The Book of Chocolate Saints + Women Poets + Red Feathers
In Dear Reader, I tell you what I’ve been reading and compile lists of new books expected/ out this month in India. I've been in touch with most of the big and indie Indian publishers to ask for their releases. Some are more responsive than others (sigh). If you have a book that you'd like me to list, please get in touch via Twitter (@dpanjana) or my website. If you've got suggestions for the newsletter, they're most welcome too.
***
Ever since I started inching towards the end of Jeet Thayil’s The Book of Chocolate Saints, I’ve been wondering about recommending this book. It’s not just that it needs a reader who is patient, willing to indulge it a little and give it time. This is a poet’s novel, which means the language is finely-wrought and there are observations that make you stop and re-read bits. However, if you're reading for plot and pay off, be prepared to be underwhelmed. If you like poetry, buy this book for the sentences that are jaggedly beautiful and the everyday lyricism of ugly, urban life. If you don’t know names like Nissim Ezekiel and Arun Kolatkar, it will make you curious about them and you might just find yourself wishing you lived in the surreality of wild intoxication that Thayil describes in this novel. The book is an ode to some brilliant men who lived and wrote poetry in Mumbai in the 1980s and 1990s. Thayil is clearly a little livid that they aren’t remembered today, but arguably, they’re better off than the women poets who are so deeply forgotten that even this book doesn’t have time for them.
Or maybe that’s because as far as The Book of Chocolate Saints (Aleph, Rs 799) is concerned, women are either muses or whores. But more on that later.
Newton Francis Xavier — New to some, X to others; and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of metaphors and literary tricks in this novel — is a withered poet and a famous painter. Once a prize-winning poet, he hasn't written in years. As an artist, his paintings are scrutinised because there are so many copies. What we're reading is a book within a book. It's Xavier's his life as recounted by and to Dismas Bambai, named after the thief who was crucified with Jesus Christ and a journalist who becomes an author when he steals Xavier’s life to write an unauthorised, sensationalised biography. The contrasts and parallels between Bambai’s unreal book and Thayil’s real one are deeply enjoyable, by the way. Reading the book is like putting your eye to a kaleidoscope: the patterns are often dazzling, and the pieces keep moving. Nostalgia, gleaming and thick, is all over The Book of Chocolate Saints. For all those who frown at tangents, expect pace and want things to happen in a neat, coherent manner, the novel has only contempt and ridicule.
Xavier is a combination of the Progressive artist FN Souza and the multi-faceted literary genius, Dom Moraes, who makes independent cameo appearances in the book as himself but also haunts the character of Xavier noticeably. Another hybrid is Xavier's friend and comrade, the brilliant Narayan Doss, who sounds like a fusion of Namdeo Dhasal and Arun Kolatkar. The novel is at its best when Thayil is writing about the Eighties, Mumbai and the poetry scene. There are a few digs, including one at himself. The names of real poets are scattered all over the book, making the reader unsure sometimes of how much is really real in the book. In sharp contrast to the intensity with which Thayil writes about poetry and poets, art gets a bit of a raw deal. It doesn’t get as much attention and the descriptions of artworks are strong but sporadic, making them seem like throwaway scraps. At one point, I found myself wondering why Thayil had made his hero a poet and an artist. Was it because a famous Indian poet pushes at the boundaries of credibility even if the work is fiction? What is it about the art world that made it seem like a good retreat for a wilted poet? Because Xavier doesn't exist in both worlds. He's a lost poet, wandering around, looking for his words.
I've thoroughly enjoyed most of The Book of Chocolate Saints, but it also made me scrunch my face in dismay and/ or distaste. For reasons the book doesn't explain, Thayil has almost completely ignored the women poets of the times he’s writing about. A few, like Eunice de Souza, get passing mentions, but neither Dismas nor Thayil seem to consider their work or personalities memorable enough. This novel is chest-thumpingly male and it writes about a masculinity that verges on the ridiculous in its efforts to be alpha.
