1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Mainly as an Introduction to Indian Writing in English from the 1980s and 90s, November 26, 2010
This review is from: Passages: 24 Modern Indian Stories (Signet Classics) (Paperback)
This book was published in 2009 and contained 24 works by as many authors. There were 20 short stories and excerpts from 4 novels.
About half of the selections were from the 1990s and another quarter or so from the 80s. There was almost nothing from the first two decades after partition in 1947 (just Saadat Hasan Manto and R. K. Narayan), a handful of stories from the 70s, and one work from 2006 (Kiran Desai).
The oldest writers in the collection were Narayan (1906-2001), Manto (1912-55) and Khushwant Singh (1915-). The youngest were Ginu Kamani (1962-), Jhumpa Lahiri (1967-) and Kiran Desai (1971-). Others of note included those who gained prominence from the 1980s and after (Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Rohinton Mistry, Amitav Ghosh, Shashi Tharoor and Vikram Chandra), earlier writers (Ruskin Bond, Anita Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, Ambai), and a few others such as Anjana Appachana and Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni. Missing from the lineup were Arundhati Roy as well as Upamanyu Chatterjee and Manjula Padmanabhan.
The anthology's focus was almost entirely on Indian authors in English. All selections were written originally in this language, except for Manto's, translated from Urdu, and Ambai's, from Tamil. In focusing on the writers in English, Passages was very much along the lines of Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West's Mirrorwork: 50 Years of Indian Writing 1947-1997, published in 1997. At about two-thirds the length, Passages omitted writers in Mirrorwork who were old (Nirad Chaudhuri, Mulk Raj Anand, Kamala Markandaya) and more stylistically challenging (G. V. Desani, I. Allan Sealy). On the other hand, it contained interesting writers Rushdie and West left out, such as Bond, Singh, Mukherjee and Divakaruni.
The authors in Passages included two writers of Indian heritage who were born in the West and citizens of Canada or the U.S. (Baldwin, Lahiri). There was also Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927-), a woman of Jewish heritage who was born in Germany, married an Indian and spent many years in India. At least 10 of the other authors were living in the West at the time this anthology was compiled.
A number of the stories in this anthology could be said to deal with social relations -- within the family, between families, between families and neighbors. Some dealt with families living between India and the West (husbands and wives, parents and children, couples and their parents), or Indians living abroad. Memorable stories included the ones by Bond, in which the Anglo-Indian narrator returned to the village where he'd lived happily before partition, recording the passage of time but managing to end on a note of acceptance. The one by Manto set during partition riots, which ended chillingly. A work by Anita Desai about a farewell party that captured moments of warmth and abandon, with an undercurrent of sadness. The piece by Divakaruni, in which a poor girl recalled moments of happiness amid family turbulence. And an excerpt from Seth's A Suitable Boy that described a struggle between academics. Humor was provided by Singh's "The Bottom-Pincher," narrated by a dirty old man. The story by Appachana, about a traditional mother's concern for her free-spirited daughter who'd left to attend grad school in the States, was written in the third person but conveyed well the central character's thinking, as well as differences in traditional and modern values, and was one of the most moving stories of all.
Missing from this collection might be the type of introspective, sardonic outlook contained in some writing by, for example, Upamanyu Chatterjee. Something on caste relations and Hindu-Moslem relations. Politically satirical writing. And something containing magical realism, dense and complex. For this reader, there were a few too many stories on struggles within families.
In confining itself almost entirely to authors writing in English and focusing mainly on the 1990s and 80s, this collection had to neglect many interesting Indian authors in other languages since 1947. A partial list would include, in Bengali, the Marxist Manik Bandyopadhyay (1908-56) and Sunil Gangopadhyay (1934-). In Hindi, Phanishwarnath Renu (1921-77) and Nirmal Verma (1929-2005). In Kannada, U. R. Anantha Murthy (1932-), Devanuru Mahadeva (1949-) and Jayant Kaikini (1955-). In Malayalam, T. S. Pillai, (1914-99), O. V. Vijayan (1930-2005) and M. T. Vasudevan Nair (1933-). In Marathi, Gangadhar Gadgil (1923-), Vyankatesh Madgulkar (1927-2001) and Rangnath Pathare (1950-). In Punjabi, Kartar Singh Duggal (1917-) and Kulwant Singh Virk (1923-87). In Tamil, S. Mani (1907-85) and Sundara Ramaswamy (1931-2005). And in Urdu, K. A. Abbas (1914-87) Ismat Chughtai (1915-92), Qurratulain Hyder (1927-2007), Surendra Prakash (1930-) and Naiyer Masud (1936-).
Passages might be taken as a simpler introduction to Indian writing in English than Mirrorwork, which is longer and more comprehensive. For those seeking Indian writers translated from other languages, decent anthologies include The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Short Stories (1989, revised 2001) and Volume 2 of Best Loved Indian Stories of the Century (1999). Larger, more comprehensive introductions include Our Favourite Indian Stories (2001), with 40 works, nearly all of them translation from other languages, and The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature (2004), with 55 works, about half of them translated from other languages. A readable, very light intro to a handful of Indian writers, most of them translated from other languages, is India: A Traveler's Literary Companion (2010).
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
