The House of Blue Mangoes. By David Davidar

The House of Blue Mangoes

David Davidar

Penguin Books. First published 2002.

David Davidar attempts a South Indian epic, narrating the story of the Dorai family over three generations, from the late 19^th century to the the middle of the 20^th. The family has its roots in the upper-class, rural (or quasi-urban/moffusil), recently-converted Christian milieu in the imaginary seaside village of Chevathar, in Kanyakumari district. The story is divided into three parts, one for each generation. The first is set in Chevathar, where the chief protagonist is the village headman, Dorai, who tries to maintain peace between the two major castes, which are in a perpetual state of antagonism that frequently breaks out into open and violent quarrels. Dorai, though, is not above being casteist and fiercely feudal himself, and, when he thinks it necessary, he fights to assert the superiority of his caste over the other. Davidar comments, in passing, on the irony of a Christian community being divided by caste, but seems to accept this as an essentially Indian phenomenon. Davidar himself hails from this milieu, and probably, though perhaps unconsciously, intends Dorai to represent his own caste – which, I guess, is Nadar. The antagonist caste may be Thevars, though they are not so well known to be converts to Christianity. In fact, in current day South Indian politics, the Thevar caste largely supports Hindu right-wing fundamentalist ideologies, and political parties that espouse such policies. Historically, in the late 19^th century, the southern regions of Sivakasi and Tenkasi, among others, witnessed large scale clashes between Nadars and Thevars (or Devars), both Hindu castes, as a result of which the Nadars, who were considered low caste, converted to Christianity and Islam. This fact is mentioned by Davidar, but the Dorai family are involved in a caste conflict of their own, with another Christian, not Hindu, community. It is also possible that the Vedhars in the book actually are an amalgam of Thevars, Vellalas and the 'untouchable' castes like Pariahs, among the last two of whom there were large scale conversions. But these questions of caste are only a part of the large range of personal and community interactions in that milieu described by Davidar, I think authentically. He also describes the interactions within the family, and between the family and other members of the community. It happened that I spent a day in Nagercoil even as I was reading the book. I tried to get a sense of the background atmosphere to the book, but I could gather not much more that what I knew from previous visits to Tirunelveli, Tiruchendur, Tenkasi, etc. What I found surprisingly missing in the book are descriptions of the scenic beauty of the place, with rocky mountains, dappled with large, green, forest patches, running down almost to the seashore. Portions of the district are now thickly covered with windmills, generating in a good season, more than half of the total electricity consumed in the state.

The second part of the book describes the establishment of Doraipuram, by the patriarch Dorai's second son, Daniel. Daniel trains as a Siddha doctor, and, in a passage underlain with comment on present-day social practices, Davidar describes him inventing a fairness cream that makes him very rich. His wealth allows him to try and artificially recreate his father's naturally developed community. He buys vast acres of land, which he then resells to members of his greater family, creating a kind of fiefdom with its own set of rules and traditions. This story plays out in the background of the freedom struggle, and there are descriptions of protests, assasinations, prisons, police brutality and so on. Though Daniel is not directly involved in any of these, his elder brother Aaron is, and the latter eventually dies in jail. There are a few set pieces here, including a description of the different types of mangoes found all over India. There are many descriptions of the interactions of the main characters with Englishmen, mostly antagonistic. We are also introduced to Kannan, Daniel's son, who figures largely in the third part of the story.

Kannan obtains an undergraduate degree from Madras Christian College, in surroundings personally familiar to me, though from a time a few decades earlier than when I was there. Kannan falls in love with an Anglo-Indian girl from the railway colony, and marries her. He gets a job as a very junior officer in a tea estate in a place that's probably Munnar (called Pulimed in the book). Now the story takes of in a different direction, all about life on the tea estate, with the English lords – and especially ladies – and masters slowly coming to terms with having to give up their privileged positions at the top of the heap, as India moves towards freedom. These tensions are well described, though only Kannan and his wife represent the Indians in the interactions. There is also a somewhat boring, but probably realistic description of the tiger hunt. Eventually the tensions get too much. Kannan's wife divorces him and gets back to Madras. Kannan himself sticks around for some more time, before he returns to Doraipuram to try and revive his father's ambitious project of establishing the community.

