Book: Bookless in BaghdadAuthor: Shashi Tharoor
Let me start with a qualification: If you are not of Indian descent, then perhaps this shouldn't be your first Tharoor book. Many of the essays, I felt, were targeted at and written for Indians.
Now, I must admit that this is my first Shashi Tharoor book. Years ago, my younger brother urged me to read him, having been assigned this author for one of his assignments when he was training to become a civil servant in Mussoorie.
What I found surprising, almost dangerously so in BIB, was how scathing, vituperative even, Shashi gets when writing about certain other writers or politicians.
On Winston Churchill: My blood still boils when I hear teary-eyed British friends describe him as a great fighter for freedom, when I know him principally as a blinkered imperialist untroubled by the oppression of nonwhite peoples...
On John Le Carre: Maybe, just maybe, Le Carre should stick to writing about the gray and gloomy England he knows best, rather than trying to set to rights a world that has moved beyond the sterile divisions of a global antagonism that threatened us all.
On Nirad C. Chaudhuri: (NCC had written an article in the Illustrated Weekly of India entitled Why I hate Indians) Tharoor writes: But even then, I wondered why the arrogant pedantry of the man, his sweeping generalizations and apocalyptic conclusions, usually unsupported by any empirical evidence, were taken so seriously by readers and editors.
On R.K. Narayan: Narayan wrote of, and from, the mindset of the small-town South Indian Brahmin, and did not seem capable of a greater range. His metronomic style was frequently not equal to the demands of his situations.
It has been many years since I read a RKN novel, but I found myself disagreeing strongly with ST on this one. I guess I am not as discerning as Shashi. Moreover, good story-telling is so important to me (and RKN was one no doubt) that I can overlook this "lack of range" in RKN that Tharoor complains of.
I still have a few more essays to read, and might post again.
4 comments:
Hi Ram,
Came here from your comment on my LJ on the same book. I was quite shocked on his comments on R K Narayan. And no I am not a Narayan fan and nor have I read his books, eventhen the acidic remarks on an author of Narayan's standing was quite surprising.
Agreed that the RK Naryan that I have with me ie Malgudi Landscapes which is a complilation of various stories is still unreadable. I have tried reading it several times, but have been unable to proceed beyond a point.
But then I have been unable to read Silas Marner by George Eliot too:-) Heh! So currently I am still blaming myself for not being able to read and appreciate RKN. By Tharoor should have been able to see beyond the narrow vision that I have.
Prem
Prem:
Perhaps you should check out a different RKN book. There's got to be at least one RKN book that you are bound to like.
Ram
Wow, Tharoor sounds interesting! He seems to be as scathing as Edward Said was in Orientalism. I'll definitely have to put Bookless in Baghdad on my wishlist.
hey ramp, the book sounds interesting. will put it on my list of must read. stumbled upon your blog accidentally and have been reading all your postings with great interest.
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