Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Llosa Vargas (Translated by Helen Lane from the Spanish original “La tia Julia y el escribidor”)

 A mad romp of a novel that explores Peruvian middle class dynamics, the spirit of youth, and forbidden love. A book that contains a series of supposed soap opera plots, one more outrageous than the other, giving us thereby a preposterous but entertaining introduction to many Latin American stereotypes. Es estupendo!

Years ago, I was left untouched when I read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera. Call it youthful absorption in my own love life or lack of it, but the promise of love requited at seventy did not offer comfort. Also, the names in the book had the slant, throwing quality of the foreign arrayed in the familiar, not unlike… Malay food to an Indian palate? Having grown up in newly decolonized India I got Anglo-Saxon names, and the influx of Russian translations during the cold war era made Vanya and Nikolai, Masha and Aksinya, familiar. But I found it difficult to engage when a Maria befriended a Pilar, or when a can-get-my-head-around-it Florentino cavorted with a hitherto unknown Fermina.

In fact I do not remember a word of the book, except that I was very impressed by how it ended. Marquez was one of the first Nobel laureates I read leaving aside Tagore, so maybe I willed myself to simply ‘finish’ the book – that was my mantra those days. You could put down my lack of response to my youth and lack of literary inclination (my staples were Georgette Heyer and Agatha Christie). But then I picked up ‘Memory of my melancholy whores,’ last week, and found myself reacting against the graphic depiction of older men having sex with emotionally untouched, subordinate women. These things do not stop me from going on with a book, but I do not necessarily have to endorse them. Give me Nabokov’s extravagant lyricism or Coetzee’s economy and precision, if we need to deal with the politics of sex from a certain angle, but please do not subject me to explicit illustrations of unsavoury sex in fantastical settings. I do not like it. (Case in point: the Pedro Aldomovar film I watched recently, with an execrable, horrible premise. The only reason I watched it to the end was to see the demented wicked die. ‘In Your skin’ or something. Do not watch it.)

But reading Marquez boosted my sense of well-being. I was whale-shit at the bottom of the ocean that was the trading room, but the other fish were single young men, many of them groovy and gagging for it. Also, if 2008 marked the end of big bonuses, 1994 definitely marked their beginning in India, and reading authors from South Africa and Colombia was my way of adding the suhaaga to the sona. (Old Punjabi saying – sone pe suhaagaa – probably means ‘the clinching good thing on top of a good thing’. Kapish? Never mind.) Overall, I was happier swinging from Bombay locals to work than I could have reasonably been expected to be, and I owe some of it to my reading Marquez when I got a seat. Except the day I rushed into the Malad 8:08, unobservant of reeling women rushing out. I called out to my friend- what incredible luck, I had two window seats facing each other- we could now converse as I dipped into the book a la Jolie-Depp in The Tourist, except that instead of the gorgeous European countryside rushing by, we would catch lines of men squatting down to do their business by the tracks (maybe the women took the first shift, but eight in the morning?), except we did not know Angelina Jolie those days but where was I? I am brought down to earth by the soft squish of the very large pile of yellow shit I had stepped onto. It was spongy and yielded at once; the smell stayed with me for days. I had to be miles away in time and space and read Katherine Boo’s ‘Beyond the Beautiful Forevers’ before I could see that it need not have been a malevolent prank. One could tire of jostling to crap.

Oh yes, so I have always felt guilty about not really reading Marquez, who was selected in the first place on account of his renown and his coming from somewhere far off. When Leena suggested tia Julia by Mario Llosa Vargas, the other Nobel laureate from Sudamerica, I jumped at the chance to read it for our day group. I am glad I did.

I am addicted to Roman a clefs. For those who do not wish to Wikipedia that, a roman a clef literally means (in French at least) a novel with a key. It refers to real events/characters, settings etc. presented as fiction. The relationship between the real and the fictionalized elements is the key of the novel. All autobiographical novels would be roman a clefs – Naipaul’s ‘A House for Mr. Biswas’, R.K. Narayan’s trilogy, Roy’s ‘God of Small Things’ are all roman a clefs as they have strong autobiographical elements. But there are other variations too, like “The Green Carnation” which was loosely based on Oscar Wilde’s relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas.

