CRITICISM
Back to the beginnings
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`Naik's volume reminds us that it didn't all begin with Salman Rushdie. It takes us back to a literature of our own that was nonetheless less self-involved, closely wedded to the freedom movement and reform movements of the 20th Century.'
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AMONG the lively and often naughty book titles that float about our heads nowadays, the rather pedestrian tag attached to M.K. Naik's collection of essays falls like a lump of lead. But it is a fair clue to the content of the book, which makes it perhaps more honest than most works of literary criticism.
M.K. Naik is known for his definitive work on the Big Three of Indian literature, Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, and Raja Rao. Readers today are dazzled by the abundance of Indian literature since 1980. Some of us are, in fact, suffering from stimulation overload and planning to sit the next one out. But Naik's volume reminds us that it didn't all begin with Salman Rushdie. It takes us back to a literature of our own that was nonetheless less self-involved, closely wedded to the freedom movement and reform movements of the 20th Century.
Here, the author gives us reasonably interesting, focused chapters on the Big Three, systematically and thoroughly examining their novels and short stories. A bonus is one chapter on G.V. Desani's All About Hatterr. All the essays could have benefited from trimming, and perhaps Chapter Five, on the geography of Malgudi, could have been considerably shortened. Still, each one passes the best test of a literary essay, that it should make one long to read or reread the text that is being discussed.
These chapters are unfortunately sandwiched between rambling, uninspired surveys on Indian literature before 1980 and after 1980. The survey chapters are a breathless stream of names, which could possibly have been absorbed by the reader if they had been much crisper. As they are, they almost snuff out the interest kindled by the meat of the sandwich. Tacked on at the end is a chapter on Midnight's Children and one on The God of Small Things. Naik's style of criticism is best suited to 19th Century and early 20th Century novels, and even with these latter novels he dissects theme and structure according to the old rules.
I have said the last two chapters are tacked on, but in one important sense The God of Small Things is a perfect omega to the alpha of The Untouchable. Naik never drops the caste thread from the first essay to the last, and indeed caste is the theme that defines the Indian people and our history. The fact that Naik still gives it primacy is appropriate, since we have persisted in dragging this rotting carcass of a social structure with us into the new century.
Since the introduction gives no information on the context in which these "vintage essays" are being reprinted, the reader is forced to draw her own conclusions. A few years ago, Naik co-authored a volume called Indian English Literature (1980-2000): A Critical Survey. Possibly the reception of that work seemed to justify pulling some old essays out of the mothballs and publishing them. That is not an unworthy endeavour in itself, but surely even reprinted essays should have been held to current standards of Indian publishing. It is rare today to find books with so many typographical and grammatical errors. No attempt has been made, apparently, to modernise or improve the writing. Such an absence of editing suggests that the book was produced on a desktop rather than by a publisher.
The bulk of the book is undoubtedly dated. The author, like many older scholars, seems incapable of using simple constructions such as "seventy years", preferring archaisms such as "three score and ten" that make the writing unnecessarily heavy. These and odd hyphenated compounds ("caste-system" and "freedom-struggle") irritate the reader and could have been cleaned up without sacrificing the period quality of the writing.
What dates the text more seriously is Naik's separate discussion of women novelists in the two survey chapters. Naik formally introduces the women novelists 10 pages into the first survey essay, whereas he ought to have more organically integrated their works into the themes discussed throughout. The same pattern occurs in the last survey essay. The author's clear-sighted comprehension about caste in literature has apparently not extended to a similar understanding about gender, but it is possibly unfair to expect both in a single writer.
What is the merit of dredging up the old social realism novels of the last century now? In terms of literature, perhaps nothing. But at a time when we are encouraged to believe in a "shining" India, at a time when, if we are to go by the books, human dilemmas seem mostly to be about adjusting to life in San Diego, Naik's book recalls us to the fact that we have not yet won the battles against caste atrocities, exploitation of women, and religious tyranny.
LATHA ANANTHARAMAN
Twentieth Century Indian English Fiction, M.K. Naik, Pencraft International, p. 231, Rs. 450.
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