The Artist of Disappearance [Hardcover]

Anita Desai (Author)

Book Description

Release date: December 6, 2011

A triptych of beautifully crafted novellas make up Anita Desai’s exquisite new book. Set in modern India, but where history still casts a long shadow, the stories move beyond the cities to places still haunted by the past, and to characters who are, each in their own way, masters of self-effacement. 

In ‘The Museum of Final Journeys’ an unnamed government official is called upon to inspect a faded mansion of forgotten treasures, each sent home by the absent, itinerant master. As he is taken through the estate, wondering whether to save these precious relics, he reaches the final – greatest – gift of all, looming out of the shadows. 
  
In ‘Translator, Translated’, middle-aged Prema meets her successful publisher friend Tara at a school reunion. Tara hires her as a translator, but Prema, buoyed by her work and the sense of purpose it brings, begins deliberately to blur the line between writer and translator, and in so doing risks unravelling her desires and achievements.
  
The final story is of Ravi, living hermit-like in the burnt-out shell of his family home high up in the Himalayan mountains. He cultivates not only silence and solitude but a secret hidden away in the woods, concealed from sight. When a film crew from Delhi intrude upon his seclusion, it compels him to withdraw even further until he magically and elusively disappears…
    
Rich and evocative, remarkable in their clarity and sensuous in their telling, these stories remind us of the extraordinary yet delicate power of this pre-eminent writer.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Q]uiet, meticulous, unflinching meditations on the trajectories of three contemporary lives, and on the Indian cultures and landscapes that helped shape them."

--San Francisco Chronicle

"[A] collection of three superb novellas…. deceptively subtle, slightly surreal and profoundly insightful fiction of a world-class writer...These evocative stories about art and culture are sewn deeply into the fraying fabric of modern-day India. The only thing little about this book is its size."

--The Washington Post

"...eloquent and understated...[Desai's prose is] distinguished by its sober, often bracing prose, its patient eye for all-telling detail and its humane but penetrating intelligence..."

--The New York Times Book Review

"'[Desai] proves you can go home again...stirring..."

--Marie Claire

"In three ensnaring novellas of consummate artistry and profoundly disquieting perceptions, master storyteller Desai reflects on the transforming power and devastating limitations of art... Desai’s provocative and mysterious tales of displacement trace the reverberations when the dream of art collides with crushing reality."

--Booklist, starred

"...poignant and wry...a deft exploration of the limits people place on themselves by trying to cling to the past."

--Kirkus Reviews

"This collection leaves an indelible impression of the conflicts and ambitions found in a region riddled with conflict."

--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

ANITA DESAI is the author of Fasting, Feasting, Baumgartner’s Bombay, Clear Light of Day, and Diamond Dust, among other works. Three of her books have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Desai was born and educated in India and now lives in the New York City area.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (December 6, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0547577451
• ISBN-13: 978-0547577456
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #388,631 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Three novellas December 6, 2011

By TChris TOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

The Artist of Disappearance consists of three long stories (billed as novellas). Stories of this length deserve to be rated independently.

A young civil servant in training, stuck in the backwaters of India, must decide how to respond to a request for government support to preserve a private museum and its surprising collection of treasures. Later in life, the man is occasionally troubled by self-doubt for reasons that the reader must intuit. Apart from my appreciation of Anita Desai's writing style, nothing about this story grabbed me. I would give "The Museum of Final Journeys" 4 stars.

In "Translator Translated," a woman searches for her roots by relearning her childhood language and visiting the remote region where it is still spoken. The lyrical work of a provincial writer inspires her to translate the text, but she finds its eventual publication to be less than the transformative experience she had imagined. When the writer sends the translator a disappointing novel, the story explores the role of the translator: should she be faithful to the original text or should she try to improve it, essentially becoming a co-author? This is the best of the three stories: 5 stars.

"The Artist of Disappearance" starts as the story of a quiet life -- too quiet to be gripping. Ravi, an adopted boy, raised to be rarely seen and never heard, becomes a reclusive adult, more comfortable in the wilderness than in the company of people. The story gains energy when documentary makers, searching for environmental degradation, stumble upon the landscape art that Ravi has devoted himself to creating, a garden that has blossomed out of devastation. But will Ravi's work be desecrated if outsiders are permitted to gaze upon it?... The weak opening and a mediocre ending bracket excellent storytelling in the middle: 4 1/2 stars.

Anita Desai is unquestionably a fine writer. She writes earnestly of people and their pain. She paints characters with astonishing clarity. For the most part, I admire her writing style, although I think she occasionally tries too hard to be eloquent, forcing words into contexts where they didn't quite fit, sometimes indulging herself with unnecessary adverbs. On the whole, however, her prose is a pleasure to read. I would give this story collection 4 1/2 stars if that option were available. Read more ›

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "There's no one there. He's gone." December 16, 2011

By Mary Whipple HALL OF FAMETOP 100 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Always an astute observer and subtle writer about human nature, Anita Desai is at her best here, creating three novellas revealing the interplay between a main character dealing with universal issues and a second character who sees the world and its values quite differently. The result is book that is morally serious and filled with thematically weighty stories which also reveal subtle, unspoken lessons - neither moralistic, obvious, nor absolute. As each main character approaches the end of a problem, s/he might well conclude that what s/he wants, "[is] dead, a dead loss, a waste of time." But "the loss" is not the point. The reader gains a new appreciation of the small joys and great sorrows which fill the lives of plain people in rural India trying to find beauty and, perhaps, the fulfillment of dreams within an overwhelming reality. All the characters want to preserve something beautiful and important, but all must persevere against insensitive powers. Ultimately, each main character becomes an "artist of disappearance," either physically, emotionally, or spiritually.

