A few weeks ago, I wrote this post, giving my reaction to Aravind Adiga’s novel, The White Tiger. Since then, as many readers probably know, Aravind Adiga won the prestigious Booker Prize for the novel, making him one of only a handful of first novelists to have done so, and also (at 33 years old) one of the youngest writers ever to do so.
While I stand by my assessment of Adiga’s novel, I’m not going to bitch and moan about the Booker’s selection process or the composition of the committee. Rather, my first response is to congratulate Adiga for the honor, and wish him luck on his next book. (Cheers!)
I was ready to leave it at that, but Manish at Ultrabrown challenged negative reviews of the novel like mine with a post yesterday. For Manish, the complaints against the novel boil down to a question of different ways of failing to achieve authenticity:
I’m going to tease apart two separate kinds of complaints about authenticity. One kind is whether the author successfully executes what he’s attempting, whether you’re pulled jarringly out of the narrative. The other is whether the very endeavor of a highly-educated proxy tackling the voice of the underclass is plausible. (link)
I’m quite sure my complaint falls under #1 — Adiga fails to do what he is apparently trying to do — though I’d phrase it a slightly differently: in my view, Adiga never seriously attempts to convince us that his protagonist is a realistic figure, and therefore he never really tries to be “authentic” at all.
On Manish’s category #2, the question of whether writers can ever plausibly write in the voices of people not like themselves, I think it’s pretty clear that South Asian writers do this all the time — one thinks, first and foremost for me, of Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance. The point of view of working class Bombayites (from the Chamaar caste) in Mistry’s novel becomes convincing, even though Mistry is not himself from that background. The audience/readership dynamic is also not really very different: English-speaking readers, in India and especially abroad, are inevitably going to be much better off than the people whose lives they’re reading about. The one difference might be that many Indian readers I’ve heard from have felt that the The White Tiger seemed to be intended for non-Indian readers, while I’ve never heard the same complaint about A Fine Balance (it’s not clear to me where this reaction comes from, so I won’t say more about it).
All Indian writers who write socially-engaged fiction in English and publish in western markets are potentially susceptible to the same attack on their authenticity, so in my view it’s pointless to even discuss it; it’s a structural problem. Rather, it’s much more interesting to talk about the way their stories work internally. Mistry succeeds because he puts in the time and effort to imagine what his characters’ lives would be like in rich detail, and what their voices might realistically sound like given the limitations of their experience. It takes space to do it — in my view, this kind of realism can’t be done with a few catchy aphorisms or a reductive concept of the divide between rich and poor (Adiga’s “light” and “dark”). Which isn’t to say that a socially-engaged novel has to be 3000 pages long to be ultimately compelling; rather, good novelists pick out the most telling details and leave out everything that isn’t strictly necessary.
Let me give an example of a book that I think does some of this better than The White Tiger does, based on an idea given to me by my wife. Samian, who was raised in Bombay, also didn’t like the style of Adiga’s novel very much, though she did feel that the plot picked up and became quite exciting towards the end. In a conversation with our local book club last month, she contrasted Adiga’s novel to Amitava Kumar’s under-read Home Products, a novel that actually covers some of the same ground as Adiga (the journey from Bihar to the big city; the gap between rich and poor; the gap between local poverty and violence and Bollywood glamor), though it does so in a very different way.
Here is a passage from near the beginning of Home Products, which we could contrast to the passage I quoted last time from Adiga’s novel:
Her name was Mala Srivastava and she was from a small town near Patna. She had been in the local papers even earlier because she used to recite poems at public meetings. Her poems mocked the manhood of Indian leaders; she called upon Indian youth to cross the border and slaughter people in Pakistan; she wanted the national anthem inscribed on the body of Benazir Bhutto. Mala was only twenty-one when she died. People said that she was pretty. Those who’d seen her performing said she was arrogant and wanted everything from life. A couple of the press reports after her death mentioned that during a visit to Bombay, she had been arrested briefly for having stolen gold jewellery from her host’s apartment.
