Perumal MuruganEstuary by Nandini Krishnan

Abstract

BOOKS IN REVIEW peers have shocked readers all over the world with monumental autobiographical provocations (Karl Ove Knausgaard and his overreaching My Struggle), enlightened them with light philosophical fare (Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World), or truly surprised them with striking panoramas that link Norway to recent world history (Johan Harstad’s Max, Mischa & Tetoffensiven, yet to be translated into English), Mytting prefers to play it safe and plain. He puts a young pastor into a desolate hamlet, driven by ambitions that are a tad larger than the small old church in which he delivers his sermons. Standing out from his lost flock is Astrid, a young woman who “has a restless mind, and her thoughts always seemed to race ahead of her.” Trying to dive deep into the geographically remote and economically backward community, Mytting simply surrenders our perspective on life back then and awkwardly embraces the language of the past to render his bucolic portrayals: “There was a strong preference for a well-built woman, wide in the beam, preferably with big breasts and with a good, strong back. Astrid was longlimbed and bony, with a thin face and dark, curly hair, and in another village she might have been reckoned pretty.” Once this predictable melodramatic arrangement has been set into play, Mytting tries to heat it up by introducing yet another suitor fascinated by Astrid who is considered “mulish and impossible to discipline .” A student of architecture, hailing from Dresden and in charge of overseeing the dismantling and transport of the village ’s church to Germany, this young man quickly will achieve what the pastor could envision only in feverish dreams. All this would be hard for the reader to bear if Astrid’s ensuing plight were not told against the intricate backdrop of her ancestor’s generous gift to commemorate the loss of conjoined twin sisters. The bells of the church that the young pastor is ready to have shipped to Germany become a powerful Dingsymbol that the author handles much more convincingly than the flat characterization of his stock characters. Revisiting life in the nineteenth century has emerged as a productive pastime in recent European fiction: Thomas Hettche’s Pfaueninsel or Andrés Neuman’s Traveler of the Century succeeded in taking the pulse of historically removed times and characters by neither sentimentalizing nor patronizing them. Mytting still has a long way to go. Thomas Nolden Wellesley College Perumal Murugan Estuary Trans. Nandini Krishnan. Hyderabad. Eka. 2020. 250 pages. IN ESTUARY, HIS LATEST NOVEL in English translation, Tamil writer Perumal Murugan depicts the predicament of the generation gap between parents and children in contemporary India. In the wake of technological advancement and the launch of a new model of a mobile phone or other gadgets every month or so, many parents find themselves entrapped in a vicious cycle of fear and ignorance. As urban India gears toward a more cosmopolitan outlook , rural and small-town people are still bound with age-old traditions and living conditions. The protagonist of the novel, Kumarasurar , is obsessively caring for his only son in a society where sons are revered as gods. Kumarasurar and his wife are left worried when their son takes a long, arduous path to find a place in an engineering college, against their wish to see him become a doctor. At times, it feels like Kumarasurar is going through a mental health crisis, which is not addressed—neither by Kumarasurar himself nor by the author. Kumarasurar is bound in a traditional marriage and a salaried middle-class life. His wife is a homemaker who prefers the confinement of her home and daily chores over anything else. Kumarasurar finds himself trapped in a vicious cycle of fear, confusion, and anger. The constantly changing world around him brings out his worst fears. He worries about the future of his son, who might go astray and become good for nothing in life. He also finds it absurd that people consume pornography, alcohol, or any such deviant pleasures. He believes in simplicity and is at times too obstinate to change himself according to the changing society. Murugan’s choice of the novel’s theme is safe and pertinent, given...