An absorbing, enlightening book

 

(The book of old ladies, celebrating women of a certain age in fiction, by Ruth O. Saxton, She Writes Press, Berkeley, CA,2020)

Saxton begins her introduction by saying, “I have always read fiction to find models for how to live, how to be.”

Wow! I thought that was the terrain of self-help books which are very popular now. The idea of reading literature with a motive is new to me. I read just to know and understand life.

When Saxton began her Ph.D. in literature in the 1980s, she was told that not many women writers were worth serious study; Virginia Woolf and Doris Lessing were the exceptions as their women characters existed as worthy individuals in their own right, not just as the foil for the development of male characters.

Saxton comes from a highly literate family but she was the first woman in it to go to college. In the ‘70s, she grappled with marriage, motherhood, feminist activism and also pursued masters in literature with a focus on American women writers. She also started teaching in community colleges.

After she became a professor, she started writing and editing, always searching for female fictional limitations and possibilities. She started looking for older women in literature and realised that they were largely invisible. If they were visible, they were bracketed with two stereotypes, fairy godmother or wicked witch, to wit. And so began her search for old lady protagonists who were not marginal.

It became a long project of study, student courses and assignments. The end result is the book above.

It is a book of readings with plentiful commentary by Saxton. Its central question is: how have women novelists handled old age?

The answer, the following themes, each explored in a separate chapter.

·       Romancing the past,

·       Sex after sixty,

·       Altered realities,

·       It’s never too late and

·       Defying expectations.

In each chapter, Saxton analyses six novels. The concluding chapter deals with one more novel, Margaret Drabble’s The dark flood rises (2016).

Thus the book covers 31 novels in its 197 pages. The plot and characters of each are summarized, analyzed and Saxton adds her own interpretations, comments and sometimes those of her students also. The novelists covered include Alice Munro, Penelope Lively, Katherine Anne Porter, Muriel Spark, Vera Sackville-West, Anita Brookner and others. Publication of the novels spans almost 80 years, from 1930 to 2016.

I am impressed with the scope of the book and its reader-friendly approach. The plot summaries are particularly useful. How creative it is to think of such projects for students!

I enjoyed reading the book and I could learn new things from it.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (2008) is one novel included in the book. I had taken it up for reading some time ago and I gave it up after the first chapter because I did not understand how the chapters were linked. After reading Saxton’s comments, I have taken it up again and it does offer many insights.

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A remarkable debut

(Upward bound by Woody Brown, Penguin Random House, N.Y. 2026)

This short novel of 146 pages is about life for a few months in an adult day care centre for differently abled people. Members of the centre have each a different level of competence to deal with the world. They feel, they sense and they perceive but lack the ability to articulate verbally.

The centre is naturally strapped for funds and is under-staffed. Dave, its director, is well- meaning but has limited sensitivity. He is more focused on managing governing body members, fund raising and publicity. The centre has a routine of continuous games and activities including swimming for inmates and a weekly visit to a nearby superstore. A strict adherence to routine is Dave’s way of running the show and he is unaware that members are irritated by the infantile activities which he has designed for them.

Life story of each member unfolds briefly in the novel. Things start looking up for Walter when Anne walks in for her summer internship. Inability to communicate and lack of understanding by others lead to a lot of internal tension for members, particularly Jorge and it unfortunately leads to the shooting of Carlos- the ablest of the staff – by the police.

This deeply felt drama is enacted in a superb narrative that is shorn of literary style but is simple and incisive and articulates each and every nuance of human interaction. The author is himself autistic. Reading the novel is an enriching experience.

He is supposed to be working on his second novel. It will be interesting to read it as the present one is more or less, autobiographical.

A clever, well-researched novel

 (March by Geraldine Brooks, Penguin, 31 January 2006, winner of the Pulitzer prize for literature for the same year)

The novel deconstructs Louisa May Alcott's Little Women by writing about the life of their father March. Marmee and her four daughters live in penury while their father fights in the American civil war in 1862 at the rather advanced age of 39 years. So he is absent in person in Little Women.

The one dimensional goody-goodliness of Little Women is completely offset by 'March'.

