A macabre mystery or lyrical tales telling of “saddest thoughts”? Or, perhaps, a thriller that does not fake the high life? What will you pick up this weekend?
Whodunnit in the fast lane
At first, flipping through the early pages, I tossed the book aside angrily, its very premise, the purchase of a fake Amrita Sher-gil, wrongly attributed to the contemporary genre, enough to prove annoying. The book has several such gaffes, but I’m glad that boredom and the lack of anything else to read led me to pick it up yet again.
Chowdhury, who worked as an engineer in Silicon Valley, has pulled off a fast-paced, almost-thriller set against the dizzying background of Indian art, fuelled to a large extent by fund managers, financial investors and other India hands, who compete against each other to get their hands on Husains, Razas and Souzas of whatever dubious quality.
While Chowdhury unravels the artifice behind the fledgling art industry, what sustains the book is her believable account of the strained relationship between Tara and Raj Malhotra caused by their move back to Mumbai (and accentuated by Tara’s purchase of a Rs 60 lakh fake), the high-gloss world of returning NRIs and their difficulty in settling back in the land of their origin (something foreigners seem to find so much easier), and the easy familiarity with a society that flits about in chauffeur-driven sedans, designer shops and carries Louis Vuitton bags, lunches at Indigo and dines at Wasabi. As an insider’s account, that’s one part Chowdhury isn’t faking.
— Kishore Singh
FAKING IT
Author: Amrita Chowdhury
Publisher: Hachette
Pages: 340
Price: Rs 250
Bhurus and friends, and the war in Sri Lanka
Bhurus is Brutus, a boxer, one of two dogs in the River House, but it is a name that Sam, who has come to work here, cannot pronounce. This is Sam’s story, a simple, slightly slow boy whose poor family sends him off as a domestic worker.
At River House, where Sam lives in reasonable comfort and enjoys his work, it is inevitable that he compares it with his family house — room actually — also by a river, contrasting their lives, one poor, the other rich, without any sense of rancour, but with some astonishment: his family throws all rubbish in the river, at River House he has to ensure he doesn’t throw anything into the river; at River House he is mystified by a “pissing boy” fountain with its pipes and switches, when he would readily perform the function for the family and its guests naturally!
This lyrical story of the simpleton servant (who refers to himself as Small Boss) finding affection in a prosperous home, being taken to his first “moving” (cinema), his joy at receiving Christmas presents, the contrast in the happiness barometer of rich folks (they laugh more) and poor people (who rarely smile), and the bitterness of some of the other servants who are from the north, where the battle in Sri Lanka rages, and Big Boss’s death by bombing in Colombo and Small Boss’s return to his village, is the sum and substance of the book that, without actually referring to it, is a strong indictment against the recently-concluded war in Sri Lanka. Read it.
— Kishore Singh
SAM’S STORY
Author: Elmo Jayawardena
Publisher: Penguin/Viking
Pages: 173
Price: Rs 299
Is life bigger that loving someone?
If “sweetest songs... tell of saddest thoughts”, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes does not disappoint. The leitmotif of these “five stories of music and nightfall” is loss, of youthful romance, dreams, hopes — tempered by an effort to somehow still keep them alive. Written in the author’s characteristically elegant, sparse style, Nocturnes has been eagerly awaited by Ishiguro’s devoted readers.
Musicians are the central figures in four of the stories, except “Come Rain or Come Shine” (and even in this one, Ray Charles’ song is the title, the protagonist is Raymond — Ray to his friends — and his friend is named Charlie). All four musician protagonists are fringe players. Tony Gardner in “Crooner” enjoyed fame, but he is not the narrator, and by the end of that story we learn how he plans to resuscitate his flagging career.
These musicians may perform for tourists at the piazza in Venice or in the Malvern Hills, but they secretly cringe while playing the theme from The Godfather for the nth time. Tibor in “Cellists” is aghast when told he has “potential”; he expected “‘genius’ or at least ‘talent’”. The unnamed protagonist of “Malvern Hills” is “exasperated” by the “stupidity [and] extremely shallow” position of London bands who serve him their post-audition “rejection patter” because he plays original compositions.
There are no lengthy descriptions, nor any effusive prose. Ishiguro tosses about names of musicians and titles of songs expecting his readers to conjure images and evoke atmosphere themselves. Whether it’s the popular “Georgia on my Mind” or Sarah Vaughan’s jazzy “April in Paris”, Ishiguro makes no attempt to describe the music.
While music as the food of love plays on, love itself is stripped of its illusions and starry-eyed sentiment. All the couples are past their prime but their love has not mellowed into a comforting togetherness over the years. Endearments may still be expressed, but there is an undercurrent of sadness and the propensity to hurt. Tony Gardner singing for his wife from a gondola is far from romantic when he explains why. In “Nocturne”, Steve’s estranged wife’s “I love you” is “fast, routine”, making him wonder whether “life really is much bigger than loving a person”.
Through the stories, all told in the first person, runs an awareness that there is not “world enough, and time”. Raymond is 47 years old “before you know it... and the people you started out with have long ago been replaced by a generation who gossip about different things... and listen to different music”. Lindy Gardner, who reappears in “Nocturne”, knows she is running out of “time to find love again” and is making another attempt to keep herself in the reckoning. There are constant references to memory and the past, more often than not wistful and longing. Charlie is attracted to a younger woman who reminds him of “how we all were once”. In a slight inversion, Lindy is not sure if Steve will “even remember it [what she does for him] ten years... down the line”.
Ishiguro’s wry humour is intact. Two of the five storylines could be easily described as ludicrous. And “Malvern Hills” has hints of childish pranks too. What always works to the author’s advantage is his simple, stark language — he does not have to try to bring humour to otherwise sombre tales. Kazuo Ishiguro has been rightly described as a “remarkable genius” and the proof lies within these pages.
— Vineeta Rai
NOCTURNES
Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Pages: 221
Price: Rs 499
Dripping suspense
Sarah Waters made her name as the writer of erotic “lesbo-Victorian romps” that effortlessly straddle the worlds of literary and genre fiction. Set in rural Warwickshire, just after the Second World War, The Little Stranger is her fifth novel, the first with a male narrator, Dr Faraday. We meet the doctor at Hundreds Hall, a former grand structure now wasting away, and home to the Ayreses for close to two centuries. Members of the landed gentry now fallen to ruin, the Ayreses — Mrs Ayres and her two grown children, Caroline and Roderick — seem steeped in a bygone, gentler age. Called upon to examine the housemaid, Dr Faraday finds himself strangely drawn to the dilapidated house, where his own mother used to work as a maid 30 years ago.
What begins as a mild fascination with the house and its residents transforms itself into something more pronounced as Dr Faraday scrambles to make sense of the strange happenings that begin to haunt Hundreds. Unexplained marks appear on the walls, fires start on their own accord, and footsteps break the silence of unoccupied rooms. Acting both as doctor and confidant, Dr Faraday’s life becomes closely entwined with the Ayreses, even as a string of greater tragedies descend on the Hundreds. This is quintessential Waters territory — involving madness, suicide, and an arguable murder — perfected over the rather steep arc of her work. Dripping with psychological suspense, The Little Stranger keeps the reader guessing on whether it is an atmospheric horror story or a macabre murder mystery right to the end.
— Vikram Johri
THE LITTLE STRANGER
Author: Sarah Waters
Publisher: Riverhead
Pages: 480
Price: $26.95
