Book Review - Of Pilgrimages and Frankensteins

Of Pilgrimages and Frankensteins by Rana Dasgupta

"The Golden Gate" had been called the most extraordinary literary innovation since "The Canterbury Tales." Perhaps "Tokyo Cancelled," Rana Dasgupta's debut novel, wouldn't rank alongside Seth's masterpiece for technical virtuosity, but for the sheer brilliance of imagination it should be right near the lonely summit. The reference to Canterbury Tales is intentional, because structurally this is an ode to Chaucer: A plane lands in a nameless airport in the middle of nowhere because heavy snow has made Tokyo inaccessible. Most of the passengers find some form of accommodation to spend the night- all except thirteen, who have no choice but to remain at the airport terminal. To pass a seemingly interminable night, these global pilgrims of the cyber-age hit upon the most ancient means of entertainment known to man- they decide to tell stories. Thus, what started in dark, labyrinthine caves as a means of escape from the unknown terrifying dark outside is reprised, thousands of years later, in a glass-cocooned bubble of space, to keep at bay an uncertain and hostile universe. Dasgupta's globetrotters thus begin an extraordinary journey of exploration, as had Chaucer's thirteen, many centuries ago.

But this is not a mere modern echo of Chaucer, for the dissimilarities are as important as the likenesses. Though the metaphor of journey is self-evident, yet in Chaucer's twelfth century, pre-renaissance, pre-industrial, pre-existential universe, moral truths and certainties were much easier things; and the profoundest of sermons could be delivered during the course of a leisurely ride. Here, the birth of the stories presupposes a hiatus, a stasis- there has to be a disruption, unforeseen and unnatural, for these modern myths to take shape. Thus, in Chaucer the journey itself forms the leitmotif for the tales, but here, a hitch is necessary- the comfortable continuum has to snap. Perhaps that is apt too, for our days, though infinitely more complex than his, are yet suffused by a much poorer, much more beggarly light.

About the stories themselves, then. Sprouting from far-flung corners of the world, they take the phrase "urban legend" to a hitherto unexplored plain. For that is what I'd like to term them, rather than take recourse to the much abused, cover-it-all bromide of "magic realism." Urban legends they are, of common loves and hates, desires and fears, grown uncommon, monstrous, and grotesque. Grotesque, infact is the one word that is the closest to a perfect fit, for in one way or another, these tales are also Frankenstein myths, exploring the gruesome offspring of apparently normal emotions, exploring the writhing monsters under the carefully made bed of our times. The settings of these tales are deliberately spread across the globe. As Dasgupta himself says, "I wanted to create something that would express the drama of this relationship to the world. The action of Tokyo Cancelled happens in a single night but through that single night I wanted to access a global geography." Shrinking perimeters, crumbling boundaries- yes, clichés all, but clichés that still need to be explored. Thus, where Chaucer sought the universal in the mundane, by exploring the quotidian details of mediaeval English life, and whereas each of his narrators had to be identified and exactly located in their proper social co-ordinates, Dasgupta seeks precisely the opposite. His tales are at once of everywhere and nowhere, and his narrators remain unnamed, giving them all a common garb, in spite of their vast differences.

However, the present reviewer has some reservations about Dasgupta's handling of the mythic structure. Take the first story for instance. The fairytale sultanate of the Arabian Nights and the modern Armani wearing, MTV watching prince essentially remain disparate entities- the one does not become an organic part of the other's plane of existence. The deliberate naiveté of the language in this story, meant to echo the Arabian Nights, also seems to be an experiment that doesn't quite work. Perhaps because we are much more willing to accept the unreal, the out-of-place amidst the mundane, as in the best of the "magic realism" genre of writing, than to permit entry to the commonplace into the haloed portals of fable. That is perhaps the one technical failing of the book. In most of the stories, the element of unreality-amidst-reality, or vice-versa, as the case may be, is not quite seamless, not quite utterly convincing.
Some of the tales are charming in their own right, though. I found the saga of De Nero's love child who learns to transubstantiate matter and thus brings back to life his sleeping beauty quite endearing. The Rapunzel story, i.e. "The Billionaire's Sleep," is worth a mention as well. The one that fails, though, is "The Recycler of Dreams," the final piece in this story cycle. This fractal of dreams within dreams within dreams remains merely disturbing, without finding a deeper resonance beneath the conscious exterior of scatology. That allegation of failing to find a deeper resonance beneath the external fabric could also be levelled against the book as a whole. For in the final analysis, inspite of the breadth of vision, the brilliance of imagination, the powerful prose, inspite of it all, the book remains dispassionate. The profound, universal sympathy for the human condition that gives the stamp of eternity to Chaucer, or to Marquez, is not to be found. That is what places this work just at the doorsteps of the rarefied halls of greatness, but not inside them.

Contributing Author: Arka Mukhopadhyay is a Bangalore based poet, theatre director, and free-lance writer. His poems have been published in one anthology so far, and he has contributed theatre reviews and articles to leading newspapers in this city.  arka.mukhopadhyay@gmail.com