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Journalism of Courage
It is a question guaranteed to throw any but the steeliest of folks off-balance: what is your favourite work of fiction? For me,its always appeared to be something of a performance art when friends actually,and promptly,answer the question,making claims for the book grander than theyd be inclined to support in a quieter moment,overtly conscious that the choice to speak for their refinement and intellect. In any case,how do you even begin to zero in on any one book without any qualifications? Favourite book at what point in your life? Favourite in what circumstances,for its centrality to the literature under consideration or for your personal growth? Favourite right now? But then,is this moment coherent with the longer arc of your reading life? And favourite as in representative of your reading preferences,or may it be a standalone preference that gives away nothing about your bookshelf?
Fortunately,many of these questions were obviated when 50 writers were asked to chip in with their choices within Indian fiction for this anthology,50 Writers 50 Books,edited by Pradeep Sebastian and Chandra Siddan. The result,claimed as a must-have reading list of fifty modern classics that map the modernist project,is quite intriguing. This is not because of any significant reasons for disagreement but because it is interesting to note how differently or not somebody may speak for a book dear to you.
So,almost randomly chosen,here are some excerpts of the writers engagement with familiar books that may not only nudge you to see them a bit differently but,more importantly,map out the parameters by which you could zero in on your favourite novel.
Vijay Nair on Attia Hosains Sunlight on a Broken Column,a most arresting portrait of Lucknow in the years leading up to Independence: It has not only been a treasured companion over the years,but also served as a handbook to manage my aspirations when I sat down to pen the stories my context has given me.
Meghnad Desai on Gujarat No Nath by KM Munshi: I dont have any memory of a time when I could not read. I read whatever came to hand and in my family no one restricted my reading activity till I came across Kanaiyalal Munshis great novel Gujarat No Nath The Master of Gujarat. It was published in 1920 and by the time I must have come across it at the age of six or so,it was already in its tenth reprint. I was fascinated. I needed to read it again and again. I would finish it and then go back to the beginning and start all over again. My family finally had to forbid me from reading it any more. I had read the novel about thirty times by then.
Pico Iyer on A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry: The thing that is most important about Mistrys novel,and that may be hardest of all for a critic or fellow writer or admirer to say,is that,quite simply,it breaks your heart.
Sixteen years after first reading it,I can still remember the effect it had on me,and the way in which it had me holding my breath as I all but prayed for Providence to smile down on its desperate,but constantly familiar,characters.
Abhijit Gupta on Harbert by Nabarun Bhattacharya: Harbart 1993 was a Molotov cocktail hurled at the heart of the literary establishment when the Bengali novel increasingly resembled a never-ending tele-serial.
Amitava Kumar on A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth: The world of A Suitable Boy is unimaginable without an easy familiarity with Hindi and Urdu.
Abhijeet Ranadive on Kosala by Bhalchandra Nemade: Nemade refused to use quotation marks. The fact that rules for standard writing represented the establishment and breaking them was apt in a first-person narrative of someone enraged by the establishment seemed to escape people.
The point of this random collection of explanations? That there is no single way of choosing your favourite novel,and perhaps there is no one way that works better than others. And were you to actually get down to heeding the different indices of excellence that matter to you,youd get a rather tall pile of books,and not just a particular volume,that mean more to you than any other. n
