Salman Rushdie tweets on 16 Feb 2023
19 Feb 2023
19 Feb 2023
Idra Novey’s forthcoming novel Take What You Need . It been named as the most anticipated book of 2023 by Oprah Daily, Vulture, Today.com, Elle, and Lit Hub. I read an ARC in Nov 2022 when Idra sent across a copy. There is something extremely powerful about the writing. Here is the book blurb. It says much and yet, not much.
****
Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, who’s sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leah’s urban life with her young family, she’s revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmother’s hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition. But with Jean’s death, Leah must return to sort through what’s been left behind.
What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures she’s welded from scraps of the area’s industrial history. There’s also a young man now living in the house who played an unknown role in Jean’s last years and in her art.
With great verve and humor, Idra Novey zeros in on the joys and difficulty of family, the ease with which we let distance mute conflict, and the power we can draw from creative pursuits.
Take What You Need explores the continuing mystery of the people we love most with passionate and resonance, this novel illuminating can be built from what others have discarded—art, unexpected friendship, a new contentment of self. This is Idra Novey at her very best.
****
It has been a few months since I read Take What You Need . Unfortunately, I read a digital copy so I was unable to mark it, dog ear the edition or even scribble in the margins as is my habit while reading. As a result, I cannot write out passages that appealed to me but I do know that it left me with an astonishing feeling of the power that exists deep within ourselves to find hope, to be creative, to find multiple ways of healing. The artist Jane lives alone. She lives in a home that is in an impoverished neighbourhood. Squatters are a common sight. It is a drifting population whose antecdents are unclear and they can be prone to violence as well — survival of the fittest. Yet, Jean with quiet determination, single-mindedly works upon her art. She rummages through scrap heaps for various sizes of metals and welds them in her home to create sculptures. After her death, her massively intricate installations are donated to a museum. It is a complicated procedure that involves removing the roof of her house and using cranes to lift the artwork and place it on a removal truck. Along the way, Jean has befriended Elliott, a neighbour’s son, a young man, a drifter, a loner, a rough-at-the-edges soul, who for some inexplicable reason takes a shine to Jean and assists her.
At one level, Take What You Need is a story about the many lonely individuals, whether in the USA or elsewhere, who come together to create their own social systems. They take what they need from these relationships and move on. It is about the odd couple Jean and Elliott, it is about the xenophobic youngsters gathered like a pack in the jungles, slowly being indoctrinated by the vile rants of politicians, little realising that they are mere pawns in the larger game of politics. The politicians take what they want from these impressionable young men — their votes, their allegiance, leaving them with nothing, no future. Unlike Jean. Who in the face of adversity, mourning the loss of a father who did not allow her to assist him in his car repair work, but slowly learned to take what she needed from her fate — her diginity, valued her time, created something out of nothingness, created a valuable commodity out of scrap that after her lifetime was hailed as a masterpiece. Jean represents the ability of humanity to bounce back against all odds. The individual takes what they need from life. The community takes what they need. Ultimately, it is an expression of one’s free will. It is a choice. And it is precisely these tiny decisions made on a daily basis that have a deeper consequence on the individual’s life.
I read all the time. Some books I remember, some I do not. But months later, the quiet, “simple” writing style of Idra Novey continues to deeply affect me. It empowers the reader to believe in themselves to bring the desired change in their life.
Read Take What You Want and you must take what you want from it too!
10 Feb 2023
[I wrote this post on Facebook on 4 July 2022]
Hernan Diaz’s novel Trust is being discussed a lot these days especially since Kate Winslet has optioned it for HBO as a limited series on TV. Both, author and actress, will be co-producers of the show. It should be good if past experience of Kate Winslet’s award-winning “Mare of Easttown” is anything to go by. “Trust” too is equally complex in its narratives. The adaptation will be gruelling as it will require a single narrative with disruptions in the telling to create the same effect that reading the book has.
