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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.

TELL ME MORE

Othering India? Land Where I Flee by Prajwal Parajuly

18/9/2015

8 Comments

 
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In Gangtok in the remote state of Sikkim, Chitralekha, Nepali-speaking Indian clothing factory owner with the ear of the local politicians, awaits her eighty-fourth birthday. Reluctantly, her thirty-something grandchildren travel from across the world to join her: Agastaya from New York; Manasa from London; and Bhagwati from Boulder, Colorado. Each arrives without their significant other: Agastaya because he can’t tell his family he’s gay; Manasa – married by arrangement into a high-caste Nepali family whose Oxford degree is useless now she stays at home nursing her father-in-law – because she is grateful for a break; Bhagwati because her low-caste Bhutanese husband and two Americanised sons would be unwelcome in the family home. So far, so clichéd, but a dysfunctional family, especially one in an exotic culture, can be entertaining in its way, even if, like in a stale sitcom, the characters are obliged to continually repeat their defining grievances, just in case the audience hasn’t got it.

Then Ruthwa, the estranged younger brother, arrives on the scene to enliven the narrative with his nasty egotistical voice. Ruthwa is a writer, his first book lauded for a poetic description of rape, purloined from a story of his grandmother’s (and the reason he is particularly persona non grata), his second vilified for plagiarising VS Naipaul, now looking for inspiration for a new non-fiction book. Of course, one wonders how much of the author, also from Gangtok, is represented by the character of Ruthwa and whether this is a joke against himself, or against us his readers, when Ruthwa says of his own book (p114):

Such a clever book, critics said. In reality, it was a story that thrived on stereotypes. The Brahmins in Himalayan Sunset were stingier and more conservative than those of my real life, the eunuchs more flamboyant, the Western gays more promiscuous, the Indian gays more deeply closeted, the Americans far more ethnocentric than those I came across, and the refugees all worked as dishwashers. Cobwebs in India dangled more freely, mosquitoes here sucked blood more vehemently, and roaches multiplied more aggressively.

Of course, you must stick to pigeonholes in your writing; otherwise, there’s all that talk about inauthenticity.

Although I was amused, the last line bothered me. It might have been true when Naipaul was first published, but for a novel appearing in 2014? When the book continued with Ruthwa’s account of the life of the family servant, the hijra Prasanti, I wondered if this usurping of the transgender character’s voice was somehow a continuation of this joke and the entire novel was intended as a post-modern take on Othering.

When I wrote my post on my approach to reading for reviews, I neglected to mention that, as well as noting what interests me about a novel, I try to judge it against the writer’s intentions. There’s no point me grousing about the triviality of chick lit if trivial is its USP. Land Where I Flee isn’t chick lit, but I really don’t know what kind of animal it’s trying to be. Comedy? Although, other than the bit I’ve quoted, it didn’t raise much of a smile. Family drama? Exotica? Serious political critique?

There are three stories here I’d have been interested in examining closer: the geopolitics of the Himalayan countries; Bhagwati’s fifteen years in a refugee camp; and the story of Prasanti, and India’s historically contradictory attitudes towards transgender women, from her own point of view. But of course none of these might be the novel the author wanted to write. Thanks to Quercus books 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.
8 Comments
Charli Mills
19/9/2015 12:12:56 am

It could be simply a modern novel for the sake of entertainment. Somehow it brings to light the Bollywood movies I used to watch with my friend who is Indian-American. Very much full of stereotypes, but sheer fun to watch. Although I'm not sure this book sounds fun...Like you, I like to feel a connection to purpose, to get something meaningful from a read as well as to be entertained.

Reply
Annecdotist
20/9/2015 10:41:51 am

Bollywood movies are much more entertaining, I think, because, with music and vivid photography, they're much more than the predictable plot. This felt to me as if it was saying something more serious, but I was missing the point. Thanks for trying to tease it out with me.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
20/9/2015 10:23:19 am

Interesting that Charli raises the issue of Bollywood and stereotypes. I was thinking the same thing. I wonder if the author's intent was to raise questions about the stereotypes and encourage thought about the issues, as you seem to have done. But I wonder, also, if this is the appropriate avenue in which to do that. Your final point indicates that although this novel might be the one that the author wanted to write, it is not one that you wanted to read. The title and cover are interesting. I'm not sure that I'm making a connection with your description of the story.

Reply
Annecdotist
20/9/2015 10:51:07 am

I suppose it's my sense is that we should have gone beyond the stereotypes, not just in the West, but India itself has I think the world's largest English-language reading public. I'll have to nudge someone from there to give me an opinion on this.
They've also helps me to think a bit further about the title. Initially I thought the land signified Sikkim, with an inherent contradiction as they are not fleeing to it but from it. Maybe the land is meant to infer the various countries in which this generation has settled. As it happens, I was out yesterday with a friend who is from southern India doing the Hindu storytelling walk I've written about before here and she happened to mention that just about all her generation of the extended family live abroad. Again, I think there interesting things to be said about migration without resorting to stereotypes. I suppose the cover also evokes this kind of novel with the woman with jeans underneath her sari – but I think a lot of Indian origin people both within and outside India manage this fluidity between modern and traditional with great ease.
Thanks for your thoughtfulness in relation to this post.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
21/9/2015 11:53:04 am

Thanks Anne. More to think about there. I agree with you about the stereotypes. I think I saw a few episodes of a TV "sitcom' a few years ago, maybe called the Kumars, which I think portrayed stereotypes. Stereotypes are possibly only amusing to those who don't fit the "type". None of us like to think we are all the same because of one shared characteristic e.g. red hair.
Thanks for explaining the connection between the title and cover, and the story. I didn't notice the jeans until you pointed them out. I need to do a little more noticing and reflecting. Thank you for spurring me on in those endeavours.

Reply
Annecdotist
21/9/2015 05:17:17 pm

There was a programme called the Kumars which was a kind of spoof guest show, if I remember rightly, which I thought quite funny. But not as funny as an earlier series by the same people called Goodness Gracious Me which poked fun at British stereotypes of Asian people.
No apologies needed for not noticing the detail in the cover. To my mind, stuff like that is more the responsibility of the writer/blogger than the reader.

Reply
Paula link
21/9/2015 09:03:39 pm

You're such an interesting reviewer, Anne. I guess that's not what I am supposed to notice about the review, is it? Poking fun at stereotypes is something I reserve for my television comedies. From a writer I generally want something more.

Reply
Annecdotist
22/9/2015 10:45:26 am

Thanks, Paula, and do feel free to notice whatever you like! I guess I'm much the same, wanting my fiction to go deeper than the comedy I'd actually enjoy on TV.

Reply



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