"The English Teacher"
Not to be confused with the movie/book , The English Patient. The English Teacher is the novel by R.K. Narayan. I read this recently.
Narayan is a funny author. The absolute 'deadpan' quality of his work is somewhat unique. I read through some of his short stories and by the time the story was finished, as far as I could see any action or plot had not even begun. He reports on the minutiae of daily life in such detail, and in some cases I wonder what's the point here ? 'Waiting for the Mahatma' was one of his better ones and I enjoyed that quite a lot, especially the setting during the Independance struggle and the mixing up of the factual character and events of Indenpendance along with the fictional story. The English Teacher ... falls somewhere in between in my opinion. It drags a little with the minutiae thing ('la vie quotidienne' to get French about it), but it has something that is not usually there in Narayan's writing, which is -- tragedy. In this book one of the main characters dies. Especially in light of the minutiae business, this is quite a shocking thing to see in a Narayan book. It is quite interesting to see how Narayan writes about the death -- one might imagine that given his sole focus usually on lighter things (like the virtues of south indian filter coffee!!) that he would have some trouble writing about death. I would say he does. The description is very clinical and detached, and the anguish and grief does not show in the writing at all, though in the readers mind it is very clear, due to the clearly palpable affection between the protagonists (even that affection is between the lines as Narayan does not convey it too well!). Perhaps that is the point, that he is able to convey these deep emotions very strongly without actually saying anything strong at all.
Anyways. Not that compelling a read, but quite interesting.
Narayan is a funny author. The absolute 'deadpan' quality of his work is somewhat unique. I read through some of his short stories and by the time the story was finished, as far as I could see any action or plot had not even begun. He reports on the minutiae of daily life in such detail, and in some cases I wonder what's the point here ? 'Waiting for the Mahatma' was one of his better ones and I enjoyed that quite a lot, especially the setting during the Independance struggle and the mixing up of the factual character and events of Indenpendance along with the fictional story. The English Teacher ... falls somewhere in between in my opinion. It drags a little with the minutiae thing ('la vie quotidienne' to get French about it), but it has something that is not usually there in Narayan's writing, which is -- tragedy. In this book one of the main characters dies. Especially in light of the minutiae business, this is quite a shocking thing to see in a Narayan book. It is quite interesting to see how Narayan writes about the death -- one might imagine that given his sole focus usually on lighter things (like the virtues of south indian filter coffee!!) that he would have some trouble writing about death. I would say he does. The description is very clinical and detached, and the anguish and grief does not show in the writing at all, though in the readers mind it is very clear, due to the clearly palpable affection between the protagonists (even that affection is between the lines as Narayan does not convey it too well!). Perhaps that is the point, that he is able to convey these deep emotions very strongly without actually saying anything strong at all.
Anyways. Not that compelling a read, but quite interesting.
posted by VK at 2:35 AM
1 Comments:
Some more comments:
An important clue I think, is the fact that RKN does not talk about sex at all in the book. The book spans the time of the newly married couple living apart, then living together and having a child. All of this and not one word about sex. Of course this is in the broader context of sex not being a 'writeable' subject in Indian literature. Nevertheless, its a key failing (and indicator) about Narayan that he is trying to write a story with an 'elephant in the room' and that would certainly affect the quality of the story. The other missing part of the story is any reference to social issues or injustices of any sort. There is one note where he in talking about the protag's mother-in-law says that she was brought up in the culture of extreme respect to the son-in-law. This sentence stood out immediately because it atleast hints at the condition of women and possible injustice underneath. The alternate school run by the english teacher is actually a pretty significant comment on socioeconomic conditions which partly nullifies what I just said. Nevertheless I feel the deficit is indeed there.
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