Here’s the cover of Tourism, the Southall-centric novel by Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal due out May 30 (thanks, Ennis and Pablo):
Category Archives: Literature
Anatomy of a genre
Unhappily ever after
I’m astonished by the depth of the desi book market in the UK. I was at a store of Britbooks last week. It wasn’t even a real bookstore, it was an airport bookstore, and it was still amazingly well-stocked. If you’ve ever wondered why people call Brits polite, it’s all the time they spend buried in books (while their chavs and yobs whoop it up in da pub).
On the popular fiction shelves I saw a Granta book on India, an odd little compilation of highfalutin’ essays like a Bollysampler CD; several Hanif Kureishi titles; Shalimar the Clown; both of Meera Syal’s novels; Hari Kunzru; William Dalrymple’s White Mughals; Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide; and so on. (In Sevilla, I also saw a tiny book of Ghosh’s tsunami essays.) The chick lit section was chockablock with titles like Bindis and Brides by Nisha Minhas, in which an abusive desi guy tries to rape his estranged wife, and a white guy rescues her. Minhas previously wrote Passion and Poppadoms, Saris and Sins and Chapattis or Chips?, so she’s going for some kind of Nancy Drew mystery effect with alliteration in the titles.
I picked up a copy of Hanif Kureishi’s Intimacy, a 1998 novella about marital egress and male sexual restlessness, and devoured it on the plane. The book supposedly caused an uproar when it was published; it reminds me of Rushdie’s Fury, a thinly-fictionalized account of leaving your wife and kids by a desi author who had just, well, left his wife and kids. But liberated of the need to be a full-blown novel, it’s a startlingly direct confession of a loveless, sexless marriage told like Portnoy’s Complaint, hands a-wringing and in the same plain yellow cover. It begins the day he decides to leave his wife. Kureishi’s stark emotional intensity comes off better than Fury, which IMO was Rushdie’s weakest after Grimus.
(Side note: According to the NYT, Shalimar the Clown had sold only 26,000 copies in the stores BookScan tracks as of December. Edward Champion points an accusing finger at the less-than-sonorous title: ‘If I were Rushdie’s publisher, I would have urged Rushdie to come up with a title that didn’t involve clowns at all… Shalimar the Clown? Not really a lot of enigma there. You may as well call the book Joe the Barber.’)
NSFW quotes from Intimacy after the jump.
Incendiary writing
Time Magazine’s Asia edition writes a favorable review of the new book by Amitav Ghosh titled, Incendiary Circumstances : A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times:
…moments of collapse, when the writer realizes what he cannot do–and what he has to do, as a citizen–are the center of the roaming anthropologist’s new collection of essays, Incendiary Circumstances. The title comes from a piece in which Ghosh, sitting at his desk in Delhi, working on his first novel, in 1984, suddenly sees the tranquil world around him go up in flames in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Hours before, he was just another student and aspiring author, hovering over his notebook in a part of Delhi called Defence Colony; overnight, he becomes an activist of sorts, going out into the streets to shout Gandhian slogans with the other everyday citizens trying to quell the riots.It is part of Ghosh’s curious luck that he often seems to be in the thick of things: he was a schoolboy in Sri Lanka just before civil war broke up the island, and he was living in rural Egypt when villagers around him started going to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in search of jobs. He was in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001. The disappearance of seeming paradises has been his lifelong companion. More than that, though, he is an amphibian of sorts who knows what it is to be both witness and victim.
Reading the review I was reminded a little of this question I posed to Manish just a few days ago. When is the time to write about and discuss an issue over, and the time to to either act on it or walk away at hand? Sometimes writing can inspire the cause that will produce a needed effect. Ghosh seems to focus on this balance.
Faced by those rioters in Delhi in 1984, some women stood up to them and, miraculously, reversed the tide of violence. Following the destruction of their country by the Khmer Rouge, a handful of survivors in Cambodia in 1981 put on a dance performance, piecing their lives together like “rag pickers.” Writers have to be solitaries, Ghosh recalls V.S. Naipaul saying, and yet, he seems to feel, to be useful they have to be participants, too.Incendiary Circumstances traces, over and over, the perfidy of empires and the corruption of most governments, but it never loses sight of individual action and power. And navigating both sides of the shadow lines within him, Ghosh travels to some of the most difficult places on earth to bring their voices back to those in places of seeming comfort.
See Amardeep’s review of Ghosh’s previous book, The Hungry Tide.
The art of the book review
Superstar desi lawyer Neal Katyal, who will later this year be representing Osama Bin Laden’s former driver in a Supreme Court case, had a book review in yesterday’s Washington Post. The book he was reviewing was a new one by John Yoo titled, The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs After 9/11. Katyal cleverly uses his book review to slam Yoo and his conservative policies, while also adding to the very relevant debate about what limits should be imposed on the powers of the Executive.
In particular, the book argues that the Constitution gives the president a much larger role in foreign affairs and military operations than the other two branches of the federal government, that the president does not need a congressional declaration of war before placing troops on the ground and that treaties ratified by the Senate have no legal impact unless Congress explicitly passes laws saying that they do.
