Customer Reviews

A Poet Apart: A Literary Biography of the Bengali Poet Jibanananda Das, 1899-1954

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

"A Poet Apart" by Professor Seely is an amazing work where research scholarship, intelligence, multicultural insights gained only from experience, and poetic creativity have wonderfully blended in.

Professor Seely has lived in Bangladesh (particularly in Barisal, where Jibanananda was born and raised), deeply entrenched himself in a mix of the local people, their language, culture, natural surroundings (important to understand the Dhansiri, Hijal, Kirtankhola references), ethnicity, and socio-political tradition, studied the poet's work thoroughly, and produced a phenomenal work on the poet in this book.

The translations of Jibanananda's uniquely Bengali coinages are simply astounding. I literally felt the same milieu and complexities of the poet through the translations.

But a translation of Jibanananda's work is not the only gift you receive from this book - it is the hermeneutic effort that goes into 'fusion of cultural horizons", beyond objectivity and relativity, that astounds the reader.

Early on in the book, Seely goes into a chapter of Bengal's history, geography, people, and cultural archetype which is so carefully, respectfully, and accurately knit that it instantly establishes credibility.

The rest is for the reader to read and enjoy.

I insist that you read this book.

I am quite disappointed that amazon.com has decided to print the crude and purely venomous attack on both Professor Clinton Seely and the poet Jibanananda Das by what appears (much to my ultimate dismay) to be a Calcutta source (Telegraph? BJP?- Impossible, I am tempted to think, because neither of those entities, even at their worst, seem capable of such rabid, hateful and vicious venom- in fact, I expected far better from both). I will not dignify the garbage spewed by this source by countering any point the source has tried to make (if there is even a point to begin with)- suffice it to say that disclaiming the existence of Bengal, or proclaiming that somehow Jibanananda was so far beneath even basic human dignity in the eyes of this elevated "reviewer" that he rightly deserves to be reborn as a crow or something- all these simply illustrate that the works of good human beings do fall often into crude and brutish hands. On behalf of decent Bengalis, East, West, North or South, let me extend our heartfelt thanks to Professor Seely for his interest, compassion and love for Bengal and Bengali culture, and the fine work he and other "Occidentals" are doing to rediscover different exemplars of that culture through a variety of outlets. We need more of such fine scholastic efforts in the increasingly global age to bring people together, and more than that, to make artistic and creative classics accessible to people everywhere. I have not read Prof.Seely's book yet (except for little excerpts and highly favorable reviews from worthy Bengalis)- but I eagerly look forward to the joy of doing so soon. Respectfully, Monish R. Chatterjee, Associate Professor.

"A Poet Apart" is a scholarly written book by Clinton B. Seely on Jibanananda Das, the most influential poet of Bengal after Rabindranath Tagore. Poet Jibanananda, in the book by Prof. Seely, is manifested uniquely in an historical time. Prof. Seely has rightly brought forth geography, politics, myth, metaphysics, literature etc. of Bengal, in the historical sense, as the basis for the formation of the essential matrix in which the poetry of Jibanananda formed, evolved, and completed its transmutation from the visible to the invisible. Prof. Seely has done a superb literary work in bringing the life and poetry of Jibanananda Das to the English speaking readers, writers, and scholars.

Unlike the gentleman who decided to not to dignify this reviewer's (the one who talked about how the poet was not reborn as a crow even though he should have been :-)) comments with counter remarks, let me do that. Even though I come from a very civilized upbringing, living abroad in the U.S. literally has transformed my communication to a level where I can actually talk to the "low-lives" or "choto-lok" like the one who simply wanted to express his hatred of himself (assuming it was a male, if a female or of unknown gender, please read with whatever pronoun you might find appropriate).

Yes, it is his hatred of himself. I think that thing posted two remarks with one star. I will comment on that assumption. First, there is no Hindu nationalism you moron. There might be some fundamentalists but Hindus are not nationalistic or at least like the way you sheiks or muslims are. Why am I assuming you are musolli? Because nobody from any other religion or group in this world actually will go about try to write the things that you wrote, yes, not even some white extremist group will do so.

The reviewer talked about Anglo-Hindu love affair. Well it is true. Why do you think the Anglos feel comfortable being in a love affair with the Hindus? You got it...we are equal, equal in the very process of thinking. You might not know your history. The holy books in Hinduism refer to civilized, high caste Hindus as Aryas which when used as an adjective refers to Aryan and then it became a noun when the word was in the process of being exploited. The word was exploited by some extremists in the past but it simply refers to a civilized person who has good "manners". If you speak Bengali and you are not a Hindu, then rest assured that your ancestors were. Nobody in the Indian subcontinent is a true Muslim, they are converts or outsiders who moved to India. Yes, it sounds like your ancestors might have been a "choto-lok" or "low-life".

It's funny in a sense. Whenever I try to find peace, I read Jibanananda and when I was trying to find peace here today, trying to read reviews of this book, I come across this idiot.