Davidar writes well, and the book is very readable. It however falls far short of the breathless hyperbole on the blurb, comparing it with 'Midnight's Children'. It does not even compare well with most of Amitav Ghosh. I think the reason I am dissatisfied with it is that it has no real story or message to give. It follows, probably, all the rules of good writing, as taught in 'creative writing' courses, and has also obviously involved a great deal of research, if only in libraries. Futhermore, Davidar apparently knows what he's writing about from personal experience. But the problem is that there are too many threads, too many storylines, none of them explored in depth. None of the characters stand out, and even someone like Helen, Kannan's Anglo-Indian wife, who should have been an clearly etched out creation, turns dull and drab after an exciting introduction. Again my expectations of an exploration of the interface between Christians and other communities, or intra-Christian politics are belied. In a word, the writing is too shallow to be compared favourably with the best of modern Indian writing which I have read – Vikram Chandra or Arundathi Roy, for example. Certainly it is nowhere near books with similar themes such as 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' or even 'The Galsworthy Saga'. But if we do not make such comparisons, the book is good, and worth reading once.

The Palace of Illusions. By Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The Palace of Illusions

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Picador. First published 2008.

    This is relatively brief retelling of the Mahabaratha, from Draupadi's point of view. It is interesting to read, but rather light. The author relies almost solely on the fresh viewpoint for any novelty. Thus it can be only called a retelling - it neither a new interpretation, nor an attempt at 'feminist' literature using the epic as peg to hang modernist views. So the emotions are about the same as in the various versions of the epic I have read, and the almost the same set of events are emphasized. It remains faithful to the original in all essential aspects.

   It would probably be unfair to really expect anything else. It would difficult, if not impossible, to impose 21st century sensitivities on literature of about 3000 years ago. However, despite this seeming difficulty, rather surprisingly, some of the cultural values are not really so different, and some interpretations could actually bring at least some of the values of those times closer to recent ones than to those of say a couple of centuries ago. Divakaruni does not try such interpretations and remains largely faithful to the 'standard model' handed down largely by right-leaning scholars.   

Bleak House. By Charles Dickens

Bleak House

Charles Dickens

Wordsworth Classics. First published (serialized) between March 1852 to September 1853

I bought this book as soon as I read on the Internet that Time magazine's critic Radhika Jones rated it the best Dickens novel. 'Can it be really better than David Copperfield (DC)?', I wondered. But no. When I went through all 760 pages of it, I found it good, even great, but not really as good as DC. There are no thrilling passages which one can read again and again, and no characters to match Micawber or Heep or Betsy Trotwood. The story line is a little confused, and there is no properly established motivation for many of the important actions. For example, there is a murder which occupies a good 200 pages of the book, but the solution, when it comes, is unsatisfactory. This book is probably a more 'serious' book than DC, and therefore, perhaps, more beloved of the critics, but is not the better for it.

There are two chief story lines. One deals with Lady Dedlock, her 'dark' secret (i.e. an illegitimate child) and her trials and tribulations due to that. This part of the book has most of the personal stories, and not a great deal of social comment, except for some sarcasm about doings in 'high' society. The other  line is the socially relevant story about a civil law suit, Jarndyce v/s Jarndyce, regarding the terms of a will, which drags on for years and years in the Chancery, which, at that time, was the place where civil suits, mostly regarding wills and the division of property, were decided, or rather, not decided. Dickens heaps abuse upon the entire institution of the Chancery, holding it a rotten, corrupt, self-perpetuating system, responsible for decades of deliberate delay, during which the lawyers, judges and the other officers enriched themselves at the cost of the helpless suitors, who were often seduced by hope to continue with the suits, and ended up losing their all. (Coincidentally, the same week I completed the book, I received a letter from the High Court, Hyderabad, summoning my father, who's been dead 21 years now, as a witness in some civil case! I guess we are 150 years behind UK in this respect). The two story lines intersect mainly in the person of Esther Summerson, who writes some of the book in the first person. She appears a rather exaggerated version of Agnes of DC. But while Agnes was saintly, Esther appears a parody of a saint, if we take her writings about her thoughts and feelings seriously. But if we take, as apparently the critics I mentioned above do, whatever she writes as a study by Dickens into the psychology of an illegitimate child, then the overpowering emotion apparent in the writing is one of guilt, and expatiation of this guilt in trying to be overly servile to all around her, and responding to the slightest kindness with unnatural gratitude. Looked at this way, she comes across not as a very nice girl. However, then that portion of the book can be considered a powerful characterization by Dickens of a complex personality - though I still I prefer his characterization of Heep!

