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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

The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan

22/9/2016

7 Comments

 
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What was a bomb, really? A means of separation, of opening. A factory of undoing. It took the violent forces of civilisation and applied them to the very opposite aims with a childlike glee. A bomb was like a child. A tantrum directed at all things. A wail of a being that hadn’t got its own way.
A car bomb goes off in a crowded Delhi market, transforming shopkeepers and shoppers into the ranks of the injured, deceased and survivors, dividing those waiting at home into the relieved and the bereaved. Both the terrorists seeking political impact and the affected families awaiting compensation and retribution are concerned that such a small bomb lacks the impact of New York’s 9/11 yet, as the novel moves back and forth in time from the central event in May 1996, its physical and psychological significance proves nevertheless to be profound. We follow the fortunes of the disaffected youth preparing, plotting and planting the bomb; the young men imprisoned and tortured as guilty-until-proven-innocent of the crime; the middle-class Khuranas who lose both their children in the blast; the boys’ friend Mansoor Ahmed whose life is blighted by his survival. Although the bomb disperses them in different directions, their trajectories nevertheless intertwine, and reflect each other in their dislocation, resentment and a search for meaning.

Through the drama and symbolism of the bomb, Karan Mahajan examines both the aftermath of terror and the sociopolitics of contemporary middle-class Indian life. Amid the grand themes, the focus on the small details (especially the tedium of waiting both on the part of the activists awaiting orders from their superiors and the bereaved families awaiting the conclusion of a drawn-out court case) we are see the world through the diverse characters’ eyes. Although the topic is serious, the novel is not without humour, and I particularly enjoyed the description of shopping for the components of the bomb.

While the fight for Kashmiri independence, which motivates the terrorists, is only lightly sketched, the discrimination against Indian Muslims, the extent of which came as a surprise to me, is heavily underlined. The Hindu Khuranas, previously flaunting their friendship with the Ahmeds as testament to their liberal credentials, become more right wing after the bomb has taken their sons. Several of the characters explore religion both as a potential source of solace and sense-making in a meaningless world and as a kind of tribalism and a retreat from the challenges of diversity.

For Mansoor, aged twelve at the time of the blast, it proves difficult to untangle the physical from the psychological impact. His injured wrist, having recovered with physiotherapy, threatens his career as a computer programmer when he develops repetitive strain injury (the first time I’ve come across that in a novel) during his degree course in the USA. Later, he interprets this as having himself become the bomb.

The Association of Small Bombs
is published by Chatto & Windus from whom I received my review copy.

With the multiple viewpoints on a controversial issue, I thought this review would be a good fit for the latest flash fiction challenge to write a 99-word story using a lens. Fresh from a Ganesh Chaturthi storytelling walk last weekend, I’ve stuck with the Hindu theme in a retelling of a traditional story:

The whole world

“Are you serious? Whoever’s first to circumnavigate the world gets everything?”
“If you both agree,” said the Sage.
My brother nodded. The crazy kid doesn’t even have a pilot’s licence. I like to win, but I’d rather it were more of a challenge.
After twenty-three hours, my eyes stung. Rubbing them, blinking, nothing changed the view: my brother with a gold medal swinging from his neck.
The Sage placed his hand on my shoulder. “You did well, but there are other ways of looking at the world.”
My brother waved. And went back to running circles round our parents.

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You can watch a more authentic version of this story on YouTube. For another flash drawing on a story about the god Ganesh, see my post on food in fiction.

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.
7 Comments
Norah Colvin link
26/9/2016 02:31:47 am

Sounds like a book with a lot to think about, Anne, and with a range of perspectives. It fits well then with your flash, and its suggestion that there are others ways of looking at the world. I was pleased to follow the link to the YouTube version of the story which gave further meaning to "running around the world". Well done. Thank you.

Reply
Jeanne Lombardo link
28/9/2016 01:07:04 am

Sobering and intriguing review. After all, the people that do these things--that bomb public centers--are human, as much as we like to think there's something that separates them from us in some critical way...is there?
And your flash. I admit I had to look up a little more on Ganesh before getting a handle on the connection. But great take on sibling rivalry. Universal if on a different cosmic scale!

Reply
Annecdotist
28/9/2016 11:43:27 am

Yes, Jeanne, it makes life so much more complicated when we accept that people who do such terrible things are human like us. It made me feel quite uncomfortable how much I enjoyed the bombers’ story.
I wasn’t sure how/whether the flash would work without the context – thanks for making that extra effort to find it!

Reply
Charli Mills
28/9/2016 06:31:30 am

Mahajan's book is a classic example of telling a story through the lenses of multiple characters. Intriguing to look at a bombs, thus. I can't help but think of current US politics as a bomb and so many people looking through their lenses, refusing to see other perspectives. And I see it is story-telling time on the range again! I'm glad you stuck with the Hindu theme and showed how even an ancient story can be refreshed through a modern lens. Love that last line!

Reply
Annecdotist
28/9/2016 11:46:38 am

Oh, indeed, Charli, and now the presidential debates / slanging match has got going were all getting more and more worried about that bomb.
I had two consecutive weeks of storytelling walks with Jane Eyre – a very different story – the week before. But each time I come to these stories I find more and the discussions they generate bring more perspectives.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
28/9/2016 09:01:21 am

Hi Anne. Even with the symbolism of a bomb being like a child, I don't think this one is for me. I see too much of the horrors in the media. I don't really want to read about them in a work of fiction too.
I enjoyed or "got" your flash more after watching the YouTube video to which you linked. Thank you for doing so. Interesting to think of the ages at which parents are one's world, and a great perspective to take in rising to the challenge.

Reply
Annecdotist
28/9/2016 11:49:00 am

Ha, that’s a pretty scary kind of child, as a tantrumming infant can sometimes be.
I wonder how many words the YouTube video takes? Probably more than our allotted ninety-nine, but I do like those cartoons.

Reply



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