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| Good taste becomes him |
Yale has an entire course this semester dedicated to South Asian lit. And we didn’t even have to donate a million bucks for a South Asia chair destined for a non-South Asian 
Not even As-Am torchbearer Berkeley had one of these back in the day:
FALL 2005: ENGL 347a, CONTEMPORARY SOUTH ASIAN FICTION
William Deresiewicz…Contemporary fiction by writers of South Asian birth or descent… Authors include V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Hanif Kureishi, Rohinton Mistry, Arundhati Roy, Bapsi Sidwa, and Jhumpa Lahiri. Average reading load: 250 pages/week. [Link]
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p>Sure, it’s 250 pages/week — if you leave out A Suitable Boy Why is the prof fascinated with these themes?
William Deresiewicz is the author of Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets… [Link]
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| The redcoats are coming |
Ah yes, soap operas with Victorian morés, a perfect match. It’s that blasted Pride and Prejudice again. After jonesing for Bridget (twice) and Bride of Gurinderstein, the new Keira Knightley version seems superfluous. The horse has not only been beaten, it’s died and been reincarnated as a hack. Ennis has been pitching me the book, but I’m in sucrose overdose.
Deresiewicz talks smack about Jhumpa Lahiri’s work:
Interpreter of Maladies… exhibit[s] a high degree of competence, but it’s the kind of competence that makes you want to call for the abolition of writing programsIt’s the kind of competence that makes you want to abolish writing programs… The pieces in Interpreter of Maladies are crafted–no, machine-tooled–to within a millimeter of their tiny, calculating lives; their writing-handbook devices–the inciting event, the governing symbol, the wry turn, the final epiphany–arrive one after another, exactly on time, with the subtlety of a pit bull and the spontaneity of a digital clock. Lahiri has since published The Namesake, a dull, studied, pallid novel that says remarkably little about the immigrant experience while elaborately fetishizing the consumption patterns of the liberal upper-middle class. [Link]
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p>About Zadie Smith’s latest:
… [Smith’s] ascent was part of the late-’90s fad for beautiful young women novelists with Commonwealth roots (itself a subset of the post-cold war globalization frenzy). Smith made a third with Arundhati Roy, whose God of Small Things won the Booker Prize in 1997, and Jhumpa Lahiri, whose Interpreter of Maladies, published in 1999, won the Pulitzer Prize the following year…The narrative voice is… flatter, less exuberant and inventive. And while On Beauty is as long as White Teeth, it has neither the earlier novel’s scope nor its ambition. [Link]
All of this is so obviously a Rushdie ripoff, it’s excruciatingAnd about Smith’s first novel, White Teeth:
The postcolonial thematics–history, memory, identity, hybridity–which could have seemed fresh only to someone who’d been living in a cave for twenty years, are served up with the baldness of an undergraduate essay. And all of this, along with the novel’s postmodern coin tricks, is so obviously a Rushdie rip-off it’s excruciating. But White Teeth exhibits two great strengths, neither of them the kind one expects from so young a writer: the acuteness of its social satire and the brilliance with which it inhabits perspectives utterly different from its author’s. Smith gives us aging Indian waiters, bookish teenagers, high-handed liberal moms… [Link]
While I don’t entirely agree with W.D.’s 40s, his course does take the school back to its origins as the spawn of Madras governor Elihu Yale and the British East India Company.
Man,
RK Narayan is far superior than most of the South Asian origin English writers. He almost has Tolkien like quality – the towns and people are real and they wil livel with you long after you have read the book. For me Malgudi is real.
New York Times had almost 3/4 page obituary when he died. I agree, he does not wide readership in West.
Good catch. I didn’t mean that type of longevity, where you die and stuff… erm, you know what I mean.
RK Narayan is far superior than most of the South Asian origin English writers. He almost has Tolkien like quality.
Can he be that good? 🙂
” He almost has Tolkien like quality.”
