Jeet Thayil

We didn't get on straight away, Narcopolis and me. The Molly Bloom-esque prologue left me wondering what on Earth I'd let myself in for, whether Jeet Thayil the poet had just removed the line breaks from his latest collection and called it a novel. I shouldn't have worried. As it turned out the novel that Narcopolis most reminded me of was not [b:Ulysses|12803|Ulysses|James Joyce|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320399545s/12803.jpg|2368224] but [b:Moby Dick|9305975|Moby Dick|Herman Melville|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1284499671s/9305975.jpg|2409320]. Melville's masterpiece is a book about whaling that isn't about whaling. Rather it uses the long, dull sea voyage with all too brief and all too dangerous flurries of activity as a vast vehicle for this metaphorical, allegorical, otherwordsical meta-meta-novel about everything from poverty to theology.

In the same vein, Narcopolis is a novel about an opium den that isn't about an opium den. It's about Bombay, about the changing face of India over the past four decades. In that respect it helps if you know a little Indian. Luckily for me I live with one, and she was happy to translate the snatches of Hindi used here and there, and to explain some of the more esoteric historical points. I suspect she was also a little confused.

“What does this mean?”
“It's a man who was totally castrated as a child, and I mean totally: meat, two veg, and the sack they rode in on.”
“Oh okay, thanks. … What does this mean?”
“It's a bit of a song from an old Hindi film.”
“Oh okay, thanks. … What does this mean?”
“It's a fried-potato curry.”
“Oh okay, thanks. … What does this mean?”
“Heroin. And also: what in the hell are you reading?”

There's a lot to like about Narcopolis, and I liked a lot of it. I suspect I'm not possessed of a sufficiently poetic soul to ever love it, but I'd recommend it to those of you who do.… (més)

We didn't get on straight away, Narcopolis and me. The Molly Bloom-esque prologue left me wondering what on Earth I'd let myself in for, whether Jeet Thayil the poet had just removed the line breaks from his latest collection and called it a novel. I shouldn't have worried. As it turned out the novel that Narcopolis most reminded me of was not [b:Ulysses|12803|Ulysses|James Joyce|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320399545s/12803.jpg|2368224] but [b:Moby Dick|9305975|Moby Dick|Herman Melville|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1284499671s/9305975.jpg|2409320]. Melville's masterpiece is a book about whaling that isn't about whaling. Rather it uses the long, dull sea voyage with all too brief and all too dangerous flurries of activity as a vast vehicle for this metaphorical, allegorical, otherwordsical meta-meta-novel about everything from poverty to theology.

In the same vein, Narcopolis is a novel about an opium den that isn't about an opium den. It's about Bombay, about the changing face of India over the past four decades. In that respect it helps if you know a little Indian. Luckily for me I live with one, and she was happy to translate the snatches of Hindi used here and there, and to explain some of the more esoteric historical points. I suspect she was also a little confused.

“What does this mean?”
“It's a man who was totally castrated as a child, and I mean totally: meat, two veg, and the sack they rode in on.”
“Oh okay, thanks. … What does this mean?”
“It's a bit of a song from an old Hindi film.”
“Oh okay, thanks. … What does this mean?”
“It's a fried-potato curry.”
“Oh okay, thanks. … What does this mean?”
“Heroin. And also: what in the hell are you reading?”

There's a lot to like about Narcopolis, and I liked a lot of it. I suspect I'm not possessed of a sufficiently poetic soul to ever love it, but I'd recommend it to those of you who do.… (més)