Dr. V. Gopalakrishnan
Visiting Faculty, NIT,Tiruchi & Former ED, BHEL, Tiruchi
Talk given at Seethalakshmi Ramaswamy College, Tiruchi on 3.1.2008
INTRODUCTION: When Dr Usha Chandrasekaran invited me to deliver this talk, I agreed without thinking and thus easily fell into her trap. Later on, I realized that I had erred on the side of bravado than on the side of caution but then it was too late to go back on the promise. For an engineer to talk about English novels to the entire group of students and faculty of the English Department of an arts college is something odd, to say the least. However, I consoled myself with Helen Keller’s words: “Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” Hence, I have come here seeking a daring adventure. Helen Keller, as you know, was the first blind and deaf person to get a degree from an American University and the rest of her life was also a source of great inspiration and strength to physically disadvantaged persons the world over.
In today’s adventure, I am comforted by one afterthought which has its origins in my student days. I never read anything in those days beyond what was barely essential to get through the exams or to complete the assignments and I don’t expect today’s students to be any different, even in highly disciplined SRC. A major danger I anticipate is that some of the novels that I am going to touch upon today could have already found their way into their syllabus. I have a strategy on hand to tackle that. I will short-close the discussion on that novel and move on to the next. Unfortunately there are also the teachers in the crowd and I cannot say the same thing about them. I am now a full time teacher myself but my experience is limited. And there is the issue of professional ethics.
To you, the students of literature, I’d like to say something special before I get into the main topic! Often we read so many books that other people force us to read. In the process, we forget that we can still read a few books for ourselves. During the college days, we read only text books and notes and reading is really gulping down as many pages as possible in as short a time as possible, with the sole aim of retaining at least a few essential facts for that test or assignment to follow. Reading literature in that way is a tragedy. Finally when we get the degree and get out of the system, we breathe a huge sigh of relief and stop reading as an expression of the hard-won freedom. Yes, you may occasionally need a break from continuous reading, but don’t let course-work ruin the pleasure of reading forever. Reading is primarily fun, experience, enjoyment, life itself. Never forget that!
I can assure you that you are not alone. A recent study conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts in USA found that Americans just don’t read literature. And students of literature don’t read beyond their syllabus. Why? Several reasons were cited in the survey including ‘Not Enough Time’, ‘Not Enough Money to buy books’, ‘Not Enough Experience’, ‘ Too Tired’, ‘TV and movies’, ‘Reading is Hard’, It’s Not a Habit’ and so on.
I am not going into these reasons nor am I going to offer any solution to this problem. Instead, I will dilate further on the basic question – “Why should one read”? I can only quote Somerset Maugham – one of my favourite authors, who said ,”To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life”. Like classical music, reading is a cultivated taste and whoever had said, “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers”, knew what he or she was talking about. And the man or woman who does not read good books has no advantage over the man or woman who can’t read at all.
My dear young friends! Have you ever walked alone along a deserted seashore, or gone hiking to the top of a mountain, however small, or slept alone in a camp or even in a hostel room or much better, in an open field full of flowers or snakes, or enjoyed a close game in any sport or seen a thriller movie with your entire body and soul? These are what I call as total experiences and reading can provide you with all these. Works of literature are filled with these and similar moments. As you read through the pages, you discover the real pleasure of reading—a momentary bliss that is remembered for a lifetime. Tell me your friend and I will tell you who you are” is an old saying. Tell me what you read and I’ll tell you who you are” is an improved version. Tell me what you re-read and I will tell all about you and your passions is the best.
How did I get interested in reading? From my mother. I was born in 1948 and the nineteen fifties were my formative years. Our family was living in a village near Madurai then. My mother used to regularly read magazines like Anandavikatan, Kalki, Kumudam and Ambulimama. There were no TVs and DVD players in those days and our house did not have even an ordinary radio. My father never bought newspapers. He was a Sanskrit scholar and the house was full of Sanskrit books but nothing much in Tamil or English. Hence Tamil periodicals became the staple reading materials for my mother. Other ladies in our neighborhood were also in a similar boat. Each household bought one or two magazines and the rest were borrowed from the neighbors. The magazines regularly carried several serials and short stories apart from jokes, cartoons and mundane articles. I started reading them before I was hardly ten. I still remember the first serial that I read avidly – Thillana Mohanambal in Anandavikatan. Later it reappeared as a successful movie but the novel was much better.
