Narcopolis Reaction on Book : Vistasp Hodiwala
Narcopolis:
Jeet Thayil, Faber & Faber, 292 pages Hardcover.
Narcopolis is 20 years too late and exasperatingly
pretentious. It is repetitive beyond exasperation, has a formulaic Kamathipura
cast of pimps, prostitutes and peddlers and is written with a cold, cynical pen
to get the firangs high on Mumbai exotica. Add to that a soulless narrative
(coming from an accomplished poet, that's doubly sad) which leaves you without
any empathy for a single character in the entire novel. To me, it seemed a
singularly dishonest piece of work which just became a punishment of sorts as
the pages rambled on. Though as a rule, if I have nothing good to say, I do not
comment adversely about any piece of work but this one has made me angry enough
to make an exception. The Booker nomination only means that somewhere a more
deserving piece of work has cruelly got passed over. This is of course an
intensely personal sentiment and I don't want anyone who has liked the book to
take personal offense, but to me this book encapsulated just about everything that
gives the literary fiction genre a bad name. There, it's out of my system!
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