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is a Roman a clef, as it follows the life of Mario Vargas himself. It tells the story of young Marito or Varguitas, a law student who works part time at a radio station and dreams of becoming a writer. The ups and downs of his love affair with an older woman are one part of the book. The other part details happenings in the radio station, focusing in particular on a manic Bolivian scriptwriter- Pedro Camacho- who churns out soap operas non-stop. Interspersed are plots for the serials attributed to Camacho, as also Marito’s own more sober productions – fiction within fiction, all of it interesting and amusing. Vargas approaches his protagonist-alter ego’s budding creative life with a light and sympathetic touch, brimming with humour. He is less restrained when describing his family or for that matter his ladylove. But it is his treatment of Camacho that tends to take a turn for the surreal, funny and tragic and extreme, and I cannot wonder if Vargas has not moved from realism to caricature here. But I do not know the life of artists; maybe this is the gritty realism that I wish to ignore.

We had a very interesting discussion. Everybody enjoyed the book. Aparna found the soap opera plots confusing; she says she turned with relief to the love story, the ‘real’ story that she enjoyed very much. She could identify in many ways with the whole notion of the extended family that Mario is part of, the comings and goings between the houses, the easy conviviality. It resonated with her own experience in Benares, where she studied for a year. She was in the lap of the extended family, while her parents like Marito’s were in the United States. Verena sensed a slight obsession with Europe, which made her wonder about cultural hegemony. Shivalik was reading it for the second time and commented that ‘Aunt Julia…’ was a departure from Vargas’s previous books, which were darker, and it was possible that he went overboard. Leena was disappointed in how little one got to know of the food of the place, in a sense she felt the book possessed very little of the immediate physical flavour. She however, agreed that the book gave us a very good sense of how life could be in Lima.

I felt bad for Camacho, but then it was pointed out (Verena? Leena?), that maybe Pedro Camacho the scriptwriter and Mario the protagonist represent between them the arc of a writer’s career. One is at the acme of his profession, poised to fail while the other is starting out. One is a sociopath, egotistical and passionate to the point of madness, a prolific ascetic whose neuroses bring about his downfall. The other is young and vulnerable and full of the joy of life – ambitious, afraid and in love. The one who appears to have tasted the bitter dregs of life sells fantasy, while the sheltered and sensitive young man would plumb for realism. And just as these are both different avatars of the creative persona, so the trajectories of their lives diverge.

The serials by Camacho in the book feature a fifty-year old man, distinguished with silvering temples, a broad forehead and an aquiline nose, a handsome and upright man, in the prime of his life, as the main lead. Maria Vargas Llosa was forty-two when the book came out. Vargas in his later years bears an uncanny resemblance to Camacho’s hero. I am sure this is not co-incidental - just read that description and look at this picture - 

Vargas: Camacho's hero?

I cannot help puzzling over its significance. Is this implied narcissism, or is Vargas laughing at himself? And how about the depiction of Camacho? Vargas has mentioned a Raul Salmon as the inspiration for Camacho. But Raul Salmon appears to have done much better in life - he owns a radio station in Bolivia and is apparently more personable than Camacho. He claims never to have met Vargas (it is entirely plausible that a struggling young boy reporter went unnoticed by the star writer of the station). Refer www.pateplumaradio.com/south/bolivia/tiajulia.html. In his outrage at being linked to an outsize caricature, Salmon accuses Vargas of a deep-rooted anti Bolivian bias, much like Camacho’s seemingly inexplicable (at first,) prejudice against Argentineans, a theme in the book. Is Salmon taking an angry pot-shot or is this Vargas laughing at himself again?

But I keep coming back to a certain gleeful viciousness in Vargas’s treatment of Camacho- is this a catharsis for the writer, does he needs to witness the devastation of his forerunner, an artist he reverences in order to step out of his shadow? And is it again a co-incidence that the book came out a year after Vargas famously punched his fellow writer and friend, the first giant of South American literature - Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Did Camacho start out as Salmon and become a stand in for Marquez? We can only guess and wait for the memoirs.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez with black eye after being punched by Mario Vargas Llosa

Both Vargas and Marquez have been tight-lipped about their altercation though speculation abounds that the incident involved Vargas’s second wife, Patty. Vargas had at some point become enamoured of a Swedish airhostess and moved out of his house. A distraught Patty went to Marquez, Vargas’s great friend at that time. Marquez apparently counselled her to leave Vargas and ‘consoled’ her. In any case, Vargas came back to his wife, she filled him in on Marquez’s reactions and actions and the next thing we know is that Marquez has gone up to Vargas at a film event, arms outstretched crying ‘Marito’, and gotten a beautiful black eye in return. Marquez took care to memorialize the resplendent eye the next morning through some photographs, but there has been nothing more from either writer.