The village also boasted of a decent public library, run by the district administration. I was too young to borrow books but the children were allowed to read any book or magazine that was found there. I soon became a voracious reader and I read without discrimination. Among the novels were cheap Tamil translations of some popular English novels and “Old man and the sea “ by Ernest Hemingway was one such. I didn’t like it much when I read it first. I skipped through several chapters and came to the end quickly and was disappointed with the ending. I was used to the Ambulimama kind of stories in those days where the hero invariably defeats or kills the villain, marries the heroine and happily lives ever after with her, without any marital discord. I never liked tragic movies like Kalyana Parisu either, a big hit in those days. Old Man and the sea was a big disappointment for me.
Fortunately I read the book again after a several years and this time I was impressed. I will tell the story very briefly for those few of you who do not know. It is the story of an epic struggle between an old man and a big fish. Philosophically, it represents a weak individual’s unequal fight against the irresistible forces surrounding him.
Santiago is an old Cuban fisherman who has been unable to catch a fish for months together. He has an apprentice called Manolin, who simply adores the old man. But his parents tell Manolin to stop fishing with Santiago because the old man has become an utter failure in his profession. Santiago on the other hand is convinced that he is just going through a bad phase but his luck will soon change.
One day, Santiago takes his boat out into the Gulf Stream, much farther into the sea than usual. He takes the bait at 100 fathoms and catches a big fish, a Merlin, in his line. He expertly hooks the fish, but cannot pull it in. Instead, the fish begins to pull the boat. He is afraid that if he tied the line fast to the boat, the fish might break the line. So he holds the fish fast by himself.
He holds onto the fish for two days and two nights enduring the pain. It swims steadily in one direction until it tires and then it swims with the current in a different direction. The line is cutting into Santiago’s hands, his back is strained and bent and his shoulders are exhausted with the struggle with the fish.
As he struggles, the old man feels a deep empathy and admiration for the marlin’s courage and determination to escape. It is a worthy adversary. On the third day, the fish tires and Santiago somehow manages to pull the Marlin close to his boat, thrusts a harpoon in its body and kills the fish. It’s the largest fish Santiago has ever seen. He lashes it to the craft, raises the small mast and sails for home with the fish.
Blood pours from the wounded Marlin’s body and leaves a trail in the sea. Sharks, attracted by the blood inevitably appear. The old man fights the sharks off as best he can. He even kills a few but this attracts more sharks, for they are cannibals. When darkness falls it is impossible for Santiago to fight off the sharks anymore. They devour the Marlin, leaving only the skeleton of the fish, its head, and its tail. Santiago manages to get back home and collapses on his bed, totally exhausted.
The next morning, a crowd of amazed fisherman gather around the skeletal carcass of the fish, still lashed to the boat. Manolin is happy to see Santiago back and watches over his guru’s sleep. Santiago wakes up, agrees to fish with Manolin again and falls asleep once more. That afternoon, tourists observe the remains of the giant marlin and mistake it for a shark. Thus ends the novel.
What is so great about the novel? Everything about The Old Man & The Sea is classically simple – short, Straightforward sentences with one-syllable words. Many fellow authors have made fun of Hemingway’s diction. The storyline is also linear – easy enough for a child to follow – and the themes are clear and basic, touting manly courage, endurance, and noble suffering.
In fact, the novel would have been little more than an adventure story fit only for children were it not for Santiago’s dialogues with himself – his repetitive and symbolic musings, daydreams and plottings. The giant fish represents the hopes and dreams of mankind and the old man’s relationship with it is what creates the extraordinary pathos of the novel. And, in the end, it is poignant – even Santiago’s (humankind’s) modest expectations are snatched from his grasp by the cruel forces. This is the same theme employed by RK Narayan in his novels – the hero has a dream or a goal in almost every novel but he never attains it.
I drew another lesson from it later, aptly described by a quotation by Gandhiji. ‘Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory. Here is Bhagavat Gita’s Karmayoga in flesh and blood for you.
My next stage – Classicals: Going back to my own story again, my father was not quite happy with my education in the village and much against my wishes, I had to move to Chennai to stay with my aunt. I was put in a good private school. It opened up a few new windows for me. I started to participate in several competitions – ex tempore speeches, elocutions, essay writing and so on. I won several prizes in those competitions and a few more for my academic performance. The prizes, though large in numbers, were all books, with a certificate pasted inside. Sometimes, there was more than one copy of the same book among my prizes even in the same year – may be they were the cheapest available in the market. They were the condensed versions of classics meant for non-detailed studies in schools but some were in the original. The few names that I can reel off even after nearly fifty years include – Tale of two cities, Coral Island, Treasure Island, Gulliver’s travels, Alexander Dumas’ Black Tulip, Mill on the river floss by George Eliot and many more.
