Amitav Ghosh's latest book and The Great Gatsby

Amitav Ghosh, for all my money, is one of the finest authors in India today. I have found both his fictional and non-fictional works outstandingly perceptive of anthropological issues and what makes them special is Ghosh's deep compassion for the human condition- a rare quality these days especially when most authors are preoccupied with brandishing their opinions missing out on the delight of communicating experience without judgment.

I haven't read his latest book, The Sea of Poppies, but I plan to read it sometime soon. I came across this (rather long but nonetheless interesting) interview of Amitav Ghosh by a refreshingly perceptive and intelligent interviewer. While much of their discussion is about themes and techniques in The Sea of Poppies, the author also talks about the ideas that influence and inspire his writing. The latter part of the conversation begins at the use of language in the book and how the medium of expression itself can become a theme in the narrative. Ghosh shares some fantastic history on word origins that is worth reading:

Which is why I feel that if me, and other Asian writers, if we are going to write in this language at all, then we must reclaim for it what it historically had. When an English newspaper says about our writing that these guys are bringing all these new words into the language, it’s nonsense – those words have been there for centuries!

Some colourful swear words were in the dictionary too. Let me tell you about something interesting I came across in the lascari dictionary written by Lt Thomas Roebuck, in 1812. When he lists the words of commands...have you ever heard the word “habes” (pronounced hab-iz)?No. In lascari, when you wanted to tell a sailor to pull, or heave, the translation that Roebuck provides is “habes”. I’m not sure what the root is, but it was a very common command.

So he provides this word and then adds in brackets, “Sometimes it may be necessary to include a few words of abuse, for example ‘bahenchod, habes!’ Or ‘saale, habes!’”We have somehow become very embarrassed about these things today. I hope I’m not offending you, but the word “beti-chod” (daughter-fucker) has been used going back to the 17th century, in English as well.

A preceding post in the blog actually discusses some interesting linguistic gymnastics that Ghosh indulges in, in the book.

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I just finished reading The Great Gatsby. The book is one of the earliest 'American novels' and to say that it is a fantastic read would be an understatement. Indians (from time to time) like to indulge in coffee-table criticism of the wanton materialism that has forever prevailed in the west while being happily oblivious (or indifferent) to the rising tide of extravagance that carries us all. In that, F. Scott. Fitzgerald was one of the earliest critics of the materialism and economic opulence that followed the first World War in America.

There is a difference between scholarly criticism and haranguing. The former stimulates the reader to evolve as a thinker rather than blindly marry to the ideas that any good writer would be able to weave into a convincing prose. Both Fitzgerald and Amitav Ghosh belong to the former category of intellectuals; in writing, they acknowledge the difficulty of translating experience into ideology. Personally, this limitation is the strongest case in point for the necessity of fiction in our lives. It is in this exploration that the seed of imagination germinates and it is important to experience it rather than be instructed by it.

Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.