The book is in four parts. A bestselling novella called “Bonds” by Harold Vanner. It is the fictionalised account of legendary 1920s Wall Street tycoon and his wife, Benjamin and Helen Rask. She is the daughter of eccentric aristorcrats who are down and out on their luck. Marrying Rask, Helen zooms to the top of the New York social ladder, much to the delight of her ambitious mother. The story continues about the obscenely wealthy and childless couple becoming patrons of the Arts but remaining more or less to themselves. The love story ends with the declining health and demise of Helen Rask in a sanatorium in Switzerland. “Bonds” is followed by personal accounts of the real tycoon, Andrew Bevel (“My Life”), his secretary Ida Partenza (“A Memoir, Remembered”) and extracts from Mildred Bevel’s diaries ( “Futures”).
It is an astonishing feat on the part of Hernan Diaz in writing in these four distinctive voices. Beginning with the novella where the literary craftsmanship is sublime. The elegant prose is like a nineteenth century novel in a twenty-first century garb. Unlike novels of today which presume a reader will have access to extra information or can “google” for more, “Bonds” is complete. It is the delightfully balanced mix of historical fiction, facts, authorial intervention, and moral judgement. In their desire to be poltically correct in their sentences and subject matters, writers of today forget that sitting upon judgement whether their characters or by extension society, is not always a bad thing. It is a way of seeing. “Bonds” has it all. In the next three parts, Diaz does an incredible unpicking of the “truths” that the novelist chose to share. Curiously enough the reader is first made privy to the novella and in the last of the woman, Mildred Bevel, who is at the centre of these multiple stories. Reading her diaries is a shatteringly pathetic experience. She is a woman who lacked no want and yet no amount of money could buy her the peace, health, goodwill, or long life. It was a frictionless existence that in some ways did her in. She had nothing to do. Self-flagellation as claimed by Harold Vanner was one outlet but her diaries claim otherwise. As does the witnessing by her husband Andrew Bevel. Ida Partenza is a compelling narrator but thoroughly unreliable as she was ostensibly Andrew Bevel’s ghostwriter and was not given access to any of the people or documents at the time of writing. Interestingly enough she was sufficiently obsessed with Mildred Bevel that late in life she read Mildred Bevel’s papers and diaries at the library where the material lay. It had been untouched for decades. Thereby exposing her fragility and vulnerability while blasely dismissing the woman’s narrative and only accepting that version of her story which came through male filters. But the arrangement of texts within “Trust” leaves the reader questioning authoritative accounts and relying on empirical evidence. Sadly, it is all constructed. Whom does the reader trust?
Diaz has to be complemented for the very modern sensibility in his writing of switching gears between various gendered perspectives and telling a story. When he does the voice of women his brilliance shines. I hope to goodness he is not shut down for cultural appropriation of women’s voices — he is excellent. He also gets across the desire of Andrew Bevel to be a controlling man, with his masculine narratives very well.
Trust is superb. Read it. For the story. For the ingenious storytelling. For the sophisticated writing. You will not regret it. I hope it finds a mention on the Booker Prize longlist that is to be announced in late July 2022.
Update: This book did make it to the Booker longlist, but it never made it to the shortlist. Nevertheless, its word-of-mouth success and the number of other literary awards it has reaped, including the Kirkus Award and a Barack Obama recommendation, has ensured that this book has remained in the buzz. It is superb!
Pan Macmillan did well in publishing it.
24 Jan 2023
“As we like to say,” Dr. Vidal continued, “Love is particular. You’re an individual — you’re not a ‘type’/ You deserve to be with someone who appreciates you for your idiosyncrasies, and vice versa. What it comes to love, we want you to believe that anything is possible.“
Torey Henwood Hoen’s debut novel The ARC is about a dating agency of the same name ( Corvus imprint, Atlantic Books). The protagonist, Ursula Byrne, a successful architect, pays a hefty fee to subscribe to their services. Eighty percent of US$40,500 is to be paid upfront and twenty percent after eighteen months of the client having spent time with the partner they were introduced to via the dating app. Ursula is introduced to Rafael and they have an immediate connection. But it takes them a while to recognise that they are meant for each other, while being plagued by doubts about the dating agency. The ARC is a crackling mix of light romantic fiction with some literary fiction qualities and a magnificent dose of a strong, independent woman. Increasingly commercial fiction has stronger women characters who are phenomenal role models for their readers. It is a segment of readers that are probably less than thirty five years and are probably not as well versed with the intricacies of various women’s movements but are benefitting from the many freedoms won. Reading The ARC confirms this viewpoint that Ursula is very capable of standing her own in any kind of a corporate set up but her vulnerability is visible when she is alone at home with her adopted cat. The ARC has a very predictable ( but extremely satisfying) conclusion but it is probably exactly what we need to read in this neverending pandemic. It reminds us of the joy that can be experienced in simple acts such as finding the right person to love.