When Mala had still been in high school her father was killed in a road accident and the family had fallen on bad times. But at the time of her death she had been living for a year and a half in a large house in Buddha Colony. The story went that Mala did not need to pay rent on that house in Patna. Her neighbours said that white cars with red lights would deliver sweets and gifts at her door whenever the festivals rolled around. Politicians and officials were regular visitors to her house at different times of the day and night. (Amitava Kumar, Home Products)
You only get a few telling bits and pieces about Mala Srivastava from these paragraphs (there is more to come that I’m not quoting), not a total encapsulation. What you do get, however, is in my view quite provocative and intriguing. Now compare back to the same paragraph from Adiga:
Me, and thousands of others in this country like me, are half-baked, because we were never allowed to complete our schooling. Open our skulls, look in with a penlight, and you’ll find an odd museum of ideas: sentences of history or mathematics remembered from school textbooks (no boy remembers his schooling like the one who was taken out of school, let me assure you), sentences about politics read in a newspaper while waiting for someone to come to an office, triangles and pyramids seen on the torn pages of the old geometry textbooks which every tea shop in this country uses to wrap its snacks in, bits of All India Radio news bulletins, things that drop into your mind, like lizards from the ceiling, in the half hour before falling asleep—all these ideas, half formed and half digested and half correct, mix up with other half-cooked ideas in your head, and I guess these half-formed ideas bugger one another, and make more half-formed ideas, and this is what you act on and live with. (Adiga, The White Tiger)
This is in fact a perfect encapsulation, so perfect that it doesn’t really need personalized details. We have Balram Halwai in a nutshell, which frees Adiga to jump right into his very propulsive plot (and I concede that the novel is highly readable and entertaining; it is also worth noting that this is by no means an easy thing to do).
These two characters from the two novels have certain things in common (I’ll spare you the details), but are drawn very differently. Where with Amitava Kumar’s prose you get the definite sense that the narrator cares about Mala Srivastava in her individuality, to me Adiga’s style suggests he’s more interested in the generalizations about India his Balram Halwai allows him to make, than in Balram himself.
I don’t want to push on this too hard, and I definitely don’t want to get into a tedious “blog-spat” with my friends at Ultrabrown. Though I study and teach literature for a living, one thing I’ve realized over the years is that taste really is subjective, and one reader’s minor glitch is another reader’s fatal flaw. It’s not a science, and that’s something to embrace, not hide from with smarty-pants jargon: I love the fact that I can go out to dinner with a group of Indian software engineers, doctors, and so on, and have great conversations about the books they’re reading. (I also love the to-and-fro with readers on this blog, needless to say.)
A final note. Ironically, though I’ve now devoted two posts to debunking Adiga (but also congratulating him on his success. Congratulations again!), I could easily see myself teaching The White Tiger in introductory courses on Indian literature to undergraduates. It is likely to appeal to my students, while also giving me good reasons to talk about the social issues and cultural phenomena Adiga invokes in his book. (I’ve had good success teaching other books I haven’t loved, including Mohsin Hamid’s two novels; both Moth Smoke and The Reluctant Fundamentalist actually worked better than personal favorites of mine, such as The Satanic Verses and A Fina Balance).
At higher levels, or with graduate students, I would likely choose books that I find to be more intellectually challenging (some might say, boring!), like, say, Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, a book I hope to review sometime in the next few weeks.
Nicely said, Amardeep. I am not much into IWE, but I’ll look for Kumar’s Home Products.
I don’t really read much, and definitely not a lot of fiction, but great comments, Amardeep.
I am wondering if you could say something similar about Rushdie. He also seems to me to be more interested in India in the abstract than in the particulars. His method is somewhat different, as he seems to generalize, then again particularize, so that his characters seem almost real, but not quite, and they have never seemed like the Indians I know (or maybe the social milieu he writes about is too far from my experience).
That is PURE Naipaul, of The Mimic Men, A Bend in the River, An Area of Darkness, Half a Life.
Kudos to Adiga, but he is not an original writer.
Oh and I agree with everything you said as well Amardeep.
I am wondering if you could say something similar about Rushdie.
I think Suzy’s invocation of Naipaul might be a better point of comparison than Rushdie. It’s true that Rushdie’s characters often come to seem unreal by virtue of being bigger than life, but Rushdie finds ways to put his narcissists in their place without entirely disavowing narcissism (we all have it, naa). I think he’s also often aiming at mythical constructs and real life larger-than-life figures (like Ormus Cama as Freddy Mercury in “The Ground Beneath Her Feet”). If you’re interested in Freddy Mercury, Elvis, and the Beatles, you’ll be at least interested in the premise of “The Ground Beneath Her Feet” (though you still may get bored at some point and not finish the novel!).
