This was my first novel in about three months, didn't blog about the last few, so, I wanted to read something I'd love. Something that would make me rush through my next novel. Rush through its pages so hurriedly that the friction between fiction and my vision would, literally, sear the book's pages. Animal's People was no such book for me.
In the last few years of my reading, I have enjoyed certain aspects of fiction: description of locales, characterization, the story, to name a few. For example, The Inheritance of Loss, despite its familiar storyline, put me in Kalimpong; The White Tiger made me a driver driven to murder; The Satanic Verses had the convoluted yet enjoyable storyline. Of course, there are always Tom McCarthy and David Mitchell who try to push the limitations of fictional writing and I have liked their books too. Indra Sinha's Animal's People, shortlisted for the 2007 Booker Prize, fails in creating Khaufpur and builds trite characters to tell a hackneyed story without employing any noticeable new techniques of writing fiction. Having finished the book I can't navigate Khaufpur in my head; apart from Animal I don't feel anything for the characters; the story I have almost forgotten. Most books in my blog, even ones that I haven't discussed here, are from Booker Prize lists and this is my least favorite of all such books.
The first forty or so pages I was impressed, Kakadu shorts, Zafar, Nisha, Pandit Somraj, "Namispond! Jamispond!", Elli ......... it was the introduction of Elli where the book started sliding downhill. The set-up of the novel promised plenty, but neither does it do anything magical to conclude nor does it root itself to simplicity to deliver a convincing end. Salman Rushdie goes berserk to conclude Midnight's Children, remember Salim Sinai being used as a dog on all fours for his super sense of smell (feeling much like Animal here), and Aravind Adiga takes The White Tiger to its logical conclusion: subversion to servitude by murder and thieving. Indra Sinha doesn't do either. Me, I was only interested as long as Animal was talking about his XXXL-sized lund and other such primal instincts. I enjoyed all the swearing and cursing; there is a brave, am yet to read a book that does this, description of the female genitalia, so ..... what can I say except ...... flowery. In some way I sympathized with Animal's casual philosophy towards Zafar, Nisha and Somraj's activism. The conclusion to the novel says, I believe, that the author feels the same way. Perhaps Animal is not inspired from Sunny, as the author claims, but Sinha's own feelings towards the situation.
Indians writing in Inglis, I love to read them. Perhaps it's because I am not in India now. Perhaps its also because I can't read any regional Indian language. I have read R.K. Narayan, Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kiran Desai, Amitav Ghosh, Aravind Adiga; I liked them. I know there's Mulk Raj Anand (incidentally a friend of Indra Sinha), Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai, Raja Rao, Suketu Mehta, Vikram Seth and other writers to read. Yet I hunted for this book, looking through the Booker Prize shortlists. I didn't just come across it randomly. So, I was looking forward to this book. I didn't like it despite wanting to.
The novel, close to its finish, says something like, "in the end, humor alone can take us through tragedy." Alas, the humor failed collectively, quantitatively and qualitatively, to save the tragedy called Animal's People.
RATING: 3/5
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