Within the world of The Book of Chocolate Saints, women characters are either muses or whores. Their functions seem to be restricted to enabling madness and sex, and that too unimaginatively. Beryl, inspired by Moraes's mother, could have rivalled the iconic madwoman in the attic, but isn't allowed that space or stature. Goody Lol, an avatar of artist, curator and Souza's companion Srimati Lal, is disappointingly hollow and her identity is limited to her sex appeal. If men aren't staring at her breasts, then they're having sex with her. The women are the most clichéd and flat in a cast of raucous characters who make the novel initially seem like a loud chorus but whose voices eventually harmonise into one — Thayil's own. This is not a problem when Thayil's writing about poetry, but when you get to the pages featuring women, you're hit with an aromatic cocktail of testosterone and misogyny that can't entirely be smothered by Thayil's way with words. One could argue that the novel reflects the misogyny of the times he’s writing about, but it relishes flattening women into sexy body parts a little too much.
It’s difficult for me to distil my reactions to The Book of Chocolate Saints down to “good” or “bad”. There's a lot to enjoy in here, but there were also many stumbling blocks for me. The problem isn’t that the novel meanders or that it’s esoteric. I’m tempted to say that Xavier's incandescent “list of suicide saints” is worth the price of the book alone. (The staccato rhythm of memory, the throbbing pulse of pain and empathy; the frenzy of mapping miseries to distract yourself from your own depression — it’s brilliant.) But then, the book is Rs 799 and 501 pages. That’s asking a lot of a reader and while I was quite happy to hand over whatever the novel demanded, I’m wondering what it’s left me with. An impromptu list, as a hat-tip to Xavier (and Kolatkar) —
an urge to look up the ’80s poets, for sure;
sentences, fragments and paragraphs that have settled on my mind like sweat on skin;
a tang of bitterness at how focused the book is on men, their insecurities, delusions and turmoil, despite opening with a mad woman and ending with a heartbroken one;
curiosity about whether Thayil was conscious of how superficially he was using visual art to establish Xavier's fame and give him a public standing in the years when the real art — ie poetry — had left him. It's as though he's establishing a hierarchy of art and saying only the bards, drunken and destroyed as they may be, can save us;
the cold burn at women being reduced to sex objects (again).
I wonder which of these will linger the longest and grow roots. Will I remember this book with fondness or frustration? I’m not entirely sure at this point. I do remember thinking Narcopolis (Faber, Rs 300), which was shortlisted for the Booker prize, was beautiful but self-indulgent when I’d first read it. Over time, I find myself loving it more and more. What stands out is not just the poetic language and description, but also the disillusioned yet naïve idealism that veins the writing. All this is in The Book of Chocolate Saints too, along with a bitterness that perhaps is more me than Thayil. After all, can I really feel fuzzy fondness for a writer who declares, “You’re a critic. There’s no worse thing that can be said about a man”?
So, in an attempt to redeem critics, let's do what critics do: add to the conversation. Here are two women poets from the times that inspired The Book of Chocolate Saints.
REPRIEVE (Eunice de Souza)
This poem is for you.
It’s a reprieve.
It says
nothing in your little black heart
can frighten me,
I’ve looked too long
into my own.
Thank you for the gift
of your uncertainties.
SOMEONE ELSE’S SONG (Kamala Das)
I am a million, million people
Talking all at once, with voices
Raised in clamour, like maids
At village-wells.
I am a million, million deaths
Pox-clustered, each a drying seed
Someday to be shed, to grow for
Someone else, a memory.
I am a million, million births
Flushed with triumphant blood, each a growing
Thing that thrusts its long-nailed hands
To scar the hollow air.
I am a million, million silences
Strung like crystal beads
Onto someone else’s
Song.
If you’re curious to read more, try Nine Indian Women Poets (Oxford University Press), edited by Eunice de Souza. And while you're at it, why not check out Suniti Namjoshi's The Fabulous Feminist (Zubaan). It is, true to its name, fabulous, feminist and fun.
No listings this week because a) I’m swamped with work that threatens to pay me and b) December is almost upon us, so new listings for the new month next week.
Because of point (a), I’ve done precious little reading, but this story about a boy raised as a chicken was chilling. I read it twice and got goose bumps both times.
Finally, I have to admit, I didn't have the faintest who Elizabeth Hardwick was, but I think my next holiday is going to be devoted to reading her. All because of this review. Take a bow, Ms Hermione Hoby.
***
Dear Reader will be back next week, with more new books and more nattering. Thanks for reading.