|
Literary Review
Bookwatch
Iceland
IN this world full of stories, would you read one that sets no literary worlds ablaze, whose end you already know?
Edmund Hillary had never seen a mountain or snow until, at 16, he went on a school skiing trip. In High Adventure, which Hillary wrote two years after he climbed Everest, he tells us how he did it. His story of adventure in uncharted territory is exhilarating to read in this jaded 21st Century, when even outer space is cluttered with human debris.
Though an all-time international hero after reaching the summit, Hillary's early chapters communicate the awe in which he held legendary mountaineers and his disbelief at slowly becoming "one of them". Hillary's generous-spirited narrative vividly communicates the sense of comradeship in the expedition: the book shows that for the two who stood on that peak, 20 others had to take as many risks, and sometimes, make heroic sacrifices.
Along with the sahib climber, there was, of course the (somewhat typecast) Sherpa. Up to great heights, the expedition had some women Sherpas who would often carry heavier loads than men. It was a curious blend up there: the New Zealanders emitted wild, joyous yells when they managed a precarious stretch; the Brits' height of exultation was embodied in a discreet "Jolly good, old chap", while the Sherpas exclaimed "Bohut Kharab", and burnt butter-soaked twigs halfway into the night, murmuring "Om Mani Padme Hum". After the ascent, though, there was a single reaction: bear-hugs.
At over 20,000 feet, the sun, reflecting off the snow, could be so hot that it felt like being in an "absolute inferno". The wind screamed down the icy waste, the cold penetrated all clothing. Even Hillary found himself asking, "What was the sense in it all?" His book has the answer.
High Adventure, Edmund Hillary, Reprint by Roli Books, Rs. 395.
* * *
Moving museum
SPEAKING of Everest, a sumptuous book on Everest expeditions has been published by the Royal Geographical Society, London. Its photographs, especially of the early expeditions, reveal aspects not only of mountaineering, people and landscape but also the whole colonial geographical road show. It is a brilliantly curated exhibition that you can view at home because it's in a book. One set of delightful pictures shows the sahibs at trekking meals, with teapots and tablecloths — even if the tablecloths were only draping a packing case. On the 1933 and 1936 expeditions, "there were plenty of gourmet treats such as quails in aspic, Carlsbad plums and champagne." Living the high life at altitudes of 28,000 feet has a certain irresistible charm.
Everest: Summit of Achievement, Roli,
Rs. 1975.
* * *
Rights and wrongs
COPYRIGHT has never bothered us in a country with photocopiers in every university bookshop. Filmmakers, we can be reasonably certain, had never heard of such a thing until Barbara Taylor Bradford stopped Karishma Kapoor's debut TV serial.
The West is wising up. The J.K. Rowling juggernaut has sued the Kolkata smarty-pens who wrote an entire Potter novel in Bengali. Rowling's estate is curiously unmoved by the Bengali publisher's argument that it hasn't stolen a story, only used the same characters.
Booksellers who wish to sell the forthcoming Harry Potter (is there any bookseller that doesn't?) have been sent an unprecedented "embargo agreement" by Penguin, the distributors, which they have to sign if they want stocks of the book. They have to swear, through this contract, that they will not sell the book outside India. Or else.
This contract pertains to that innocuous little line we often see on books, e.g., "Not for sale in Timbuctoo". Publishers worldwide sell and buy area rights to books, and they are allowed to sell their edition only in mutually agreed countries. A lot of money hangs in these transactions.
But in the internet age, with bargain happy consumers, who's to stop anyone? A buyer in the U.S. wants a book, but it is priced $45. He zaps an email order for the same book to an Indian bookseller and gets the book for Rs. 300. The Western publisher starts breathing fire, but with the world in a wide, free trade web, such futile outrage is somewhat ludicrous.
Buyers probably don't realise they're petty criminals buying books this way. Me, as a reader, I'm looking for bargains all the time and rejoice when I give a big publisher the slip and get his book cheap. I'm going to look out for that discounted Harry Potter.
* * *
Barred story
SO what is in the latest Harry Potter? I begged Thomas Abraham, Marketing Head at India's Potter distributors, Penguin, to tell me. He doesn't know either.
Even Penguin has had to sign a contract with the original publishers, swearing nobody will read the book until June 21, the official release date. But what's to stop insiders? Abraham explains that "big books" with international release dates arrive a week before the date in sealed cartons, which staffers are contractually barred from tearing open for sneak peeks. Even the Official Secrets Act can't be so effective.
* * *
Driven women
MOEBIUSTRIP aspires to be that "different" travel book. Thadani attempts a blend of travel diary, autobiography, history and philosophical ruminations as she searches for yogini temples to female spirits. Dakinis and yoginis epitomised untameable female energy whose powers the male gods needed to take care not to unleash.
In her own assertion of woman power, Thadani drives alone across India in a jeep, searching out these lost temples: in jungles, amidst rice fields, behind factories. There is anger and despair as she finds in temple after temple, sculptures of naked women, erotically entwined or not, hacked into disfigurement/ defaced / replaced by Ram and Shiva or, primly clothed. Ancient temples are painted or cemented over into distillations of kitsch. Women goddesses are turned into men. This is a desecration of temples that the Hindutva hordes "naturally" don't feel the need to get their trishuls and kerosene tins out for.
So far so good. But despite its worthy intentions, this is an intensely annoying book. The flatulent style, the pretensions bloating the narrative, ("Or do I just feel the violation, of my cosmogical sexuality being raped?") the clumsy translations of ancient texts, ("Sati becomes without clothes") make you realise afresh that writers
sometimes need protection against themselves.
Moebiustrip, Giti Thadani, Penguin,
Rs. 250.
ANURADHA ROY
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Literary Review
|