Ms. Madame, I meant “almost”. He is not Tolkein.
Cheers
Ms. Madame, I meant “almost”. He is not Tolkein.
Oy vey!
Kush, thanks for the RK Narayan endorsement; I happened upon a few books the other day, looking for something new to eat, and wasn’t sure if I wanted to chance an unfamiliar author.
Saheli, have I told you lately that I lurve you? 🙂
Desi Dancer,
You are welcome. I must be in a happy mood today as in last few weeks, the reserach……
Let give you RK Narayan endorsement from none other than Graham Greene While Narayan’s novels are much gentler than most of Greene’s, Malgudi, the fictional town in which most of the former’s novels are set, seemed to Greene “more familiar than Battersea or the Euston Road”.
His letter to Narayan, when the Indian’s wife passed away in 1937 was particularly solicitous. Greene wrote: “To send the sympathy of strangers at such a cruel time seems like a mockery. But I’ve been happily married now for a long time, and I can imagine how appalling everything must seem to you now. I don’t suppose you’ll write again for months, but eventually you will, not be- cause you are just a good writer (there are hundreds), but because you are one of the finest. We still hope we shall see you, here or in India. If there is no war.”
Taran Tara
Amardeep–I too would like further discussion, but I got to run, run like the wind! Thanks everyone. 🙂
I just want to say that I love Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion so much I’m afraid to read anything else by him. Though I will get over it soon. But I just absolutely adore it.
George Michael, not so much.
George Michael Ondaatje, however, sounds like one cool cat. 😉
Most of his stuff is good.
no time to defend, explain myself fully, but I’m in the minority on this thread – I love Lahiri.
When did craft become a bad thing? She’s always been a controlled writer, detached from her characters. That’s a style in its own right, and to read that as ‘workshop-ed’ is to excuse a great many bombastic authors whose work drips with excess.
Speaking of which, I like Rushdie too. But because you like one, it doesn’t mean that the other is “pallid”.
Re: festishizing consumption patterns. I entirely disagree. Upper-class Americans are all about consumption. What you own is who you are.
Your “taste” in posessions defines you. Every good American social satirist has tackled this (Tom Wolfe?) and Lahiri brings an immigrant/2nd genner perspective to this. Born in the states, attending ‘elite’ schools, the 2nd genner of her books knows and recognizes these symbols of taste/refinement. But unlike American compatriots, wasn’t born into it. Will have parents who leave plastic on the couch and a kitchen that smells of aloo parathas.
The scenes of Gogol meeting that girlfriend’s family, and the gf in turn not understanding why she couldn’t just stroll into his….
he says “pallid”.. I say delicate strokes.
he says “lack of spontanteity” …I say you’re searching so much for what YOU expect in a diasporic novel, you’ve missed the “screw you” that shades her work like pages steeped in darjeeling.
wish I time to write more. will check in here later
re-reading my comments – pls don’t think that I agree with such commodity fetishization or that I sneer at the ways of our parents/grandparents.
I spent my teens trying to learn American ways, trying to understand the shades of American poverty and snobbery.
I love to mock, but it’s sort of reflexive. I don’t really mean it.
(Except maybe when an american tries to tell me I should read some book in order to understand the “immigrant experience.”)
R K Narayan is more of a short story writer, Tolkien writes voluminous tomes! Not a fair comparison, methinks, having enjoyed both in their own ways. Another minority comment here – The Namesake was a good read.
cica, when does YOUR novel come out? With imagery like that, I’d be the first in line at your book-signing 🙂
“R K Narayan is more of a short story writer, Tolkien writes voluminous tomes!”
Very true. You are correct. I only meant in the sense that they both created a people (in tolkein’s case more than that) and town (again in tolkein’s case more than that) that were self-actualizing.
more so, i want to praise a great South Asian English writer who was being overshadowed by more market savvy, yoga practioner, self-absorbed, latte-drinking, or self-hating (in case of Naipaul) writers.