The book of course is filled with all the intricate details and grotesque cartoon characters, some of them nice, some silly and some evil, that we expect in Dickens. There is also a great deal of anger when he describes the inequity of the Chancery and its doings. He is especially hard on the efficient and emotionless lawyers, as also on the insensitive judges, who, according to him, run the courts not to serve justice, but their own interests. He describes the case of a farmer, who, in a dispute with his brother about a sum of 300 pounds, ends up losing his entire estate of 12,000 pounds as 'costs' to the Chancery and the lawyers. I found this however more of an indictment of the farmer - could he not just withdraw the case and hand over the sum at some point when his losses were mounting up? Likewise the suit that forms the core of one of the story lines - Jarndyce v/s Jarndyce. We are never told what the dispute is, but just that it had been going on for a long time and that both parties to the suit well-meaning, even innocent people. But one of them, Mr. John Jarndyce, is shown as a rich man who is willing to do virtually anything to lessen the sufferings of the people he knows. In fact he initially acts as guardian to the other party in the suit, the very young Richard. But though John finds Richard getting more and more obsessed with the suit, he never offers to end it by simply offering Richard whatever he wants, maybe even more than his fair share of the property at issue. But of course, if he had done that the book would not have been written. [If Rama had sensibly not gone to the forest to satisfy a silly whim on part of his stepmother, there would have been no Ramayana!]. The most (re)readable part of the book is the description, over about 50 pages, of a chase, over the deep winter country and town landscape of Lady Dedlock, by Esther and a detective, Mr. Bucket.  

Among the Dickens I have read, Bleak House ranks below DC, of course, but also below Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby, A Tale of Two Cities and perhaps even The Pickwick papers. These are books I would like to read, and have read, again and again. Not Bleak House.     

There are few quotable quotes.

"...a shameful testimony to future ages, how civilisation and barbarism walked  this boastful island together."

"Sir Leicester is generally in a complacent state, and rarely bored. When he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own greatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man, to have so inexhaustible a subject." 

   

Full Moon. By P.G. Wodehouse

Full Moon

P. G. Wodehouse

Penguin Books. First Published in 1947

The n'th time I'm reading this book. I bought it in 1982 (as a PhD student in IISc, Bangalore, probably at Gangaram's on MG Road - I wonder if that book store is still there), though I'm sure I must have read it before that, and have certainly read it many times since. One of Wodehouse's best, it's a Blandings castle story, featuring such wonderful characters as Veronica Wedge (she 'goes on the air' saying 'EEEEEEEEEE') and Tipton Plimsoll. The climactic sequences, first in the drawing room of Blandings castle, and later in various other spots around the castle, are wonderfully described in some of his best writing over about 50 pages and should rank right up there with Gussie Fink-Nottle's speech in 'Right Ho, Jeeves'. Almost the entire book is quotable, but I'll give just one quote here.

'Freddie said that it began to look to him as though there was no such thing as justice in this world. If ever a fellow had been allowed to walk into a snare through lack of inter-office communication, that fellow was himself. Why had he not been told? Why had he not been put abreast? A simple memo would have done the trick and no memo had been forthcoming.It the verdict of posterity was not that the whole thing was the fault of his uncle and that he himself was blameless and innocent, he would be surprised and astonished - in fact, amazed and stunned.'

