Autumn entry 2, midnight 5th October
1. Still havent been able to finish the Conversation between Cornelia Nixon and Marilynne Robinson. It requires a lot of concentration and as they keep on discussing about important issues, I find myself going through references on the net. The talk has moved from abolitionists to individual books. House Keeping and Gilead are being compared about for their themes, characters etc. Quite interesting, really. I will finish it this time but have slotted a revisit sometime next year.
2. Started with Dork: The Incredible adventures of Robin Einstein Varghese, Sidin Vadukut. Perhaps the book with the longest title I've read (ing) this year. Apart from White Tiger I haven’t read any modern Indian fiction at all; I picked this up in an over-crowded Chennai bookstore earlier in the year. I haven’t known or read of Sidin Vadukut, (his name quite bizarrely reminds me Vidkun Quisling; phonetics I suppose, yes, temporal bloody lobe has its own ways of working).
Anyway, I gather he has a satire-slapstick type of a blog, which I must read sometime. I have added him on my twitter list. I was looking for a Anjum Hasan book in the Indian writers section but as I saw his name on the book-jacket, I recalled N mentioning him long back during a chat. Picked it up on a whim really.
But P who was waiting at the till, upon finding it in the purchases glinted at me and said ‘ Actually I would love to see you reading that’. Also, L upon finding it on my reading list had replied - ‘Dork? well, good luck with that’. I couldn’t quite figure these remarks then, but fifty odd pages into the book I do now.
First the story - the book is in the form of diary entries of the protagonist ( shades of White Tiger). It’s about a young Indian business graduate Robin Varghese nicknamed Einstein who has just graduated and is hoping to start a ? career as a consultant in a MNC. So far he has managed to get a job and has just about started work.
There is nothing that is even remotely interesting in the book. I haven’t read Sidin’s blogs so I can’t comment on him being a writer but the writing here in the book is utterly awful. ( Oh! my fingertips tingle in earnestness).
The main reason I was attracted to read Dork was to get an idea of a life of a young Indian graduate at this moment in India. But, the book is as though an average wannabe stand-up has collected all the poor business school jokes and has weaved a story around them. It seems as a combination of 3 idiots and White Tiger with good doses of contemporary references thrown in for background ( Jet Airways, Kajra Re etc..). Sidin at times comes across as sharp but is hardly sensible. As a reader I thought the book (so far) was incredibly patronizing - as if it’s been deliberately written down because the reader wouldn’t get it otherwise.
I think the main character is meant to be funny, but he is more of a fool really, which may be, I don't know, the new funny amongst young Indians? In fact if you are strict about it Robin is more of a caricature than a character. There is a forceful attempt to normalise his exaggerations as humour. For the reader, he doesn't evoke anything - so far he has only evoked confusion and cynicism within me. As I haven't completed the book, this might be a bit premature to say but I don’t see it changing, so , do yourself a favour and avoid this one. This book reflects neither world experience nor has any imagination; It’s been published because it can be. In India. It's a tribute to having poor, ill advised/ing literary sphere around you and a is glaring testament of scratching backs - evidently mediocre backs, Oh! how my fingertips tingle in earnestnessness! Actually, If not the editor who passed that line, I would at least like to meet an Indian who uses earnestness in a routine conversation.
To my shock I learnt that this is just the first segment; that, there is a trilogy planned. Someone should stop him.
3. Masque of Africa
Uganda ended rather abruptly. I couldn’t piece it all into any tangible conclusion, it seemed as if Vidia was in a hurry. Incomplete, terribly incomplete! Nothing like Vidia at all. Only bits and pieces of continuity and very superficial. I think either Vidia’s contacts in Uganda have fiercely protected him from any original experience or more likely, Uganda is difficult to be placed in the context of the book. Not happy.
Anyway, the book has moved on to Nigeria. I know Nigeria better because of it’s economy and many acquaintances and friends hailing from there. It was crazy last week - Nigeria all around - meeting people from Nigeria, both at work and otherwise, Nigerian 50th birthday, bomb blasts and reading about Nigeria when on my own etc. I have moved up to 120 odd pages, the segment is insightful. Confirms some of my own conclusions about Nigeria. And Vidia I must say rediscovers the beauty of his prose in this segment ( what a relief it is! ). It’s too late now and I prefer doing the entry after I complete the whole segment, so I'll just stop here.
However, not before I share this - Naipaul has been picked up from Lagos Airport to his hotel (Actually we learn later that it is a scam). The bloody Vidia humour -
All kinds of doubt came to me, but then, miraculously, there was the hotel tower.
The man who took me up to the room drew the curtains dramatically and said, like an impresario, ‘The Atlantic Ocean!’
I had to take it on trust, it was too dark to see clearly.
Things of Interest : Origin of Mumbo Jumbo, Boda Boda Motorcycle.
his book reflects neither world experience nor has any imagination; It’s been published because it can be. In India. It's a tribute to having poor, ill advised/ing literarysphere around you and a testament of scratching backs - evidently mediocre backs
ReplyDeleteI have seen many books being published by Indian authors lately, and the few that I have picked up have made me very skeptical of the genre as a whole. Publishing houses should be filtering such publications so that better writers don't suffer for the poor impression created by the many works, but there has been mushrooming of small publishers which are just one step ahead of self-publishing - and they do not have the patience or capability to look for better authors.
It is sad, and disappointing for a country to have its literary talent stifled by over-dose.