Aside………… Cicatrix, I had no idea that you were anything other than a 2nd genner until I read your last comment. I am so glad I found this blog because prior to, I was so ignorant about the brown immigrant experience: my ideas were based on well… aunties! I was so wrong. I heart cicatrix.
or self-hating (in case of Naipaul)
I dont think Naipaul hates himself anymore 🙂 I think he’s just a plain ‘ol misanthrope now
Also, for those interested in reading R.K. Narayan, his re-telling of popular myths in “Gods, Demons and Others” is one of my favorites. Esp great read for lovers of mythology
I love RKN and can’t wait for Amardeep to start a post about him
There is more than just desi nostalgia in The Namesake. She mentions those yellow “used” stickers on college textbooks, and something about those green seats on school buses. Lots of nostalgia to go around. I liked some of it, the non-desi kind as much as the desi kind. But I am not sure, like many of you here, if that counts as “literature”.
I think part of the problem with the book is that Lahiri chose to make the main character male. I donÂ’t think she quite pulls this of. I am not saying authors shouldnÂ’t do this, I just think Lahiri fails in this regard. Although I am not sure I would have liked a book about Moushumi, she got on my nerves the minute she entered the book.
I also wonder if this is it in terms of ABCD lit. Will the New Yorker ever publish another ABCD story? Will a major publisher ever publish another novel about the ABCD experience?
And, why must Naipaul always be reduced to being a hater. I mean if the Nobel people can see something beyond hate in his workÂ…
Amardeep: Thanks for providing your list.
Ennis: Yes, I think it is silly for any school to call itself the Harvard of the Midwest, that is what I was making fun of. DidnÂ’t realize there is a Wikipedia entry devoted to the category. And yes itÂ’s one of those schools on that list : )
“I mean if the Nobel people can see something beyond hate in his workÂ…”
It was post-9/11 that Nobel people saw. No doubt, he is a great writer but as SMR pointed out a being a misanthrope and intolerant are his dominant charatcteristics.
I think I’m in the minority here too…I love ‘The Namesake’.
I do not think I can better Cicatrix in her defence of the book, and what I perceive as the utter snobbery of the literary academic types.
Are all desis expected to think and write in Rushdiesqe prose? Is simplicity of word and a heartfelt story always such a detestable concept?
No doubt, he is a great writer but as SMR pointed out a being a misanthrope and intolerant are his dominant charatcteristics.
So, which is it? Is he a great writer (and are you just saying that from hearsay), or are intolerance and misanthropy his main characteristics? Being a “great writer” is not something one does in one’s spare time, you know.
Read for yourself. Don’t believe rumors. Don’t stop with “A House for Mr Biswas.” Read “Among the Believers”, read “An Enigma of Arrival”, read “The Writer and the World.” Naipaul might not personally be a guy you want to spend your free time with (he certainly doesn’t want to spend his free time with you), but he’s both more skilled and more honest than many a “nice writer.”
His is difficult, necessary work. He calls us on our bullshit, and he doesn’t spare himself either. He’s not likable, no, but neither is Wagner, neither is Picasso. Don’t be so dismissive of mastery. The emotional toll of substantial work can sometimes be appalling, but the work stands as its own testament.
Ms. Britney Shakespeare,
“He’s not likable, no, but neither is Wagner, neither is Picasso. Don’t be so dismissive of mastery. “
I am not being dismissive. I have read him – “The Wounded Civilization” and quite a few eassys, and parts of “Among the Believers”. I am not at all taking away the toll that it takes on him or people like Picassco. It takes courage to be what he is but then let us gloss his characteristics.
If please carefully read my through all my posts (again i complained this on another thread), it all started with highlighting the uniquessness of RKN, and not a dissing Naipaul.
