A Voice For Us ... and Us
I just finished reading Tahmima Anam's A Golden Age, and will write down my thoughts while they are still fresh.
The book is a novel based on the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. With the tumultuous events as a backdrop it traces the lives of some families who were deeply affected by the war.
I believe this is the first English novel about 1971, published by a reputable British publisher and well-publicized and well-received internationally. The story of Bangladeshis' courage, sacrifice and humanity has been told many times in Bangla, but not so much in English - and certainly not in a popular medium such as this book. Tahmima is thus a voice for us Bangladeshis, specially to the rest of the world, where our story is not as well-known as it should be.
More than that, this is a powerful war novel. War brings out the best and the worst in us humans - and Tahmima has characterized those extremes in a believable and humane manner. You feel deeply aghast at the atrocities committed by the Pakistan Army, but you also feel infinitely uplifted by the good deeds that common people do - both in Bangladesh and neighboring India. In that sense, hers is a voice for us, humanity.
If you are at all interested in the story of those days, you should get a copy of this book. It makes a difficult period accessible to us - without being overly heavyweight, but with grace and compassion. The author succeeds with "less is more" - without laying it on too thick, and having great effectiveness as a storyteller and chronicler of a not-too-distant past. For example, as the night of March 25th (when the massacres started) unfolds, the dinner scenario with roast goat is not at all gruesome, yet it is one of the most disturbing and bloodcurdling patches of fiction I have read.
Visual details like this one also make the novel a good candidate for a movie.
My congratulations to Tahmima. I look forward to reading many more good books by her.
E. B. White and Brevity (with some Mujtaba)
The other day I was invited to a gala dinner event. Towards the end of a most inspiring evening, and just before the dinner, the Chief Guest delivered his speech. Trouble was, it was a long delivery: we all felt the labor pains. At one point, he said "And I now digress to say that..." and the young man sitting next to me groaned, "Oh no, please please don't digress!" I felt bad for the CG, who, in his seriousness, had forgotten he was the last thing that stood between the audience and its dinner. He should have listened to E. B. White and Will Strunk's timeless advice: "Omit Needless Words."
Somehow in our cultural makeup, specially when using English, we just love to pile in the words. "With humble submission I beg to state that" was what the Brits taught the Indians to start letters with. That is gone, but now in its place, I once gave a speech to an august body in Rajshahi that started like this: "Distinguished Mayor of Rajshahi, Honored City Council Members, Respected representatives of XYZ Furrin Organization, Highly Regarded Members of Parliament and the rest of you riffraffs I mean honored ladies and gentlemen." Once was enough, never again I swore. [Ok, ok, I didn't really say riffraffs - just checking if you are paying attention.]
Ok, so what's the connection between verbosity in Bangladesh and an American writer? Simple: White's lessons and examples, if followed, would result in more precise and effective use of English words in our culture. Here is an introduction to his works and lessons.
Elwyn Brooks White (1899-1985) is best remembered for his essays, poems and sketches. He also wrote the classic children's stories Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web. With Will Strunk Jr, White was the co-author of The Elements of Style, a guidebook for writing well.
White’s essays are infused with a profound civility and respect for nature. A master of writing style, he was a persuasive champion of plain and direct writing. A gentle humor permeated his words.
Take, for example, his essay Riposte, where he discusses a recently published article, The Meaning of Brown Eggs, written by an Englishman. White is not pleased with the article’s attempt to categorize Americans based on their preference for white eggs over brown. "Why is it, do you suppose, that an Englishman is unhappy until he has explained America?" he asks, arguing, "... but one seldom meets an American who is all tensed up because he has yet to explain England."
At the end of A Listener’s Guide to the Birds, a poem describing various bird sounds, White signs his name in bird-watcher terms:
"E. B. WHITE (gray cheeks,
inconspicuous eye-ring,
frequents bars and glades)"
Or take the start of The World of Tomorrow, an essay on the World’s Fair in New York,: "I wasn't really prepared for the World's Fair last week, and it certainly wasn't prepared for me. Between the two of us there was considerable of a mixup."
I first encountered White's work in 1977, when I entered Cornell University, New York, as a freshman. To my dismay I discovered that all freshmen were required to take a full year of English writing classes. I thought this was a waste of time since I knew all there was to know about writing. After all, hadn’t I earned an “A” in O-Level English? The first essay I wrote for my class proved me wrong. My typewritten paper came back from the teacher covered with red (outright mistakes) and blue (suggestions for improvement) marks.