Naipaul is more focused on this kind of “half-baked” stuff, in creating characters who are fatally flawed because they can never overcome their marginality. That said, Adiga is still better than Naipaul — Naipaul revels in watching his half-baked characters wither and die in a misery of disillusionment (“oh, crap, I had revolutionary dreams, but I now realize that I am pathetic”), while Adiga, towards the end of the novel, starts to cheer for Balram Halwai. Naipaul wants well-fed metropolitans to feel good about the fact that they live in New York/London, went to universities, and rejected revolutionary fervor. Meanwhile, Adiga wants to make those same people sweat (especially if they are NRIs or R-NRIs/Returned NRIs) about their complicity.
has anyone read vikas swarup’s books? he does an excellent job of writing about india’s underbelly. one of his books, called ‘Q & A’ has just been made into a movie by danny boyle, the guy who made trainspotting. the movie’s called slumdog millionaire and it won the toronto film festival this year.
Hiya, my thoughts on Q&A are here. I was being gentle — didn’t think too much of that book either.
Still, it’s great for Swarup that a film has been made — the title “Slumdog Millionaire” is a little goofy, though.
Amardeep
Danny Boyle has spun gold out of the cotton of the source material. Slumdog Millionaire is an excellent movie, very enjoyable and fresh, and although a few things jarred for me, it really is very good piece of cinema indeed.
Mala Srivasatava seems like based on ‘Madhumita Shukla’. Madhumita Shukla was a nationalist poetess from a small town near Lucknow, she got involved with a minister in Mulayam Singh government, and then was killed while still in her 20’s.
Oh, just blogspat, why dontcha? It’s fun for the rest of us. 🙂
Comparing just the two paras in your post, Adiga’s prose is lots more engaging. In fiction, excessive detail is a crutch for the less creative.
A diga your post. Am r deep, u r deep.
Is it? Why? And what constitutes excessive detail?
Thanks Amardeep! I’d like to think this was a direct response to my request he he 😉
68 · Ara said
12
Like Flaubert or Naipaul?
Anyway, one of the reviews on Ultrabrown, I think, mentioned that it is a single-track novel. For those of us of the MTV generation, that is a compelling reason to read the book. Other books meander too much and with my short attention span and multitasking lifestyle I just can’t get around to finishing them. What I need is something highly readable that I can finish in one or two sittings. I especially liked Dalrymples’ City of Djinns for this reason. I started it in Nice and by the time the train had reached Florence I was done and more in the mood for Delhi than Florence.
amardeep, your a no-name wannabe assistant instructor at some no-name school, right?
and your saying essentially your qualified literary opinion weighs more or somehow is better than the cumulative,established, proven literary expertise and qualification of the booker selection folks, right ?
sorry to tell you bro, do i sense some jealousy here ?
why do christian priests rape kids anna ? http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7012641119
Thank god, VHP is fighting against these christian thugs..
imagine, christian priests beginning raping kids in India..
ohhhh nooooooo
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7012641119
Catholic Diocese of Wilmington Slapped With 23 Molestation Lawsuits
AP Staff Wilmington, DE (AHN) – The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington is again under fire after it received two lawsuits in a span of seven days, one from a 57-year-old Delaware woman and another from a Colorado judge, involving alleged sexual abuse by the late Rev. Eugene Clarahan.
Lawyer Thomas S. Neuberger, representing the alleged sexual abuse victims by the Catholic clergy in Wilmington, already has 23 lawsuits filed against the Roman Catholic Church.
The woman, known in court papers as Jane Coe No. 1, filed a case last Friday at the New Castle County Superior Court. She alleged that Clarahan molested her three times in 1965 and 1966.
She was 14 and 15 years old then when she had sexual contact with the priest. The molestation happened in a barn on their family farm in southern Delaware.
Last October 3, Denver County Court magistrate judge Paul G. Quinn, 67, also filed a case against the diocese on the same sexual abuse claim. He alleged that Clarahan molested him in 1956 as a former parishioner at St. Elizabeth.
Quinn accounts that Clarahan was laughing as he was being sexually abused at the home of his maternal aunt. Priests frequently visited his aunt’s home for social gatherings.