In one case however, we have got something to review the book by. Vargas’s former wife, the eponymous Julia to whom the book is dedicated, did write her own version of events in ‘Lo que Varguitas no dijo’ or ‘What little Vargas did not say.’ Vargas made her seven years younger in the book, but she objects to his portrayal of her as a designing woman with zero literary pretensions, and the implicit denial of any contribution she may have made to his literary career.

Julia Urquidi

Vargas describes a seriousness of purpose in ‘Marito’ after he commits himself to his love- a growing up that he chooses to show rather than explain, and could loosely be ascribed to  ‘coming of age’. I feel it should be attributed to an inspiration that allows you to throw off the weight of convention and expectation, and spurs you to follow your dreams.  To Aunt Julia then!

Browned Offerings

My knees creaked.
I glanced back.
“Don’t look downed,
When you’re climbing up.”
Panting,I hid my smile.
Hand on my heart,
Engaged my core-
Doctor’s advice, Trainer’s device.
(“To protect your joints-
Since you’re resolved
On this course of action,
In spite of, even,
Your knee condition.”
Then their aside!
“It’s a good institution
For International Education
But set in a mountain?
Admire your dedication”.)

Heeding your admonition,
I heaved myself up
Step by hustling, step.
Cajoling you, scolding you
Digressing
(“Darling wear a hat -
White spots will never do”)
Focusing
“Your classroom is almost here!
You’ll like it once inside-"
And the clincher-
“It’s non-negotiable!”
You tarried a bit,
But still sociable,
Chatted with me.
“Why do you let baby say
 Gobbles for goggles?”
The smile came out of hiding
“I think it’s cute, let him be,
And don’t you grow up in a hurry”
We reached your classroom
Where a sight greeted me-

Pink appliqué figures
On the blue door
Circles for eyes, triangle for nose
A smile for the mouth
“That’s me,” you said,
“That’s her,”
They averred.
An appliqué yes,
But not like the rest

You looked up at me
Your face glowed- orange and rose.
Sunlight caught- at wispy curls.
Tendrils escaped,
Defied definition.
Your eyes shone,
Dark with emotion.
The blue flecks in your whites
Were for me alone.
Your pearly whites, ridged in maroon,
Showed their glory
Told their story
That you were happy?

“That’s me”, you said
Your eyes glittered.
You smiled.
“I am browned”.

They prepared
Twenty pink drawings
With peachy tones
A solid browned offering
Of you, my own?
To say,
“She is different,
But not abhorrent.
See, we are tolerant”.
Hands on my knees,
I walked down slowly.
Looked back up.

My darling,
When I was Home and painting
I was forever attempting
To get the hues right
It was never easy
I called it skin-color
(I was provincial,
Knew just a billion faces.)
So this mix of shades
That I never got right
Thwarted my ambition
In the fine arts department

It was not just brown my baby
How then, have you been browned?
My feet touched the ground,
I hit the road
The knees throbbed
Elsewhere some more.

Flirting with old flames

Yesterday I visited a house I’d lived in.

The current occupant is pretty
And quite affable,

The house dull as ever

I thought, and asked after neighbors,

Friends of days bygone. And sat still,

Aching to rush everywhere, open doors, explore,

Perversely prove I’d been there before.

They were good reasons I moved I saw.

It got darker, and reflexive, I pushed a switch,

The house bright, I was warm and home

“I could live here but its taken,” I thought

With a pang. Indeed, the lady

Unhappy with my familiarity

Is suspicious of my plans.

I have to leave:  He sits unmoving.

Ah, but that bright evening

Of could-have-beens. 

All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front (or ‘Nothing to report from the Western front’, the original title in German,) tells the story of the lowly foot-soldier, the man who gains the least but loses the most in any war. Paul Baumer tells us this story, a German boy fresh out of school who enlists with his entire class in the First World War and blends adolescent angst with infantryman trauma, to attack the system of setting man against man. The book describes not only the physical devastation wrought by war, but also its psychological impact – the horror of it, the coming to terms with one’s inner beast, and a profound sense of alienation.

