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Book Review
A reader on Bengali litterateur
ASHOKAMITRAN
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Explains how and why Sunil Gangopadhyay is one of the nation’s leading creative minds
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SUNIL GANGOPADHYAY:
Compiled and edited by Enakshi Chatterjee; Sahitya Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, 35, Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 225.
In a matter of 60 years, the term ‘reader’, normally associated with classrooms, has begun to mean also a selection of a writer in a single volume. In 1946, Malcolm Cowley, an American critic, thought William Faulkner ought to be better known and edited the now-famous book, The Portable Faulkner. This not only made possible new editions of the writer but also won him the Nobel Prize.
Early life
Malcolm Cowley excluded Faulkner’s poems but Enakshi Chatterjee has a quarter of Gangopadhyay’s Reader devoted to his poems. The significant sections of the book are the three short stories, a novella, excerpts from two novels, and a brief chapter of the writer’s autobiography.
Three events in Gangopadhyay’s early life shaped his future and destiny. The first was his meeting with the American poet and academician Paul Engle in Calcutta (now Kolkata). Paul Engle was just then organising an International Writers Programme in his University of Iowa on an annual basis. Gangopadhyay was one of the first Indian participants of the Programme. The second was his being taken into the Ananda Bazar group, which freed him from the day-to-day economic constraints of a writer; he also had a ready public forum. The third was Satyajit Ray choosing Gangopadhyay’s novella ‘Pratidwandi’ to make a film. Fame, numerous foreign travels, and even mayorship of the city followed. Sunil Gangopadhyay is currently the president of Sahitya Akademi.
The compiler has included the whole of the novella ‘Pratidwandi.’ The novel-excerpts are from Gangopadhyay’s famous ‘Sei Samay’ (Those days) and ‘Purva-Paschim’ (East-West). While the novella and the three short stories indicate an existentialistic mode of looking at life, the novels return to absorbing narrative with a number of real-life characters mingled with imagined characters and revealing the writer’s view of the history of the recent past.
Gripping narration
Some may feel unhappy that a well-known Bengali of the 19th century is tagged with doubtful origin but the narration by itself is gripping and credible and justly explains how and why Sunil Gangopadhyay is considered to be one of the nation’s leading creative minds. The autobiography may have been given more space.
In the Reader, it tells about the circumstances of the writer as his father is living out his final days. Young Sunil is as much pressed by the impending loss as also his inability to bring out his little magazine, Krittibaas, on time.
The editor has contributed an excellent introduction to the Reader, giving all the salient features of the writer’s life and providing the context of the novels. It is very likely that another editor would have gone for a different selection. The Reader is eminently valid in its present form and is a valuable addition to the growing volume of Indian writing in English translation.
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