I read all of them – several times in fact, in the following holidays which were spent in my parents’ home in the village. I soon developed a liking for Dickens and much later made it a point to read most of his novels in the original. I have a high regard for Dickens, especially for his Tale of two cities and Great Expectations. I know you know some of them .So, I won’t discuss them!
There was one another simple book amongst my prizes which our entire family fell in love with. You might not have heard of Lara Ingalls Wilder, who wrote several novels under the “Little House” series, all real life stories. “Farmer Boy” is one such. I read a Tamil translation of it by Jaya Arunachalam, titled Vivasayiyin Makan and the English version was read by us much later. It is a true account of the life of a ten year old boy, Almanzo Wilder, whom Lara married eventually. The story talks of that period of US history when the country was expanding towards the Pacific coast and the railway lines were just getting laid. Laura’s father was one of the pioneers who crossed the frontiers and she talks of her life in the woods and in the prairies in other books. Almonso’s father was already an established settler in the older state of New York, near Malone. Almanzo the youngest in the family, lives on a farm with his parents, his elder brother and his two elder sisters. Almonso’s family is almost totally self-sufficient with his mother making even her own candles. There was no electricity then. The parents and the children work hard from morning till night but still they enjoy life. The father, for example, has to get up in the winter at midnight and make the cattle move around, otherwise they would freeze to death. Our current view of comfortable USA makes us wonder whether Americans really lived this way just a century ago. Hence it s a must read not only for American kids but for all kids.
Lara died in 1957 at the age of 90. Her simple prose written in sparse style is an absolute delight – one might call it “Hemingway for children”. She is also a good story teller. She died only recently . “Farmer Boy”, like all the Little House books, is a timeless classic. I recommend the full series for every youngster.
DETECTIVE NOVELS: Going back to my story,–well, after my Pre-University course, I joined IIT, Chennai and I realized that I had to catch up with the rest of the boys on several fronts. When it came to discussing novels with my classmates or hostel mates, I found that I was in a disadvantage. I never heard of Enil Blighten or Mills & Boons or Earl Stanley Gardner in my younger days. I was after all a village boy. I had to make up for lost time. Fortunately each hostel in IIT boasted of a library, stacked with all kinds of novels. I started with crime fiction but quickly grew tired of Perry Mason and Hercule Poirot. Sherlock Holmes held my attention for a longer time. I developed an abiding love for PG Wodehouse, which still persists. Till date, I would have probably read more than 100 of his novels. In between, I flirted with Henry Cecil, AJ Cronin, Richard Gordon, Nevil Shute and Daphne du Maurier among others. It was again indiscriminate but voracious reading.
Came the final year and the majority of my class-mates were planning to go abroad for further studies. The rest were planning to join IIMs or IITs or IISc in India for further studies. Very few like me were trying for jobs. My family conditions did not simply permit me to go for higher studies either in USA or in India. There were no campus interviews in those days. I had to hunt for a job and it took away my entire attention. I was jobless for more than six months after graduation and finally I joined BHEL, Tiruchi as an apprentice engineer. It took me another year or two to settle down in my job. Soon my father became seriously ill and I got into family responsibilities. As a result of these things, my readings stopped for quite a while.
There was one silver lining from the literary point of view though during this period. Two of my younger siblings were literature students. My younger brother is a MA from Jamal Mohammad College and my younger sister is a MA from SRC. I can’t say that I have developed a good overview of English literature by looking after their studies but I do know what is taught in such courses. Thanks to them, I am somewhat familiar with all forms of English literature – at least as they were taught in the curriculum in those days – novels, short stories, poems, essays, plays and what have you.
Perhaps things have changed since then. One of my close friends who teaches Management part-time in Loyola told me that William Shakespeare has practically been taken out of the curriculum at the undergraduate level. If it is true, then it is a great tragedy, greater than Shakespeare’s own tragedies. For all BA/BSc students in those days, one Shakespearean drama was compulsory in their Part- I English course. Or was English Part-II and Tamil was the Part-I? I don’t remember.