Please, Please……..for god sake read through what I have written. My quota for today’s post is done, so I will reply your queries tomorrw.
tata, caio
imagine
Hee! “This whole talk of colorism is ridiculous. I am fair and that doesn’t make me superior…”
Right on. I would even say, superior to all of them.
(Naipaul is an excellent writer, but very naive about the extent to which he has absorbed colonial prejudices toward the colonized.)
Tolkien is good and did many extraordinary things, but he is inferior to RK Narayan.
Also, I don’t like Tolkien’s work as much as I once did after reading some of his sources – his interest along with those of his circle was in composing an epic of England, albeit from what they considered a Christianized point of view. As an apparent part of this process, the Norse sources (only part of the sources he drew from) were “cleaned” up of their characteristic and integral dry, black humor.
…Although Narayan’s work is set in a very specialized Indian milieu, it grasps human universals through the specifics.
Well struck, Deepa. On all counts!
Deepa,
Thums up for your sense of humor and great insight. You did caught me wrong-footed on “Ivy League” thing. I will have to be more careful/ sly in future. You do read post carefully (thums up for that too). That was pretty good. Bravo!!
Cheers,
Kush
thanks DD, Ang and Techophobicgeek 🙂
I wanted to say more about Lahiri, but you seem to have understood my point.
DD, I’m not a writer. I ain’t got no big ideas, yo! or patience. or talent.
But, that sort of reminds me of another point…I think people slam Lahiri because her prose doesn’t seem poetic. No flashes of brilliance, no reams of wordplay, nothing that draws attention to the writing in any way.
Lines like “pages dipped in darjeeling” might sound good (and I heart DD so much for liking that!!) but it’s a lot harder to do what Lahiri does….write so you don’t notice the writer, don’t even notice that you’re reading. It’s not simplicity, really. It’s actually quite hard.
of course, it’s not to everyone’s taste, nor should it be. But it doesn’t mean that she’s overrated.
She might be 2nd gen, and her main characters might be that too, but her focus remains on the parents. (This might be why Gogol seems like a passive observer to his life.) She writes of life for an immigrant in the US, the tiny adjustments..the foreign-ness of shopping at a Walmart, say, or of buying winter clothes, of having children who don’t understand you, who you can’t explain yourself to…
ITA, Deepa, very well struck 😉
(and I never understood the Tolkien thing. Found his writing as dry as sawdust.)
Back atcha, Cicatrix. Well struck. And thanks to George and Kush. All in fun, Kush 🙂
I have only read Interpreter, and at first it bored me to death, but on subsequent readings it has improved greatly. I like the spare, disciplined style vs. the flowery mangosteen stuff, the easy exotica (oh! the colors!).
Now, can she (or anyone) move past illustrating the specific immigrant experience, or using it to illuminate the universal immigrant experience, to illustrating universals of human experience, like RK Narayan?
“illustrating universals of human experience, like RK Narayan”
Deepa, that is what I was doing in Comments #. 51, 54, 65, 68 and so forth. I even quoted a poignant letter by Graham Greene.
Now, there is a small group of his supporters for RKN.
What I got attacked for a tangential observation with a sentence taken out of context, thangod, I am in a good mood today.
“What I got attacked for a tangential observation with a sentence taken out of context, thangod, I am in a good mood today.”
Deepa, this is not all directed toward you. Just wanted to make sure.
Ah. I was speaking of authors. Can “she or anyone” (meaning Lahiri or other authors, not Cicatrix or you) illustrate human universals through an Indian milieu like Narayan…anyhow, sounds like we agree. And no worries re tangential comment re tangential comment 🙂
Is he a great writer (and are you just saying that from hearsay), or are intolerance and misanthropy his main characteristics?
I realize this was directed at Kush but just wanted to pipe in that being a great writer isn’t incompatible with being a misanthrope (which I don’t think equals intolerance, FWIW). Misanthropes like Naipaul make for great reading, especially when the focus of a particular rant isn’t directed at the reader.
