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A review by zohal99
Remnants of Partition: 21 Objects from a Continent Divided by Aanchal Malhotra
4.0
What I learnt from this book
- The importance of material memory
- Oral storytelling through material objects as a form of preserving history
- The stories of tumultuous and often traumatic pasts that our older living relatives and our ancestors do not and may never have excavated/talked about easily.
- The importance of listening to the stories of our living relatives to preserve their story.
- The role of the individual in the tapestry of history
- I learnt a lot about a period of history I knew only the basics of.
- The role of language in remembering the past.
- I also learnt about the different perspectives on the same historical event depending on whom one interviews. There are stories here of individuals who went from wealth to rags as a result of partition. There are also stories of individuals who served in the army under the British, as well as those who served in the army fighting for independence, and how different their memories of Partition are, as a result of their different forms of nationalism. There are stories of individuals with different passions from history to literature to music, which reinforces the diversity of people who can be impacted by the same event.
Criticisms
- Majority of these stories were of individuals hailing from aristocratic families and what they lost as a result of Partition. I wished there were more stories of individuals who came from little and were also impacted by Partition. Or at least the author should have written to this gap in her book in the foreword or the epilogue.
- The stories were not exactly focused on the objects, in that the objects usually came in toward the end as the main feature. This made each story feel slightly repetitive in terms of the story arc implemented. You have the introduction to the individual, their story, and then the object would feature at the forefront as the anchor to bring the individual back to the present interview, and the story chapter would end with a reflection either by the individual or the author on a key takeway around history, in relation to the story told. I think more variety in the story structures would have been good.
- I wish the foreword had focused more on how language would impact how these stories have been told and translated. That's an important part of extracting history from the memory of those who have lived its events.
I did also struggle at times to stay immersed in the story, but I think this could be because of the cultural gap between myself and the book. Additionally, the author did say she tried to be as impartial as possible in relaying the stories, so I think that impartiality in the writing led me to always be held at arms length from the individual at all times. Even when I was moved by the stories, I never felt that I was there with them. I believe that could be intentional.
There are so many beautiful quotes that will make you dwell on the topics of language, culture, memory, identity, history and more. I wish I owned a copy so I could revisit this book frequently and read little snippets over again. You can tell the author is passionate about what she has documented and the people she interviewed.
Highly recommend! Particularly if you have any passion for history.
- The importance of material memory
- Oral storytelling through material objects as a form of preserving history
- The stories of tumultuous and often traumatic pasts that our older living relatives and our ancestors do not and may never have excavated/talked about easily.
- The importance of listening to the stories of our living relatives to preserve their story.
- The role of the individual in the tapestry of history
- I learnt a lot about a period of history I knew only the basics of.
- The role of language in remembering the past.
- I also learnt about the different perspectives on the same historical event depending on whom one interviews. There are stories here of individuals who went from wealth to rags as a result of partition. There are also stories of individuals who served in the army under the British, as well as those who served in the army fighting for independence, and how different their memories of Partition are, as a result of their different forms of nationalism. There are stories of individuals with different passions from history to literature to music, which reinforces the diversity of people who can be impacted by the same event.
Criticisms
- Majority of these stories were of individuals hailing from aristocratic families and what they lost as a result of Partition. I wished there were more stories of individuals who came from little and were also impacted by Partition. Or at least the author should have written to this gap in her book in the foreword or the epilogue.
- The stories were not exactly focused on the objects, in that the objects usually came in toward the end as the main feature. This made each story feel slightly repetitive in terms of the story arc implemented. You have the introduction to the individual, their story, and then the object would feature at the forefront as the anchor to bring the individual back to the present interview, and the story chapter would end with a reflection either by the individual or the author on a key takeway around history, in relation to the story told. I think more variety in the story structures would have been good.
- I wish the foreword had focused more on how language would impact how these stories have been told and translated. That's an important part of extracting history from the memory of those who have lived its events.
I did also struggle at times to stay immersed in the story, but I think this could be because of the cultural gap between myself and the book. Additionally, the author did say she tried to be as impartial as possible in relaying the stories, so I think that impartiality in the writing led me to always be held at arms length from the individual at all times. Even when I was moved by the stories, I never felt that I was there with them. I believe that could be intentional.
There are so many beautiful quotes that will make you dwell on the topics of language, culture, memory, identity, history and more. I wish I owned a copy so I could revisit this book frequently and read little snippets over again. You can tell the author is passionate about what she has documented and the people she interviewed.
Highly recommend! Particularly if you have any passion for history.