You know there is a thing called evolution and like the Neanderthals just vanished from the face of this earth, some subset of the mankind might follow the path. Yes, these abominations are technically human as I don't think differentiation of their genome has come to a point where reproduction with "normal" population is not possible. But it might be, sometime in the future. Just remember this, the world does not have a problem with the Anglos or the Hindus right now. Just sit down and think about why someone in the European or American literary world does not even bother to translate or write about non-Hindu literature in South-Asia. You things are things of the past. Wake up and smell the reality.

And oh yeah, hatred of the reviewer himself is so obvious. For anybody who does not know the history of Bengali literature, it flourished via the Hindus. Yes, there are some Muslim writers in Bangladesh and even in India now, but they too admit that they are heavily influenced by the Hindus who actually built the literary language in some sense. This thing I think knows that and this is why he simply can't stand the fact that nor he or any of his children or grandchildren will be able to produce such work of art as simply he does not have the genes to do so. No matter how much someone hates the Hindus, there simply isn't a way to not read Bengali literature written by Hindus, because mostly that's all there is.

I liked to believe that it's just a difference of religion which is forced upon us and is not real and all the people are the same. Over the years I have realized, it is a very optimistic idea and in the field or in harsh reality it is not a true remark. This decision was come upon by myself through the process of induction from observation.

I should mention Abdul Mannan Syed who is a upper caste Muslim (yes Muslims do have a caste system), and he dedicated many years of his life trying to bring Jibanananda to the Bengalis. And not all Muslims are bad or stupid or idiotic, but then again, most of them are. This statement is based on years and years of experience and believe me if you will. I can name almost all the Muslim writers and people who actually gave something to the literary world of Bengal and guess what they are Upper Caste muslims. The conclusion? The Muslim converts are always the low-lives, the "choto-lokera" across the sub-continent and in the world. That doesn't make it logical or appropriate to go get rid of them like many have done in the past. That is absurd and nasty. Just let them die out due to their lack of intelligence, because they will. A sort of de-facto segregation. They can't live peacefully with sects amongst themselves, how can you expect them to live peacefully with other groups?

Some people attain a height by sheer merit. But that even love's labour can help one claim a position of true significance has amply been demonstrated by what happened to this book! Seely's book is now known to almost all Jibanananda admirers a large number of whom are, to tell you the truth, not very enthusiastic about English texts. The book can act like a model as to how one should start a literary acquaintance from the scratches. It has succeeded in presenting an able perspective to Jibanananda's work in terms of a geographic, ecological, political, mythological background. The use of the folk lores, seasonal motiffs, motiffs to transcend the cultural unfamiliarities have been remarkably identified and presented. In my opinion, the translations (for most of the oft-heard poems of the poet) are quite of satisfactory standard. Bengalis lamented among themselves the relative obscurity their achievements have often been destined to and this book gave them some satisfaction and slight expectation that Jibabanananda will be appreciated by international readers if not as much as he deserved to be. The hard work that has gone into its writing and the heart-work that it has possibly achieved will reward Seely with a name not unknown to the readers of Bengali poetry. It is pity that a person of his reputation has to oblige funding authorities for the chair at Chicago University, at present being graced by him.

The author is an Occidental explorer of Jibananda Das's work, who seemed to have struggled a good deal through the literary space and time to carry his Hindu literary soul to a misnomer called "Bengal" which does not exist. Some of it came across to me as if he was trying to "Take the Literary Coal to New Castle" or perhaps "Taking Bengali to Bengal" not realizing in his blissful Occidental ignorance (but thirst for the Oriental literarture), that the reincarnation of Jibananda Das did not unfortunately have the good fortune of rebirth even as a "Kaak" or "crow", let alone as any other species, as he had expressed his desire in one of his famous lines of poesy : "Aabar Aashibo Phire Ai Dhaan Shiriteer teere, Ai Bangla-i Hoi-to manush noi hoi-to ba shaangkho cheel shalik-er beshe, Kakhono-ba bhor-er kaak hoe, kartik-er ai naabaan-ner deshe."

Perhaps the unfortunate Bengali Hindu Nationalism of the poor Bengali poet wasn't enough good work for a rebirth to Bengal (which by the way he did not know), since the Bengal that Jibananda Das had known would be partitioned into the Hindu Indian province of West Bengal and the modern South Asian Nation-State of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, making Bengal a illegitimate misnomer and a non existent space for any consideration of rebirth by Jibananda Das's Bhagwan, who seemed to have served him the Right Rewards for being a Fundamentalist Bengali Hindu Cultural Nationalist with secular pretentions, as most of his fellow Bengal Hindus are.

The reviewer from Dallas, Texas, likes this work by Clinton Seely because he sees his Bengali-Hindu-Self-image reflected back at him by his Anglo American Master at the University of Chicago. Such Bengali-Hindu literary taste only reminds the people of Babington Macaulay's Intellectual-Poison-Tree carried along by the Bengali Hindus all the way from Calcutta, India to Dallas, Texas. To such Bengali Hindus obsessed by Cultural Nationalism, I recommend David Ludden's Masterpiece : "Making India Hindu".

Simply Worthless. It only reminds the reader of the illegitimate Anglo-American Hindu love affair whose illegitimate literary off-spring is the inquuiry of an Occidental in the Bengali Hindu's Kama Sutra, as seen from the author's point of departure and deliberation on Jibananda Das.