And when coincidentally, tweets like this pop up on Valentine’s Day when I was reading the book, you know that such books like The ARC will exist for a very long time. Dating apps, matchmakers, dating websites and matrimonial sites will never go out of fashion. Nor will literature based upon romance. Everyone wants to experience it at least once.
The ARC is enjoyable.
14 Feb 2022
22 Feb 2022 marks the centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The person responsible for publishing it was Sylvia Beach after the manuscript was rejected by umpteen publishers. Later, she relinquished the rights to Random House. But she was the key person who believed in the book.
Read about this extraordinary woman and the first twenty years of her famous bookshop, Shakespeare and Company, in The Paris Bookseller by Kerri Maher ( Hachette India). The novel is as interesting as the Afterword.
Here is a piece of history. Sylvia Beach interviewed three days before she passed away. She speaks about meeting James Joyce at a party and offers to publish Ulysses. ( “Publishing James Joyce’s “Ulysses” 1962, RTE Archives)
And here is an image of Sylvia Beach’s gravestone in Princeton. It was tweeted by Irish Times journalist, Fintan O’ Toole on 2 Feb 2022.
22 Feb 2022
Blue Skinned Gods by S J Sindhu is the memoir of a childgod, Kalki, who is blueskinned and thus perceived as an avatar of Vishnu. It is a coming-of-age novel that calls out the hypocrisy of religion, castesim and the shocking attitudes towards women that persist; while dissecting sharply other aspects of society, especially patriarchy and the manner in which it controls, constructs, imbues, destroys society and relationships. It is heartbreaking to see how the young Kalki is constantly looking at his Ayya for approval but it is not easily forthcoming.
Ultimately, religion is the opiate of the masses and this book delves deep into it. It is definitely a bildungsroman too as Kalki grows, develops and goes into adulthood. Sexuality too is like an electric undercurrent in the novel as Kalki experiments. There are moments when the much older Kalki reflects back upon his life, and much has happened. He has learned to break shackles and move ahead. He lives. He experiments. He travels — metaphorically and literally. It is a pretty sharply told story.
It is a novel that exoticises India in the same manner as Raghubir Singh did with his photographs many years ago. It presents an India to the world that they associate with India. It is a book that will appeal to foreigners as it checks many boxes regarding India especially wrt Hinduism, spirituality, a way of life etc. It is saleable.A vast number of these novels are emerging from overseas markets that offer a perspective on India. In many ways they sound dated as the writers are distanced — physically and in time — from India. Whereas the country is changing so rapidly that it is unkind to present India in a specific light. Even the protagonist, Kalki, who promises to be an interesting person as he learns to defy authority, ultimately feels very wooden. While it is essential for desi literature to expand its horizons and have more and more writers contributing to this space, perhaps it is equally prudent to have more engagements, like cross-pollination of experiences, between writers based in and writing out of India with those of the diaspora.
Ideally speaking, a panel discussion between S J Sindhu and Saikat Majumdar would be fascinating. Perhaps, it can be organised?