Anyway, thanks to my siblings, I am somewhat familiar with at least three or four of the Shakespearean dramas like Macbeth, Othello, As you like it and Antony and Cleopatra. Incidentally, drama is considered to be the best form of literature. A Sanskrit couplet starts with the words ‘Kavyeshu natakam ramyam’ – among all forms of literature, drama is the most enjoyable. Then it goes on to add that among all dramatists, Kalidasa is the best and among all his dramas, Saakunthalam is the best. For a Sanskrit scholar, Shakespeare is just no match for Kalidasa and they expect every Indian to echo the sentiment.
Personally I never got interested in dramas for there are not that many good dramas in Tamil. Everyone starts with his mother tongue and switches over to other languages later. So, my tastes were set. By the same logic, I could not get interested in English poetry for Tamil poetry was always difficult – classical Tamil poetry liberally uses unintelligible compound words and needs a Pathavurai and Pozhippurai to understand and I was too dull anyway. Later on, I got into the Science mindset known for its logic and precision which is another way of saying that I lack the emotional refinement to appreciate good poetry. Essays are too dull even for an engineering student like me. Even otherwise, essays are known for their contents and the language is incidental. Thus I am left with only short stories and novels for genuine enjoyment. Compared to other forms of literature, they represent reality to a greater extent though there are glorious exceptions and that perhaps might have been the real reason for my preference.
MAUGHAM AND HUXLEY: Apart from my siblings’ studies, something else happened to rekindle my interest in novels. A few of my friends and colleagues joined together and we formed a book club. We purchased a lot of books – mostly second hand stuff and I started reading again with a vengeance. I soon grew tired of the action novels – Harold Robbins, Alistair McLain, Frederich Forsyth and the lot that were popular among my friends – but two other authors caught my fancy. They were Somerset Maugham and Aldus Huxley. There were a few others but these two stand out.
I still love Maugham. I consider his Of Human Bondage, Razor’s Edge and Moon and Six Pence to be among the best novels I had read. His life, as described partly in Of human Bondage and in Razor’s Edge was more fascinating for me. He had even come to India and met Ramana Maharishi and the title Razor’s Edge is taken from Katopanishad. For a while he himself was toying with Advaitha but later drifted away.
I will not discuss any of his popular novels here. You better read them yourselves – or you are missing something in your lives. Instead I will touch upon one of his less popular works – Summing Up . In fact, it was his last piece. It is a wonderful summary of his experiences and what he thought of himself and is much different from a regular autobiography. How many authors would dare to call themselves as the ‘first rank of the second best’? Maugham had such disarming honesty.
It makes more sense to read Summing Up after reading some of his major works, if not all. Some of his short stories are not as good and I consider at least one of his novels – Magician – as trash. But one can’t enjoy Summing Up, if one starts with it.
There is no story in Summing Up and hence I am giving a few typical quotes from it, to give you a taste of it.
“It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise.” This is what everyone says- “Treat praise and criticism alike” – but Maugham has put it in a much better way.
I knew that suffering did not ennoble; it degraded. It made men selfish, petty and suspicious. It absorbed them in small things…it made them less than men; and I wrote ferociously that we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others. I have heard enough of the opposite view from several persons belonging to the Christian school of thought but from what I had seen of life myself, Maugham is right on the dot.
Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives by make-believe. Again, I fully share the view.
The only thing I will ever be sure of in this life is that I will never be sure of anything. I share this view as well. It was among my favourite quotes for a long time.
But the one I really like best is like this: “There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself”. I will share a small secret with you. I had written an autobiographical kind of novel myself. It is yet to be published. I used to wonder whether the quotation is applicable to me. In short, I fully empathize with Maugham.
I now move on to Aldus Huxley. His grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley worked alongside Darwin. Like his grandfather, Aldus Huxley seems to have an inherent desire to explore the controversial issues of the time.
Aldus Huxley is known for several famous novels including Point Counter Point, Brave new World and Chrome Yellow. Point Count Point has been copied by several subsequent authors for its style. Kaakitha Malarkal ( or Kaakitha Poo?) in Tamil by Aathavan is one such. Please read both and tell me. Brave new world will be found in anybody’s list of great novels. Hence I am skipping them and going to a less popular novel of his – Island , which is his last. He wrote this book in 1962 and he died in 1963. Island was created as a direct contrast to the macabre and futuristic “Brave New World”, which was Huxley’s concept of a modern hell. Island is then Huxley’s heaven. Its utopian theme is summarized by a quotation of Confucius which goes something like “While defining the ideal, one can assume what he wants, but should be practical”.