And for a youngster, the loss of hope and the joy. In torrent after torrent of words, the author, Erich Maria Remarque, gives us the tormented views of our youthful protagonist. “We could never again, as the same beings, take part in those scenes (of our youth),” he says, “It was not any recognition of their beauty or their significance that (had) attracted us, but the communion, the feeling of comradeship with the things and events of our existence …Perhaps it is only the privilege of youth, but as yet we recognised no limits and saw nowhere an end. We had the thrill of expectation in the blood which united us with the course of our days.” He concludes that, now, they would pass those very scenes as travellers. “We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial – I believe we are lost.”

The book is a quick read but not pretty, gritty scenes grappling with charged emotion on every page. Remarque, fought in the Great War and published the novel soon after, when he was twenty two, to great acclaim. He is believed to have written the book for the men who survived, who he felt were unable to communicate the extremity of their experience after their return to normalcy. Remarque, though he felt for his comrades, fitted back better in society, at least at a superficial level. He led a glamorous life consorting with actresses in the playing fields of Europe, moving to Switzerland and later to the United States when the Nazis denounced him. His books were well received with All quiet… being made into a successful movie in Hollywood. Indeed there have been successive film adaptations, with the latest one expected in 2013. Daniel Radcliffe is to star as Paul Baumer.Needless to explain, Remarque’s books were burned during the second world war. The Nazi propaganda machine also invested him with a Jewish identity, arraigned his sister, and guillotined her. ‘You will not get away like your brother’, the judge is believed to have told the doomed lady.

Shivalik felt that ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ was a pioneer of pacifist literature. It could very well have been, for it is only after the dawn of the twentieth century that you have had the anomaly of using as cannon fodder, educated boys who would be capable of articulating their experience. There has been a growing body of similar war literature thereafter, and a growing oeuvre of movies too. ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ however, would have been the first of its kind, and in a time of imperialistic nationalism, a brave and honest book.

I felt the language of the book contains an uncertainty in the efficacy of conventional communication. Paul Baumer’s thoughts here underline this aspect: “I often sit with one of them in the little beer garden and try and explain that this is the only thing: just to sit quietly, like this. They understand of course, they agree, they may even feel it is so too, but only with words, yes, that is it- they feel, it but always with only half of themselves.”

We wondered if something had been lost in translation. Verena disabused us of our notions; she said the book was quite the same in German too. Aparna added that it had been the same translator who had worked on ‘Embers,’ the Hungarian book we had read all those years back in Hong Kong. Embers has a rich velvety texture to it, repressed cold fury held in comfortable strong bodies, an atmosphere of disturbed luxury completely missing in the anguished and graphic ‘Nothing to report from the West.’ The differences in tone evidently attest to the translator’s talent.

So the book tends to belabour the points it makes, but as a result is incoherently lyrical, full of palpable raw emotion. Take Baumer’s moving and poetic address to his mother, in the form of an internal monologue, achingly young in its verbosity. “Ah Mother, Mother! You still think I am a child – why can I not put my head in your lap and weep? Why have I always to be strong and self controlled? I would like to weep and be comforted, too, indeed I am little more than a child; in the wardrobe still hangs my short, boy’s trousers - it is such a little time ago, why is it over?” Some dialogue later, again: “Ah, Mother Mother! Why do I not take you in my arms and die with you? What poor wretches we are!” Some more conversation later: “Ah Mother Mother! Let us rise up and go out, back through the years, where the burden of all this misery lies on us no more, back to you and me alone Mother!” And so it goes.

While the action in ‘All quiet…’ is vivid enough and the camarederie comes through very well, emotions are often conveyed through interior monologue. The reader may find it harder to identify with the characters and be left relatively untouched. This could be a pitfall of having a first person narrative, but then again, how else to describe all that goes through the mind of a shell shocked boy-soldier. (Despite this handicap the author manages some astonishingly touching passages like when Baumer kills a French soldier at close quarters, an intimate act that terrorises him, and drives him into a delirious state. He speaks to the dead man, explaining his act, promising to write to his wife and help his family. He swears to him that he would live only for the dead man henceforth, and considers taking up printing, the dead man’s profession!)

The fact that it had been written from the German side – did that make a difference? Not at all, felt Aparna and most of us agreed. My only take was that one always looks at the ‘enemy’ as invincible (here we had some amount of self-clarification from all sides, and we could not help reflecting on how our views were often derived from the literature we had been exposed to). The book affords a sneak peek into the ‘other’ side bringing us closer to the realisation that people are people everywhere, not only bitter and disillusioned during hard times but also helpless and scared.