I was humbled. A friend saw my predicament and brought me The Elements of Style. Not since Class 3, when my father gave me a crash-course in English grammar, had I learned so much about writing in such a short time. Soon my run-on sentences stopped running, my modifiers stopped dangling and my infinitives were joined: I made it through the writing class.
That was in 1977. Since then, this little book - originally written by Strunk, then revised and updated by White – has been my constant companion. With twenty-two precise and clear rules of English grammar and an inspiring essay on writing style, it has shaped my thinking and helped me communicate my ideas clearly .
Some of these rules yield direct, forceful words. For example, using Rule 16, “Put Statements in Positive Form”, we write, “He usually came late” instead of “He was not very often on time.” Rule 15, “Use the active voice”, exhorts us to change, for example, “My first visit to Boston will always be remembered by me” into “I shall always remember my first visit to Boston.”
Other rules dispel confusions of grammar. Rule 1, “Follow the possessive singular of nouns by adding ‘s” is followed by examples “Charles’s tonsils”, “Burns’s poems”, and “the witch’s malice.” I also find Rule 10 useful: “Use the proper case of pronoun.” This rule lets me write “Will Jane or he be hired?” instead of “Will Jane or him be hired?”
An important theme in The Elements of Style is Rule No. 17, "Omit needless words." I let the book elaborate: "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects in only in outline, but that every word tell."
What a beautiful world it would indeed be if all needless words were omitted! What would the politicians say? Or all those people yakking on their mobile phones? And wouldn't Bollywood have to shorten all its movies to five minutes?
In addition to being influenced by Strunk's thoughts on brevity, White was also a fan of the American philosopher and writer Henry David Thoreau. Having built a house near a pond in Walden, Massachusetts, Thoreau had lived there, alone, for several seasons, sustaining himself with food he himself grew. The book Walden, which Thoreau wrote during this sojourn, remains a classic of philosophy and simple living.
White had read Thoreau's Walden so many times that he had memorized parts of it. He even thought that Walden's Table of Contents, wherein eighteen chapters are named using thirty nine words, was a lesson in brevity.
In the essay The Retort Transcendental, White speculated on how he could quote from Walden in answer to common questions.
For example, if he ran into a friend after a long time, and was asked, "Where have you been all this time?" White would reply, "If a man does not keep pace with his companions perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer." Or if he walks into a restaurant alone during a busy hour, and the headwaiter - unhappy about one person perhaps taking up a whole table - asks accusingly "All alone?" the proper Waldenian response is, "I feel it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating."
But even Thoreau is not immune from White’s humorous prodding. In A Slight Sound of Evening, an essay discussing Walden, White writes: “Thoreau said he required of every writer, first and last, a simple and sincere account of his own life. Having delivered himself of this chesty dictum, he proceeded to ignore it.”
Born in 1899, White attended Cornell from 1917 to 1921. During his senior year he was the chief editor of the college newspaper Cornell Daily Sun. Most of his professional life was spent working for the New Yorker and Harper's magazines. In 1937, he bought a farm in Maine and lived there with his family. He then split his time between writing and farming. Many of his essays have real-life, touching descriptions of his experiences with nature and animals at his farm.
Here is an example from his essay A Report in Spring: "No rain has fallen in several weeks. The gardens are dry, the road to the shore is dusty. The ditches, which in May are usually swollen to bursting, are no more than a summer trickle. Trout fishermen are not allowed on the streams; pond fishing from a boat is still permissible. The landscape is lovely to behold, but the hot, dry wind carries the smell of trouble." I don't know about you, but reading this I can feel the crackle of dry air on my skin.
While White covered many genres, for me he belongs squarely in the canon of nature writing, the crown jewel of American literature. Molded by America's pioneer spirit, wide open spaces and magnificent mountains and prairies, the writers of this genre - Thoreau, John Muir, Peter Matthiessen, Aldo Leopold, Edward Abbey, John McPhee, Barry Lopez and others – spent much time in the American wilderness and wrote about their experiences in a way that was both universal and personal.
White’s essays are powerful because they ring true, since they are borne out of his lived experience. But what makes them enjoyable is his way with words. As another American humorist James Thurber said, “No one can write a sentence like White.” And in the heart of White’s crisp sentences was his passion for brevity.