In “Island”, Will Farnaby, a young man is shipwrecked on a fictitious and secret island. He is a reporter trying to find out secret information about the local oil reserves for a media giant. In the island, the people live in a world of idyllic society and advanced culture, which one can easily identify with Hinduism and Buddhism. For example, a lad in the novel, who unwittingly becomes a pawn in oil politics later, is named Murugan. There are several other references to the Eastern philosophy, its practices and values. Huxley’s ideal world is a mixture of Western Science and Eastern spiritualism.
In the beginning, the hero is struck by the strange mental abilities of the children that discover him wounded. They play a variety of psychological tricks on him to try to help him find his whereabouts. As time goes by he becomes more and more loyal to the very kind and hospitable inhabitants and also falls in love with a local woman. The reader is left wondering whether our hero will betray his new friends. Finally, the defenseless Island is easily run over by a powerful neighboring dictator.
The reader is overwhelmed by the contented and happy life of an ordinary person in the island. There are also hints of impending darkness in this disguised book of joy.
The name is symbolic. There is probably one or two islands of excellence in every sea of mediocrity. There is always an island of peace in a sea of chaos. Perhaps that is the maximum possible in the scheme of things – a small interlude. It is only a matter of time before any good island is swallowed up by the surrounding remorseless sea.
I will now come to the concluding part of my lecture. Don’t be too happy too soon. I am only entering the second half.
Preparing a list of great novels is a highly subjective exercise. I did a bit of introspection before penning down this speech. I listed all the novels that I liked. Then I sorted them in a chronological order based on when I read them first. I had indeed read a large number of novels but only in some cases, as you might have noticed, did I feel like reading it for a second or third time. The novel does not change when you read it again but it is your own evolution in the meantime that gives the novel a different look. This evolution is a continuous process and to a great extent, the books that one reads, contribute to the process. As you grow older, you realize how much you owe to these authors for shaping up your values and your thought process. That is why I frequently referred to incidents from my own life as an example and to give you a better perspective.
Lest you get the impression that I had read everything – you may not – but still I have to be cautious – let me mention that I recently compared my score with the list of 100 best novels, published by Modern Library and available in the net. My scores were abysmally low. There were actually two separate lists – the Board’s List and the Readers’ List. My score was 8 out 100 in each list. I had given the lists as annexure for your information. This is only to emphasize the fact that there is so much to read.
I should also mention about a class of novels, which seem to be creating a totally new trend. I will cite just two names – Arthur Hailey and Dan Braun. I will say that their novels are manufactured by an expert team – not created by a single author. The novels are highly informative and wonderful to read but I miss the limitations and the imperfections of the individual author.
I keep reading with enthusiasm even at this age but I have to be selective, considering the time constraints. Hence I am not up to date on this subject for quite some years and I have no hesitancy in saying that aloud. For example, I have not read a single book in the Harry Potter series, though I have enjoyed a few other books on magic like The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud. I also enjoyed The Alchemist by Coelho and some of his other novels, though I agree with the critics that Alchemist is highly overrated.
The great three: Coming to the main issue again, the novels I am now going to touch upon were read much later in my life – shall we say, after I entered my middle age. I had seen enough of life by then for my age. Let me restrict myself to just three of them – Crime and Punishment, Outsider, and Sidhartha. They belong to different genres. Earlier, I used to only skim through such books, but at some stage in my life I began to enjoy them and empathize with the characters but with sufficient detachment. Am I contradicting myself? No, empathy is different from sympathy. Sympathy is a favorable reaction. Empathy is only a deep understanding. You are putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes to see his perspective. It is not possible without a detached approach.
I will now take up the first of the three novels – Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I have read some of his other novels like The Idiot and Brother Karmazov but Crime and Punishment to many is his greatest. Robert Louis Stevenson said on reading Crime and Punishment, “All I can say is, it nearly finished me. It was like having an illness.” Andre Gide called it the greatest novel ever written.
The hero Raskolnikov is poor and thinks that it is all right to kill a particular rich woman in his locality and steal her wealth. He does commit the murder, but the money he is able to steal is not substantial. Worse, he is seen by another person during the act and he ends up killing the possible witness too. He is anxiously awaiting a policeman’s knock on his door but the whole town seems to ignore the event. That only increases his anxiety. The whole book deals with the psychological forces that shape the thoughts and actions of the hero causing him to finally confess to his crime.