Leena could not help connecting with how food becomes paramount in times of crises and was reminded of an anecdote from her grandfather’s life in the army. His unit had evacuated a village, in the ’65 Indo-Pak war, and while making his inspection round, he discovered hens hiding in the roof of the house. What a wonderful find! That was the highlight of the day – that and the chicken curry. I had to jump in with my own story of my father combing through sugarcane fields for paratroopers while fifty scared villagers followed his every move – a technical officer in a missile squadron had no business attempting personal valour, but what do you do when public opinion lifts you and carries you through your actions. Orwell’s 'Shooting an Elephant' comes to mind.

Verena discovered the author only recently when she picked up his ‘Arc de Triomphe’, which she really liked. She wanted to read his most famous work, and so came up with her book recommendation. Her own grandfathers had been in the Second World war, one of whom never spoke of it. But even the anecdotes that were shared, Verena said, were the lighter versions, the happy-ending stories that kept the hard truth hidden. This book was an important one in that it gave us a glimpse of the unvarnished truth.

For that, we were all glad we had read the book.

Soaps and Storms

I am hopelessly behind in my reviews- I have to write one for All Quiet on the Western Front which I liked but did not enjoy, and one for Little Bee which I neither admired, nor had fun reading. Right now however, I am totally taken by Mario Llosa Vargas's Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. A story set in fifties Lima about a struggling young writer, forbidden love, a serial serial-churner and lush radio serials.Watch this space for reports on works by Remarche, whatsisname and Vargas. I might update Sense of an Ending with details of our new discussions too.

In the meantime here is a little something that I penned on the subject of storms- it turned into an ode for a soap opera!

To the Bold and the Beautiful

A Brook cries up a Storm
Storm rages
At the rigid Ridge
Besides, a Thorn.

And what mix-ups!
A relentless Storm in a Teacup
Froths and foams.

Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset. Maugham

‘Of Human Bondage’ is widely regarded as Somerset Maugham’s masterpiece. I read it on Kindle but the e-book is available for free at http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/free_ebooks/Of_Human_Bondage_NT.pdf, all 1241 pages of it.

The novel came out in 1915, when the author was forty-one. The story it tells of Philip Carey and his struggle to find happiness and meaning in existence, closely traces the arc of Maugham’s own striving and experience in the first thirty years of his life. It remains one of his most successful books.

Philip Carey is orphaned at nine and brought to the emotionally unsupportive home of his uncle, the Vicar of Blackstable. Born with a clubfoot, growing up, first with aloof guardians and later, in a school where his disability never allows him to fit in, he finds solace in books. He refuses to prepare for Oxford and goes instead, to university in Heidelberg. He tries accountancy and gives it up to study art in Paris before he finally hits upon a rewarding occupation in medicine. In the course of this journey he muses on religion and philosophy and people, that is, he ponders on the science of life, and after a few rocky affairs finds happiness in the arms of a woman he loves.


Maugham's mother died of tuberculosis like Carey’s mother, and he was sent at the age of nine to his uncle, the Vicar of Whitstable. He hated school (King’s school Canterbury to Carey’s King’s School Tercanbury). It appears he was picked on owing to his small size and the fact that he was more comfortable speaking French than English. He developed a stammer, which like Carey’s clubfoot was a lifelong burden making him self-conscious and shy. Maugham too went away to Heidelberg to study, coming back to try his hand at accountancy before studying medicine. It is natural one would conclude the book is autobiographical. Maugham has however maintained that incidents and people from his own life only formed the ballast for the novel. And of course there is a remarkable divergence in the resolution that Maugham achieves for his creation. Carey sublimates his dreams of art, travel and exotic experience, in the here and now of earning an honest livelihood, finding and keeping an honest love and raising children. Maugham was differently motivated- his homosexuality probably prevented him from aiming for too ordinary a life- Philip Carey came home, where Maugham chose to pursue the itinerant life of an artist.

Now that I have written this, I can’t help thinking of another very autobiographical novel- Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things. GOST very closely traces Roy’s own life story up to the point where the main action of the novel takes place. The resolution of the plot however, has to be widely off-course, vis-à-vis the one followed by Roy herself. Arundhati Roy’s mother Mary Roy is best known for challenging Christian personal law in India, which denied Christian daughters a share in ancestral property. Arundhati Roy’s book is possibly a what-if scenario where her mother accepted the notion that she was living on charity, thus making herself and her children extremely vulnerable in a crisis. It is interesting that one’s own life story in a different context or with a different denouement could make for literary fodder.