Lovely writing. 

Captain Corelli's Mandolin. By Louis de Bernieres

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Louis de Bernieres

Vintage Classics. First published 1994.

A marvelous book by an author I have never heard of before - apparently it wasn't even shortlisted for the Booker - I wonder why. It's written in English and the author lives in England, though his name suggests French origins. The book has won other prizes, as have his other novels, which I plan to obtain soon. I picked this just by browsing at Odyssey (appropriately enough, since there's a fair bit about Homer's Odyssey in the book!) in Express Avenue, and I am proud of my 'discovery', like I was about 'discovering' Charles Frazier at the Chennai Book fair some years ago. 

The story is set on the Greek island of Cephallonia during (and just after) World War II. Italy under Mussolini invades Greece and occupies the island. This episode is presented as a betrayal of the Greeks whose government which was initially friendly with Italy, and supportive of the fascists. A lot of murky politics involving also Britain and Germany and their intrigues is described as finally leading to an occupation disastrous for the ordinary people of Greece. A group of Italian soldiers are sent to Cephallonia as the occupying force and some of them are billeted on the inhabitants of the island. Captain Corelli, a gentle easygoing musician soldier, who does not really consider anybody his enemy, starts to live in the house of Dr. Iannis and his daughter Pelagia. The captain and the girl fall in love, but the fortunes of war does not allow them to consummate their love. When the war is lost by the Axis forces, the Greeks are massacred elsewhere, but on the island, it is the Italians who are killed wholesale by their erstwhile allies the Germans. The captain escapes, presumably to mainland Italy. The British and the Americans have a passive role in the tragedy - the allied forces invade   Europe through Sicily, rather than Greece, and, according to the author, their cold-blooded but strategically understandable neglect seals the doom of the Greek population. After the surrender of first the Italians, and then the Germans on mainland Europe, Greece comes under the rule of the fragmented groups of resistance fighters, some of whom, the communists, are so indoctrinated that they turn out to be as bad as the Germans. A few years of these terrible events, and in 1953 a great earthquake destroys whatever was left on the island. The last portion of the book is about how the Greeks rebuild, and in particular about how Pelagia finds a family and some meaning and happiness in her old age, though she loses her lover, the captain, to the war, her erstwhile fiance, the Greek resistance fighter, to the postwar events, and her beloved father to the earthquake. 

Even as I read the book, the Greek economy is going through a bad time, with the Greeks being told to dance to the fiscal tunes of the Germans (Angela Merkel!). Of course the current events are not really as terrible as those described in the book, at least not yet.

The language of the book is superb, with lyrical descriptions of semi-rural Greek life, and sometimes coldly matter-of-fact descriptions of violence. There are several lovingly humourous passages, and all the characters are sensitively and humanely described, even some of the Germans. The really evil people are off-stage, and are represented, nominally, by Hitler and Mussolini. Stalin and Lenin, though not named, also come in for some opprobrium. The British and the Americans are the least tarnished, and in fact shown to be somehow incapable of the kind of inhuman violence perpetrated by the Germans, some of the Italians and some of the Greeks. This was the major false note the book struck, with a minor one being a sarcastic and shallow condemnation of communism. Despite this, the book is a lovely read.

Mrs McGinty's Dead. By Agatha Christie

Mrs McGinty's Dead

Agatha Christie

Harper Collins. First Published 1952.

A Hercule Poirot mystery.  A nice read, though I could guess the solution reasonably ahead. Maybe I have read this book before, but I could not recollect anything as I read the book now. So it's OK. The title is again a nursery rhyme, a favourite ploy of Christie. And again she uses the rhyme to approximately structure the book. On a scale of 1 (the Tommy and Tuppence books) to 10 (Murder on the Orient Express) this book would rate 7.0.