The story is basically about the struggle between Raskolnikov’s own version of a Superman Theory which justifies his heinous act and his conscience which make him confess to his crime. As per the Superman Theory, credited to the German philosopher Nietzsche and followed by Hitler, an extraordinary individual transcends the limits of traditional morality and lives purely by his own will to power. Dostoyevsky’s view is the opposite but with a unique twist – that an individual is not morally free to do anything he wants, but that his own psychology – not the society – sets the limits.
Dostoevsky’s genius is in describing how Raskolnikov struggles in his thoughts and actions, which simply grips the reader throughout and at the end overpowers him or her. Hence the reaction of RL Stevenson, which is shared by several other readers. The hero’s thoughts become increasingly disjointed and desperate as the novel proceeds. He acutely feels the need to escape the uncertainty of being convicted, to talk about the crime, to confess and to suffer for his crime. It is even at times humorous or comical in a macabre way. Dostoevsky can describe a madman well for he had suffered a similar fate. He had to face a firing squad once and was pardoned off before the final shooting order. This profoundly affected his psyche.
Dostoyevsky prefers dreams and feelings instead of logic and theories to explain the human predicament. After all, he is a novelist, not a psychiatrist. Two dreams stand out in the novel. In the beginning he talks of a dream in which a group of men beat a horse to death. At the end, the dream is about the breakout of a Europe-wide disease. The first is symbolic of the murder and the second , of the confession.
The end is almost mystical, quite different from the rest of the book. Dostoevsky is able to show the sobering effect of the psychological changes that come about through the just punishment for a crime.
In a wider sense, the book contains the hopeful viewpoint that the world is not just an existential battle ground for individual desires and interests to fight themselves out without any real underlying moral structure but that there is hope for a social, moral fiber and a belief in eternal values. It is still pertinent. It also gives a taste of Russia then. This book captures a piece of St. Petersburg as a unique city and the Russian as a unique culture.
I dropped the word existentialism and to understand it well, you better read some of Albert Camus’ works. His Plague is a simple, straight, gripping novel, though the critics consider it as an allegory of the German occupation of France.
The Outsider is considered by many to be Albert Camus’ masterpiece. It came in 1942. It is a bit abstract and difficult to comprehend in the first reading. The story, though is simple. Meursault, a bachelor, is leading a plain life as an office clerk in Algiers. As the story starts, he has just lost his mother. She was living in an old-people’s home in a different city. He goes to her place and attends the funeral. He does it in a mechanical way and returns home. Then comes the plot. Meursault goes to a beach for the weekend with some friends. On the beach, in an act of un-meditated violence he murders an Arab with a gun. He pumps him with five bullets. Soon he is arrested for the crime. A court case follows in which he is condemned to death. He takes the whole thing – the murder, the trial, the verdict and its execution- casually. He even shoes away a priest, who comes to save his soul before the hanging. In short, he treats his entire life as any outsider would.
One can clearly see in this novel Camus’ views on existentialism and the absurd. Existentialism in simple terms, holds life to be without any purpose. As individuals and as a race the humans have perennially struggled to put some sense into this meaningless life. While death, cruelty, violence, genocide and racism remain incomprehensible, the overwhelming desire of mankind for a happy life or optimism in general looks absurd. As for absurdity in the story, Meursault, during the trial, is criticized more for not grieving at his mother’s funeral than for the actual murder. Thus he is considered an abnormal, a heartless wonder and deserves the exemplary punishment as a lesson for others or so goes the argument against him.
Meursault becomes aware of the absurdity of life on the eve of his death as he realises that he’s “happy” at the moment and has always been, no matter the circumstances. It is not to be confused with the joy of martyrdom. He is merely indifferent to death.
The hostile environment is represented in the novel in the form of the oppressive heat of the sun which is ever-present in Meursault’s consciousness. He feels it as he attends his mother’s funeral service; He feels it as he goes out swimming with a girlfriend; he feels it as he fires the bullets into the Arab’s body. He feels it as the trial takes place.
Meursault in fact is a “man who, without any heroic pretensions, agrees to die for the truth”. He has an absolute sense of honesty in that he simply refuses to lie. From Camus’ point of view, even pretending to be emotional, when one is actually not, is lying. During the trial, the court wants to know whether he regrets his actions, but Meursault says instead that he feels more annoyance with what he did than true regret, and, as Camus says later, “it is this nuance that condemns him”.