I have read him – “The Wounded Civilization” and quite a few eassys, and parts of “Among the Believers”.
Kush- If you haven’t already done so, check out A Million Mutinies Now. The change in Naipaul’s attitude towards India from his early Wounded Civilization years is astonishing. I think the man was lobotomized
“Kush- If you haven’t already done so, check out A Million Mutinies Now. The change in Naipaul’s attitude towards India from his early Wounded Civilization years is astonishing. I think the man was lobotomized”
I know about the change. In fact, I think I read a recent essay by him on a similar vein not the one above mentioned by you. Around 9/ 11, I read his essay on terrorism by newly converted is their self-hate [I know I am going to get attacked for this – I am paraphrasing Naipaul ideas not sentences].
He is become very iconic for some political parties [i am going to get attacked for this too].
As a teenager, I used him/ his ideas/ his anecdotes from “an area of darkness” for debate – like the ones on ills of india, etc.
that is why I was surprised – anyone can call me that my ideas are not on par, opinated, etc. – but assuming that I have not read him is tad bizarre or what can i say.
is the magazine “Imprint” in India still in print? are they still in business, just curious and a random inquiry.
it came to indirectly as I was challenged that I had not read Naipaul – i started thinking where most of my Naipaul stuff used to come from- they were very keen publishing Naipaul’s essays in 80s.
also, that is where i read arthur koestler and his ideas on gandhi.
imprint was a good magazine. are they still around?
I think people slam Lahiri because her prose doesn’t seem poetic. More than that, her plots and points are measured too. She’s a cautious writer, and the books aren’t memorable, although they’re pleasant. I agree that she writes more about the first generation than the second.
for me, my dislike of Lahiri isn’t even about literary analysis or a by-the-numbers critique. When I read “The Namesake” it just didn’t seduce me. I tried to like Gogol but he wasn’t likeable to me… not unlikeable… just kind of like background, like a throw cushion.
The world only needs one Rushdie, or Vikram Seth, or Rohinton Mistry. I love them all, and I don’t necessarily want to read the dense and intense every time. But I enjoyed “Bollywood Boy” a lot more than “Namesake”…
She’s baaaaack.
Amardeep, you are too kind. BTW, your comment about a neighbor’s wireless kept me smiling much of the day. 😉
Thanks, Rani, GMO, MD, SMR, DesiDancer, Kush Tandon–I haven’t opined at length on literary matters in a while, so I appreciate the bravos.
Aw, brimful, I lurv you too. 🙂
Cicatrix/Technophobic Geek–I totally understand your point of view. And I never said it was a bad book. I just don’t consider it literature, and therefore consider it overrated, and therefore get annoyed by all the hype. So craft is not a bad thing, but craft in service of a medicore statement about the world, or a mediocre story, or a mediocre advancement of our understanding of human relations—after a while it irritates me. I would compare this to watching a high production film with good special effects but an unappealing script. “With all those abilities and opportunities and resources, couldn’t you do more?” I want to know.
As I said, ethnography and depiction are valuable, and I agree that The Namesake is useful and perhaps even important. I just don’t see how it is literature.
Crafted is indeed a style in it’s own right, but that’s exactly the point–it’s just style. Style for what? Style for what purpose? What is she saying about the human condition? What did all those little details add up to that couldn’t have been said–and has been said–in a few short stories or a really good essay?
I mean, here we go: When you emigrate, there are a few tempting modalities to get into–nostaligically wishing for the old country or constantly being optimistic and astonished about the new are two common ones. Things like old-country food that’s hard to get can trigger deep longing, as can family occaisions sans family. Bengalis have very strange naming customs–so strange that even Bengalis get confused by them. It can suck to have a weird name when you’re in school, but when you grow up you may appreciate it more. (Hell, as many Sepia Mutineers now know, I could probably write a whole novel just about my crazy name confusion.) I mean, honestly, Amardeep, I got way more out of your little blogpost regarding name confusion than I did out of the whole novel. It’s great that the novel touched off a bunch of interesting thoughts, but you didn’t seem to need it to create your larger statements—there was little your drew on that I hadn’t culled from reviews and bookjackets previous to reading the actual book. Okay, what else do we have? Parents like to see their children, children often struggle for independance but then feel guilty about this as they lose their parents. Childhood romances can have a powerful tug. Good food and good conversation are tempting and sometimes confusing.