Clarahan retired from the priesthood in 1993 and passed away in 1999. He was included among the 20 priests in a 2006 sex abuse scandal involving the clergy that rocked the Catholic Church in Delaware.
The priests reportedly “corroborated or otherwise substantiated” claims of abuse lodged against them.
Neuberger cited the Delaware Child Victim’s Act of 2007 in undertaking the lawsuits. The act created a two-year window deferring the restrictions on cases seeking compensation by sexual child abuse victims until July 10, 2009.
The school may be no-name but Amardeep certainly isn’t no-name. He’s big-name compared to some of the no-name profs at big-name schools. Not that it really matters.
It is possible this is what appeals to the Booker folks.
amardeep, your a no-name wannabe assistant instructor at some no-name school, right? and your saying essentially your qualified literary opinion weighs more or somehow is better than the cumulative,established, proven literary expertise and qualification of the booker selection folks, right ? sorry to tell you bro, do i sense some jealousy here ?
If you read my post I actually never said I was challenging their judgment or casting aspersions on the Booker Prize. I respect the Prize — it is a big deal, and a real honor for anyone who wins it.
All I am saying is that I disagree with it. Wow, how presumptuous of me!
Also, just to be clear, I have tenure at a research university that is ranked in the top 40 on U.S. News & World Report (I think Lehigh was #33 this year).
(Thanks for getting my back, Seahawks Fan 😉
An appreciation of literature is all about opinion. The good thing about Amardeep’s posts on Adiga’s book is that they are informed and qualified opinion; qualified by a reasonable and mature literary sensibility. I agree more or less agree with his view on the novel. Although I don’t agree with his placement of it in relation to the value of Naipaul’s writings. But that’s OK, I respect him enough to accept a different perspective on that issue. Others have different views about Adiga’s work too and back up their claims, and that’s how literary appreciation progresses. Your posts reek of small-time and bitter personal vindictiveness, but they have some amusement value in that respect.
Speaking of emerging voices from S. Asia, William Dalrymple on emerging Pakistani writers (in the context of India v Pakistan writers) here.
lol, amardeep is tenured, ooh, he has the right to voice his legitimate opinion of a booker prize winner.
sure, even george bush, joe the plumber, maria carey and mayawati can do so.
but heck, amardeep, and most of you literay geniuses here.. will probably never win the booker, even if you tried. so kudos to adiga..
even salman rushdie had to face the zealots of islamo facism in iran.. when he won the booker
Why cant Amardeep critique a book? #17, what a BS argument ? u topped it with a personal attack. Very classy move!!! Just because one committee gave a prize to an Author does meant a damn thing.
There is one more, more prestigious committee known by the name of Nobel, has given a “peace prize” to Henry Kisssinger and Yasir Arafat!!! So dont give me the BS of “group of literary experts”
I second Amardeep’s pointer to Amitava Kumar’s Home Products. I was a big fan of AK’s from back when his two non-fiction books came out, especially Bombay London New York, but it was really interesting to see him switch to fiction, and at that, weaving in so many Hindi film references and reflections, what’s not to love?
And on Slumdog Millionaire, I too thought it was amazing, and realized at one point that I had forgotten while watching it that it had been made by a non-desi, and also totally forgotten until the credits ran that it had come from Swarup’s Q&A, which I had passed on reading, based on the many iffy reviews it got.
Seeing as you make personal attacks mixed in with moronic hysterical and immature arguments, I just want to say that your ad hominem idiocy probably reflects your bitter and very small mind. Get a life.
[EDITED BY SM INTERN TO REMOVE GARBAGE.]
Adiga has been gutsy in tackling a complex and urgent subject. If you were expecting social commentary, it’s disappointing, although as a novel it’s good fun.
Adiga’s plot is somewhat predictable — the murder that is committed is the one that readers will expect throughout, but The White Tiger suffers little for this fault. Caught up in Balram’s world — and his wonderful turn of phrase, the pages turn themselves. Brimming with idiosyncrasy, sarcastic, cunning, and often hilarious, Balram is reminiscent of the endless talkers that populate the novels of the great Czech novelist Bohumil Hrabal.”
And lastly, Adiga’s message isn’t subtle or novel, but Balram’s appealingly sardonic voice and acute observations of the social order are both winning and unsettling.
For many of the above, he won the booker prize.