Meursault’s refusal to go by the society’s strict norms or to live up to the society’s expectancy and his acceptance of events as they occur as if he were an observer rather than a participant is what makes Meursault an “outsider”. It addresses the constrictive nature of society and what happens when an individual tries to break free from the conformity forced upon him by staying true to himself and following his own ideal of absolute truth and sincerity in every action.
When The Outsider was first published in 1942, it confused people. It was considered a confessional novel, comparable to Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. It was also treated as a journal or a diary. Soon, it started receiving critical acclaim, and with the addition of other novels such as The Plague and The Fall, Camus won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957. “Literature is about trying to capture the one or two moments in your life when your heart opened up” – Albert Camus.
The last novel I am going to talk about is obviously my favourite number one. It is Siddhartha, written by Hermann Hesse in German and translated among others, by Hilda Rosner into English and by Trilok Sitaram in Tamil. Trilok Sitaram incidentally lived in Tiruchi and died recently. I read the Tamil version first and later the English version. Obviously I have not read the German original. This small book of 150 pages can be only experienced and beyond comprehension of words! It will stir any reader’s soul.
Siddhartha is a young, handsome Brahmin boy. He and his friend Govinda grow amidst other learned Brahmin scholars. Siddhartha’s father thinks that his son would one day become the uncrowned Prince of the Brahmins! Govinda always looks upon Siddhartha as his leader and is practically his shadow.
But Siddhartha’s soul is restless! The whole novel is a description of his unending search for Truth – truth with a capital T. He realizes that the sacrifices and the rituals are not giving him that eternal bliss. He wants to leave his present life and become a samana — the wandering ascetic! Siddhartha’s father is dumbstruck when his son seeks his permission to leave the house. Siddhartha waits patiently with folded arms for hours together and finally his father has to parts ways with his son. Govinda joins Siddhartha in his quest.
Living the Spartan and demanding life of the Samanas, Siddhartha fasts for many weeks and does penance and acquires several extraordinary powers. For example, his soul could easily enter into the body of any dead animal or bird on his wish and live its life. Soon he gets disenchanted and leaves his Samana life of three years. Govinda still follows him.
They meet Buddha and are struck by Buddha’s superfine state, which knows neither joy nor sadness. On hearing Buddha’s speech, Govinda offers himself to become a Buddha’s follower. Siddhartha however confronts Buddha and wants to know whether Buddha could explain to him what he had experienced at that hour of enlightenment. That moment, Buddha says is beyond any description and can only be achieved by personal experience.
Siddhartha decides to go in his own way to seek the ultimate truth, leaving Govinda behind. He stays overnight at the house of Vasudeva, a ferryman, who rows him across the river the next day. Vasudeva mentions to him that he has learnt a lot from the river and expects Siddhartha to return back to him.
As he reaches the town full of people, Siddhartha is glad to be with them and desires manifests in him slowly. He meets Kamala, a beautiful mistress and is influenced by her. He starts enjoying the worldly pleasures of life and soon he too becomes a very rich businessman. Wine, women, lust and greed soon kill his pure soul!
Years pass on and one fine day he wakes from his deep slumber, with his inner voice rekindled. Before the day ends, he leaves everything and moves on. He goes back to Vasudeva, the boatman and decides to stay with him for ever. He learns to row the boat and collect wood. He also realizes a simple truth – that the river represents life in a way – continuity in space and time. It is always flowing. It is always in dynamic equilibrium. Only the present exists for the river –it doesn’t suffer the shadows of the past or the future.
Many years later, Kamala passes through that place. She now has a son through Siddhartha and stays with him for some time. Unfortunately, she gets bitten by a snake and dies, leaving behind her son with Siddhartha. The boy is not able to adapt to the forest life and soon runs away. Siddhartha is again in despair but Vasudeva and the river restore his calm. As he moves closer with the river, he is able to understand its voice. It is the song of a thousand voices – of laughter and weeping of innumerable men, women and kids. The voices were no longer different . They are woven together, interlocked and merge into the single syllable OM – that represents perfection, the ultimate!
In the end Govinda, still insatiate, comes back to his old friend seeking fulfillment. Siddhartha’s final message to Govinda, that Wisdom cannot be communicated though knowledge is the crux of his entire spiritual quest!
I would like to close my talk on this emotional high and thank you all for a great opportunity given to me.
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