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A review by sidharthvardhan
Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree
5.0
I am hardly a nationalist but I like the fact that there is finally an Indian International Booker Winner. To be honest, I have been thinking for years now how in all the life of International Booker's new format, there hadn't been a single Indian nomination. I believe despite all challenges, Indian languages must have some great books written in them every single year. Maybe they just don't get translated enough.
So my enthusiasm has more to do with hopes that Literature in Indian languages will hopefully gain some attention - from Indians, foreigners but most importantly from publishers who mostly seem interested only in publishing easy money-making books. Hopefully, the increased attention from the western gaze (Is there such a concept? there should be - like 'male gaze' concept of feminists) is.) after this prize might now attract their greed and make them invest more in translations.
Tomb of Stone is refreshing in a number of ways. The story, when you cut down to it, is beautiful (the summary on GoodReads is somewhat misleading) but its true charms are in the telling. And many small stories get told along the way as the grand story unfolds. Only bad novels try to follow the conventional telling (the 'show, don't tell', 'don't go off-topic' etc). The best novels always show indifference to those conventions and go by their own rules. In this regard too, Tomb of Stone is doing a lot. It is always poking, pulling, and pushing at its own narrative reality to push its boundaries to new horizons and with drunken's disregard for conventions. The novel starts by naming its author by their archetypical designation (the mother, the daughter, the elder son, the daughter-in-law) and these main characters are never named with the exception of the mother in the end. Then she gave up this rule and started naming them - going so far as to name the servants of the main characters as well as a crow. At some point in the book, great wisdom and intelligence is extended to crows (the birds, not the gatekeepers from Game of Thrones) - one of whom becomes a character in the story though the story doesn't need it. Then the story reaches its natural conclusion but the novel goes challenges the conventional wisdom of those arbitrary endings.
I start reading books cynically - doubly so if the books are this big (at least the big books written after 1900). Something this big needs to work several times as hard to win the same rating - to make it worth the time invested. It is not enough for such a big book to contain a story only, it should have a whole mini-universe in it. Of course, it is always an exaggeration to claim that a book of any size (even something like Ulysses) may contain a mini-universe but some books earn the right to that exaggeration, and 'Tomb of Sand' is one such. A most incomplete list of elements that gets talked about by the rather chatty narrator of the book includes - India, the partition of India, pollution, a man that has forgotten how to laugh, wishing tree, myths, birds, India's most famous bird-watcher, climate change, Indian politicians, philosophers, painters, feminists, Gods, several sub-continental writers, painters, poets, vocalists, terrorists, Pakistan, India-Pakistan clash, Pakistan cricket team, foreigners in India, feminism, etc.
Though I could have read it in the original language, I choose to read it in English. The translator will often let escape a few Hindi verses - which she will obediently translate after transcribing them in the original language. These verses (of songs, poems, etc) were always more beautiful in Hindi.
So my enthusiasm has more to do with hopes that Literature in Indian languages will hopefully gain some attention - from Indians, foreigners but most importantly from publishers who mostly seem interested only in publishing easy money-making books. Hopefully, the increased attention from the western gaze (Is there such a concept? there should be - like 'male gaze' concept of feminists) is.) after this prize might now attract their greed and make them invest more in translations.
Tomb of Stone is refreshing in a number of ways. The story, when you cut down to it, is beautiful (the summary on GoodReads is somewhat misleading) but its true charms are in the telling. And many small stories get told along the way as the grand story unfolds. Only bad novels try to follow the conventional telling (the 'show, don't tell', 'don't go off-topic' etc). The best novels always show indifference to those conventions and go by their own rules. In this regard too, Tomb of Stone is doing a lot. It is always poking, pulling, and pushing at its own narrative reality to push its boundaries to new horizons and with drunken's disregard for conventions. The novel starts by naming its author by their archetypical designation (the mother, the daughter, the elder son, the daughter-in-law) and these main characters are never named with the exception of the mother in the end. Then she gave up this rule and started naming them - going so far as to name the servants of the main characters as well as a crow. At some point in the book, great wisdom and intelligence is extended to crows (the birds, not the gatekeepers from Game of Thrones) - one of whom becomes a character in the story though the story doesn't need it. Then the story reaches its natural conclusion but the novel goes challenges the conventional wisdom of those arbitrary endings.
I start reading books cynically - doubly so if the books are this big (at least the big books written after 1900). Something this big needs to work several times as hard to win the same rating - to make it worth the time invested. It is not enough for such a big book to contain a story only, it should have a whole mini-universe in it. Of course, it is always an exaggeration to claim that a book of any size (even something like Ulysses) may contain a mini-universe but some books earn the right to that exaggeration, and 'Tomb of Sand' is one such. A most incomplete list of elements that gets talked about by the rather chatty narrator of the book includes - India, the partition of India, pollution, a man that has forgotten how to laugh, wishing tree, myths, birds, India's most famous bird-watcher, climate change, Indian politicians, philosophers, painters, feminists, Gods, several sub-continental writers, painters, poets, vocalists, terrorists, Pakistan, India-Pakistan clash, Pakistan cricket team, foreigners in India, feminism, etc.
Though I could have read it in the original language, I choose to read it in English. The translator will often let escape a few Hindi verses - which she will obediently translate after transcribing them in the original language. These verses (of songs, poems, etc) were always more beautiful in Hindi.