I don’t really want to suggest that it’s an intentional deployment of some sort of boredom effect, but I digress . . . this is getting too “big” for me. Maybe all of TNY . . .

Yeah. About that typography thing. I loved the fact that the photo was of a sign from middle-of-nowhere-PA. The type made my heart ache. Or, maybe they are right, was it my eyes?

I meant “new.”

“I wish he’d write another novel, and one as good as The Romantics.”

Hell yes, I LOVED that book. Very poetically written.

I also liked Butter Chicken.

His essays don’t suck per se. I actually like how he goes out, meets people, tries to make sense of what’s going on, and writes his interpretations. It’s just that when he writes more than one piece on a topic (ie Partition, Indian history), he tends to recycle his info.

Zak:

“Jhumpa-Loompa is incredibly overrated”

Maybe because those writers are being marketed as “ethnic writers” and that business is lucrative. If I come across another story on immigrants, disasterous arranged marriages, or a tale which weaves in curry, pickles, or any other recipe, I’m simply not going to buy it.

Another book that I felt was completely overrated was Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Things.” Everyone kept saying how BEAUTIFUL it was, and I had to read it like 5 times just to make sure that I didn’t miss anything. She should stick to non-fiction essays (but even those essays now are totally redundant. In fact, they are the same. Her non fiction books come out every 2 years, but they are not strictly now; most of the essays will be the exact SAME ones from the previous books!)

Where did you find “dozen most significant novels about India”? Quote from the associated article (http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20070820&fname=OKhushwant+Singh+%28F%29&sid=1): “The link at the bottom is a list of novels by authors of Indian origin (many of them have settled abroad) which I regard as significant and rate as the best in the last 60 years. Though more than half of them are now foreign nationals, their themes are Indian and the applause they get abroad resonates in India. They return to India periodically to be garlanded and to get fresh material, and now also earn handsome royalties in rupees.” Your link points to selected books.

Nowhere do you see (read) what you imply.

“I can even ignore that he faithfully reproduces the post-imperial narrative which robs Indians - any of them - of all their agency”

I don’t disagree with your critique, but I am wondering what are the examples of Indian agency with regards to Partition (I realize you are enjoying the dog days of summer, so I don’t expect a response soon, if one at all :) .

“But I just cannot let go of his conclusion which as usual ignores history and reduces analysis to simply spotting every recursion of the word “Islam” and then connecting the dots”

But he also refers to Hindus in this article. Again, I’m not taking issue with your assertion, I’m just saying that he doesn’t solely discuss “Muslims” and “Islam” and though he doesn’t explicitly give a name to his references to Hindu nationalists and extremists as he does to “political Islam,” he does discuss political Hinduism.

Something about Mishra’s article makes it seem like a recycled version of other essays I’ve read over the years, as in using even the same exact quotes from political figures. Maybe those essays were written by him…?