March is a trader, chaplain and soldier. He has worked hard throughout his life and his mind is full of noble ideas. He does his best to be fair to the black slaves but is overridden by guilt as his efforts did not yield any positive results. He makes money and gives it away, forcing his daughters to work from a tender age. He loved Grace Clement, a refined black girl whom he meets at the tender age of eighteen and again as he lies in a hospital awaiting death. Marmee knows nothing about Grace as March has not had the courage to tell her. Marmee pieces together the missing part of the puzzle and brings him back to his daughters.

The novel is based on painstaking research and other reviewers have averred the historical authenticity of the background created in the novel. It is enlightening. The only other book which I have read on the north versus south America conflict in the late nineteenth century is of course, Gone with the wind which paints a picture of loss of an old world by the south and does not provide much historical information.

The novel brings the background and the characters to life and is an absorbing read.

A book to treasure

 

(What we can know by Ian McEwan, Jonathan Cape, London, September 2025)

In the first part of this novel, Prof. Thomas Metcalfe, in the year 2119, pores over the past while searching for the Corona or crown of sonnets written by Francis Blundy, the famous poet of 21^st century. His quotidian life and his efforts tell us what has been lost in this century: huge loss of life due to nuclear warfare, inundation of New York, Lagos, Glasgow and many parts of the world, then a big drop in global temperature, untamed viruses, permanent loss of much of flora and fauna, exhaustion of mineral deposits resulting in stoppage of manufacturing making for a very poor quality of life. The digital economy is what propels the world but a few committed intellectuals like Prof. Metcalfe carry on their pursuits.

He eventually finds a time capsule buried in the Barn, Francis Blundy’ cottage, now submerged. However, it contains something other than the sonnet.

Part two of the novel deals with the life of Vivien Blundy, dedicatee of the Corona and her small, promiscuous circle of friends and relatives, just like the Bloomsbury group of early 20^th century. The Corona was read out over dinner in the group and then it vanished. A crime lies behind its disappearance. Its tangles are unpicked slowly but without loss of momentum.

McEwan has described his latest novel as science fiction without science. However, it shows a sure grasp of current science and also of course, of literature and academic life. He moves back and forth over two centuries and his characters leaving no loose ends.

A clever, masterly creation. I read only a few pages at a time – sustained reading is not possible now – but when I left, the novel was alive in my mind and I was waiting to get back to it. Last time it happened was with Emma Donoghue’s ‘Room’, a decade ago. The novel has made a deep impact on my mind.

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A taut thriller

 The break-in by Katherine Faulkner (Bloomsbury Publishing, June 2025)

Alice, an art gallery director and curator finds that an armed young man is trying to enter her posh house where her young daughter is playing under the supervision of her nanny. The man does not stop when Alice calls him out. She panics and strikes him from behind and he dies.

Newspapers report the next day that he lived in a nearby council home and was a disturbed adolescent. Alice acted in self defense or rather in defense of her daughter and she is let free.

She herself is traumatized and tries to find out more details. One clue leads to another; one action invites another and soon Alice's marriage and her whole world come tumbling down.

Simple writing style, short chapters and a limited cast of characters make for a gripping tale of deception.

I was hooked.

Time pass

 The latest novel, We all live here by JoJo Moyes (JJM), 2025 provides a pleasant reading experience.

JJM, an English novelist and journalist is the queen of romcom and chick lit with a few bestsellers and one successful movie adaptation to her credit.

In her latest novel, she portrays the life of Lila for an eventful year. Lila, a novelist, finds that she has become a single parent unexpectedly. Her ex husband has married a young woman in the neighbourhood who is expecting his child. She and Lila are forced to meet each day at the school compound and tongues wag.

Lila has two daughters, one a sixteen-year old, to look after. Her step father is also living with them. Her mother died recently. Lila is coping and also trying to write her new novel. Things become complicated as

• her real father pays a visit and refuses to leave,
• her ex starts putting up outrageous demands as he cannot afford to look after his daughters.
• her step father's gardener starts taking an interest in her and
• Lila meets a gorgeous widower at the school pick-up.