What is new here? What was excitingly put? I have yet to see a great essay making wider assertions about the human condition with The Namesake as its base.
For that matter, what is she saying about desi-American life? That we exist, that we buy used books and watch cartoons and play monopoly like everyone else? That a temptation of dating our in our own culture is the ease of familiarity, but sometimes it feels like we’re not exploring our full personality or possibility. Okay fine, it’s true that hasn’t been said on this particular stage before. But that’s just not my criterion for literature.
Upper-class Americans are all about consumption. What you own is who you are.
I disagree entirely. For some it is. But for a lot of people it’s what you do all day, who you hang out with, whom you vote for, or where you give your money as opposed to spend it.) And, by defintion, a novel that focuses entirely on the narrow specifics of the upper middle class without touching on their interior lives is excluding itself from discussing the human condition in any widely applicable manner.
Re: Tom Wolfe–I’m sorry, I refuse, on principle, to take anything about that man or his supposedly journalistic fiction seriously after he got my home town utterly, completely, totally wrong in his novel “A Man in Full.” He was so blatantly not paying attention to the geography and climate of the bay area, so blatantly uncaring about getting even the most minimal physical description right, that I just refuse to consider him in any kind of literary analysis. As far as getting the facts right, Lahiri is miles and miles above him.
Cicatrix, your line about “screw you” in darjeeling soaked pages is a wonderful line, but it doesn’t move me. I don’t read novels to get a “screw you.” That’s what blogs are for. 😉 No, seriously, simple strokes, pallid strokes, all excellent work–but for what purpose? Again and again, what are you trying to say with all this effort?
I also must completely disagree with those who say you forget Lahiri is there. Forgetting or remembering the author is there is not remotely a function of the style of the prose, but of being drawn in. I never for one moment forgot that she was there. That’s exactly why people complain about overmachined prose. I mean Thomas Mann writes ridiculously long sentences, but boy, you forget there’s a world outside that Mountain and it’s almost physically shocking when the war starts.
When I say a novel is great, I want to be willing to spend the money on it and demand of almost any friend’s valuable time by asking them to read it. And I don’t want to have to say, “yeah, well, it just describes a very particular sociological slice very well in well-written prose.” I want to be able to say, “wow, you have to read this book, it will make you think really hard about THIS.” And I want THIS to be more than narrowly applicable to me and my particular demographics. “Representin'” is just not enough for me when it comes to novels.
I will say that I did not, previously, like most of Lahiri’s work when it was set in India–it seemed mangosteeny and sometimes just inaccurate–and I think she has improved by sticking to America. (Let us say that I think writing accurately is a necessary but not sufficient condition.) So perhaps she shall improve again and use her powers for something substantial. Like I said, there were a few glimpses of something more. Moshumi’s point of view. The father’s point of view. The most interesting thing I got out of Gogol–one of the few times when I thought he was on the verge of feeling something trully interesting and exciting–was at the dinnerparty conversation with Moshumi’s friends from Brown. Maybe the next one will be better.
And no, Amardeep, I don’t think my vehement expression can be credited to it. I’m just tired of hearing people go on and on about how amazing it is. I tried to read it several times without getting into it, and if I hadn’t been threatened with having a second copy sent to me I wouldn’t have tried any more–and if I wasn’t stuck on a plane from Iceland with broken headphones and no Icelandic books (now there’s some literature that requires more translation!) I probably wouldn’t have finished it. (Note here’s a point of no return for novels with me, after which I will finish THE WORST gunk—I’m talking comically bad books.)
