Cliches of the Imagination
David Davidars new novel is a decent apologia for the publishing industry,but a failed work of fiction
When she was seven years old,my little sister decided to write a novel about another little girl. The book grew and grew,as she filled in details of what she ate and wore,what her parents said,many of the trivial details of her day. Nobody told her it wasnt a novel. But one would have thought that publishing doyen David Davidar,by his third novel,would know the difference between literature and life the crucial fact that something has to happen in a novel. Ithaca is an okay account of a working life,a decent apologia for the publishing industry,but a failed work of fiction. It spills over with inconsequential detail,but lacks a story.
The plot,such as it is,follows the fortunes of Litmus,an independent London-based publishing house,trying to stay independent in these times of economic and technological uncertainty. Zachariah Thomas,its half-Indian editor,is so far buoyed by his big find,Massimo Seppi,whose trilogy about archangels and demons has stood between Litmus and destruction. But can Zach and his team save Litmus,or will they allow the powerful American publisher Globish to muscle in? Most of the novel is devoted to Zachs flat interior monologue,and other characters are mostly revealed only through his shallow assessments. And so,the novel is crammed with cliches of the imagination.
The only human drama you can wring from this novel is that Zachs work has temporarily estranged him from his wife. This is not shown,but told. His emotional life is torn between his wife,Julia,a literary agent,and his rebound girlfriend,a petulant waitress named Mandy. Zachs erotic appeal is insisted on,over and over again the women he has loved and left like the smoky-eyed investment banker who smears Gentlemans Relish all over the crotches of his trousers,the infinite possibilities at book fairs.
Even his fiction and non-fiction editors at Litmus the warm,instinctive brunette Yanara and the cool,granular blonde Rachel as he sees them compete for his attention as he sees it. But for all his tired sophistication,Zachs insights into the emotional life are at the level of why did relationships have to be so damned difficult,maybe he should have become a priest and in his experience,relationships end badly if they arent snapped off cleanly,or if they arent allowed to dribble away into nothingness.
Most of the encounters in this novel are meant to illuminate one or the other facet of the publishing world,circa 2011. And it is certainly worthwhile as an account of a reeling industry,its rationalisations and conceits,its fear of the unknown. But why bother with this slender husk of a character called Zachariah Thomas? He delivers somewhat defensive disquisitions on how as long as people tell stories and consume stories,there will be a role for all of us,of how publishing is the closest it gets to humanitys cultural soul.
He ponders the challenges before him: Apple. Amazon. Google. Digital content. DRM. Ereaders. Pricing models. Royalty rates. Marketing to consumers. Readers who would like content for free. Writers who must produce a strange hybrid that is part text,part music,part moving pictures with multiple endings and enough carny tricks to satisfy the semi-literate reader. Names are dropped,from David Godwin to K.D. Singh to Vikram Seth,and publishing lore is affectionately retold.
He is accosted by strangers at parties,by younger colleagues,who seek his thoughts on where its all going,giving him another chance to expound. At a Delhi book launch,Zach drones on for three pages about the digital future to a certain Professor Malik,who has only plied him with a couple of questions,and then wonders why he,Zach,is stuck with this pedantic bore.
Ithaca has many schooled pretty phrases,and some interesting thoughts like when Zach rues how so many writers squander that first chance,not realising that every publisher is looking for the flawless debut,one unburdened by a track record. Why on earth dont they throw caution to the winds,give their work a great clawing distinctiveness? But,largely,the problem is that there is no respite from Zachs self-absorbed chatter,his dead sentences. A dull meeting is described dully. The narrative hops from London to Thimphu,Delhi to Toronto,Frankfurt to New York,but means nothing apart from mentions of various foods the world is only as round as Zachs navel.
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