All About H. Hatterr (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

G. V. Desani (Author), Anthony Burgess (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 6, 2007 | Series: New York Review Books Classics

Wildly funny and wonderfully bizarre, All About H. Hatterr is one of the most perfectly eccentric and strangely absorbing works modern English has produced. H. Hatterr is the son of a European merchant officer and a lady from Penang who has been raised and educated in missionary schools in Calcutta. His story is of his search for enlightenment as, in the course of visiting seven Oriental cities, he consults with seven sages, each of whom specializes in a different aspect of “Living.” Each teacher delivers himself of a great “Generality,” each great Generality launches a new great “Adventure,” from each of which Hatter escapes not so much greatly edified as by the skin of his teeth. The book is a comic extravaganza, but as Anthony Burgess writes in his introduction, “it is the language that makes the book. . . . It is not pure English; it is like Shakespeare, Joyce, and Kipling, gloriously impure.”

Editorial Reviews

Review

“In all my experience, I have not met with anything quite like it.” –T. S. Eliot

"Bless him, [Desani] does mash it up, bending orthography, stretching syntax, mixing in shards of Hindi, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German and a goodly dose of balderdash, whilst tossing in references to Whitman, Shakespeare, Socrates, Freud and appeals to Kama and Laxmi as well as to Allah and Christ. Only a quasi-outsider (an Irishman, say) could have such an irreverent ear for the Anglo-Saxon tongue. But Hatterr is more readable by miles than Finnegans Wake, and a lot more fun." -Ben Ehrenreich, Los Angeles Times

“A mischievous mulligatawny that reads like a collaboration between Mrs. Malaprop and Groucho Marx…At the end you may not quite know where you’ve been, but you understand you’ve had a helluva trip.” –Newsweek

“A bizarre and delightful voice…to paraphrase would be travesty.” –Time

"The instrument of subservience became a weapon of liberation. It was the first great stroke of the decolonizing pen." –Salman Rushdie

“Eclectic, nourishing, do-it-yourself subcontinental stew.” –Githa Hariharan

"Now…you can marvel at one of the great verbal extravaganzas in the English (more or less) language." –The Nation

"A rewarding feast of fish and fowl, fiction and philosophy, hilarity and hope." –The New York Times

“One doesn’t explain a work like this, or attempt to describe it. You simply let the language flow like the lyrics of a Calypso song, or a subdued show of stroboscopic lights.” –The San Francisco Chronicle

“Mr. Desani is a writer of great originality, who is making a contribution…all his own.” –C. P. Snow

"Desani is undoubtedly a master in the creative use of English–puns, parodies, colloquialisms–and an accomplished artist in the invention of a new language." –World Literature Today

"Challenging, stimulating, and thoroughly delightful." –Austin-American Statesman

A “linguistic groundbreaker” –The Guardian (UK)

“G. V. Desani - whose brilliant 1940s shaggy-dog novel All About H Hatterr inspired Midnight's Children - what enchants, is a 'rigmarole English', as Hatterr would say, all its own.” –The Guardian (UK)

“A comic masterpiece…This books is one of the funniest I have read for many years…Desani’s verbal invention is indefatigable, his linguistic sources inexhaustible.”–Philip Toynbee, The Observer (UK)

About the Author

G. V. Desani (1909—2001) was born Nairobi, Kenya and raised in India. In the late 1930s, and throughout the war, he was a BBC broadcaster and lectured on India. He contributed regularly to The Times of India's Illustrated Weekly and produced a weekly opinion page called "Very High and Very Low." He moved to the United States in 1970 to teach at Boston University and subsequently the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a Professor of Religion and Philosophy.

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) was a prolific novelist, composer, librettist, essayist, semanticist, translator, and critic. He is best known for the novel A Clockwork Orange. 

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (November 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590172426
• ISBN-13: 978-1590172421
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #530,247 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #84 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Indian

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars and I am continuing..., July 11, 2000

By 

Matt Herrick (Brunswick, ME) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All About H. Hatterr: A Novel (Paperback)

This is a book whose content and literary importance are nearly inseperable. "The first great stroke of the decolonizing pen," Salman Rushdie (merely one in the great line of authors that Desani made available to themselves and the world) rightly called it. The book's language is its most interesting characteristic: "Hinglish" it has come to be called, proper English Hinduized and thereby made its authors own. The plot itself, while intriguing and playful, does not carry the reader along or provide enough substance to make this book great; the wonderful twists and turns of language and plot that we've come to associate with Indian literature in English is seen here only in germ form. Still, to miss this is to miss a revolution. Its out of print, but hopefully that will change; check the libraries in the meantime, and start a petition for a reprinting or something.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular., August 26, 2000

By 

Chandra M (India) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All About H. Hatterr (Paperback)

'All about H Hatterr' is an achievement non-pareil (and I'm not only considering Indian-born writers here). This novel captures the adventures of a certain H Hatterr, an Anglo-Indian never-do-good fellow, amongst the seven sages. He gets into all kinds of trouble, always to be bailed out by his devoted friend Bannerji and 'that gem of a lawyer', Y Beliram. Trying to summarise the story would be a gross unjustice to the book, which is superb in content but absolutely brilliant in form. The style, scathingly original, is at times slightly tough to grasp (reminds one of Ulysses and the good old Joyce). Not a very light read, but really enjoyable.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Damme," this is a great read!, October 18, 2009

By 

John Sollami (Stamford, CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All About H. Hatterr (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

I've had my copy of this book in my library since the year 2000. It was given to me in India by a good friend, who told me it was amazing. He was right. I finally have gotten around to reading it after being initially put off for 9 years by its strangely eclectic language and thoroughly unconventional format. I have since learned that these are just two of this book's extraordinary strengths, as G.V. Desani demonstrates a fantastically freewheeling imagination and healthy creative disregard for traditional novelistic forms. He proceeds to structure his "chapters" like a scientific treatise. However, first he gives us a "Warning!": Dear reader, this isn't a novel, it's a "gesture," but if you can't relate to that, then call it a "novel." Then we are given a kind of preface, called "All About...", followed by ANOTHER "Warning!" and then a "Mutual Introduction." So now you know you're in for something completely different.

By page 39 of my Penguin Books edition, we get to the "chapters." Each one begins with a "Digest," which is a kind of Abstract summary that gives nothing away to the reader. These Digests need to be reread after "digesting" the actual chapter. Following the Digest is the "Instruction" section, which is what we are supposed to learn. Then comes a "Presumption" as to what is assumed by the writer as he goes about relating to us the actual "Life-Encounter" of H. Hatterr, which is the heart of the chapter.

H. Hatterr as a main character is a picaresque cultural mashup of western and eastern thought. He's a seeker and a cynic, a believer and an irreverent skeptic who finds more fraud and nonsense in the world than sincerity. The only sincere person is his loyal friend Banerrji, his Sancho Panza, who loves to quote little fragments from "the Bard" and other western literary icons. Adventure after wildly funny adventure only confirms Hatterr's outlook on life. Yet, genuine spiritual feelings also arise, but they usually are self-generated by Hatterr, not by the sages and gurus he encounters.

The language and style of Desani have clearly influenced other writers, such as Amitav Ghosh. I noticed a similarity between this seminal work and Ghosh's wonderfully freewheeling "Sea of Poppies." The language here is rich, funny, and entertaining. I found myself completely lost in its spell.

Without a doubt, I highly recommend this "novel," "gesture," or whatever you want to call it. Don't compare it to anybody or anything else. It stands up all on its own.