19 Jan 2022
I have liked Jonathan Franzen’s writings ever since I began reading his essays in the National Geographic and some other random places. Also, my admiration for him rose immensely once I discovered he had mentored a writer like Nell Zink. I have never understood why he was detested since he does not seem to brook fools. This new novel of his – Crossroads ( HarperCollins India)– is very good simply because it is not pretentious. His historical details like in the off-the-cuff references to music, life, clothes, etc. He also makes it clear in the speech formulations, sometimes in the slang used. I have not marked any passages in the book but when I was reading it, I thought to myself, oh this is so outdated but fits with the age. The whole point of the novel seems to be to focus on this middle-class white Christian family, a pastor’s family, the Hilderbrandts. As Marion constantly reminds herself and everyone that she is a Pastor’s wife, so many of her skills such as remembering useless details about individuals is her strength, a quality that marks a pastor’s family as it is expected of you. Franzen chooses to share exactly what he wishes to. The NYRB review questions the historical fiction aspect of the novel. The examples the reviewer takes out to highlight the lack of historicity are exactly what caught my eye as clever acts by Franzen. The reviewer misses out completely all the references to music, the slow intermingling of the white and black congregations, the silent pacts that the white and black pastors have, understanding how their flock has to be managed, the Navajo community etc. While reading Crossroads, I kept thinking about The Cross and the Switchblade.
It requires extraordinary talent required to create the back stories of individuals. Marion may be the flimsiest and vaguest woman but hers is amongst the strongest portrayals in the book. It is brilliant. Her descent into a nervous breakdown is stupendous. The novel is so much about the white middle class crisis, a family saga, a Christian family, the huge hold of the church upon its congregation and the way life revolves around the church – the idea of community. Recent reviews have dismissed the party at the main pastor’s house in one line but it is a crucial part of the story. The guests were from different denominations and religions, there was even a rabbi, and the smattering of conversations one hears, is a pretty good analysis of faith and the questions it raises – the importance of religion in modern society. The manic-depressive junkie son, Perry Hildebrandt, brings this party to a halt with his statements about what it means to be good or not, especially in the eyes of these men, leaders of their flock.
Franzen is playing on the title of the Key to all Mythologies, a reference to Casaubon’s unfinished book in Middlemarch, and mocking modern readers for their high falutin, obnoxious takes on being woke about various issues esp. black and minority cultures. He is just sharing as is. Franzen is achieving two things:
Crossroads is more than just an American novel. It is an incredible master class in the art of writing good literary fiction. It is also a way of sharing memories, histories and incredibly delving into the microcosm of a family. Usually, family saga novels tend to focus on a single character and then all the other relatives pale into insignificance. Or family sagas take generations to play out, with the novelist devoting many pages to each generation. In this case, he has written over 600 pages to cover a very short period of time, giving everyone due weightage — and yet not. The varying lengths of each backstory for every individual is a testament to Franzen’s craftsmanship. He is not out to prove that he can do great literary writing. He is giving every character as much is their due. He is so right in saying that he puts down what he sees. Heavens this man is quite the observer and listener. Much of the time, I feel like screaming and saying, “Yes, yes, he got this so well!” The whole idea of creating a mythical town that is really in the suburbs of Chicago, but is a conservative Christian community is done so well. Franzen too spent time in a Church Youth Fellowship. Anyone who is even remotely familiar with church communities and their groups, may realise that these gatherings can get so claustrophobic and stifling and develop their own inner dynamics that then spill out in other parts of life. Franzen gets this really well — the power of the church, the idea of the spiritual and how much of it is really driven by mortal, base and materialistic desires. Also, how much of the outer world preoccupations do not make any dent on this small community. They seem to sail on as before till the cracks begin to develop. The outside world makes its presence felt only because Franzen makes it happen as an external force that is affecting the lives of the characters. Beginning with Clem Hildebrandt, the eldest son of the pastor. A privileged white male who has the option of pursuing University but chooses to give it up to join the Vietnam war. His sister who falls in love with a musician, Tanner, who too nurses an ambition to cut a commercially successful record, but is aware that it can only happen if he leaves this small town. Or even the pastor, the shepherd of the flock, who does all this good work but is bored of his wife and is eyeing the young widow, Frances. It is so complicated. So ordinary. So mundane. But Franzen does not make it so. And so much focus on Russ, the priest, and mocking him but also justifying the choices he makes is an interesting take on a man who is supposed to be a shepherd, a leader but is so out of touch with the youngsters. The idea of a community is very critical to Franzen. He mentioned it in one of his recent essays as an aside. He is keen to give to his community and does his best for it too. So, it is an ideal central to his thinking in this book too.