This love-affair with brevity has universal parallels, of course. The notion that a well-crafted creative work contains no more and no less than what is necessary to express the artist’s vision is an old one.
Shakespeare excelled in precise and parsimonious use of words, lending punch to his writing. That is why we find it so easy, even after 400 years, to use one of his phrases to express a complex or subtle notion.
Tagore's songs are masterpieces because they have exactly the right number of words and notes: no more, no less. That's one reason they have the power to move us without being sentimental or maudlin.
The great classical composers, such as Mozart and Beethoven, also wrote their music in the same way. In the movie Amadeus, based on Mozart’s life, there is an exchange between Mozart and his benefactor, the pompous Emperor Joseph II. Mozart plays a piece he has just composed for the Emperor. The Emperor likes it, but since he is Emperor, he feels he must find a fault. “It has too many notes,” he says, “Cut a few”. The precocious Mozart quickly retorts, “Then which notes would your Majesty like me to cut?” For this the Emperor has no good answer.
Our own master stylist, Dr. Syed Mujtaba Ali, was also a proponent of brevity. In an essay on Bangali food habits, he says that our dinner parties serve too many dishes. When he complains the host, the usual reply is, “We did not know which dish you would like, so eat the one you like most.”
But that probably means the host does not know what his or her masterpiece is. "Does a novelist write a novel with five different endings and let you choose the one you want?” asks an exasperated Mujtaba.
Brevity adds another dimension to the well-executed creative work: we enjoy it without feeling the load of the artist’s hard work behind it. The artist or writer may have had to struggle and revise many times, but what we enjoy is the final, polished work, looking effortless. For example, when we see an Olympic diver, we marvel at his grace, though he never overtly reminds us of the years of hard work he has invested in preparing for this moment.
So it is with White’s work. A few sentences into one of White’s essays, my mind is usually filled with joy, hope, and a sense of well-being. But White was a generous craftsman: for those who want to create like him, he left instructions.
Book Talk
My brother brought me Francine Prose's "Reading Like a Writer" which I am reading like a reader, heh-heh. Seriously, the book reminds one to read slowly in order to understand and appreciate the craft of writing. Each word and sentence is the result of a decision made by the writer, and one can fully appreciate the nuances only by slow and deliberate reading.
This is true of any creative art, of course. Take photography for instance. If you want to learn to be a photographer by looking at photographs, then study the lighting, the location in space, the instant the shutter was pressed, how the space inside the frame is organized, how colors (or shades of grey) are used, etc.
One interesting tidbit about Prose's book: in the list of "must-read" books at the end, she has only one book on "how to write" amongst a mass of fiction - the evergreen Elements of Style by Strunk and White. I have used this book for 25+ years and still go back to it.
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Both Etc and Words n Pages in Gulshan are closed due to the crackdown on building code violations. Kudos to owners of WnP for their honesty in admitting to customers they have "a small legal problem" - unlike other restaurants and businesses, partially bulldozed, claiming they are closed because they are "renovating."
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Finished reading J. Lahiri's The Namesake. Syed Manzoorul Islam, in his story Reshmi Rumal, says he was carrying Namesake and Tagore's Chhinnopotro during a train ride. He tried to read the former for an hour, did not like it, then tried "Thakur Mohashoi-er Chhinnopotro" and liked it. Well I thought Namesake was a quick and light read, specially interesting to me because my children were born and raised in the US.
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I understand Bangladeshi writer Tahmima Anam's book launch took place this week in London. The book is the first opus in English around the 1971 War of Bangladesh Independence. I hope it reaches many people who don't know about our history. Am looking forward to reading it.
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That book I bought at Boi Mela, called Bangladesher Protno Shompod, passed its second test last week. How? Back in Dec 2005, I asked about a mysterious ruin near Bhairab Bridge. Recently, Mr. Anwar left a comment on the blog saying it was Hatir Pul of Bariura in Sarail, and sure enough, the above book has a section on this bridge and on Bariura. Quick, someone take this book from me before I spend the rest of my life wandering around Bd checking out historical ruins!
(BTW, the first test was before I bought it - I wanted to find the location of Shankarpasha mosque in Sylhet - which I had been trying to locate - and it had good directions.)
