What they call lit (updated)
(This is a quick impression, not a review.)
After reading the first half of What You Call Winter by Nalini Jones (thanks, SP), I wasn’t feeling this story collection about Catholics in the fictional Santa Clara burb of Bombay. It’s an even chillier version of Jhumpa Lahiri’s style, alienation lit. The familiar is made strange not by insight, engagement or lexical backflips but by replacing its marrow with cryogenic fluid. It’s a style much in vogue at many lit workshops, but in grinding off all the edges it tends to leave me cold.
A heavily stylized writing style deserves an equally hefty payoff. But Jones’ first story leans heavily on a rather obvious metaphor involving a snake, a garden, a long stick and a loss of innocence. The stories in the first half also make little reference to their rather vibrant location, and since the names are almost all Christian, they could be set virtually anywhere.
What you’re left with is reasonably polished lit in a well-accepted style which suffers from a paucity of engagement or surprise. The strongest point of emotional resonance gave birth to the title, which refers to the difference in seasons between America and Bombay. Jones was wise to choose it as the book’s namesake. Would that there were more such moments of recognition.
But if you dig the Lahiri, you might give this a look.
Update: Chandrahas digs the linked story form:
We are told in passing of a certain Toby Fernandez–a young man from the community–who had once proposed to her and been turned down, and is now engaged. Two stories later, as if moving from door to door down a street, we come across the same Toby Fernandez, nearly 50, but still a bachelor, remembering a woman he used to love in his youth…
These perfectly turned stories illumine in aching detail the life of a vanishing world… [Link]
on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008, 7:48 pm in Literature › 
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Forget nature-nurture; it’s all about nomenclature. *__^
Lord, I couldn’t stand this book. I lived with some Anglo-Indians, hung out at the Bandra Gym-Khana and watched people jive. All I have to say: is what you are talking men?
And what is up with the bindi on the front cover. Ain’t no catholic ladies named Esther/Pulmina/Nancy wearing bindis!
Meenakshi,
Don’t forget the mother of all Catholic Gyms, the Willingdon Catholic Gym in S’Cruz.
Oooh I never went to that one. Did they have a swimming pool there? My landlord (Lloyd) always told me it was much more costly for Punjabis to join the Gymkhanas since it was primarily meant for Anglo-Indians! I always went as their guest because it was just around the corner from their house.
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeez….Anglo-Indians = Catholics NOT!!! And you guys lived in Bombay???
Neale,
That is how they referred to themselves! I never would have thought to call them that!
It did have a swimming pool and the new year and christmas eve dances were legendary. As for I know Anglo Indians and East Indians are subsets of the Christian community in India. And Neale is right, Catholic does not equal Anglo Indians.
Actually, the book isn’t set in Santa Cruz. It’s set in Bandra — on St Cyril Road, to be precise, where Jones’s grandmother lives. That’s very obvious to anyone who lives in Bombay. It’s amusing to see all these derisory comments from people who have only a superficial understanding of the context, because the book has gone down very well in the neighbourhood.
Meenakshi, Bombay is full of Roman Catholic women who wear bindis and (horrors!) saris too. In fact, Roman Catholic women from Mangalore get married in red saris, would you know? Furthermore, no Goan or East Indian would ever call themselves Anglo-Indian. Manish, one of your main criticisms — that the stories could have been set anywhere — is actually the book’s strength. She’s got the particulars perfectly and made the situations seem universal. Isn’t that what writers seek to achieve?
naresh
I enjoyed most of the stories and as someone who grew up in Bombay thought the sense of place was nicely done (especially in the very last story). A couple of the stories were in a very pat writing-class style, I agree, but I liked most of them. But why go on about the burden of representation? Why NOT write stories that could be set anywhere? And besides, Bombay does have a lot of Christians! A propos, did you see the Where’s Sandra documentary? Good fun.