With the title Crossroads Franzen gives the reader multiple interpretations for the word. Beginning with the Cream album of the same name, that was actually a cover version of the blues musician Robert Johnson’s original composition to many of the characters in the book being at the moral crossroads of a situation to being at the crossroads of life. So many layers to the word. It is utterly fascinating. The crisis that Franzen depicts in the lives of these characters is no different to many other ordinary lives. It is no wonder that Crossroads has taken many people by surprise and is getting fantastic reviews everywhere because there is no pretension; it is up front and Franzen says it like he means.
Links to some reviews:
Guardian ; Slate ; The Bookseller ; https://www.avclub.com/jonathan-franzen-sticks-with-what-works-and-loses-what-1847751729 ; BBC ; https://www.vulture.com/article/interview-jonathan-franzen-crossroads.html?utm_source=tw
I look forward to Parts 2 & 3.
4 October 2021
The Time Of The Peacock by Siddharth Chowdhury is fabulous. It is published by Aleph Book Company. Fiction that is thinly veiled account of contemporary Indian publishing is always very welcome. But a story/s like this that smartly begins like a “straightforward” story in English, slowly disappears into a fascinating literary rabbit hole of diverse landscapes and cultures and conversations that India has to offer. It requires extraordinary skill sets as a writer to put the spotlight on publishing as we know it today in India and then make mincemeat of it by upturning the smooth English narrative style by slipping into dialects. The plot is deftly contextualised within the disturbing socio-political landscape of India where the publishing world becomes an excuse to dip in and dip out of stories and socio-economic classes, thereby at times highlighting the narrowness of the books being published that at times fail to mirror their society. It is a story that is very reminiscent of Elif Batuman ‘s magnificent novel The Idiot, in which the author transformed not just the protagonist but the reader too with the astonishing storytelling, a combination of the plot and literary techniques that slowly developed, layer by layer, as the student in the novel acquired the requisite academic skills. Similarly with The Time of the Peacock, the reader is left emotionally drained but in a satisfying way. In all likelihood it will be a book that will be read, critically analysed, dissected and assume academic importance in the years to come.
Worth reading!
18 Feb 2021
When I first heard about Kratu ( PanMacmillan India), I wanted to read it. I wanted to know what a Hindu monk, as the author describes himself, had to say about mortality, spiritual awakening and perhaps even about “moh-maya” that we are taught about in Hindi poetry. But it all came to a grinding halt when I read the book blurb. I have been unable to process the description of the book especially when it describes the protagonist of the novel “burdened by deathless memory”. I am so lost as to what it means. I was advised to read the book and understand what the author is conveying. But this phrase instead of making me curious has just left me baffled. Life is too short to read an entire book-length exposition on the subject when the blurb itself fails to communicate clearly. I am deeply disappointed.
I strongly urge those with a spiritual bent of mind or who are keen readers of MBS ( Mind, Body, Spirit) literature to pick this book up. They are probably the intended audience.
14 Jan 2021
Debut novelist Sandeep Raina will be in conversation with literary stalwarts Anita Nair and Omair Ahmad on Monday, 11 Jan 2021 to discuss his novel A Bit of Everything. It is a conversation organised by Westland Books and India International Centre, New Delhi. The moderator will be Janani Ganesan. It should be interesting to hear the panelists as this is probably Anita’s first public appearance since she was appointed #UNHCR’s high profile supporter, to help create trust, awareness, and advocate about the situation of refugees in India. It could not be at a more relevant discussion since a significant proportion of Sandeep’s novel is about refugees, circumstances that make people leave their homes in search of “better” pastures, unexpected situations they find themselves in and attitudes of others towards refugees. Ultimately how does it affect the refugees themselves. So many questions are raised and need to be addressed. Omair too is known for his astonishingly powerful and award-winning novel Jimmy The Terrorist. Although writing ten years apart, Sandeep Raina and Omair Ahmad share much common ground in their literary creations on what affects them as writers, what exists as realities and how do ordinary folks negotiate these violent landscapes and learn to survive. They do it in their inimitable gentle, courteous and pleasant way but are equally passionate about how painful and senseless many of these events are.
Log in folks. Watch it.
Update: here is the link to the recording:
5 January 2021