Bhaskar Parichha
The legacy of Michael J Toolan (Professor of English Language at the University of Birmingham) comes instantly to mind when it comes to stylistics. Toolan’s seminal work ‘Language, Text and Context’ largely laid the foundation for the analysis of the language and style in fictional texts.
Jayadeep Sarangi’s book ‘Indian Novels in English: Texts, Contexts and Language’ is a fascinating work because of two reasons: the subject, the technique or the method.Socio-linguistic approach, as the term denotes, ‘investigates the interrelationship between language use and society’. That’s why the book is important. When you study every aspect of society – the cultural norms, the expectations, the prevailing environment, the language usage and the effect of speech – it undoubtedly becomes an inspiring study.
Currently Principal of New Alipore College, Kolkata, Sarangi is an author, editor, translator and critic of multiple works and publications on Australian literature, Indian writing in English, postcolonial studies and the Dalit literary movement in India. That makes him eminently suitable to slice up the novels written by Indian novelists, in English.
English happens to be the most widely used language in the world today. Call it a ‘behemoth, bully, or even a thief’, it is taking over the planet with a vengeance. No language in human history has dominated the world quite like English. Its spread over the past four hundred years has led to the emergence of transplanted varieties of English. Many different regional varieties of English existing around the globe are slowly but steadily gaining recognition and ‘Indian English’ is no exception. If the rising status of English has become the stuff for discourse in the field of applied linguistics, the socio-linguistic approach is only an upshot.
The book has a foreword by Prof.John Thieme, University of East Anglia. According to Dr Thieme, this study is a very ‘significant contribution to understanding the Indian discursive universe’. With appreciations by Sumanyu Satpathy( former professor Delhi University), Shyamala A. Narayanan (ex-professor Jamia Milia Islamia) and Bashabi Fraser(Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland),this hardback basically looks at how Indian authors writing in English have experimented with morphology,syntax,vocabulary,phonetics, grammar and punctuation, besides portraying the socio-cultural ethos.
Sarangi’s book deals with the novels of Mulk Raj Anand (Untouchables and Coolie), Raja Rao (Kanthapura and The Serpent and The Rope), RK Narayan(The Guide), Bhabanai Bhattacharya(So Many Hungers!, He Who Rides a Tiger and A Dream in Hawaaii)), Khuswant Singh (Train to Pakistan), Rama Mehta(Inside the Haveli), Anita Desai (Clear Light of Day), Amitav Ghosh (The Shadow Lines and The Calcutta Chromosome) and Arundhati Roy (The God of Small things). Together, these dozen or more novels represent India’s literary scenario spread over a little more than seventy years – from pre-independence to the era of liberalization.
If the collective themes and the diverse geographical backgrounds of the Indian populace reveal interesting facts about the linguistic situation, these novels depict the legitimacy of the ‘native’ English language. Sarangi rightly says in the introduction this ‘study goes beyond linguistic structures; rather it is a study of literary discourses, verbal or non-verbal linguistic transactions, transmissions and exchanges. It focuses on the transcreation, transformation, creative deviations and pragmatic innovations that have taken place in the `global code`.
Indian writing in English up to the Gandhian era echoes the earnest efforts of a ancient land to rediscover itself. Besides the nine novelists in this study, Indian writers in English from Toru Dutt and Viveknanda through Sri Aurobindo, Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Radhakrishnan had achieved a distinctive creativeness in their works, above and beyond retaining the Indian sensibility
The travails of R K Narayan in finding a foreign publisher in the 1930s are too well-known to recapitulate. His first publisher in London wouldn’t touch his second novel; his second British publisher wouldn’t do his third book until Graham Greene could come to Narayan’s rescue and saved him from crippling despair.
Indian writings in English have unquestionably come a long way since the time of RK Narayan and Jayadeep Sarangi’s book is a fitting tribute to the masters and their works. Kudos to Authors Press for publishing this critical study.
‘Indian Novels in English: Texts, Contexts and Language’
By Jayadeep Sarangi
Authors Press
Q-2A, Hauz Khas Enclave
New Delhi 110016
2018
Rs 800
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