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.
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.
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