Arundhati on a desert isle
The self-effacing Junot Díaz gives some love to Suzanna Arundhati Roy in an interview on the cover of this week’s Improper Bostonian:
Three books you’d take to a deserted island.
Beloved, because it’s the one book about the American experience that gets it right. Akira, because it’s the greatest science fiction story ever told and because no one blows shit up like Katsuhiro Otomo. And The God of Small Things, because I love love stories…
Writing is such a solitary pursuit…
I love to hang out and go dancing… Writing is the thing I wish I didn’t have to do, and yet no matter how much I resist it always pulls me back, like a really f***ed-up old friend with a huge bag of coke… I write early in the morning for about thre or four hours, and then I go read something beautiful…
Ever had writer’s block?
I cornered the market on that shit. I was the Warren Buffett of the writer’s block commodities market…
Now that you’ve won a Pulitzer, isn’t it time to retire?
No! Now is the time to write half-assed books with a quickness and scoop up some fast advance money!
Roy’s next book could possibly be something along the lines of The White Tiger:
On her coffee table rests a book by Bono, while at her bedside are works by the radical American founding father Thomas Paine and Victorian novelist Charles Dickens. What these two writers share is their defence of the French revolution, and an empathy with the lower classes who pulled down the ruling elite. “In so many ways Paris then could be Delhi now…” Like pre-revolutionary France, Roy says that India today is poised “on the edge of violence… The inequalities become untenable.” [Link]
The accomplished novelist also sounds more than a little sanctimonious:
Roy says some parts of the country, such as the western state of Gujarat - the scene of a bloody pogrom against Muslims five years ago - are off limits to her because of her campaigning…
She first shot to prominence in 1994 with a scathing film review entitled ‘The Great Indian Rape Trick,’ about the movie Bandit Queen, in which she questioned the right to “restage the rape of a living woman without her permission”… She says she could not read the blockbuster Maximum City, a portrait of Mumbai by expatriate Indian writer Suketu Mehta, because the book contains a passage in which the writer is a bystander while people in custody are beaten and tortured by the city’s police. [Link]
on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008, 10:43 pm in Literature › 
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Agree or disagree, you’ve gotta love (well, atleast I do) the independence of Arundhati’s opinions and her willingness to unfashionably go against the grain. I find her arguments often convincing and never easily dismissible.
She plays a useful role as a dissident polemicist, writes extremely powerfully, and can be obstreperously obdurate (on occasion). But no blanket vetoes for her on policy matters, thank you.
BTW, I’ve seen a lot of chatter on the desi blogs that she’s related to CPM Chief Karat by marriage, and that she’s single-handedly underpinning their obstinate opposition on the nuclear issue. Anybody know more?
Prakash Karat’s wife Brinda’s sister Radhika is married to Prannoy Roy (founder/CEO of NDTV). Arundhati is Prannoy’s cousin.
Add me to Roy’s fan list. I worship her. Period.
There is a follow-up to Roy’s thoughts on Suketu Mehta’s book. It is available somewhere online. Apparently Roy was misunderstood and misquoted. She explained herself to Mehta (excerpts of the letter can be found somewhere online) and all is cool between them, I think. The specifics elude me right now but as I am a fan of Mehta too, I remember feeling like a comforted kid whose unhappy parents made up after some dissonance.
i like her fiction - the opinions not so much. it is the moral uprightness of those who’ve never had to wade crap. given her appearance (i find her gorgeous) and the fact that she’s not held any job for too long, she’s probably lived a privileged life; inured from the daily negotiations for life an living in desh. This affords her a clear moral perspective on social issues. hence the strident tone. Good for her to spin a good yarn - but i only read her thought pieces because of the companion head-shot.
note to manish: replace the takla’s fotu with the shot of arundhati and watch the hits roll in.
No I don’t. I call someone who would rather see Afghans under the sway of the Taliban than drinking Cokes pretty damn sick
I love Arundhati Roy because she sets a poker up the ass of pompous uptight Indian men.
——–
Junot Diaz looks desi. I like it.
I recently, for like the 10th time, tried reading The God of Small Things. I. Just. Do. Not. Get. It. Seriously. I can’t read past page one.
There’s no accounting for taste, is there?
India needs a thousand Roys.
Questioning corrupt authority - however dramatic - is the order of the day.
She is a lot more nuanced than that. You have to read her carefully. She thinks 3 steps ahead while others, well…think
She is good at problematizing things, status quo, accepted norms. Perhaps not so good at decisive solutions.
That is why she is only an activist and not a politician or policy-maker.
Any woman who can take the wrath of a newly powerful, expanding middle-class at home and others abroad earns my respect without reservation.
indeed. but then one can always flip through to the sex and violence scenes. always a good time to be had. thank yu. come again.
there are probably enough to spare.
“ramlal! can you shout louder. i want the people to hear what i have to say.”
“shanthi! hold the placard higher. dont you people get it? i am doing this for your kids.”
“Gobind dear! get mommy a punkah. my mascara runs in the sweat. i swear the way these people live is beyond me.”
of course, as a guy, it helps that (i think) she used her body image in building up the female characters - biggish bum, toasty complexion, failing the pencil test etc.
Are ve having le phun yet? ;0)
Fans and haters should check out In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones. Adventures of an architecture student, supposedly semiautobiographical.
YouTube clip
Indeed 2.
OK MD, that wasn’t fair. By way of apology, I’ll offer On the Road. I don’t get it.
BLT #3,
The wiki entry says Arundhati is Prannoy’s niece as he is Arundhati’s father’s brother. Do you know for sure otherwise?
No, it’s totally fair, Amol. People like what they like and I’m willing to admit that it may, indeed, be a classic but one that doesn’t do a thing for me.
*Question for the serious readers, here. Is there a desi-ish book that is more like Lin’s Free Food for Millionaires? That’s more my thing. I don’t want to read how things ‘ripen like a mango’ or somesuch nonsense (read a bit of Ali’s Brick Lane and blanched at that phrase). And, yet, I’m not a Lahiri fan. Seriously, I must just be in the mood not to like anything. Except Free Food for Millionaires.
Oops, I’m red-faced with embarrassement. It’s Lee, not Lin. Min Jin Lee. Aaargh, stupid fast typing.
umber desi:
Prannoy is actually Arundhati’s father’s brother’s son, and not her father’s brother. (I’m assuming whoever wrote that Wiki entry didn’t do enough research.) That would make Prannoy and Arundhati first cousins.
Great, thank you.
Roy is chick lit.
No chicklet would provoke so much discrediting.
Arundhatis a tasteless writer who has no insight or observation and all her ideas are recycled
In that aspect Suketu is pretty much the same.
What can you say when both were involved in bollywood script writing.
Speaking of indian writer I just ordered Amitav Ghoshs next book.
I seriously disagree with Amitavs political position but still respect his writing and scholarship.
I am amused by his endings and I hope he doesnt repeat geriatric sex to represenent political reconciliation.
With my differences stated I cant stand Roy or Mehta. Their works should be micturated upon IMNHO.
(PS micturate shares the same roots as mootna, funny only if you go buy interview that ghosh mentioned on language )