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/index.php?viewMovieId=450
ah, finally found it. here’s a piece about “what you call winter” that appeared in the mumbai mirror. it’s by the fabulous poet eunice de souza, whose first book, fix, contains the acerbic “a bandra party”. she points out just how right nalini has got it…
naresh
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/net/mmpaper.aspx?page=article§id=45&contentid=2007120620071206022310765db8a523c&pageno=1#
Celebrating Bandra
What You Call Winter by Nalini Jones is based on Bandra and has credible characters
Yes of course we must celebrate Bandra. If we can get there, that is. I spent an hour and a quarter getting there to meet Nalini Jones who has just published a book of short stories based on Bandra. So when I decided to see the play “Jazz,” based on Goan jazz musicians I left an hour earlier, only to find the entire area had suffered a power failure. We milled around in the dark, with everyone remarkably good-natured about it all. The play could only begin an hour later than scheduled.
Traffic and power cuts are all in a day’s work. What’s surprising was to find Bandra described online, as a “small Catholic town in rural India.” (Introduction to interview with Knopf editor Carol Janeway, and “a Catholic town in India” elsewhere). And there was Amit Chaudhuri, for whom there can be no excuse, putting his foot in it again. “Nalini Jones,” he says in a review, “writes about the marginal community of Christians in Bombay and the neighbourhoods in which they live. To the outsider, these seem to possess a fabled calm, but the insider knows they are in many ways on the brink of dissolution.” I don’t know whether Chaudhuri means Christians are on the brink of dissolution, or the neighbourhoods in which they live are.
Does Chaudhuri see himself as the insider who knows?
What You Call Winter, Nalini Jones first book of stories, published this year is a fine, if sombre collection based on Bandra which appears as “Santa Clara” in the book. She describes the location as “partly remembered, partly imagined, partly mythical.” She has visited often but never lived here, but the place “continues to fascinate.”
The title gives us an indication of Nalini Jones’ concerns. “What you call winter” is an amused comment by a son in the US to his father in Santa Clara, when the father talks of “winter”. The stories are all concerned with separation and distance, physical and emotional. A little boy is sent away to boarding school though he hates the place, and he never forgives his mother who insisted on it. A woman leaves her husband after drawing his face on the old man burnt on New Year’s Eve. A daughter weeps in the confessional because she feels so guilty about leaving her mother to go abroad. The characters are credible, the emotions finely etched.
Nalini Jones feels it is perhaps inevitable that distance would be a theme. Half her family is here.(Her maternal grandfather is Frank Soares who was for many years Registrar of the University of Bombay). Her American father was often away for long periods. Perhaps the only sign that she is in some ways an “outsider” is that she doesn’t feel free ever to be ironic or satirical or even light-hearted about the characters. Despite the fine writing, this makes for a certain sameness of tone. I asked her about this, and she said it was difficult to explain, because she often sees things in an ironic way, and is “not nearly as serious or melancholy as the stories turned out to be.” She adds, “My mother missed her family so much, and I guess the stories became infused with that longing.”
Young Rhys Sebastian D’Souza, (grandson of the jazz musician Sebastian D’Souza) who played the sax in “Jazz” is obviously gifted and was given a standing ovation. I wonder where he will go from here. The musicians of his grandfather’s generation had to play for films and at weddings to earn a living. There are certainly more options now.
You are 100% right about Mangalore Catholics, they also wear a traditional Sari with the bindi and the works for Roce and for the wedding it can be a sari or a gown. Bandra/Khar/S’Cruz are not the only places with large numbers of Catholics in Bombay, there is also Chembur, Andheri East, Vakola etc.
For me personally any story about Bombay is incomplete with how Catholics have influenced the landscape. Back on point, I haven’t read this book but will definitely check it out as this is close to home (Seeing a Bombay Catholic for close to a decade ?)
Also, all Goa Sausage fans, I went to the BBQ fest at Madison Square Park last weekend and Floyd from Tabla had put a stall which was selling Goa Sausage on a roll, it was steep at $8 but great. Aside he was also selling a slice of Indian Mango for $2 :)
Naresh- its good to see you enjoyed the book, but everyone is entitled to their own experience, no? Her book really did not resonate with my personal experience in Bombay and that is why I didn’t enjoy it. Your version of “perfectly” and mine are very different– it spoke to you and that is great, but because I didn’t like it doesn’t mean my view is wrong. It’s just different. Even the Mumbai Mirror article says it had a certain sameness of tone.