These people have made blunders in the past and they come to surface. They also continue to make mistakes. The widower turns out to be a champion cheat. Lila needs money badly and so accepts the publisher's request to put salacious details in her novel. Her imagination deserts her and she starts writing about her recent brush with the gardener. The decent fellow is deeply hurt. Lila's step father finds an admirer nearby but has a heart stroke.

In the ensuing chaos, Lila cancels her book contract but finally everything works out!

Women's fiction typically has a rush of characters and all the details of everyday life. It also has, usually, a final uplifting message. Readers can easily relate to these characters and also the complexities of our routines. JJM's style of writing is engaging with mild humour and lots of tea and biscuits thrown in. The writing takes the readers along.

it also makes you think about the modern family. It has few people with blood ties. Acquaintances and friends are easily accommodated. A common kitchen/ hearth and roof maketh the new family. Will this family also disappear over time, leaving just individuals surrounded by robots around?

Sthal, a Marathi movie

 I saw this movie yesterday by actually going to a movie theatre. It is located in a big mall and the entire ambience of the place makes you believe that you are in Singapore or US.

The theme of the movie was totally at odds with the surroundings.

The movie deals with Savita, a final year B.A. student in a college in Varora/ Varoda in Vidarbha where Baba Amte's Anandvan is located. Savita hopes to appear for her MPSC examination and become a deputy collector but her parents are anxious to get her married. The school teacher in Varora keeps bringing a number of 'sthal's or proposals. (The movie has English subtitles and sthal is translated as a match. I think a proposal is a better word.)

There is a set formula for looking over the girl. Four persons including the bridegroom to be come over to her house and are treated to tea and 'kandapohe'. The eldest relative asks the girl the same set of 5 or 6 questions and she touches their feet before withdrawing. The elderly relative of the groom hands over to her Rs. 100 or 200 to return the hospitality. Then they take leave, saying they would consult others in the family and then communicate their decision. It has been a rejection so far for Savita while one of her friends makes it to be chosen by a state electricity lineman, a coveted position because it is semi-government and permanent. Another friend decides to elope with her boy friend.

 Savita remains and because she is not chosen, her younger brother cannot offer for his sweet heart who is also married off.

Savita is more keen on her examination but one more sthal comes on the day of the examination and her mother forces her to give up her examination. Then a lecturer in her college who is sweet on her comes to see her but his father demands a dowry of Rs. 5 lakh. His reasoning is simple: he had to offer Rs. 10 lakh to secure the teaching post for his son. The son is powerless before his father.

Savita's father is not poor. He owns and cultivates a few acres of land and grows cotton, a cash crop on it. He also wants his daughter to appear for the examination. He tries all the means at his disposal but is unable to raise the amount of dowry and consumes an insecticide. The continuous fall in the market price of cotton adds to his woes. He does not die and Savita's ordeal continues.

The mechanics of the ‘dekkho’ ceremony and the commercial give and take lead to complete disillusionment of Savita and she rebels in the last one. The details are not shown. She raises her fist and the movie ends.

What is extraordinary about this movie is that there are no established actors in it. It is shot in the place and real people act in it. They do not act but live their life before the camera. The locale, the village atmosphere, other people - everything is hundred percent genuine. Most remarkable is the person who has played the role of Savita's father.

The movie unfolds slowly and viewers become a part of the story.

The shortcoming is its weak, obscure ending. It leaves viewers frustrated.

Farmers' distress and suicides is a theme that has been explored in a number of Marathi films. Sadanand Deshmukh's novel 'Baromas' is on the same theme and it has been compared with John Steinbeck's Grapes of wrath. With so much in the background, the movie's ending is not justified. Surely, some indication of a rebellion, protest, change could have been shown.

What change is possible for distressed farmers? There is no future in farming. Their sons must come to cities and become delivery boys for Zomato and Swiggy. Some could take up ITI courses and become plumbers, electricians, carpenters. They have to leave their stereotyped thinking of going for permanent jobs behind. Even Savita must forget about her MPSC examination and be ready to give tuitions in a city.

These are changes which are happening all around us. Newspapers are reporting them everyday.

Then why is the artist community still celebrating the loss of an outdated way of life?