Boi Mela (Photos)
I went to the Ekushey Boi Mela (book fair) yesterday. It is on Bangla Academy grounds and runs until Feb 28th.
What it's all about...
The road leading to the Mela covered by banners.
Onyoprokash was the busiest seller - one buyer gets change over heads.
The environment (specially trees) lent some drama (the sign says Shikor - "root")
Three veiled women who were shopping for books.
This man could not wait until getting home to read his new acquisition.
Publishers found novel ways to market books.
Salam, one of the first martyrs of the Language Movement
Friends looking through a publisher's catalog.
A selection of Bangla IT books in the Mela.
Parents' duties don't stop with purchasing the books :-)
I liked the Boi Mela a lot, but next time I will leave the camera behind. It was schizophrenic and stressful playing reader and photographer simultaneously.
I bought one book, called "Bangladesher Protno-Shompod" (Archaeological Treasures of Bangladesh) that is encyclopedic - and has directions to many many historical buildings and ruins.
A Book I Await
The Golden Age by Tahmima Anam, due out in January from John Murray, promises to be a rich, interesting novel with the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War as background. It is attracting positive press coverage already. The Guardian called her "a major new talent." Excerpt to appear in January's Granta. Wow!
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,1957394,00.html
Long Live Siddiqua Kabir
Siddiqua Kabir's (no relation) "Ranna Khadyo Pushti" is a famous Bangladeshi cookbook. When we were living in the US, it provided us recipes for many standard Bangla dishes.
Funny - after we returned to Bangladesh, the book has enabled us to recreate many "foreign" dishes. This is a great help, particularly for our kids, who grew up with Western food.
For example. our children like pancakes for breakfast. Back in the US I used to make them buttermilk pancakes from a mix. But how to find the mix here in Bangladesh? No problem! Mrs. Kabir's book has a recipe for pancake using locally available ingredients. All you need are flour, egg, baking powder, salt, sugar, milk and oil. In 30 minutes or less you will have pancakes that taste as good or better than the ones in the States.
Her Chinese recipes have also turned out to be accessible and tasty.
So... if you are contemplating returning home from the West, and are worried about what your kids will eat, worry no more because Mrs. Kabir's book covers a lot of territory.
Books Here, Books There
After many attempts I finally started reorganizing my disorganized books today. While doing so I reflected on how my book habits have changed in the year I moved back to Dhaka.
The single most important change is this: back in the US, I relied on libraries for a large chunk of my reading matter. In Dhaka I am on my own.
So, if I want to read a book I don't own, I must buy it. English-book selection in Dhaka - while better than before - it still modest. I monitor the stores carefully, pouncing on new and interesting titles when they show up - assuming they are priced right.
Yes, English books are expensive here. Dropping USD 8 on a book in the US was not a big deal, but out here, spending Tk 500-600 on a book somehow does not feel right. Luckily there are breaks to be had. I picked up Ian McEwan's Saturday for Tk 325 (from Omni) and Amitabh Ghosh's Hungry Tide for Tk 450 from Aziz Super Market.
Ah, yes, Aziz Super Market. This is the new book mall in Dhaka. It is truly wonderful. And if there are not enough English books, the shortage is made up by the Bangla books of all kinds.
Another issue is protecting books that I already own. They require vigilant maintenance. For example, while reorganizing my books today, I purged a good many of
cockroach eggs, and ended up lining the shelves with roach-killer poison. Then I worried about the books getting poison on them, the story of the King and his Doctor playing in my mind.
Any travel outside the country presents an opportunity to acquire more books of my choice. Careful lists are written and re-written, often to be superseded by the books that I see on beguiling displays at the actual bookstore. Sometimes my "list" books are no good - Don DeLillo's Underworld was disappointing - while a displayed book - such as 1599, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare - turns out to be a treat.
Then there are books that I could have, should have bought while I was still in the US, but did not. But maybe that direction is best left unexplored.
More heartbreaking is when I look for a book I know I have but cannot find in my shelves. I lost it - or maybe even gave it away! - while in the US. Or perhaps they were lost in transit. A bundled edition of Updike's Rabbit novels, a 100-year retrospective essay collection on Paul Strand the photographer, along with Edward Said's Orientalism, are some that I search my shelves for in vain.
