go off track here for a bit of flashback (insert appropriate music here). In my Univ. days i happened to attend a seminar on teaching of English in India and one of the speakers was an 'expert' on the subject from England. He spoke of how strong English culture was in India in spite of Independence and to illustrate this he held up a copy of Stardust...i mean how shallow can that be? What is English about it except for the language.
Back to point...what constitutes Indianness? True R K Narayan seems to use a great deal of Indian images and modifies his use of the language to use the rural Indian idiom. AR on the other hand has a more modern urban lilt to her language and her experiences are essentially Indian...an urban, anglo-educated, free thinking Indian...but Indian nonetheless.
As for Rushdie, I think it is only the Indians who consider him an Indian writer...the tools he uses are entirely alien. His novels may be set in the subcontinent but I don't think it goes further than that. Same thing with Naipaul...he is writing more about the Indians of the Indies (but there may be a hole there since diaspora Indians tend to be more Indian than the Indians in India....gasp).
RKN was writing of a different time to a different audience in a different language and AR is writing again of a different time...and so on. This does not mean that one is less Indian than the other. Have you seen In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones? I think you should. As an Indian who was guilty about my lack of Indianness it showed me how stupid I was being.
shakespeare (@ 202.*) on: Mon Jun 18 06:37:08
Naveen, Sorry about the "we"! It was not meant to be regal, judicial or editorial. This is a common forum attended by other people (at least seven? on this thread anyway) and also "we" ( as opposed to "I")seems to alleviate any hint of personal affront. Hence "we"!! Yes, I'm Indian - deep south. Now to the point. You wrote that AR and co. do not write >>the kind of novel that a foreigner can read and instantly get a glimpse of what the typical Indian lives, thinks........<< Ironic indeed. This is exactly what some people accuse IndoAnglian writers like AR and V.Seth of! That they write with the western reader in mind, rather than an Indian audience. I second that accusation and I shall also defend AR and co. thus: Any writer is preoccupied,to a large extent, by language which is their only tool. The Indo Anglian author, precisely by virtue of their being fluent in that language, have also unconscviously imbibed a kind of western (nonIndian) sensibility. Therefore their writing seems more accessible, hospitable and relevant to a western reader. What, may I ask, is wrong with that? Now I come to your point. The sensibility may be western, but the viewpoint is totally Indian. I do not see the slightest suggestion of picturepostcard prettiness in any of these writers. Their preoccupations are Indian. I quote a reader from another thread, since I don't have the book (or the memory of it) with me right now - "slanting silver ropes slammed into the loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire." - any Keralite will tell you how this line evokes the first lashings of a June rain. With a little of visual images from hollywood. To an urban English educated Indian writer these are her own images. These are no views from behind a train window. All this goes for Rushdie too, to an extent, though his English ( England) background places him on a slightly different level. I think we need more writers to mine this peculiarly Indian sensibility - that alienation and that acuity of vision that plagues(!) IndoAnglian writers. Theirs is that schizophrenic world view that can offer new insight to the Indian reader ( since an Indian is vehemently protective of his country when any foreigner criticises India!) about his country and all that's good and bad in it. (re. your assumption, I shall leave you guessing!) Shakespeare