Everybody at the discussion liked the book. Pooja, Pulak and Sneha had read it before. It was the first time for Sips, Tarun, Varun and I. Pooja said she suggested the book because she wanted to see if her impression had changed over the years. She was happy to discover she still loved it. She was impressed in particular with the easy readability of the book and the development of Philip Carey’s character. However what struck her the most was his affair with Mildred Rogers. There was something unreal and horrible about that relationship that stayed with Pooja. But most people found the Mildred saga, however awful, very believable. They had seen some close friend or the other caught in the infuriating sort of web that Carey finds himself enmeshed in. I felt that Carey was particularly susceptible because he was compulsively caring of the desolate and destitute- see how he reaches out to the friendless and talentless Fanny Price, or cares for Cranshaw in his dying days. It was all in a piece that Mildred on a self-destruct mode could be relied on to consistently sink into the dire-enough-straits needed to rekindle that relationship – from both ends! Tarun felt Mildred did not care for Philip and that was the biggest turn-on for him. Sneha was just too put off by Philip’s behaviour, his capacity for abasement and humiliation. There was a connection made to Philip’s own feelings of inadequacy and his loveless childhood. Sneha mentioned that Maugham’s marriage had been described as abusive.


Pulak described how the book had marked a turning point in his life, when he began to question the frenetic pace at which he travelled to new parts of the world. He found Philip’s relationship issues natural and he described the weird inadequacies that people could imagine for themselves- Philip Carey with a clubfoot was not an exception but a rule. On the whole what resonated with him was Philip’s quest for a philosophy and a world-view. Pulak also remarked that Philip’s need to care for people could have made him a good doctor.

Rohit agreed with the viewpoints expressed by the group. He too felt that Mildred’s indifference added to her allure and gave us interesting anecdotes to support his theory. Sneha loved the book and liked how Carey’s character develops through the book, and how he appeared to have come out of his shell by the end of the book. He knew his worth and his mind, and was at last, comfortable in his skin; in her words, he does not take any sh__t anymore. Nor does he react too violently - the character has clearly grown. She had initially been sceptical of the ending, finding it too pretty, but felt after the discussion, that everything came together so well in the end and that the book actually headed to a great finish. She and Pooja were both impressed by how well Philip Carey dealt with his artistic ambitions in the context of his ambition to make something of his life.

Varun had not completed the book but he was struck by how selfish Philip Carey seemed to be. There was some debate that self-centred probably described him better and I went on again about his kindness. I suppose a self-conscious person would sooner or later turn into a self-centred one. Varun loved the character of Herr Sung and the group had a good laugh. We have all been trumped by that brand of brazen outrageousness!

There was much discussion on philosophy, ethical standpoints, religious journeys, the change in a character over time and self-knowledge.

Tarun was surprised to find he had liked the book! The Mildred story, and in fact, every page of the book rang absolutely true for him. His take home was that Philip Carey was a drifter with little tenacity to stay a course, probably because the economic imperative was missing. Hmmm… it follows then that the need to persevere came home to him when he sank into poverty. Of course Maugham followed a different trajectory- he persevered throughout and followed his dreams. He did not sink into the humdrum life of a country doctor but broadened not only his own horizons but through his art, that of an age.

I found the prose clunky and tedious, but truth and intelligence have a mesmeric quality that makes the book utterly readable. Think high IQ Reality Television! At the end of the book, I could not help pitying Mildred who despite her rather independent personality, obviously lacked basic survival skills and needed to turn again and again to a man she found repulsive. The protagonist/author makes no attempt to understand the outlook of anyone different from Philip Carey- it is fitting that we will discuss Sense of an Ending at our next meeting which trips up a Carey-like protagonist in his self-centred world-view. Yes, ‘Of Human Bondage’ is more introverted than introspective. Yet, there is a searing honesty and a clear-eyed perspective, which make the book deserving of being called a ‘classic’.

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

Somewhere along my journey through English fiction I had conceived this notion that the mid to early eighteenth century novelist and playwright, Henry Fielding, was a sort of proto-Austenian writer, but more irreverent, even scandalous, and entirely worth reading. There was something about Fielding and Austen that I had forgotten, something interesting in that it concerned the opinion of one writer on the output of another. At any rate Fielding’s works were in currency while Jane Austen was reading and writing, so I believed there might have been an influence. (For those still in doubt, I am a die-hard Austen fan).

