Reviews

I have always felt trepidation when reviewing books, especially those that have been bestsellers and have been critically acclaimed. The sense of my own limited knowledge of books nags at me that I may be the idiot that did not grasp it. After all, what is my education on these matters, I am not as well read as much as, say, Sharon Bakar. Been less in contact with literature, in the recent times, unlike Zafar Anjum, Anima Kosai and so many more out there.

I have no credentials whatever save that I read. And the incredible urge to say something about it however insignificant it may be and flawed that it mostly is.

Be that as it may, I come across books, winners of Booker Prize, winners of Pulitzer and various others prizes and wonder: what’s wrong with me, I just did not get it. Goodness, these were the books that were selected by masters in their oeuvre. Anita Desai’s book, a couple of years ago, I thought, should not have made the cut. Even this year’s book, ‘The Gathering’ in my opinion, did not deserve the accolade. Then I see books that really amazed me with their brilliance did not even make it to the final few.

I live in an age, of course, where Harry Potter books sell by the millions, and that consoles me a little, not every book that sells well has to be good.

When all were gushing over Tash Aw’s ‘Silk Factory’ I was shaking my head a little, I must be a dunce, and the years and gray hair have not made me any wiser. Then there was this fallibility, instead of reviewing a book in the conventional way, with a little spice of what the book is all about, I tended to eulogize the craftsmanship, the language used, the adjectives not used. Sometimes it is just that words refuse to come.

Like when I read Midnight’s Children fresh out of the press. A copy loaned by, none else, Dom Moraes, sitting in his house in Colaba, drinking his whiskey, reading it noisily. I sent in a one line review to Deccan Chronicle.

“What a book bhenchod!”

It didn’t get published of course but got me a cup of Irani tea when I returned to Hyderabad.

Thus when I recently read two books that did well at the till. I had to ask, am I missing something?

Mohsin Hamid’s ‘The Reluctant Fundamentalist’ and David Davidar’s ‘The Solitude of Emperors’ were both on the bestseller list, I thought they were good novels that fell short of greatness. They lacked punches that the theme they carried so richly deserved, the verbosity required to give them that added spice. From the land of nutmegs and cloves they served a bland English fare.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

A theme that is in the hearts and minds of most sane people reading anything today: The effects of Islamic Fundamentalism and the hegemony of the United States of America. It starts off well and halfway through the first chapter I adjust my ass more comfortably on the chair, I tell my wife to please get me my favorite drink and tell the children to be seen and not heard, I am in for a long haul into something delicious.

As I read on, I get the sinking feeling, the ominous feeling that salt has gone missing. The flavor is just not right, the tempo was awry.

Towards the end of the fourth chapter I put the book spread-eagled on my lap and looked wistfully into past. Couldn’t he do something to break the monotony? Could Mohsin just add element of action, describe the city better, a mega city at that, where is the…

I keep on reading, more in hope than anticipation, more in prayer than conviction.

Towards where Mohsin gets to Janissaries, I stop. I mind wanders to Jaan Nisar Akther and his poetry, and then takes a leap to the beautifully constructed ‘Shadows’ by Sahir Ludhianvi. I think of the books that handled great themes, of turmoil and conflict, I remember Grapes of Wrath, how beautifully Steinbeck interspersed the longer descriptive with shorter one, how the shorter seemed to move to a beat, how a narrative with so well seamed with the whole book.

They are sitting in a café in Lahore, in the spice laden Old Anarkali, drinking tea and eating kebabs, but where in the name of heaven is the Cinnamon, where is Ilaichi. The tea being served by Mohsin is bare.

It is good, did I say that already, the passages where Changez is actually talking to the man he has chosen to tell his tale to seemed to rise above the rest of the book, they bring the zing to the taste buds. Zafar mentioned that too, on his blog, I think.

One would have hoped for more, from a writer who chose a great theme, who wrote brilliant passages in the book from time to time, like the one where he watches the 9/11 tragedy console me a little.

Still leave me unsatisfied, a little disconsolate: much could have been made of it but was not.

The Solitude of Emperors

David Davidar admitted to Sharon, using Salman’s often repeated quote: “Every novelist should have a first novel that is burned or put in a drawer,” Salman would say that of course, since his first was a total dud. Perhaps the maxim holds true, if it one would have wished David had published the one he wrote when he was twenty.

The theme is absolutely brilliant, the need was there, the questions he raises are real, and anyone keeping abreast of what is happening in India would be aware of the juxtaposition it is in. Its democracy is a cloak worn by the very ones that are bent on destroying it. He creates, in Sorabjee a sort of Gandhi, fighting for what he believes in, with means he can muster. He is an editor; he publishes a magazine that tries to gather under tolerance a rapidly disintegrating population.

The evils that Vijay, the simple boy who leaves his hometown to work with Sorabjee, are real and threatening the fabric of society. He comes face to face with such evil with in the riots that erupted in Bombay, normally a city that would normally go about its way while the rest of India burned and blundered. It shook him, being stopped by a mob on rampage. He was asked to identify himself, was saved by the sacred thread that Brahmins wear. When such evil is on rampage, yours are not entirely yours. He escaped death but was mauled.

His plot is simple, but it is not the plot that is the cornerstone of the novel, it is the idea he tries to express. Even then, I wished he had created a better set of characters, had wonderfully broad canvas he had bought for himself with more vibrant colors. I wished that he had used the sensory language he had in his first novel ‘The House of Blue Mangoes.’

The character of Noah is brilliantly portrayed, one that leaves you in suspense. The details of his actual life were left hanging, just nicely enough to give his character the richness to make it linger on in the memory.

The narration was flawed a little, and I still, even after the writer’s plausible answer, to the use of K— to refer to Vijay’s hometown. David says it was to signify any small town. There are other devices, one used by David himself in House of Blue Mangoes. Chevathar of his earlier book seemed so real that I was even tempted to Google it. We he has the ability.

The only reason this remains in my good books and not great is he did not sufficiently argue his cause, which he failed to lay stark the underbelly of the sectarianism. At times the naïve nature of Vijay’s character defeated the purpose.

That said, I enjoyed reading it, was not tempted to throw it half read into the top left corner of the bookshelf, the one that I have to stand on a ladder to reach. It is kept well within reach, in case I have the urge to read the beautiful manuscript entwined in the novel.