In advancing these claims, the book is burdened by its strange attempt to mix constitutional claims grounded in the Founders’ intent in 1787 with the practicalities of living in an age of terrorism. Either one can take the position of such conservative icons as Robert Bork and Justice Antonin Scalia — that the original intentions of the Constitution’s authors bind us today and changes can only come through amendment — or hold the view of more liberal figures such as Justice Stephen Breyer that practical, functional considerations create a living Constitution that adapts as times change. Both are perfectly plausible. What isn’t credible is a theory that cherry-picks from the two to advance a particular thesis. And that’s exactly what Yoo does at times.
…In the end, the most glaring failure of the book is its one-sided attack on the courts and Congress, with no real attention paid to the failures of the executive branch. The underlying message is that the executive doesn’t need checks on its activities, but that the other branches consistently do. Yet presidents of both parties have made tremendous mistakes, and recent events have shown that claims of unchecked power can lead to massive abuse. Yoo even unwittingly refers to at least one recent miscalculation, in words that already date the book, by stating that Iraq was “potentially armed with weapons of mass destruction.”
It seems very likely that this book review also gives us a small preview of what some of Katyal’s arguments in front of the Supreme Court may be in Hamdan v Rumsfeld. I am just counting the weeks until Nina Totenberg wakes me with details of Katyal’s fight in front of the Roberts court.
India: A Million Slush Pile Rejects Now
In a tongue-in-cheek sting operation by the Times of London, major publishers recently rejected two Booker-winning manuscripts submitted anew, one by Sir Naipaul. It shows publishers are terrible judges of talent… or does it?
Publishers and agents have rejected two Booker prize-winning novels submitted as works by aspiring authors. One of the books considered unworthy by the publishing industry was by V S Naipaul, one of BritainÂ’s greatest living writers, who won the Nobel prize for literature…
Typed manuscripts of the opening chapters of NaipaulÂ’s In a Free State and a second novel, Holiday, by Stanley Middleton, were sent to 20 publishers and agents.
None appears to have recognised them as Booker prizewinners from the 1970s that were lauded as British novel writing at its best. Of the 21 replies, all but one were rejections. [Link]
Naipaul even got the dreaded cold shoulder by form letter:
“We . . . thought it was quite original. In the end though I’m afraid we just weren’t quite enthusiastic enough to be able to offer to take things further.” [Link]
Naipaul got in his usually cranky licks against the critics, but in this case he earned it:
“To see that something is well written and appetisingly written takes a lot of talent and there is not a great deal of that around. With all the other forms of entertainment today there are very few people around who would understand what a good paragraph is.” [Link]
‘The Inheritance of Loss’
Quickie book review – I’m-on-the-road edition
Kiran Desai’s new book, The Inheritance Of Loss, soft-launched last month, and I picked up a copy at Barnes & Noble. It’s a good tale with a globalization undercurrent connecting IndiaŽs Nepal border with New York City.
Her previous book, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was a well-written magically realist vignette on the line between a novel and a novella. Despite the fruitarian title, it was excellent. Her new one is far more ambitious. Rushdie has a highly complimentary but generic blurb on the back of the new one, which I take to mean he hasn’t read the new one yet. Only having read her mom Anita Desai’s Booker-nominated work Fasting, Feasting so far, IÂ’d say I enjoy her writing more than her motherÂ’s (whose work I also enjoy).
She also gets in a bunch of wicked jabs at non-vegetarians, Brits, upper-class New Yorkers, 2nd genners and so on, sheÂ’s not playing safe here. ItÂ’s mutinous that way, just like The Red Carpet: Bangalore Stories by Lavanya Sankaran.
(Desai is a far better show-not-tell writer — I liked Carpet because itÂ’s sassy, and I could completely relate to all the jabs at 2nd gen dating; itŽs like an American version of Life IsnÂ’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee. Also, sheŽs an ex-WSJer and seems to be a conservative, which I mention only to boost sales in the Vinod – Razib segment. SankaranŽs biggest f*-you goes out to Mumbaikars who look down on Bangalore, but sheŽs riding the outsourcing publicity wave, so it isn’t quite the declaration of independence it seems.)
My complaints:
- The usual gender one — I often like male authors better, they move plot faster (Vikram Chandra, Rushdie); this book lacks motion, and is sometimes PG-rated where it should be R (a scene where an auntie receives the mildest of insults from a guerilla chieftain) and R where it should be PG (explicit booger jokes)
- Like just about all American 2nd genners, the thrust of the story focuses on the motherland on the assumption that thatÂ’s the biggest market; sheÂ’s borderline 1-1.5 gen, so she has a small excuse
- Which editor allowed through the hundreds of sequential question marks and exclamation points???!!! Makes the editing look amateur and is a pain to read.
Otherwise, highly recommended. Flippant, funny and mutinous as all hell. Sometimes a treatise rather than a novel, but much less so than Carpet, and that makes it all the more entertaining– frankly, there’s a lot to be said.