And finally, this is art we’re talking about, so we may have to agree to disagree. After all, Cicatrix, if you don’t like Tolkien, I think we operate in different literary spaces. 🙂
I’m a bit groggy, so I apologize if this was unclear or came off as too much.
Bitterness and jealousy for success and talent make a lot of words get spoken sometimes 😉
I disagree. Prose written with too many cliches, or contorted sentence structure, or with a tin ear, can keep jerking you out of what the author is trying to depict, or accomplish.
conspicously ignored for a time now
hrmph cruel sepia
Saheli:
Don’t give up on Tom Wolfe just yet. His earlier work is quite dazzling–say, ‘The Right Stuff’, or, ‘The Painted Word’ etc.
About your general aesthetic stance (and, yeah, I know you don’t use that pompous phrase, it’s just me): Must every work of great art relate to a broader ‘human’ condition? Perhaps it’s all subjective, but surely there’s something to be said for savoring a well-wrought poem or novel, even if it’s about nothing ‘grand’.
Btw, this is not to say that I like Ms. Lahiri’s work–I’ve no opinion since I have (deliberately) avoided reading novels too close to my own experience (as an Indian who grew up in Amrika).
Kumar
Damn, Saheli. Npw you’re someone who really should be a writer, if you’re not already! Reams of prose, indeed 🙂
I get distracted by glittery things and fail to backup my arguments as I ought to…but let me bounce off your points and see if I can explain myself..
So if I understand you correctly, you think she’s very talented in her own craftsman-like style, but that she should put it to better use?
I think we should agree to disgree right here (and yes, perhaps Tolkein is the litmus test for literary taste :)) because I don’t think you need operatic themes in order to be considered great literature. I think that rule of thumb has often been of disservice to female writers.
I don’t read based on whether the writer advances some feminist agenda or not, but, for example, that criticism was something that a writer like Carol Shields faced repeatedly. The Pulitzer finally forced a rethinking of her entire oeuvre. Why are novels about the domestic sphere considered lesser work? Why aren’t the home and hearth considered an important part of the human condition?
Exactly 🙂 My criterion for literature is perhaps more catholic than yours, but isn’t the acknowlegement of the mundane something we often gripe about? Aren’t we tired of the Kama Sutra questions? Manish, for one, goes off at legnth about how the publishing industry pigeon-holes desi-writers into this sari-mendhi-bindi slot (esp. re: covers) and we are heartily sick of “the scent of jasmine perfumed the humid air” exoticism, no?
So isn’t this what we’ve wanted? A dry, wry, poignant story of our (if by “our” we mean the more well educated and striving among us. I sure as shit didn’t have it this nice for a long while) desi-american lives?
But for this milieu all those other things are reflected in your taste, as symblized by your possessions, where you vacation, etc. I didn’t understand it until I moved to Manhatten and met such people in real life. The liberal upper-west side bougie bohemian. Lahiri nails it with an ice-pick.
But I do think she reveals their inner-lives. You see that in how Gogol wonders if it’s Maxine he’s drawn to or her family, in how Maxine expects his world to conform to her – that sense of entitlement. And Maxine and her family is nothing compared to how she fleshes out the Gangulis. When the mother is disappointed by their house because it doesn’t resemble the homes in American movies she’s seen – I vividly remember being shocked that America doesn’t look like Sesame Street! The slow adjustments every year – thanksgiving turkeys, applying to college – each thing is new, needs to be anxiously deliberated…the painful process of assimilation. It described my human condition really well, so I’ll venture on a limb to say it is probably widely applicable to many of her readers. The ones who find it amazing.
Ah, Kumar! I started typing, took a break, and continued on without refreshing the page. I didn’t steal your point -honest!
And as you can see, I agree entirely.
