A Literary Maze

Dark, brooding metaphors, secret depths, hints of realities beyond our imagination haunt this novel. In Nirmal Verma8217;s The Last Wildern...

Dark, brooding metaphors, secret depths, hints of realities beyond our imagination haunt this novel. In Nirmal Verma8217;s The Last Wilderness we traverse the realm of the mind permeated with a dreamy stillness, where there is only an illusion of movement, much like ghosts whispering in a mirror. What can be explained is delicately suggested, and what can be revealed is concealed within subtle references. Shadowy glimpses of a past well lived echo in each word, as characters seem to be tragically programmed by fate to be deprived of love. Perhaps, however, only to find their ultimate release in the eternity of nature.

The Last Wilderness
By Nirmal Verma
Indigo
Price: Rs 295

Certainly, Verma8217;s novels have a completely different pace 8212; and may have only been written by someone who has experienced life outside the vulgarity of a billboarded, consumerist and frenetic city. Simultaneously, he provides a relief from books on urban angst. Wilderness also brings with it the ageless comfort of a genre of familiar tales, as it reminds one of Daphne du Maurier8217;s Rebecca 8212; that is, the reality of the protagonist who lives only in memory.

Wilderness begins as the diary of a young male narrator who is confidante and companion to the aging and unwell Mehra Sahib. Mehra Sahib8217;s second wife, Diva, had hired him. It is Verma8217;s style to allow the narrative to flow backwards and forwards, and so we gradually discover that Diva died of cancer, and it is her loss and her unfulfilled desires that add to the strange romanticism of the book. Set in the Himalayan foothills, with suggestions of colonialism, the book has an interesting assortment of eccentric characters, including a suspected German spy. But while all the players have something to hide, it is their closeness to the mysterious Diva and their recollections of her which provide all the links hauling the story along. Interwoven is the silent, and unrequited, attraction between the young narrator of the story and Diva. Later, his loneliness transforms itself into an obsession with Diva8217;s stepdaughter Tiya. However, in Verma8217;s trademark understated fashion 8212; there is no heavy-handed sexuality. In fact it is always the unspoken that disturbs and unsettles.

While the plot may sound simplistic, the treatment is not, as Verma erects a maze of innuendoes and allusions into which he effortlessly traps the helpless reader. As the direction of the plot becomes increasingly blurred, Verma lures you on with the perfectly embellished phrase, the sympathetically etched persona. Unsuspecting, the reader moves on, and scrabbles amongst the layers and layers of insinuations while it slowly dawns that the author has already blocked all the exits. As in all good stories you always ask, so what happened next? Verma prefers that you figure it out.

Impeccably translated by Pratik Kanjilal, the book thankfully does complete justice to the original, presenting us with a poetical, smooth, satisfactory read.