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Sunday,
April 6, 2003 |
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Second attempts tell a dismal tale
Suresh Kohli
M ANJU Kapur is
receiving considerable flak for her second novel, A Married
Woman. Personally, one hadn’t thought much of her first one,
Difficult Daughters either. But she is not the only one
who hasn’t been able to keep up the promise of first success.
Not that she is in any august company. One wonders why the
second books of many of those, especially Indian English
writers, who seemingly hit the jackpot with the first is a let
down, if not a disaster. There is not even one aspect of the
redeeming quality so apparent in the maiden attempts. There does
seem to be an unspoken pattern, if one looks at Chaman Nahal’s
Azadi, Namita Gohkale’s Paro, Anurag Mathur’s
Inscrutable Americans, Jaishree Mishra’s Ancient
Promises, Anita Nair’s The Better Man, I. Allan
Sealy’s Trotternama, Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English
August, and others. One is conscious that it is unfair to
put them all in the same bracket.
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The late Arun Joshi’s debut with
The Foreigner was the harbinger of greater achievements. |
And since Arundhati Roy is
apparently not even attempting a follow-up to The God of
Small Things, the only exception seems to be the late
Arun Joshi whose successful debut with The Foreigner was
the harbinger of greater fictional achievements.
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Chatterjee’s subsequent books bettered
English August
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The comparisons are unfair because, for instance, there is
nothing wrong whatsoever with either Sealy or Chatterjee’s
subsequent attempts. In fact, Chatterjee has gone on to
improve his craft considerably, and Sealy has attempted a
noteworthy thematic variety without in any way compromising
with either the language or the craft. One hasn’t yet got to
read the latest, The Brainfever Bird, but the advance
reviews predict another good read. But the case with the
others is different. Many of them have made successive
attempts but without coming anywhere closer to the style,
technique, language that was evident in the first works. And
if one is not mistaken they all have found acceptance with
foreign publishers. Mishra and Nair are clearly flukes or
otherwise of the post-Arundhati Roy phenomenon which
cash-or-novelty starved agents and publishers just lapped up
in speculation.
One plausible reason, which some of them
initially acknowledged and subsequently hid under covers,
could be editing and rewriting efforts that went on to make
those books readable. And one common feature of all the second
or in many cases even the subsequent attempts is the loss of
quality in writing, command over characters and situations and
a lot of unmanaged loose ends. Anurag Mathur’s subsequent
novels make pathetic reading. Chaman Nahal’s Gandhi triology
tore apart the patience of even the most patient academic.
Nair’s Ladies Coupe couldn’t find appreciative
attachment to the hail-me-more train.
Soon there will be many others also on test, if they come
up with another novel at all. Raj Kamal Jha whose disastrous
The Blue Bedspread eagerly awaits the next occupant.
Kiran Desai’s enviable "lush and intensely imagined"
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard hasn’t found a sequel in
five years. Radhika Jha is still reportedly ‘smelling’ the
Paris lanes and alleys for a convincing tale. Meena Arora
Nayak is still searching and asking About Daddy and his
whereabouts in independent India, and Jamyang Norbu is
apparently lost in the labyrinths of Tibet for the The
Mandala of Sherlock Holmes. So eventful has been the rise
of the new Indian English novelist in the past less than a
decade that it is difficult to keep a track, or to follow up
the advent of the short-lived heroes and heroines.
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Vikram Seth: One among the few who never disappoint
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Compare the situation with some of those whose first books
were either not wildly hailed, or less critically acclaimed.
They have all gone on to become names. One is not talking here
about stalwarts like Vikram Seth or Amitav Ghose but about
less fortunate ones like Geetha Hariharan who with the
publication of In Times of Seige has not only
recaptured the promise evident in the award-winning first
The Thousand Faces of the Night but also her reputation as
a highly competent and enduring novelist.
Take the peculiar case of Pankaj Mishra — the genius agent
who discovered Arundhati Roy, and subsequently invented other
marquee names. His own hugely touted maiden fictional attempt,
The Romantic, turned out to be amongst the exceptional
embarrassments of the last century. Or the Penguin India
honcho, David Davidhar’s The House of Blue Mangoes that
has failed to become a best-selling fable despite the
deployment of every trick in the armour and several big names
in the newspaper industry shamelessly hailing the difficult
read as comparable to Midnight’s Children. One wonders
what has prevented Salman Rushdie from reacting to the
undeserving reviews.
In the post-Rushdie-Seth-Roy era, the parameters for the
Indian-English author changed all of a sudden. The
ever-changing English-language publishing scenario, at the
international level of course, began to chant only the
money-mantra. The phenomenal success of just three landmark
books, Midnight’s Children, The Golden Gate and
The God of Small Things in quick succession turned the
hawks to fly over the Indian skies in search of fresher and
tastier meat. Only it seems, in retrospect, they searched and
searched for more and more of golden geese but could only find
some turkey to carry back home, marinate with sumptuous
ginger-and-garlic and serve as the new international chicken
delicacy. Some fell for the bait. Others rejected it outright.
The pity is that in their hurried race to cash the golden
goose they left behind some really delicious birds who will
now find the Western market a little more difficult to
conquer.
And it will be their creativity that shall sing the
longevity song of Indian-English writing in the days to come. |
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