Strangeness added to beauty

SELECTED POEMS (Penguin, Rs 150) by Jibanananda Das has been translated from the Bengali with an introduction by Chidananda Das Gupta. Allen Ginsberg considered Jibanananda to be “the modern spirit” who introduced “bitterness, self-doubt, sex, street diction, personal confession” into Indian poetry. However, contemporaries felt he was avant-garde, his “persecution of language” caused “embarrassed disapproval” in Tagore. Therefore, it is crucial for the translations to capture the cadence and essential strangeness of the original poetic voice in order to explain Jibanananda’s ascent from a cult figure to a poet who pervaded the literary consciousness of Bengal. Das Gupta’s translation is elegant, but not always sharp enough. His struggle with Jibanananda’s diction is evident in lines like “The grasshopper struggles with the child’s strangling hand” for “Duronto shishur haate phoringer ghono shihoron moroner saathe loriachhe”.

THE RIGHT WORDS (Penguin, Rs 275) by Shama Futehally is a selection of essays written between 1967 and 2004. Although a myriad-minded writer, Futehally chiefly excelled as a reviewer. “Her reviews are models of incisive insights, brevity and sophistication of language and expression”, Shashi Deshpande points out in the introduction. Alongside essays on literature,there are reflective pieces on faith, deprivation, teaching and writing.

STRANGERS OURSELVES: THE ADVENTURES OF PAUL THEROUX (Frog, Rs 195) by John Mowat is a monograph reminiscent of the “Writers and their Works” series. This is a condensed critical biography of one of America’s pre-eminent travel writers and novelists. It presumes the readers’ familiarity with all of Theroux’s published works till date, hence useful for students and researchers. Mowat traces Theroux’s intellectual debts in detail, although his emphasis on allusions — conscious or unconscious — to other works might appear to be a little tenuous at times.

THE INDIA-PAKISTAN CONFLICT: AN ENDURING RIVALRY (Cambridge, Rs 295) edited by T. V. Paul looks at the unresolved crisis looming over south Asia. Using international relations theory and comparative politics, this volume discusses the origins, causes and possible solutions to this conflict. Despite rigorous political analyses, this is not a formidably academic book. It should interest inquisitive, non-specialist readers.