Apu’s World

Penguin First Proof is an annual volume by Penguin that aims at promoting the ‘best new writing’ from India. I haven’t read any of the first four volumes, but volume 5 goes some way to convincing me that it’s worth looking out for this series annually.

‘Some way’, because while the anthology covers wide ground - non-fiction, fiction and poetry - it is uneven ground. What is interesting is that it doesn’t include just new writing in English - it includes translations from Indian languages, though these are fewer compared to the pieces written in English.

It is the non-fiction that made me feel let down - somehow, it feels as though many of the pieces were chosen for their content than for any literary merit. Bisakha Datta’s The Many Lives of Roma D is a nuanced and vivid portrait of a sex worker in Kolkata, while Aditya Sinha’s Natural Desires details with wit an uncomfortable father-son relationship that is unique in its particulars, but surely familiar as an idea to most Indians.

These were the exceptions. Pieces such as Krupakar and Senani’s Kidnapped, based on the authors’ kidnapping by the sandalwood smuggler Veerappan and Satnam’s Jangalnama, an account of time spent with the Naxalites felt dull, never quite moving beyond a literal account. Curiously, both these are translations, from Kannada and Punjabi respectively, so I wonder if this insipidness was a function of the writing or translation.

It is in the fiction that Penguin First Proof 5 really works. K.R. Meera’s Ave Maria, the first story in this section is the story of a despairing and dysfunctional Malayali family set against the backdrop of the Communist movement in the state in the 50s. After ploughing through the uninspiring non-fiction, it prepared me for what was to come. For, each one in this section is a short story worth reading - beautifully written and laying bare with a sharp scalpel a character or mood or moment.

Apart from Ave Maria, my favourites here were Batul Mukhtiar’s Your Room, a sad story of a sad relationship (written with so much grace and delicacy) and Aditya Sudarshan’s The Imaginary Friend, a story that anyone who has ever been exasperated with a child will relate to. (Aditya Sudarshan is one writer I would like to read more from, having enjoyed his debut novel, A Nice, Quiet Holiday as well).

As for the poetry, I’m going to reserve specific comments, because, although I did not enjoy it too much, I don’t trust myself as a poetry reader!

Publisher: Penguin India

Price: Rs. 250

apu The Literary life

Some weeks ago, a friend and I were discussing MNIK. Short version : She liked it, I didn’t it. So, she suggested that perhaps I don’t have enough of that ‘willing suspension of disbelief‘ that the poet Coleridge suggested as essential for readers to digest fantastic tales.

I realized that was true, when I read Smita Jain’s new murder mystery, Piggies on the Railway, the first in what promises to be a series of ‘Katie Kumar mysteries.’ Why else would the first things to occur to me be that junior-IPS-officers-turned-detectives surely don’t make enough money to acquire Tahiliani outfits or that female IPS officers are rarely posted to combat zones like the Maoist heartland of Chattisgarh?

Yet, despite many such (what seemed to me) factual unlikelihoods, Piggies on the Railway isn’t an entirely bad read. It mixes up chik-lit and detective fiction genres, and in the process ticks many boxes that are perhaps a must for your average page turner. Gorgeous men. Tick. Plenty of sex. Tick. Dead bodies. Tick. A detective with a personality. Tick. Multiple suspects and multiple motives. Tick. Katie Kumar, the detective and narrator is partly unbelievable, but still funny enough to entertain.

If there is a bigger grouse, it is that the book is too long to be a totally easy read. I mean, 400 pages? Tranquebar could have devoted some energy to pruning it down to a more manageable 250 pages or so. Towards the latter half, one feels as if the author is playing some sort of roulette by spinning around suspects and motives and possibilities, until the story becomes almost difficult to keep track of. Numerous affairs and side plots add to the complication.

This is one murder mystery that could do with fewer twists and turns.

Publisher: Tranquebar Press

Price: Rs. 295

apu The Literary life

Still busy-busy and all that, but another interesting thing I can point you at. Via the Caferati mailings, got news of what seems to be an event worth attending:

Swedish Crime Fiction

– The Renewal And Redefining Of A Literary Genre.

Readings by two Swedish crime fiction writers:

Håkan Nesser, author of the internationally bestselling series about Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, that include titles such as The Mind’s Eye, Borkmann’s Point, and Woman with Birthmark (Pan Macmillan);

Together with Zac O’Yeah, author of the forthcoming Once Upon A Time In Scandinavistan (Hachette India).

The readings will be followed by a unique panel discussion on modern crime fiction, featuring Sudarshan Purohit, Literary Critic and Translator of Surender Mohan Pathak’s bestselling Hindi novels The 65 Lakh Heist and Daylight Robbery (Blaft Publications), as a moderating panelist.

If any Bengaloorian readers of this blog are planning to attend, drop me a note if you feel like it - I should be there.

apu The Literary life

Thanks to Asia Writes, I came across New Fairy Tales, an online magazine dedicated to publishing (what else!) new fairy tales. Their current issue carries some lovely stuff - especially the first two short stories, Bears, by Jessica Wilson and The Ice Candle, by A.K.Benedict, both of which I really enjoyed. Do read if you like stories a little out of the ordinary.

apu The Literary life

There are murder mysteries that are all about the murder; tightly knit, with a closed group of suspects and a detective moving the spotlight from one to the other - think Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. And then there are murder mysteries where the murder is just part of the tale; where it really becomes an excuse to look at a larger setting and in the process of solving the mystery, gives us something quite different. Aditya Sudarshan’s A Nice, Quiet Holiday was one such enjoyable work, and this week, I’ve had the pleasure of reading another such work by an Indian author : Madhulika Liddle’s The Englishman’s Cameo.

Set in the opulent, yet fading Mughal court of Emperor Shahjahan,  The Englishman’s Cameo is part murder mystery and part historical novel, for its charms lie as much in its descriptions of life in the Mughal era. It’s protagonist is Muzaffar Jang, a somewhat atypical Omrah (nobleman) who prefers spending time with his books, pets and lowlife friends rather than indulging himself in wine, women and song, unlike other notables of the era. Thanks to one such disreputable friend, he finds himself involved in a murder mystery that soon turns out to be more complex than imagined.

Liddle excels in descriptions of Mughal era Dilli and its noble citizens - their wealth, decadence and hollowness are beautifully captured and the story itself set against the backdrop of an Empire whose best days are behind it. Against this backdrop, she also gives the characters some very natural dialogue that in English, nevertheless manages to create an image of the formal, beautiful Persian that must have been spoken in court. The Englishman’s Cameo is unlike a tightly knit murder mystery where one knows that the murderer will be chosen from an already introduced cast of characters. Here, instead, the plot keeps widening so that motives and murderers are quite unclear until the end.

I’ve never been a fan of tightly defining genres and elevating some books as literary while considering others mere genre fiction. The Englishman’s Cameo proves that a good genre fiction book can be as well-written and perhaps much more interesting than some books that claim literary merit.

Publisher: Hachette India

Price: Rs. 295

apu The Literary life