This article forms a part of The Hindu on Books newsletter which brings you book reviews, reading recommendations, interviews with authors and more. Subscribe here
Welcome to this edition of The Hindu on Books Newsletter.
A new adaptation of Jane Austen’s last completed novel, Persuasion, published in December, 1817, five months after her death, has stirred a controversy with critics lashing out at director Carrie Cracknell for having trivialised the story, and making it a comedy. Cracknell told The New York Times the film was made with “openhearted respect” for Austen and her sensibilities. Though she wrote over 200 years ago, the questions Austen raises in her much-loved novels like Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Persuasion, about social mores and women’s negotiations with society, are still relevant. The sombre story of Persuasion revolves around Anne Eliott, the youngest daughter of a baronet whose wealth has faded. To her father and two sisters, Anne, “with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character,” was a ‘nobody’; “her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give way – she was only Anne.” She had once been deeply in love with a young naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but had been persuaded to call off their secret engagement. When Wentworth reappears in her life, Anne is 27 and single, but is again forced to pretend that she does not care for him. Whatever the criticism of Cracknell’s effort, a retelling always opens up an old book to a new audience, and the vigorous reaction to the adaptation shows how inexhaustible Austen’s oeuvre is.
In reviews, we read Thomas Piketty’s book on the history of equality, a volume on India’s stringent lockdown announced in 2020 for COVID-19, and a new tome on Narendra Modi and his political mind. We also introduce a new series on children’s books illustrators from across the country.
Books of the week
In his new book, A Brief History of Equality (Harvard University Press/HarperCollins), translated by Steven Rendall, Thomas Piketty says we have come a long way from the dark depths of the era of slavery and colonialism, but still have a long way to go. To illustrate, in France the extreme concentration of wealth that was the hallmark of the 19th century, is no longer the case in the 21st century. But the poorer half of the population did not own any property on the eve of the French Revolution, and that remains the case today. The beneficiaries of the “great redistribution” of the 20th century were the “patrimonial middle class”, the middle 40% of the wealth distribution who own mainly housing wealth and intangible human capital. The story is similar in other western societies. In his review, Amit Basole writes that India figures prominently in the book, both with respect to its colonial history and its post-Independence attempts to reduce caste-based inequalities. His favourite chapters are ‘The Heritage of Slavery and Colonialism’, and ‘The Question of Reparations’. “While it will not be news to anyone in this part of the world that the European powers owed a significant part of their rise in the 19th and 20th centuries to slavery and to wealth stolen from their colonies and semi-colonies, the numbers still hit hard. It is difficult not to get angry when reading the cold fact that the first independent Black republic, Haiti, paid three times its 1825 GDP as compensation to its French slave holders between 1840 and 1950. Apart from the moral repugnance of slaves paying slave holders compensation, this effectively destroyed Haiti’s chance of becoming economically independent, and the country suffers the consequences to this day.”
If the lockdown had not been suddenly announced on March 24, 2020 as COVID-19 took hold, would it have spared thousands of migrants from the agony of having to trek back to their villages? In the backdrop of the government stopping all means of public transport, Jyoti Mukul’s The Great Shutdown (Harper) raises questions about the necessity of such a severe lockdown, how the decision was arrived at, and its impact. In her review, Anuradha Raman says Mukul used the ultimate weapon available to the common man, the Right to Information Act, to fortify her book with facts. “She lays bare the flurry of announcements made daily by the government in the wake of COVID-19, scrutinising them for anomalies which she finds aplenty. She connects these with the people who are often at the receiving end of such decisions; their stories reminding us how decisions impact people who have no means to fend for themselves.”
Ajay Singh’s The Architect of the New BJP: How Narendra Modi Transformed the Party outlines how the Prime Minister oversaw both the strategic and tactical aspects of the BJP’s growth. In her review, Nistula Hebbar says that there were certain established norms in Indian politics till Modi burst onto the national scene. “It was expected that Hindus would largely vote on caste lines and minorities would exercise their franchise in a bloc.” Mr.Modi turned this around, with the party being able to appeal to a large section of society (a vocal minority still opposed it). As a political journalist, Singh had a ringside view of how Modi, an RSS pracharak, and then general secretary in the BJP, articulated his thoughts on how to win elections and influence people on the ground. “Singh’s book points out three basic tactics: one, with the help of full-time workers loaned from the RSS, Modi helped build a superstructure of the BJP organisation. Second, he urged “notables” from outside the Sangh fold to join the party so that they could appeal to a wider audience. Third, once Modi realised people were responding to him, he used his ability to move voters like none other, distilling ideas he had picked up on various assignments for the RSS.”
Spotlight
Priya Kuriyan, book covers of Ammachi’s Glasses, Beauty is Missing, Poonachi, Chitty - A Dog & Her Forest Farm, Maithili and the Minotaur, and Rajiv Eipe
In a series on children’s books illustrators from across the country, we profile two illustrators based in Bengaluru, Priya Kuriyan and Rajiv Eipe. In her essay, Menaka Raman says there’s a trademark wit and humour in Kuriyan’s work that often finds expression in her characters. Her books like I’m So Sleepy and Ammachi’s Glasses are popular. Kuriyan’s family moved around frequently when she was in school, and she says that while “schools, teachers, neighbours and friends were not constants in her life,” her sketchbook, happily for her readers, became her “constant”. Eipe (Dinosaur-As-Long-As- 127-Kids, Chitty – A Dog & Her Forest Farm) feels that drawing is the one thing he can do to “be useful in the world. When you make a book, it exists in the world forever, if not in print, then in the minds and memories of readers.” At nearly 40, Eipe’s tally is close to 30 books, while 41-year-old Kuriyan has published almost double that. Raman finds their art unabashedly Indian but also “nuanced”, and a beautifully created world.
Browser
- Entangled Lives: Human-Animal-Plant Histories of the Eastern Himalayan Triangle (Cambridge University Press) by Joy L.K. Pachuau, Willem van Schendel is a rich biography of a geographical and ecological region sandwiched between India and China. Pachuau and Schendel chart the relationship between plant, animal and human life, drawing on the culture and history of the region, including local narratives.
- Rana Safvi has translated Khwaja Hasan Nizami’s Begumat Ke Aansoo (Tears of the Begums/Hachette), stories of survivors of the 1857 uprising. After the uprising, members of the royal Mughal court had to flee to safer places. Some bore their fate with a bitter pride, others succumbed to the adversity. Thanks to Safvi, Khwaja Hasan Nizami’s accounts of survivors are now accessible to a wider audience.
- Vinita Sidhartha’s book, Just Play!: Life Lessons from Traditional Indian Games (Rupa), takes readers back to traditional games like Panch Kone, Solah Seedi to Aadu Puli Aatam. Apart from describing the games in detail, Vinita also conveys valuable life lessons to be learnt while playing them and having fun.
- Amar Mitra’s Dhanapatir Char: Whatever Happened to Pedru’s Island? (Penguin) has been translated into English by Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey. A rare blend of fantasy and folklore, it combines the elements of myth, allegory, and magic realism to tell the story of an island and its inhabitants. Will Dhaneshwari, the new ruler, be able to save the island and its women? Or will the government acquire the island?