It is so funny to imagine all that earnestness! I assume you are going to make an attempt to complete Dork?
ReplyDeleteSidin's blog, which I used to read some years ago, was pretty good, funny, smart-alecky. I did say 'was'
Madhuri
ReplyDeleteYou are right. After this, I can't bring myself to read an Indian writer in the nearest future. While disappointment is one thing, indignation is another. To me this is not about meeting a set expectation ( to be disappointed), the book almost borders on insult to the reader.
If this is the state of writers who apparently are popular and have come out of IIMs etc, God save lesser writers and readers of India.
I suppose you are right about the mushrooming cottage publishers, I wouldn't really know. This though is by Penguin, India. The fact is editors, publishers in India are equally bad. One can smell a lot of back scratching. That's why there isn't any literary progress, but only fluke hits here and there. This is the sort of thing I was curious about couple of years back.
Lavanya
ReplyDeleteYes, I would. if not for anything it would supply ample examples of how not to write....
I usually have at least one 'light read' book during a reading cycle which I would read when semi drowsy or can't concentrate fully. This time it's Dork. As long as I keep my eyes open, it should be more than enough to complete it.
I might have told you before - I'm always a bit suspect of populist Indian blogs. One of the good Indian blogs I was told about is slapstick - anagrams and photoshops In my experience, which is fine but THAT is good indian blog. There is no idea of articulation.
Indians with occasional exceptions tend to label something they can easily comprehend as good. And their debate ends at that - Wow! awesome, wonderful great blog/ writing etc. This stems from Indian idea of completeness - A thing can be 'great' if only they are able appreciate it. There is no room to say that something beyond their minds could be better - so they don't see the point of themselves having to make any effort to be a better perceiver. If one gets it - it's great, if not - it's bad! Actually Naipaul wrote this long back - he said one can read Indian newspapers for 30 years and still find no clue why India is such.
Indian blogs tend to - either 1. Exaggerate an experience into supposed humour ( like this book) or 2. Force a thought into a glorified sentiment - sometimes melodrama, sometimes dangerously into morality.
Take this book - Passing through IIM is an experience, like any other in anywhere else. Working in Indian corporate is life, like anywhere else. But , sadly, as far as i know, there's no book on how it is - like life - the goods and the bads. Either it has to be made into a comedy or sentimentalised into love or arranged marriage or a lesson on how to lead life etc.
I don't think I will dropping by his blog. Not even if I am paid.
Well yes, Sidin's blog is definitely in category 1
ReplyDeleteCouple of things about the spate of such books in India:
a. Both M and you seem to be grouping all fiction that come out of India into one big genre which is implicitly assumed to be literary. The rush of Chetan Bhagat like mass market flimsies have a great audience - the average Indian who, instead of picking up a magazine to read on the train, is now picking up a 50 - 100 bucks 'novel' which helps him while away his time and also sort of return to a campus fantasy in his head. We all know how many campus movies get made in India. Such books must be strictly acknowledged as 'time pass' for an audience that would not even pick up a book otherwise. I know so many such people who go to bookstores these days because a Chetan Bhagat or the like is out. The hope is that they might graduate to better books. In reality they will be fed more such books because there is a market for it. Are these books good? Good to kill time if the reader doesn't care about sentences or content. It is pretty disappointing when we try and talk about say Sea of Poppies and Dork in the same breath.
b. I have always wondered what the inner life of an average Indian is like. I do not mean the part where the mind churns 'he said, she said, did she mean that' kind of potboilers but the part where there are larger existential and beyond questions floating around. I hope I am wrong but the large mass of people one encounters do not understand what an inner life means. Is it such a surprise then that so many things an Indian does should be shallow, surface polish?
ReplyDeleteAs for Sidin's tone of insulting the reader, I find that a lot in the new breed of 'look where I studied and therefore I am smart' kind of writers. It is the typical careless conclusion of cleverness being mistaken for intelligence.
I don't think the type of readers you speak about would graduate into the sort of reading you imagine. Essentially because though it is the 'novel' they are picking up, they are in fact reading a magazine veiled as a novel. Further, to be slightly sympathetic towards these teenagers/ students - It's not easy to be hooked on to reading or writing in India - with all the chaos, cricket matches, festivals and movies. That's why you have mediocre scums getting away as creme de la creme. The bar just plummets.
ReplyDeleteIt's vastly pervasive and unending - I've thought and written a lot about it couple of years back, visiting as many Indian blogs as possible.
Inner life of an average Indian doesn't exist - because it's never been documented except in a few rare vernacular languages. If you had a real order of literature in India, books such as Dork would be at the bottom of the pile, but seem to be popular because there aren't any above them, but it's inverse too - the one's at the top - with all the opportunity to make a sincere effort to write have nothing to say because they haven't seen enough of life. That's what I mean - people like Sidin who have the chance to write a book aren't essentially shallow, just insincere. Same with all those young women writers et al in India, they have enviable skills but they haven't seen or known anything to write. Instead of looking around they feel this compulsion to publish because their classmate is an editor in Penguin or some such thing. Approval of an Indian book or writer from the west is what is sought, irrespective of its literary merit to actual people of India. Can't be changed too late and too deep.
>>Approval of an Indian book or writer from the west is what is sought, irrespective of its literary merit to actual people of India. Can't be changed too late and too deep.
ReplyDeleteSo True.