Raju, don’t feel ignored 🙁 What do you want a response to?
I relate to Saheli’s point about great literature reflecting the broader human condition – that’s why I think RK Narayan is the greatest of South-Asian-origin writers that I have read. (Whereas Tolkien’s work, in my view, much as it incorporates ancient mythological elements from a variety of North Atlantic cultures, does not speak to human universals.) And I would like to see Lahiri reach for that goal.
But I agree with Cicatrix that such universals can be explored via what is traditionally considered the women’s sphere of action. However, it’s difficult, both because of the perception that it is a lesser world and secondly, for the reason advanced by Virginia Woolf in A Room of One’s Own, that female writers often have to get past their own psychic distortion influenced by the gender-based restrictions placed on their lives. An analogous argument can perhaps be made for race instead of gender.
Comparing Tolkien to RK Narayan seems like a stretch to me.
RK Narayan perspectivized and characterized as an upper-caste Brahman; in this sense he is more akin to Lahiri, who also writes from an upper caste “bhadralok” perspective.
There are a million other Indias (and diasporic Indias) out there to write about. I recommend Mulk Raj Ananand’s Untouchable. It is a first foray into the “lower” caste (what we now call Dalit) experience, though Anand is not from a “lower” caste himself. It also, incidentally, received praise from Forster.
It is interesting that Naipaul, who admires Narayan, read into Narayan’s work some sort of fatalism – “little men chasing little dreams in a little town”, he said (something like that, anyway) – which I could never gather from Narayan’s work, which ultimately seems optimistic in a Hindu sorta way. I loved the bold, ebullient female protagonist in A Painter of Signs. This is also Rushdie’s favorite Narayan novel.
I guess Naipaul’s take on Narayan had something to do with his initial pessimistic “civilizational” take on India. I am told he has even parodied Narayan, but I’m not sure.
Aspiring writers who want to publish in the West have to write something that pleases white audiences. People in India have told me that they can’t relate to many of the writers who receive acclaim here. Nother thread I guess…
“There are a million other Indias (and diasporic Indias) out there to write about.”
Eddie,
I agree with you 100 %. Also, my comparison to Tokien was very loose – the only purpose was alert larger South Asian diaspora of a writer who built a town and people around them – wrote stories after stories revolving using them – they were a self-contained world.
Hell, I would never use that analogy in an academic setting or publication – I would be shoot down.
However, it piqued interest of people like DesiDancer and that is good.
Saheli,
Through Sepia Mutiny, I have known you for 3-4 months to have some friendly banter. You seem to passionate about your ideas – that is the first prerequisite for being a great writer, scientist, artist, painter etc and the rest comes with soaking experiences, ideas and observations.
However,
There can be only one Tagore, other will be just wannabes.
Throw the strait-jacket of upper middle-class American or upper middle-class Indian American/ South Asian or upper middle-class Bengali-American milieu out into the ocean – it will take so you far. It is a safe recipe for medicority. Fish salmon in Alaska, have chai with tea workers in Darjeeling, climb Nanga Parbhat and bond with female sherpas. Freedom. That is why Indian American movies and novels are domestic weepies – as Manish Vij aptly puts it.
Hope your mom and dad are not reading this. That is why even the sepia mutiny experience has a limited value. IMPORTANT: Please don’t take me too seriously.
If RK Narayan were only describing a South Indian upper-caste life, or only making a self-contained world, he wouldn’t be as great an author – what distinguishes him, in my view, is his ability to use that slice of life as a reflection on universals of human nature and experience. (Same with Austen, for that matter.)
Kush, I agree that that milieu can make it challenging to have “life experience” which would produce great art, but on the other hand I don’t buy into the stereotype that great art can only be produced by poverty, madness, suffering, blind intuition, lack of education (someone upthread said “what kind of artist needs a Ph.D?”), or drug addiction.
Also, for all I know, Saheli is in her 40’s.