Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Review
Author(s): John Oliver Perry
Review by: John Oliver Perry
Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Summer, 1999), p. 599
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40155044
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 INDIA 599

This universalizingtendencyis allied to the claim of ab- West'spresence, Europeanand indigenous,Indian classi-
solute comprehensiveness,a claim belied, one would cal and folk heritages,oral/performed and written,and
think,by its focus on subjectivereception and transforma- most of all multilingual], and our literary discourse
tion of selected emotions into modes of Self-realization. markedby the negotiation of a necessaryheterogeneity.
Paradoxically,the system is extraordinarilyrationalistic, ... It has been a continuous process of mediation be-
though that, of course, is the raison d'etre of such a con- tween 'the self and 'the other' using what Foucault
ceptual scheme as well as its method of argumentation. terms,'the technologiesof the self.'"In the face of global
This characteristicleads to not only proliferationof cate- eco-culturalprocessesthat are underminingIndia'sdiver-
gories but reificationof even empty categories,and occa- sities,he seems confident that "thereis a multi-directional
sionally, no doubt, ignoring of those that do not fit in movement within the literary scene in general and a
(thoughusuallythe systemcan find a reasonto claimtotal polyphony within specific texts that militate against all
inclusiveness). forms of standardization."And he indeed means "all
In encounteringthis vastlyinformativebook, we can be forms,"for he is as firmlyresistantto certain indigenous
duly impressedby the depth, subtlety,and complexityof forces of homogenization- e.g., Hindutva, exclusionary
the "conceptualframework"and the profound scholar- Hindu nationalism- as of neocolonialist(internaland ex-
ship that has gone into surveyingit, arrivingat a compre- ternal) or transnationalor uncriticallyWesternizing/mod-
hensive understandingand laying out the whole field for ernizing forces. He discusses/defines the regional-lan-
us. But the question is not whether this is an interesting guages-privilegingNativist movement "against a mere
system- it surelyis- or whether it might be applicable- atavisticretrievalof an ethnic past as also againstthe pres-
in some situations,perhaps- but whether it is truly en- sures of the culture-market. . . turning [everythingna-
lightening and useful for present-daycriticism,and, most tive] into another culturalcommodity,"and more specifi-
important,what and who would be excluded and privi- cally against any notion of separate, individual
leged by its attempteduse to critique India's diversecul- Indian-languagecultures: "The Nativist task of decon-
turestoday. structing the Indian traditionmust be part of a greater
John OliverPerry project of constructingunity at a higher and more realis-
Mysore/Seattle tic conceptual level, of heteroglossia, cultural plurality
within the nation's boundariesand intertextualitywithin
culture."DiasporaIndian writersmay note the contested
idea of India here which seemingly marginalizesthem,
K. Satchidanandan. Indian Literature:Positions and Proposi- unless "intertextuality," a concept repeatedlyinvoked in
tions.New Delhi. PencraftInternational.1999. 247 pages. these essays, allows them- predominantlyEnglish-using
Rs400.ISBN81-85753-25-3. NRIwritersfrom RajaRao to AmitavGhosh,from Meena
Alexanderto ArundhatiRoy- a more activerole. The lat-
A collection of essays and addresses and editorial ter two, for example, are not accordedmajorroles in his
notes (from the author'srecent yearsas editor of In- twodetailedhistoriesof recent Malayalamwriting.
dianLiterature), the volume under reviewrevealsthe wide- Anotherkey emphasisfor Satchidanandanis on the tra-
ranging critical interests and literary knowledge of K. dition-challengingtrio of feminist,Dalit (oppressedcastes
Satchidanandan,the present secretary of the national and outcastes, including tribes), and progressive-mod-
Sahitya[Literary] Akademi and one of India's foremost ernistliteratures,placinghis own poetryin the last catego-
contemporarypoets. (He writeshis poetry in Malayalam, ry, though now in a distinctlyIndian, mostlychronologi-
but a volume of self-translations,SummerRain, appeared cally postmodernist phase. Feminists gain considerable
in 1997 and was reviewedhere; see WLT71:4, p. 880.) attention in essaysor sections on both the whole "collec-
The primaryimpressionone gets from reading through tive poetic dissent"and on individualslike KamalaDas
these prose worksis of an acute criticalmind employing and MahaswetaDevi. But there are essays- often veryillu-
many liberatingideas of current Western theory, which minating, alwaysgraceful, occasionallya bit obvious and
the authorexplainsand summarizesadroitlyin a few lines pat or questionablein their general claims- about A. K.
or paragraphsas needed. With these and other more Ramanujan (seeing his poetry, at last, as "againstthe
commonsensicalas well as India-orientedsocial and cul- grain"), Premchand, Ghalib, ChandrasekharaKambar,
turaland politicalideas (e.g., those of AijazAhmadmore and KedarnathSingh (note the variety of languages),
than GayatriSpivak), he plots out both a complete histori- along with briefer notes on useful non-Indianslike Paz
ographyof Indian literatures(about variousmodernisms and Neruda.Again engaging productivelywith other crit-
and the post-Independenceperiod decade by decade) ics, he incisivelyexplainshow translationis preciselywhat
and a forward-looking agenda. Western postmodernistshave declared but multilingual
Himselfonce identifiedas a young radicalleftistwriting Indianshave alwayspracticed:i.e., versions,intertextually
from the communist-dominatedstate of Kerala, Satchi- loose, withouta sense of sin, of falling off from a sacredly
danandanmaintainshere an avant-gardist left-progressive original,true text!Altogethera stimulatingcollection that
critique, engaging with and challenging much postcolo- will extend Satchidanandan 's literaryreputation and in-
nial and subalterntheorizingas well as, for example,E. V. fluence beyond his sure place in contemporaryMalayalam
Ramakrishnan'srecent descriptionof Malayalamwriting poetry.
using the MarxistJohn Berger's distinction between es- John Oliver Perry
theticisthigh modernistsand radicalavant-gardists, where Mysore/ Seattle
Satchidanandansees two phases of the latter. He empha-
sizes that "ourcreativityhas thus been dialogic [between
old and new paradigms,acknowledgingand negating the

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