Revealing Layers: Sarnath Banerjee’s The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers

Abstract

ABSTRACT Sarnath Banerjee's second graphic novel The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers, a delightfully complex and remarkably multilayered work, is a significant contribution to Indian Graphic Narratives. This paper focuses on identifying and examining the layering strategies inherent in the text that endow it with its characteristic depth, complexity and density. The strategies identified include the exploitation of the multimodality of the comic format, the employment of multiple media, the incorporation of the legend of the Wandering Jew as the central trope, the playful treatment of history, a thematic layering of characters, and the utilization of intratextuality (textual echoes) and intertextuality. The paper further explores the way in which Calcutta, the primary setting of the novel, is rendered as a palimpsest-like entity where the colonial past is layered over by a post-colonial present. The novel’s emphasis upon a local readership with a global bent, leads to layers of reading based on readerly competence.