I had also read Ian McEwan’s Atonement and of course Cecilia talks of Henry Fielding to Robbie, but whether the brief mention was positive or critical, I could not have told you, for I am that kind of speed-reader. But the name had been filed somewhere… to be mined when a suitable occasion presented itself.

And indeed an occasion of this sort, that although never consciously envisaged by me, and therefore aimed for, or at any event longed for, but still exhilarating when it came about, did occur, when I was at last given the opportunity to possess a copy of ‘The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling’ by the self-same Henry Fielding, a well-thumbed copy yellowing with age, yet with all its pages intact and with the cover in good condition, all of which led me to suppose that the book had been a well-loved one. The story of how I serendipitously came in possession of this, if not consciously looked for, definitely sub-consciously looked out for tome, is as follows:

The reader may not be aware that in my student days I used to be a Table Tennis or (as I am accustomed to refer to,) TT player of some repute. Admittedly the game played by lady scholars at the Indian Institute of Management Kolkata was not of a high calibre; in fact if I do not misremember there was only one other young mistress of TT contemporaneous to me, and amongst the two us, I was unanimously ranked second. Now dear reader, I have laid the cards on the table, the bare facts are before you, and you will have to agree that however poorly I write or play TT, dissimulation is not a vice I am prone to. You would hence not have any reason to disbelieve me when I attest that while I was Player 2 of 2, I still played a mean game to use the vulgar parlance, and my spin serves and forehand chops could beat the a_ _ _ off many a strapping fellow.

Thereafter my life and more importantly my joints have taken many twists and turns and I am presently arrived in a condition where I would not wilfully take a TT bat, unless the TT bat was taken to me, which being an unlikely event, I have become to the TT table a stranger. How my erstwhile sporting career and my health problems should connect with my obtaining ‘A History of Tom Jones’ however, relates to a matter that I have kept you in the dark about.

I have a son; in fact I have had a son for eight years and a few months. There are some who may remark that by counting the months before I was brought into my lying in, that is to say the months when I contained him within my person, I should rightly estimate the time period as nine years. To these cavillers I would make the retort that if accuracy rather than convention were my objective, I would not be very far off the mark if I reckoned I had a son for only nine months, and then he was born. When I shared this insight with a few older mothers-of-sons in my acquaintance, they took leave (for the older generation is always more polite) to inform me that I was an ignorant twerp, that I should wait until the boy starts seeing other women before arrogating to myself motherly pangs of separation anxiety. Be that as it may, this boy of hardly eight summers, although possessed of all charms and graces that doting maters are easily and readily able to discern, has also acquired in his disposition something that, to use vulgar parlance again, smacks of attitude. He believes sincerely that dear mamma is a good cook, lavishing extravagant praise on my abilities even as I demur- for I would not purloin credit from my domestics especially when the menu has been planned by my husband and the recipe taken from a cookbook. Nonetheless, when I disclosed the true facts of the case to my son, he made the reply that since I was the one who combined the menu and the recipe and the instructions to the cook, my skills were laudable indeed. God bless the child, but while I have little appetite for the false encomiums that come my way, I find it exceedingly more uncomfortable to digest the unpalatable truth that he thinks nothing of my achievements in the field of sport. I imagine the fact that the husband is more inclined to physical effort while I sit all day reading has something to do with these misplaced opinions.

In any case I decided to correct the impression in his young mind by displaying my TT virtuosity. There was a Table Tennis Table provided by the management office of our condominium. What remained was the question of bats. In this matter dear reader, I was in for a surprise in Singapore. In a country that is but a dot on the map of the world, but a dot which prides itself in having garnered the TT Silver medal in the last Olympic games, that is to say a state that is a ‘force’ in the world of Table Tennis, I could find no utensils for the game- to speak plainly, there were no bats to be had for paper or plastic at any of the sporting goods outlets in the city. I persisted doggedly in my quest, until another fever seized hold of me, namely the zeal to acquire a satisfactory proficiency in the Chinese language. I will acquaint you with the particulars of this passion in a different forum; at the present juncture it would suffice to say that not a few months back, I embarked on a pursuit in order to further my language studies. I sought to peruse a book that traced the evolution of the Chinese script. Since this book was said to be available in only one store of a shopping complex- the Bras-Basah complex in particular, there I went, clutching a white chit with the name of the aforesaid bookstore scribbled on it in Chinese characters. Needless to say I stumbled into many a wrong shop before I arrived at my destination, but my aim in narrating this to you is not to bore you, although that may very well be an unintended by-product of my verbosity, but to enlighten you with the important discovery I made in the course of my search, namely, that TT bats are sold in every corner-store stationary shop in Singapore! This must surely account for the popularity of the game in Singapore and the unavailability of the requisite utensils in sports shops.