Desai is reading in Manhattan Feb. 1 at the Rubin Museum of Art, a major Himalayan art collection (via SAJA). Continue reading
California Dreaming
Author Gurmukh Singh is set to release his new book this month titled: California Dreams – India shining in the land of Hollywood:
Four British Army Sikh soldiers who landed in San Francisco April 5, 1899, were the forerunners of a massive wave of Indian migration to southern California – the region that is home to a staggering 200,000 of the over 1.5 million Indian Americans in the US.It is in southern California that people like Dilip Singh Saund began the Asian struggle for equal rights; it is there that Indian mystics and yogis like Paramhansa Yogananda and Jiddu Krishnamurthy started preaching the wisdom of the East; it is there that transcendental meditation and yogis gained global recognition.
“California Dreams – India shining in the land of Hollywood” (British Columbia Books) traces this magical journey as author Gurmukh Singh skilfully chronicles the contribution of 24 Indian Americans in propelling the Sunshine State to a major economic powerhouse within the US. [Link]
One of the selling points of this book seems to be that it is filled with lots of pictures (some rare) which would make it a good coffee table book even after you’ve finished reading it.
“The inspiring life stories of these most remarkable Indian Americans are a testament to ever growing enterprise and ingenuity,” notes Stanley Wolpert, professor emeritus of South Asian history at UCLA, in his foreword to the 208-page, profusely illustrated book priced at $20 (Rs.999 in India). [Link]Continue reading
Makes me want to buy lots of gear
Since I am both an outdoor enthusiast and a lover of outdoor “gear,” I subscribe to the Adventure 16 newsletter. Adventure 16 is a Southern California outdoor equipment retailer. A couple times a month the local store holds an informal seminar or slideshow about some kick-ass expedition or nature trip that has taken place or soon will. In theory, you’ll be so amped after the presentation that you will buy lots of gear from the store, hoping someday to emulate the feat that you have just heard about. My most recent newsletter featured a blurb about an upcoming event that will relate details about an adventure that I had surprisingly never heard of:
In the 1960’s, the CIA and the Indian Government attempted to deploy a plutonium-powered spy device on Nanda Devi and Nanda Kot in the Indian Himalayas. While Nanda Kot’s device was successfully deployed, Nada Devi rejected all attempts to place the device on her summit and the plutonium was lost and never recovered. In August 2005, Pete Takeda and his crew retraced the spy route on Nanda Kot, visiting the camps used to stage the 1936 first ascent and the spy missions of the 1960’s. Don’t miss this amazing journey! FREE!San Diego Store: Mon., Jan. 9
West Los Angeles Store: Tues., Jan. 10
This sounds like the beginning to a Tom Clancy novel. I am intrigued. Must-learn-more. As you may have expected, there is in fact an entire book written on this subject: Spy On The Roof Of The World : Espionage and Survival in the Himalayas.
In this cross between a travel adventure story and an espionage novel, Sydney Wignall tells how he became an ad hoc spy for a renegade faction of Indian intelligence operatives in 1955. Wignall had set out to climb the highest mountain in Tibet, but was recruited to investigate Chinese military activity in the region. After being caught, he spent months in a rat-infested, sub-freezing cell as he underwent interrogation. When international pressure forced his release, his captors “released” him and two companions in a nearly impenetrable wintertime wilderness and said “Go home.” Yet Wignall survived–and managed to smuggle out vital information. It is an exhilarating story that only now can be told. [Link]
- Renegade faction of Indian intelligence
- Months in a rat-infested cell
- Interrogation
- Impenetrable wintertime
If that list isn’t enough to get me to open my wallet and drop some money on new gear at Adventure 16, then frankly I’m not much of a man.
The Deepak Sutra
Deepak Chopra is coming out with his own interpretation of the Kama Sutra (thanks, Cicatrix). What a coincidence! I was just telling myself, ‘You know what I need for the holidays? I need to read a sex book by a guy who could be my father.’
Since you never read the paperback Kama Sutra that you got as a gag gift for your 21st birthday, I’ll break it down for you: some parts of Vatsyayana’s sex manual for virgins have all the charm of a Sears catalog.
When the skin is pressed down on both sides, it is called the `swollen bite’. When a small portion of the skin is bitten with two teeth only, it is called the `point’. When such small portions of the skin are bitten with all the teeth, it is called the `line of points’. The biting, which is done by bringing together the teeth and the lips, is called the `coral and the jewel’. The lip is the coral, and the teeth the jewel. When biting is done with all the teeth, it is called the `line of jewels’. [Link]
And when you smack her on the ass, it is called the ‘last time you get play.’ But some parts are good advice:
… the signs of her want of enjoyment and of failing to be satisfied are as follows: … she does not let the man get up, feels dejected, bites the man, kicks him… [Link]
If your partner kicks you while you’re in bed, it’s a safe bet that you’re doing something wrong. So I look forward to hearing Chopra’s hypnotic voice on the audiobook:
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Listen to my voice — |