Doubt. By Jennifer Michael Hecht

Doubt: a history

Jennifer Micheal Hecht

Published in 2003 by Harper Collins

'Doubt' in this book is defined as doubt about the existence of God, for the most part focusing on ideas (and people) through the ages that doubted the existence of an anthropomorphic christian/jewish/islamic 'One' God. True to its subtitle, the book describes the subject chronologically, starting from ancient times, and ending up post September 11, 2001. It doesn't include Richard Dawkins  and his band of brothers, though. It's an interesting book, with tons of new information, but no overall message, except maybe the following: 'Doubt is good, and plenty of really great people have expressed it (including Jesus Christ! - 'O my God, why have you forsaken me?'). But even if we do not go to such extremes (i.e. including JC) to define doubt, there were several important and, to me, unlikely, people who were atheists - Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine being among the most relevant in the background of contemporary American politics.

Many of the ancient Greek philosophers doubted the physical existence of a God or gods, and came up with several important theories to explain the Universe, such as Democritus and his atomism. Other philosophers like Socrates and Plato developed their own distinct and startling ideas about existence of the Universe, and about the human condition in particular, without finding the need to postulate an anthropomorphic God. There were the Cynics, the Skeptics, the Stoics, and the Epicureans, all largely atheists, but with different takes on how to live in a godless world. As Hecht says, the basic idea,whether among the Greeks, or with the rest of humanity, has always been to reconcile an obviously unjust world with the very human ideas of justice and fairness. 

After describing the Greeks, Hecht describes atheism among the ancient Jews, Indians and Chinese. Many of the prophets in the Old Testament were doubters, and frequently held personal conversations with God, where they doubted He actually existed - in the manner of several latter-day Indian 'bhaktas'. But while it may be a stretch to call this atheism, it is true that when Indian philosophy and religion talk about 'One God', it is done in strictly non-anthropomorphic terms using terms such as 'Brahman' or 'Parmatma', and not describing this as an entity that interests itself with the doings, good or bad, of you and me. There is then extensive description of the philosophy of the Buddha, who was, of course, the compleat atheist. The Carvaka philosophy of uncompromising and extreme empiricism is also described, as is Jainism, another atheist philosophy.

I use this opportunity to digress a bit and opine the following about Hinduism. One of the commonly quoted 'facts' about Hinduism is that it has 33 crore Gods - giving an impression of rampant and unmanageable polytheism. Actually, I think Hinduism, even without dwelling on Buddha, or even Sankara, is largely atheist. The Hindu world-view has several different classes of 'living' entities in the Universe - gods, humans, asuras, gandharavas, and so on. The population of each class is finite, and that of gods is estimated as 33 crore. There may have been similar estimates of the population of the other classes, I don't know. These gods are, of course, superior beings as compared to humans, and have supernatural powers. But men and women, and even asuras or individuals of the other classes, could obtain some of these supernatural powers by penance or some other heroic deed, usually as a gift from one of the powerful gods. These individuals would then be occasionally more powerful than most gods, and certainly more powerful than ordinary humans. Sometimes these powerful humans would themselves attain god-hood - or, if the promotion was too embarrassing, reveal their hitherto hidden God-hood. Really, the only Hindu God who would fit Hecht's description of the atheist's 'other' would be Brahman, but even here, there is no anthropomorphism. In fact the closest I can see of something similar in other religions is Allah. End of digression.

Hecht then deals with doubt in the first centuries of the Christian era, trying (but in my opinion failing) to establish Jesus as a doubter, and dissecting many later saints and prophets to show that they often expressed doubt about the nature and even existence of God. Doubt during medieval times, and later during the renaissance is next described, including  extensive condemnation of the Catholic church and its inquisition - Giordano Bruno is one of her heroes. The list of doubters then extends into the twenty-first century, all the way to 2001, and includes European philosophers, American politicians, Arab, Chinese, Japanese and Indian scholars and religious leaders, and of course a long series of scientists.

The book is very informative, and easy to read, but more like an encyclopedia (or a list) of doubters, than a treatise on doubt. Considered even as described by the subtitle ('a history') it is not a history in the sense of giving a fresh view of happenings (like, say Toynbee or even Thapar), but more of a list. But it is excellently researched, and very well written.