In "The Museum of Final Journeys," an old man from the countryside visits a new county official, begging for help. The old man has been working all his life for the same family, now dead or missing. The only son has traveled the world, collecting objects which he sends to his mother. After her death, the objects continue to arrive, and the old servant and his assistant must sell off the furniture to create a museum for these stuffed animals and birds, miniature paintings from Persia and the Mughal Empire, and antique weapons of war, among other things. The final gift is the one which the old man loves most, but it requires a great deal of maintenance.... He begs the official to accept the other valuable objects in exchange for allowing him to preserve this one final gift. The servant and the official live in different worlds and have difficulties communicating.

"Translator Translated" is quite different. Prema Joshi, returning to her high school for Founder's Day, meets Tara, the brightest and most popular student at the school. Prema, a teacher, has been studying Oriya, her mother's language, particularly the work of Suvarna Devi, unknown beyond her hillside village. Tara, now a publisher of the work of previously unknown female writers, asks Prema to translate Suvarna Devi's first work, and every aspect of Prema's life changes. The second work by Devi, a novel, however, is trite and filled with cliches. "I saw that what was needed was for me to be inventive...and create a style for the book...I decided to take liberties with the text." The results are predictable, and the effects on Prema Joshi's modest life are significant.

"The Artist of Disappearance" tells of Ravi, an adult living in the burned remains of the family home. As Ravi's story evolves, his sensitivity to the world around him becomes clear, and his understanding of aesthetics regarding the natural world is particularly sophisticated. Ravi has created a hidden garden which represents the essence of beauty. At the same time, a group of young videographers is traveling the mountainside looking for examples of environmental despoliation. Ravi, too, finds his life permanently changed.

The importance of beauty and the problem of which beautiful aspects of the past deserve to be saved for future generations permeate this collection. Who should make the decisions about what, if anything, to save? How much beauty should be local? How should artifacts be preserved? As Desai explores these ideas in prose of almost crystalline purity and concision, her sensitivity to the idea of "less is more" prevails. Mary Whipple Read more ›

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Kindle edition faulty January 16, 2012

By Romila Sudhir

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The Kindle edition of this book contains only one of the novellas whereas the print version has three. Its very misleading when Amazon lists the kindle version along with the full edition. Very disappointing when you expect to have the whole book and only get part of it. DO NOT BUY THE KINDLE EDITION!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Where to go from here? December 6, 2011

By Friederike Knabe VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Ever since discovering Anita Desai's novels in the late 1970s, I have been drawn to her gentle and elegant writing, her subtle humour, and her ways of bringing to life an India of the early post-colonial times, i.e. on the cusp of change into a modern society. Award winning author and three-time Booker Prize finalist, Anita Desai, was born and raised in India by her German mother and Indian father. Despite having lived outside India for decades now, she has maintained strong emotional ties to India, to her past experiences, and to memories of individuals who lived on the margins or outside society's mainstream, whether socially, culturally or linguistically. In her new book, "The Artist of Disappearance", she returns to familiar themes in the more condensed format of novella. In her three stories she reminds us of an Indian past where tradition and modernity can often stand in more or less stark contrast with each other and where change for one individual can entail a deep feeling of insecurity and apprehension of the unknown. Desai is a master of creating a sense of place in her descriptions and she beautifully evokes the natural environments with poetry and lyrical language.

The novellas in this collection, while independent snapshots on three individuals at a specific, significant point in their lives, are, nonetheless, thematically connected at a deeper level. Not only is their setting primarily rural and remote from urban, modern centres, each protagonist is presented with an option for change - a window of opportunity - that would take him or her beyond their current station. For me, each novella connects to the next in a build-up, like pieces of music where intensity and crescendo grow until something new and different can emerge....

In the first novella, a junior bureaucrat, stationed in a remote district as part of his slow but steady climb up the civil service ladder, is pulled out of his doldrums by a visit the "Museum of Final Journeys". What he sees there, and what Desai conveys with exquisite visual descriptions, is a wide-ranging collection of precious artifacts from all over the world, collected by the once wealthy owners' son, that is, however, in danger of decay or being dismantled by theft. What can he do?

The second novella, likely the most personal, has as its theme the art of translation from a little-known (tribal) language. A teacher, Prema, who recalls her mother's language from her early childhood, dedicates herself to its study and eventually translates a local author's work for the wider Indian audiences. Success? Maybe not the way Prema anticipated and hoped for. What can she do? With great subtlety, Desai draws a multitude of lessons from this touching story.

The last and title story focuses on Ravi, now a recluse living in the ruins of his late parents' house. Since childhood he has developed a closer connection to nature and critters than to the people around him. Growing up alone, assisted only by the former servant family, he creates his own harmonious environment out of living and dead elements that nature offers him. It also opens a window of opportunity. Yet, when his "cave" is discovered, he is also in danger of being exposed... What will he do?

While I can connect in a very personal way with the second novella, easily imagining the parallels to experiences far beyond India, the last novella reamins for me the most powerful and most exquisitely rendered story. Desai touches here on so many important aspects of growing up, of societal traditions and introducing the natural environment as a healing force that reach beyond the actual events depicted. It also brings back to mind Desai's beautiful early novels that attracted me to her writing in the first place, especially Fire on the Mountain (1977). [Friederike Knabe] Read more ›