There are some things that Jhumpa Lahiri has always done very well: the elliptical look at an unexceptional moment, transforming it into an emblematic image or mood — a snapshot, a metaphor, a symbol. Her short stories have been deservedly admired for these miniatures and the precise sentences that frame them. Her last published collection, Unaccustomed Earth, was a moving study in the sadness of families and their corrosive, chronic tensions. The family, especially, is her tramping ground: usually the Bengali family, which in turn is often the Bengali immigrant family, and a significant part of the narrative plays out near a university campus or within academia. Her themes are rather admirable in their repetitiveness, in the sense that she seems to be able to conjure a wealth of material from a finite world. Also, Lahiri is something of a relentlessly hard worker — at least I assume she is, because her elegant prose couldn’t just have been dashed off at a moment’s thought. In terms of criticism, one only felt that her talent ought to range beyond Bengali families, academia and so on. Her latest novel, The Lowland — shortlisted for the Booker — promised to be that departure. At the very least, the promotional blurbs described a quite un-Lahiriesque level of excitement, of the Naxalite revolution and two brothers divided at first by their politics and then by continents. The first page is an enchanting prelude, a brief and beautiful description of a lowland covered by water and hyacinth during the monsoon through which egrets wade and two young brothers — Subhash and Udayan — are introduced. Without further ado, we are launched into the theme of class-war and revolution as they are caught and punished for sneaking into the Tolly Club after hours to practise golf with an old club and discarded balls. Nicely done, too. But then, rather abruptly, the history lessons start, and I’m not sure who they’re meant for. These are unsubtle inserts, written with the banality of a sixth-grade textbook:
“It was 1964. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorised America to use military force against North Vietnam Congress was still running the Central government in Delhi. After Nehru died of a heart attack that spring his daughter, Indira, entered the Cabinet.”
I swallowed this as best as I could and moved on only to be held up again, rather too soon at 1968 when, “in the face of increasing opposition, the United Front government collapsed, and West Bengal was placed under President’s Rule.” This goes on throughout this 340-page novel, whenever history is required to put in an appearance in all its grandeur. The style may well work in certain films when you need to jump events with well-placed titles, in order to cut to the action a bit faster. However, the phrasing and timing of even film titles are crucial for what they tell you about the politics of the director. All that I could make out about Lahiri’s is that she’s keen to stick to the broadest version of The Facts of Received History (even though the bibliography she refers to at the end of the book sounds much more interesting). I assume she kept it simplistic for the benefit of non-Indian readers, but the result is that the drama of those tumultuous years is relegated to pat generalisations, and some very flat lines in the mouths of her characters:
“Well, what would Udayan say He would say that an agrarian economy based on feudalism is the problem. He would say the country needs a more egalitarian structure. Better land reforms. Sounds like a Chinese model. It is. He supports Naxalbari. Naxalbari What’s that ”
As for the story of the two brothers, the story and the structure of the plot both have wonderful, though unrealised, potential. The older brother, Subhash, is never convinced by the younger brother, Udayan’s, Naxal politics. He returns from his academic work in the US when he hears of Udayan’s execution by the police, meets his young and pregnant widow, Gauri, and marries her as an act of rescue. From this point on we’re in the familiar Lahiri territory of unhappy families, uncommunicative and estranged relationships and academia (both Subhash and Gauri do their Ph.Ds). At significant moments, we return to the past for a few more revelations about Udayan’s clandestine revolutionary activities and his relationship with Gauri. The most important secret is never revealed until the end, that is the nemesis that claims Udayan’s life. All this should have worked brilliantly, and I have a feeling that it still might — as a film. But what Lahiri has done in this book is to quite dramatically spade the soufflé of her prose. It isn’t just the historical bits, it’s often an inexplicable psychological deadness in her characters. They seem to not have a thought or feeling in their heads or hearts, or at least none that can break the flat surface of Lahiri’s understatements. At page 37, I almost gave up at these lines: “He wondered if she’d ever been to India. If she had, he wondered whether she’d liked it or hated it. He could not guess from looking at her.” Indeed, it is very hard to guess anything about a person’s holiday visit by just looking at them, and the last sentence ought to have been red-pencilled. There are many such moments in the book, which leave you wondering why certain lines were written or observations made — they are utterly off in their tone.
He was unwell He was killed. How The paramilitary shot him. He was a Naxalite. I’m sorry. It’s a terrible loss to bear. But now you’ll be a father. Yes. It’s very hard to imagine this interchange, between Subhash and an Indian colleague at his university. Does anyone ever quite put it like that And this is immediately followed by an invitation to dinner. At the end I was left feeling that there was a lot more to everyone and everything in this book which never made it to the final version: a lot more to Naxalism, to the people caught up in that war, a lot more to Kolkata than the familiar and irritating tableauxs of puja and slogans scrawled on walls and even a lot more to Gauri (though she does come off as the best of the lot, perhaps because many of her actions are designed as inexplicable, so the cryptic style of revealing nothing suits her the best). However, I was also left feeling that someone or the other is going to turn this book into a film. It does read like the preliminary sketch of a screenplay: excellent locations, lots of meaty roles (dialogues have to be worked on) and enough revolution and star-crossed lovers to keep it going scene after scene. But as a novel, I found the downscaling of emotion and history quite disappointing, and am left wondering whether Lahiri is really at her best when she keeps her stories short.
Anupama Chandra is a film editor and bibliophile