I have much to be grateful for, though. All my autographed books have survived, including those by Syed Mujtaba Ali and Ansel Adams. I had had the good sense to
pick up all of Garry Winogrand's exceedingly rare photo monographs. The Sweet Flypaper of Life, a book of words and photos by Langston Hughes and Roy de Carava is a book I love much and turn to often. It was a lucky day that I decided to splurge on that one.
Finally, the entire world of Bangla books is now open to me. It is a joy to discover new talents as well as the works of older, established writers (well some of them anyways :-) ) And I have already started collecting autographed copies: the first two were Syed Manzurul Islam and Muhammad Zafar Iqbal.
So I ask myself, isn't it nice to come home, and proceed to complete the reorganization.
[King and Doctor story: many many years ago, a King had a trusted doctor who took very good care of the King. The King liked the Doctor which made others in the Court jealous. So they conspired and convinced the King that the Doctor was a Bad Guy. The King decided to behead the Doctor. The Doctor said, please grant me one last request. I want you to read a book that I will leave for you, but read it after you kill me. After Doctor is beheaded King sits down to read the book, finds pages sticking to each other. So he moistens his index finger by licking it and uses it to separate the pages. The book is the Doctor's life story. At the end it mentions the unjust beheading, and says that the Doctor got his revenge by lacing pages with poison which the King has by now ingested. As the King reads this in horror, the poison starts to act and he dies.]
Thank You Naguib Mahfouz
Dear Mr. Mahfouz,
I am saddened to hear that you have left us.
In each of us our Maker gives some special talent. Unfortunately, most of us don't know what to do with it, and squander it.
With you we were doubly lucky, because He gave you way-y-y more than your fair share of storytelling talent, and you knew how to use it right.
So you gave us the Cairo Trilogy: three books that are among the very best this reader had the good fortune to read.
Thank you Mr. Mahfouz, for re-creating an entire world with your words, then gently leading this reader therein, not as a stanger but as a friend. Thank you for the unforgettable characters of el-Jawad family and those around. Thank you for your precise and poignant depictions - your Cairo is a living, breathing world in my mind's eye.
I hope Allah keeps you in peace.
A Grateful Reader
Cover of Time Magazine
A positive story on Bangladesh on the cover of Time (Asia) magazine.
http://www.time.com/time/asia/covers/501060410/story.html
Great story, sweet antidote to Henry "bottomless" Kissinger and his ilk.
My only reservation is that the story pays too much attention to the politicians and not enough to the entrepreneurs who are the real force behind the progress.
BTW, I found out about this cover story from the News From Bangladesh site
A Tagore Moment
We were returning home after a day in the hills of Srimongol. From the car we saw glimpses of the sun setting behind the green tea hills. We caught only a few seconds of the large orange disk as it set, but the misty green hills, the orange sun and the pink-purple sky flooded my mind with songs of Tagore. I found myself humming "Godhuli gogoney meghey dhekechhilo tara/ aamar ja kotha chhilo hoye gelo shaara" (at sunset the clouds covered the stars; all the things I wanted to say were done).
But it was a cloudless sky, so the song did not quite work. Then the perfect Tagore couplet, describing nature, came to mind: "hetha mondo modhur kanakani joley stholey, shyamal maaTir dhoratoley/hetha maThey maThey rongeen phuler aalimpon, boner pothey aadhar aalor aalingon" (here on this brown earth, bittersweet whisperings amongst earth and sea/tapestries of flowers in the fields, embraces of light and shadow on a forest path)
From where did the poet arrive at this beautiful place? He describes his origin thus: "Oi aalok maatal shorgo shobhar mohangon/ shethai chhilo kon jugey mor nimontron" (I had a long-standing invitation to stay in the heavens, flooded with starlight) But he did not stay: "Mon laglo na, tai gaaner shagor paari diye elem choley" (My heart did not want to stay there, so I crossed the ocean of songs and arrived here on this world).
Does he miss the heavens? Does he want to return? Nope. "Aamar mon laglo re, tai eikhanatei din kaTiyei, khelar chholey" (My heart is stuck here, so I am going to spend my days playing here).
Sort of Garden of Even in reverse. At this green-orange sunset moment, this song of Tagore brought the cosmic and the personal together for me. Like so many of this other works do.
(I am grateful to the late Dr. Syed Mujtaba Ali for his essay on Rabindra Sangeet
where I first understood the meaning of the song quoted.)
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