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A review by maaryaam
Bombay Stories by Saadat Hasan Manto
2.0
I honestly think this book just suffered a lot from its translation. As I was reading it I could literally feel how much context I was missing out on because it wasn't translated well. A lot of meaning and symbolism is lost once a work has been translated and I'm quite a big fan of the way penguin pocket classics format their translated fiction, so for example in those editions if a phrase, name, or a word is mentioned that needs further explanation for the reader to truly understand its importance they add an asterisk and give the background information necessary in the footnote on the page. It's simple to follow and helps a lot with understanding the book. I think if Vintage had a similar format to that of Penguin's this would have been far more enjoyable. There was a point in the book that just annoyed me so there's a line that says "I don't know what his real name was but everyone called him Dhundhu, which was fitting because his job was to find girls that satisfied his customers' varied tastes." But the thing is I don't know why that's fitting because I don't know what that word means to begin with. That's why I feel like I wasn't getting as much as I could have from this collection unfortunately.
The writing was really bland nothing was driving the stories, if this were to have been one story rather than a collection of short stories I'm not sure I would have even gotten through it at all. I failed to see a point or meaning to any of them but I think the stories were more of a character/city analysis rather than one with meaning in them so that was fine. Manto often puts himself in the stories which I didn't enjoy at all it made the stories feel like a poorly written recount because it was all just:
I went to the coffee shop to meet my friend. My friend was struggling. We talked some more then we separated. Then I met another friend.
Again, I feel like this was less Manto's fault and more the translators'.
Regardless, there's no argument that Manto was an incredibly influential writer and I'm glad to have read some of his work. His life was the biggest tragedy and yet his legacy carried on in formation of India's film industry, it's literally the biggest shame that he didn't live to see it. I also enjoyed the essay, "Why I Don't Go to the Movies" in the appendix.
The writing was really bland nothing was driving the stories, if this were to have been one story rather than a collection of short stories I'm not sure I would have even gotten through it at all. I failed to see a point or meaning to any of them but I think the stories were more of a character/city analysis rather than one with meaning in them so that was fine. Manto often puts himself in the stories which I didn't enjoy at all it made the stories feel like a poorly written recount because it was all just:
I went to the coffee shop to meet my friend. My friend was struggling. We talked some more then we separated. Then I met another friend.
Again, I feel like this was less Manto's fault and more the translators'.
Regardless, there's no argument that Manto was an incredibly influential writer and I'm glad to have read some of his work. His life was the biggest tragedy and yet his legacy carried on in formation of India's film industry, it's literally the biggest shame that he didn't live to see it. I also enjoyed the essay, "Why I Don't Go to the Movies" in the appendix.