Last Train to Innocence
It was bad enough to have all the new novelists from Penguin write alike. What is an even more frightening possibility now is that all reviews are going to sound alike as well.
Literary historians will, a few decades from now, have to deal with the epidemic that hit India after Salman Rushdie wrote Midnight's Children. The gestation period of this strange disease was about three weeks. That is, at regular three-week intervals, a new name would be discovered displaying the same symptoms.
And what were the symptoms PA sort of pernicious anaemia followed by cliches, stock characters, a staleness of breath. Death, or worse, terminal ennui was the inevitable end. One easy prophylactic was to keep adolescent boys far away from Rushdie or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Easier said than done.
It is probably unfair to single out Jayabrato Chatterjee's book for damning. The fault lies with the new generation of writers - shamelessly promoted by irresponsible editors of venerable publishing houses-who write before they learn to think.
Much of Chatterjee's book, despite its portentous title, is the banal drivel of an overly sensitive schoolboy. The characters of the loving grandmother, neurotic mother and absent father are drawn with the indifference of a bright young man on whom assurance sits with ease. There are occasional scenes of promise, but the narrative is patchy, uneven and predictable.
There is no dearth of bright and talented young men and women today. Why is it that this new generation. fiercely proud of its individuality and identity otherwise, is content with writing like each other? Where is that writer of an honest, gut-wrenching story? Will one of them at least take time off from penning a quickie and delight us?
Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/book-review-jayabrato-chatterjees-last-train-to-innocence/1/289334.html
Literary historians will, a few decades from now, have to deal with the epidemic that hit India after Salman Rushdie wrote Midnight's Children. The gestation period of this strange disease was about three weeks. That is, at regular three-week intervals, a new name would be discovered displaying the same symptoms.
And what were the symptoms PA sort of pernicious anaemia followed by cliches, stock characters, a staleness of breath. Death, or worse, terminal ennui was the inevitable end. One easy prophylactic was to keep adolescent boys far away from Rushdie or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Easier said than done.
It is probably unfair to single out Jayabrato Chatterjee's book for damning. The fault lies with the new generation of writers - shamelessly promoted by irresponsible editors of venerable publishing houses-who write before they learn to think.
Much of Chatterjee's book, despite its portentous title, is the banal drivel of an overly sensitive schoolboy. The characters of the loving grandmother, neurotic mother and absent father are drawn with the indifference of a bright young man on whom assurance sits with ease. There are occasional scenes of promise, but the narrative is patchy, uneven and predictable.
There is no dearth of bright and talented young men and women today. Why is it that this new generation. fiercely proud of its individuality and identity otherwise, is content with writing like each other? Where is that writer of an honest, gut-wrenching story? Will one of them at least take time off from penning a quickie and delight us?
Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/book-review-jayabrato-chatterjees-last-train-to-innocence/1/289334.html
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