are we ready to go for 9pm...? i've just finished the book - how can such a short book have taken me so long?

 gleaming | Oct 31 2007, 20:29 pm

i'm emailing from california--so i'm not quite sure when 9 pm is in england--but i won't be able to stay at my computer for long since i have kids to pick up from school--so here are some of my thoughts on the book: first, i really enjoyed reading it--although i usually pick books with female protagonists, this book was so well written i ended up relating to jagan a lot. i thought that he does evolve throughout the novel--when we first meet him he leads such a rigid narrow life, bounded by the statue of sir lawley and his sweets shop. i thought this might represent the history and still-felt consequences of british colonialism on the one hand, and the impact on indian culture and life of capitalism, best represented by america and mali's amitions formed there. so when he goes on that little trip with the white bearded man, it is almost surreal, it represents a break from those rigid confines, he is reminded of his past life, his past ideals, his former passions. and that allows him to break away from his calcified life, including a weird frightened dependence on his son and his son's happiness--even though mali is so obviously trying to exploit his father, at least to me. so jagan manages to start a new life away from his former restrictive life yet loosely tied to it through the cousin (who, by the way, i thought was a great character). i also think of this idea of escape from a confining life/routine because of the almost OCD way jagan is portrayed at the beginning of the text. everything is and has to be under his strict control, his diet, his routine, his shop, even his wife, when she is alive, etc. it makes sense, then, that mali is such a disruptive force in his life with his radically different plans, travels, way of living and thinking. so in that way, mali serves as a catalyst, ultimatley, for jagan's escape, or formation of a new, more "true" way of life. the book opens with the quote "conquer taste, and you will have conquered the self," which i read as ironic in part because although he restricts his diet while owning a sweets shop, jagan is dependent on so much--counting his money, his reputation as a sage man, his strict routine, the illusion of controlling his son, etc. that he has not really conquered "taste" in that way, until the end of the novel, when he truly cuts himself off from all that formerly defined him and returned, in a way, to his idealistic roots.

 mjelliott | Oct 31 2007, 20:58 pm

You have definitely hit on some of the thoughts I had when I read the book. I do think Narayan is commenting on the continuuing impact of colonialism on India - which is why I thought maybe the story-writing machine was a metaphor?

 burntsugar | Oct 31 2007, 22:03 pm