The Coen brothers begin Fargo (1996) by saying it is a true story. But the story is, as the viewers find out once the film ends, a work of fiction even if the fiction is based, according to recent confessions by the directors, on certain real-life events. By calling fiction real at the outset, Fargo instils a few philosophical dilemmas in the viewer’s mind, and in the process undermines the traditional definition of fiction, preparing the viewer for an anti-climax.
In Plastic Emotions , the second novel by London-born, Montreal-raised author Shiromi Pinto, readers enter a similar predicament. The story is real, based as it is on a love affair between two real people — the Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier and the Sri Lankan architect Minnette de Silva. The milieu in which the relationship happens is real but the experiences, we understand, are suitably imagined. And that calls for a different reading of the novel.
Plastic Emotions does justice to such a reading by jolting the reader every now and then out of his preconceptions about fiction and forcing him to shuttle between fiction and reality so that he finally makes a compromise that will heavily influence how he perceives the whole narrative at the end.
Le Corbusier (on the right) in Chandigarh.
Pinto cleverly weaves fiction with fact, and peppers the narrative with disparities that challenge the reader to spot them and have fun. That’s one of the many beauties of this book.
Letters to Oiseau
The protagonists are easily a biographer’s delight. One can imagine a non-fiction writer getting enamoured by the profiles of these two brilliant architects who lived during a period of extreme political and social change (de Silva was born in 1918 and died in 1998; Corbusier lived between 1887 and 1965). The two quotes with which Pinto begins the novel, by Corbusier and de Silva, reflect a non-fictionesque tenor and mood. And then Pinto takes the liberty of painting her characters according to her imagination. And she does a great job of it.
Capturing de Silva in all her intricacies, Pinto builds the narrative around her. The correspondence between de Silva and Corbusier is often reminiscent of Jenny Marx’s letters to Karl Marx. Yet the relationship between these two is also unique for a number of reasons, the first among which is their profession.
Architecture itself is a deeply-layered character in this novel. The narrative covers many geographies, from the exotic and mystique to the mundane and the lethargic. We travel between places like Colombo, Paris and many other cities in Asia and Europe, witnessing events and people who have gone on to mould how we live today.
Corbusier in the 2010s
The deep and candid bond between “Oiseau” (as Corbusier would call de Silva) and “Corbu” (as de Silva addressed him in her letters) is richly portrayed too. That said, the novel could have done with better editing. The prose gets annoyingly verbose at times, compromising literary quality. More glaringly, the characters speak the language of the 2010s, and the effect can be unsettling.
At the end, this work of fiction serves better as a historical document by bringing back to life a talented woman pushed to the margins of history chiefly because of her gender. A lot has been written about Corbusier in India and elsewhere. He is a legend; but not de Silva, whose contribution to 20th century architecture is as remarkable but is ignored in the geographies where she lived and worked.
She also had a hand in shaping the struggle for Sri Lanka’s independence and the society that emerged after those eventful days. Pinto’s novel will at least give de Silva her rightful place in history.
Plastic Emotions; Shiromi Pinto, Penguin Viking, ₹499
jinoy.p@thehindu.co.in
