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korrick 's review for:
Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man
by U. R. Ananthamurthy
Years go on, infection rates are undersold and over-normalized, and through it all, my relationship with the NYRB Classics imprint flows and ebbs, ever contingent on my personal priorities and the luck I have in my purchases. Several months back, I made the rare decision of treating myself to a drink drawn straight from the publication source, and, based on estimations of how much the quality of the work resembled the ideals of the imprint (when not being unabashedly andro + Eurocentric) and unlikely it would be for me to find a copy out in the wild (I'd been searching for this one for eight years already), this was one of the works I chose to acquire. Published more than 50 years ago, written in a language, Kannada, that is barely represented on my shelves beyond the contents of a few broad yet shallow anthologies and one other complete work, and deeply concerned with the premise of an age old faith confronting the onslaught of the future, it certainly fits the bill for any looking to expand their literary scope in a manner that acknowledges modern day conventions while drawing upon millennia old cultural reserves that currently inform the lives of around a billion adherents. As the afterword states, it's not a text addressed to a "Westerner" such as myself, so it was rather inevitable that my overall reception of the text be part admiring, part lukewarm, and, if in small amounts, part critical. So, I can acknowledge the worth when strictly adhering to the definition of a religion-centered allegory, but my reading is predicated on more than such, and so my evaluation follows.
When it comes to allegory, certain excuses are made with regards to convenient coincidences of plot, simplification of character, and extended meditations and/or digressions on topics that can sometimes have the bare minimum of relevance to the overall narratological infrastructure. So, if you're coming to this looking to know more about Brahminism, Hinduism, and what happens when a two thousand year old social hierarchy meets the dominance of a foreign power in the early 20th c., you'll certainly get much to chew over within the scope of less than 200 pages. As for me, I'm a tad more concerned with the whole "modernity" level of things when it comes to faith based social systems, especially when it comes to the real life persons who have been marked for perhaps not quite pure human sacrifice, but certainly serve a purpose of a "social outlet" through conscious marginalization based on deeply respected texts and other cultural theories that seek to make sense of the world based on what is of worth and what is not. So, we have the much respected top of the caste system male figure on one hand, the pure bottom of the cast system female figure on the other, and a writing style that chooses to allow the first to question the seemingly unquestionable and confine the second to base instinctual reactions that modulate the narrative as is necessary. Hardly unexpected, but still uneven, and while I imagine public condemnation stemming from certain status quo sectors would have been much fiercer had Ananthamurthy gone even further in his humanization (the film of the piece was banned at least once without any stated reason), if [a:Ismat Chughtai|231856|Ismat Chughtai|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1274959085p2/231856.jpg] can defend herself against obscenity charges for queer themes in [b:a short story|1238070|The Quilt & Other Stories|Ismat Chughtai|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1503004558l/1238070._SY75_.jpg|1226713] in 1944, I would hope that a work published nearly 20 years later by a man could at least grant a cishet woman sex worker some measure of character definition. Course, would NYRB Classics have gone as far as in acquiring this for its self-congratulatory collection were such the case? Unresolved upon unresolved, and as this commentary is free labor upon my part, I'll go ahead and cut it off there.
In terms of my overall reading, this is a work that does what it needs to do in a way that I appreciate but don't entirely like on an instinctive level. Still, if the majority of the works that the NYRB Classics has and continues to build up its catalogue with looked a lot more like this in terms of international scope and publication intrepidity and less like hipster mania, it would be all the better for it. I acknowledge the need for marketability and target audience and all that jazz, but such is what is likely to prevent me from ever committing to a publishing subscription of any sort, as the longer period of time and effort I spend in picking through what comes to me in a less exorbitant if more chaotic fashion is rewarded ten fold when a book fits exactly to my specified needs. So, while this work didn't prove an absolute favorite, it's also not something I can imagine myself stumbling across even if I gave it another three, five years, so I'm glad I indulged when it proved practical to do so. As for whether you, reader, should read this, it's not something I'd recommend without some knowledge of the context of both the history and the faith system, else even the 30 pages of supplemental material for 120 pages of actual text isn't going to do you much good. Information moves faster than ever these days, but issues of access and respect loom as infuriatingly large as ever. This is one of those pieces that make such clear in an unavoidable sense, so I would advise you take it on only if you're honestly willing to engage, rather than exoticize.
P.S. It seems the 1970's film adaptation for this is, leastwise of 1/23/22, available in its entirety for free on YouTube, for whomever is into that sort of thing.
When it comes to allegory, certain excuses are made with regards to convenient coincidences of plot, simplification of character, and extended meditations and/or digressions on topics that can sometimes have the bare minimum of relevance to the overall narratological infrastructure. So, if you're coming to this looking to know more about Brahminism, Hinduism, and what happens when a two thousand year old social hierarchy meets the dominance of a foreign power in the early 20th c., you'll certainly get much to chew over within the scope of less than 200 pages. As for me, I'm a tad more concerned with the whole "modernity" level of things when it comes to faith based social systems, especially when it comes to the real life persons who have been marked for perhaps not quite pure human sacrifice, but certainly serve a purpose of a "social outlet" through conscious marginalization based on deeply respected texts and other cultural theories that seek to make sense of the world based on what is of worth and what is not. So, we have the much respected top of the caste system male figure on one hand, the pure bottom of the cast system female figure on the other, and a writing style that chooses to allow the first to question the seemingly unquestionable and confine the second to base instinctual reactions that modulate the narrative as is necessary. Hardly unexpected, but still uneven, and while I imagine public condemnation stemming from certain status quo sectors would have been much fiercer had Ananthamurthy gone even further in his humanization (the film of the piece was banned at least once without any stated reason), if [a:Ismat Chughtai|231856|Ismat Chughtai|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1274959085p2/231856.jpg] can defend herself against obscenity charges for queer themes in [b:a short story|1238070|The Quilt & Other Stories|Ismat Chughtai|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1503004558l/1238070._SY75_.jpg|1226713] in 1944, I would hope that a work published nearly 20 years later by a man could at least grant a cishet woman sex worker some measure of character definition. Course, would NYRB Classics have gone as far as in acquiring this for its self-congratulatory collection were such the case? Unresolved upon unresolved, and as this commentary is free labor upon my part, I'll go ahead and cut it off there.
In terms of my overall reading, this is a work that does what it needs to do in a way that I appreciate but don't entirely like on an instinctive level. Still, if the majority of the works that the NYRB Classics has and continues to build up its catalogue with looked a lot more like this in terms of international scope and publication intrepidity and less like hipster mania, it would be all the better for it. I acknowledge the need for marketability and target audience and all that jazz, but such is what is likely to prevent me from ever committing to a publishing subscription of any sort, as the longer period of time and effort I spend in picking through what comes to me in a less exorbitant if more chaotic fashion is rewarded ten fold when a book fits exactly to my specified needs. So, while this work didn't prove an absolute favorite, it's also not something I can imagine myself stumbling across even if I gave it another three, five years, so I'm glad I indulged when it proved practical to do so. As for whether you, reader, should read this, it's not something I'd recommend without some knowledge of the context of both the history and the faith system, else even the 30 pages of supplemental material for 120 pages of actual text isn't going to do you much good. Information moves faster than ever these days, but issues of access and respect loom as infuriatingly large as ever. This is one of those pieces that make such clear in an unavoidable sense, so I would advise you take it on only if you're honestly willing to engage, rather than exoticize.
P.S. It seems the 1970's film adaptation for this is, leastwise of 1/23/22, available in its entirety for free on YouTube, for whomever is into that sort of thing.