Fantasy Fictions from the Bengal Renaissance: Abanindranath Tagore, The Make-Believe Prince; Gaganendranath Tagore, Toddy-Cat the Bold by Sanjay Sircar

Abstract

Reviewed by: Fantasy Fictions from the Bengal Renaissance: Abanindranath Tagore, The Make-Believe Prince; Gaganendranath Tagore, Toddy-Cat the Bold by Sanjay Sircar Anurima Chanda (bio) Fantasy Fictions from the Bengal Renaissance: Abanindranath Tagore, The Make-Believe Prince; Gaganendranath Tagore, Toddy-Cat the Bold. Translated and annotated by Sanjay Sircar. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018. The title of this book can be quite misleading. It might give one the impression that it is like any other book of translated literature, in which the translator, Sanjay Sircar, has carefully selected two priceless fantasy fictions from the Bengal Renaissance and has made them available (along with annotations) to a larger audience in English. In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth. This collection, preceded by a befitting foreword by Peter Hunt, is much more than just the translation and annotation of two much-loved tales (composed by Rabindranath Tagore's illustrious nephews, Abanindranath and Gaganendranath, respectively) from the land of Bengali into English. In addition to the exhaustive preface by Sitcar himself, both of the actual translations in the book come equipped with hundred-page-long introductions that touch upon a wide gamut of areas that fall within the purview of the tales and their translations. These [End Page 458] essays are further accompanied by notes gathered in abundance, appearing both with and after the text. The end result is a unique compendium that manages to bring together both theory and praxis, providing an extensive commentary on the theory of translation in the guise of narrating two innocent childhood tales. The front matter (specifically, the foreword and the preface) helps to set the tone of the book, stressing the text's timely contribution to the world of children's literature by foregrounding voices of the literary "other." However, owing to Sircar's expansive scholarship in the area, the book takes on a separate form of its own, eventually traversing a periphery much wider than its proclaimed intent. What was the period and location of these tales, and how did this influence their form? Can one understand this form vis-à-vis folktales at large? Where does the translator come into all this? By attempting to answer these questions, the book branches out into the larger discourses of folklore and translation studies, deftly exploiting the intersectional spaces as a project of this nature inevitably entails. At the very outset, Sircar tries to identify the category in which the tales could be situated. For this purpose, he unapologetically has recourse to the European system of classification, claiming its efficacy in the reading of South Asian work. The discussion also foregrounds how Lewis Carroll (especially his use of the dream convention) is central to both tales. Having drawn up this larger structure, Sircar tries to match it up against its native counterparts, setting up the ground for comparative analysis. Thereafter, the discussion moves on to isolating characters and symbols that appear in the tales and exploring their functionality within the larger scheme of things. While serving as an important guide to reading the texts, these detailed explanations also point out how the same tale has traveled and been localized to different contexts, leaving behind a history of shared kinship. Next, Sircar takes up the issue of translation. Given the extent to which these tales are steeped in their local host culture, translating them can be a tricky business. There is the fear of loosening the language in order to explain the context, thereby compromising the flavor of the original. There is also the fear of not loosening it enough and thereby compromising the intent of the original. In his attempt to remain faithful to the original as closely as possible while struggling to find a fine balance between word-to-word and sense-to-sense translation, Sircar mentions how he was forced to take certain liberties with the text in terms of word/sentence structures, chapter breaks, and punctuation. This he diligently documents within the text, elaborating upon the reasoning behind the usage of each comma and semicolon, thus placating any naysayers who might object to such modifications. The other obstacles were posed by the text's underlying subtext (using the format of "women...