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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

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A Life in the Day: Odysseus Abroad by Amit Chaudhari

13/12/2015

6 Comments

 
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It’s August 1985, and Ananda, a student of English at the University of Central London with aspirations to be a poet, has a whole day to fill. We follow him reluctantly get out of bed, fret about the neighbours’ noise, miss his mother who has recently returned to Bombay, attend a meeting with his tutor, and hang out with his equally eccentric uncle, Rangamama, as they separately reminisce and bicker about their lives. Their territory is Bloomsbury, Hampstead and Belsize Park, a world of disappointing Indian restaurants, public transport, and potentially racist drunks. Inveterate outsiders, not just in London but in Asia, too: their Sylheti Hindu heritage having been twice rebranded (first with Partition, then with Bangladeshi independence) and leaving a legacy of “Indian” restaurants and the revered poet, Tagore. Desperately unhappy, the two men cling to each other despite their differences, Ananda possibly seeing his empty future in his uncle.

It’s hard to know what to make of a novel comprised of all the minute quotidian detail that most novels would cut out. There are touches of humour, and I especially enjoyed this exposition on the lack of reference to lavatorial necessities in Western film and literature (p128-9):

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and I might have appreciated it even more had I been better able to detect the links with Homer’s Odyssey and Joyce’s Ulysses, or the wider Western literary canon which it seems intent to satirise. But without that anchor, I kept wondering why these characters, why this point in time. The fine detail – including the names and locations of various restaurants, which presumably change identities over time – suggests it could be semi-autobiographical, but I didn’t want to have to check. Nor did I want to get out my London A-Z and plot their journey through streets I vaguely recognised, while wondering what the reading experience might be like for someone with even less experience of the capital than me.

While this might sound a bit gripey, I didn’t not enjoy it; in fact, I was impressed with a writer who could keep my attention with so little plot. But I didn’t love it either, though it could be testament to the author’s skill that it left me feeling as much an outsider to this novel as the characters portrayed. Thanks to Oneworld for my review copy.
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
6 Comments
Charli Mills
14/12/2015 01:00:51 am

I wonder if there exists some kind of grid based on skill of writing and plot of story? Kind of like a literary SWOT analysis. This one sounds like it would rank high with the strength of craft, but low on plot. Interesting book.

Reply
Annecdotist
14/12/2015 11:43:03 am

That's a really interesting perspective, Charli, and it strikes me that that would be a sensible way for publishers to analyse submissions – the SW lovely quality of the text and the OT for the marketing perspective. Who knows, they might already do that? But I certainly think it's true that the more skilled the writer the more they can get away a with less engaging story.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
14/12/2015 10:42:21 am

Interesting that the book is filled with the minute quotidian detail that others omit. I think I have seen movies like that and I wonder what is the point. Isn't life pointless enough without reading about or watching its pointlessness? Perhaps that is the point of their empty lives and their inability to find meaning. Often though, the characters are helped to find meaning. Maybe the fact that life is meaningless is the whole point of the exercise anyway. Or maybe that's just me reflecting my opinion of the moment. Neither loving nor hating a novel can not be taken as either a recommendation or a caning. I think I'll leave this one for now, though as Charli says, maybe it could be an interesting read.

Reply
Annecdotist
14/12/2015 11:47:23 am

Could be about meaninglessness, Norah, but it's such a long time since I've read the existentialists I'm not sure how it compares. And sorry to be sitting on the fence with this one – I suppose I'm saying that it works very well on its own terms, though I find it hard to be enthusiastic about those particular terms. But, given that it's #diverseDecember and the one-size-fits-all fodder a lot of publishers serve up, I'm almost glad that quirky books get published.

Reply
Caroline link
15/12/2015 02:02:11 pm

Im afraid that I gave up on this one when I tried it. I quite enjoyed the detail but the literary theory seemed dull and not of much relevance to me.

Reply
Annecdotist
16/12/2015 10:25:57 am

Yes, it was the literary theory that made me feel an outsider to this novel. I very much enjoyed the Indian references – reminds me of when I went to a village in Bangladesh and was surprised to find there were still Hindus living there!

Reply



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