The said store also sold used books, and the corner of my eye falling on a paperback volume containing the legend “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling in Six Volumes” that evoked from the corner of my mind- of which I have already made a mention of at the beginning of this article- certain thoughts that had been filed away, my learning that this copy could be purchased in exchange for a mere Five Dollars and my coming in possession of the book and commencing to peruse it was as one and the same thing- to be accomplished immediately and simultaneously.

You get the drift I guess, of the style of the book. Unless you have drifted off and surfed away elsewhere, for which I will have no one to blame but myself. ‘Commencing perusal’ and finishing the book were two different things. The Penguin edition that I have has 840 sepia-toned pages of fading print in Cambria Font 10. I would scorn to supply my readership with such mundane details when literary feats are on show, but given the style, I think it behoves on me to let people know what they are getting into. If you promise to read no more than five chapters a day, you will do well with the book for Fielding is brilliant and immensely entertaining.

The novel is set in Somersetshire and later London, and obviously concerns Tom Jones, a foundling raised by a benevolent country-squire in the teeth of local opposition. Jones grows up into a handsome and good-natured, though hot-blooded young man. He is surrounded moreover, by petty enemies and is eventually forced to leave home and seek his fortune. His adventures and his romance with Sophia Western, a beautiful neighbour, form the substance of the novel. Fielding uses a dominant authorial voice to tell us the story and he often addresses the reader directly while offering up his satirical observations, entertaining digressions and even some abuse! There is acerbic social commentary, biting wit, and in many instances, over-the-top slapstick humour. The book is scandalous and fun - if you are willing to wade through the language of the times.

As the romance between Tom Jones and his neighbour Sophia Western begins to captivate, the reader has to struggle against an impulse to speed-read and get to the story, for speed-reading spoils the pleasure to be had from this book. Fielding’s authorial third person voice is the real hero of the novel and if you were to pay only half heed to what he said while following the increasingly ridiculous antics of the rest of the characters, interesting for a while only in their outrageousness, you are cheating yourself of a great book and doing an injustice to the author. This was my fate. I will re-read at leisure one day.

‘Tom Jones’ surely made a splash when it came out, incensing and delighting different sections of the populace in equally great measures. (Sorry I cannot get the language out of my system!) Apparently it was even blamed for the earthquakes that had rocked London around the time of its publication. The point made was that ‘Tom Jones’ had been banned in France and that they had not suffered any earthquakes!
“
I am surprised that you quote from so vicious a book,” Samuel Johnson is said to have stated. For his part, Fielding appears to have been unapologetic and caustic, even writing a parody of Samuel Richardson’s ‘Camilla’ titled ‘Shamela’! He had a good marriage with a well-born, beautiful and virtuous lady on whom he is said to have modelled his young heroines, but on her death he married his wife’s maid who was pregnant at that time, disregarding existing conventions.

I was quite mistaken in what Austen and McEwan had to say about Fielding. In Austen’s ‘Northanger Abbey’, we have the decidedly unlikeable character of John Thorpe stating that there haven’t been any good novels since Tom Jones- after saying he never reads novels if he can help it. Apparently, Jane Austen had reservations about Fielding and I do not wonder at this. From a feminist perspective I find it difficult to stomach a romance where the hero is so wayward. The acquiescence of so great a heroine as Sophia with the prevailing double standards of the time is troubling to say the least. In my book, if the Goose gets no sauce, neither does the Gander. And in this context I can only quote from Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ -

Ian McEwan in ‘Atonement’ compares Fielding favourably to Samuel Richardson (Austen admired Richardson) through Cecilia, but argues back through Robbie that Fielding compared to Richardson was psychologically crude. Cecilia’s thoughts of rebuttal remain unknown to us but we are all inside ‘Atonement’ at this point and would rather get on with that story…

Our verdict

• Recommend testing for allergies before ingestion.
• Do not try to swallow whole or you may choke on it.
• Strictly for savouring.