I loved the “Where’s Sandra” documentary! Saw it at the Bandra Festival at Bandstand a few years ago. It was so nice!
Agree with you umber desi.
‘Santa Clara’– fixed, thanks.
Never connected with it, and she doesn’t even throw in much local color (in the first half) to fall back on.
Isn’t she pointing out how distant Nalini is from it?
Has she weaned the aunties off Shobha De? :)
Manish, dude, fine if the book is not your style. I don’t get the judgmental-ness on lack of “insights” and “local colour” though. I’m mildly amused to see people debating cultural or neighbourhood authenticity. I liked the way it captured desi family dynamics. At the end of the day with any literature I guess it’s about whether you ‘feel’ it or not.. Or what you expect a book “representing” a certain lot of people to achieve.
meenakshi,
your previous comments and evaluation of the book are predicated on your suggestions that you somehow know the milieu and that nalini jones does not: you had an anglo-indian landlord (but you still don’t understand the difference between the many types of catholics in bombay), you’ve never seen a catholic woman in a bindi (which makes the cover inauthentic), you have a notion of how catholics speak because you spent some time at the bandra gymkhana. i’m not suggesting that your views are wrong but that the so-called facts that you’ve listed so far are verifiably wrong.
manish, i think you’ve got some stereotypical idea of what local colour should be — perhaps, like meenakshi, you imagine that all bandra books should be have pidgin-talkin katlicks jivin through them? the point is, as nalini told eunice, the stories are set in a place that’s “partly remembered, partly imagined, partly mythical”. for many of us who live in the very real world that nalini lives as the springboard for her imagination, she’s done a great job of telling stories we find credible. i’m not suggesting that these stories should appeal to everyone. but if they don’t, it isn’t because “there is no reference to their vibrant location”.
naresh
SP, Naresh: I’m not saying it’s inauthentic, rather that it’s dull and anti-sensory. It neither delivers much novel or profound on its own characters’ terms, nor falls back on the texture of life in Bombay (’local color‘ is a journalism term Naresh sahib ought to have heard of) to punch up the writing.
I knew I could rely on you! When’s your book out, and can you throw in some loincloths?
Naresh,
How you can completely invalidate my experience of two years of living in Bandra by basing that on whether I liked your favorite book? I don’t pretend to know all about Catholics in India, but I know my own experience- living with the D’Silva’s for 2 years. What you call “local color” is not what I call it. You still did not comment on the Mumbai Mirror’s alleged glowing review of the novel. Although I wouldn’t count the Mumbai Mirror any fine piece of literature by any means, this is a direct quote from what you posted:
“Perhaps the only sign that she is in some ways an “outsider” is that she doesn’t feel free ever to be ironic or satirical or even light-hearted about the characters. Despite the fine writing, this makes for a certain sameness of tone.”
An outsider?? How dare they???
And each area has its stereotypes, but I never said I expected all people from Bandra to be that way. If I described the Punjabis of Koliwada, I am sure they would have their unique descriptions as well. It doesn’t mean I expect all of them to be doing bhangra as they drive their taxi down the road while eating parathas, does it now?
Meenakshi,
What counts in an experience is not the length of time you’ve spent in a place but how much you’ve absorbed from it. From the evidence on display here, it’s very obvious didn’t learn very much about Bombay’s Catholic community. From your latest posting that you don’t even know who Eunice de Souza is. Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_De_Souza
naresh
Naresh,
You are so right. I absorbed absolutely nothing. I just walked around in a bubble and learned nothing.
Your argument is ridiculously circular. You speak nothing about one’s personal experience, which helps someone relate to a book. Its watching a movie and deciding you like it because the critics liked it. What if you didn’t like it despite the critic’s rating? Does it mean you are wrong??
Clearly, this discussion is over. You won’t convince me to like the book and I can’t convince you to understand where I am coming from. But guess what, there are people all over the world who may feel the same way about this book. How are you going to tell all of them that their experience doesn’t count??
Good luck in that endeavor!