Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

Anita Desai’s latest volume, The Artist of Disappearance, consists of a trio of novellas set in a changing Indian landscape. Dealing with themes of heritage, cultural imperialism, and the desire for stability in a constantly evolving world, the three novellas range from mundane everyday encounters to lifelong mysteries. Ironically, the characters themselves, in their search for preservation, end up participating unwittingly in the destruction of that which they seek to preserve.

In the opening novella, “The Museum of Final Journeys,” a government officer is sent to a small village for training. Going about his daily duties in the misery of isolation, he learns of the Mukherjee estate museum from the family’s servant. Started by Srimata Sarita Mukherjee, the collection houses exotic items sent home by the Srimata’s youngest son, Sri Jiban, from his voyages to the East: Japanese fans and kimonos, Chinese figurines, anonymous treasures of unknown value. Though the family was once the richest in town, the estate has now fallen into disrepair, the lifeless objects locked behind glass cases with no visitors. “The sleeves were empty, the hems ended in no slippers and no feet. Their fans stirred no air.” The final treasure, a chained elephant, lies in the backyard in a thicket of bamboo, posing a significant financial burden on the estate. Considering that elephants are often associated with wisdom and memory, the elephant here creates a paradox: the museum and collection, relics that represent not just the past of their respective cultures but also the memory of Sri Jiban, must be sacrificed in order to continue feeding the elephant, itself a symbol of memory.

In all honesty, “Museum” left me a little bemused. Desai’s language at times turns unnecessarily flowery; for example, the opening sentence reads: “We had driven for never-ending miles along what seemed to be more a mudbank than a road between fields of virulent green -- jute? rice? what was it this benighted hinterland produced?” Perhaps this enhances the effect, as the officer seems to be characterized as a somewhat pretentious character; however, I found it off-putting, and felt rather unsympathetic towards him (though part of me believes that may have been Desai’s intention). I much preferred the second novella, “Translator Translated,” which concerns a literature professor named Prema, who takes on the task of translating the writer Suvarna Devi’s short stories from the indigenous Indian language Oriya into English.

As she undergoes this task, Prema discovers that the languages of Oriya cannot easily be translated, the words in English sounding flat, lacking the elegance of the original. “I was only the conduit, the medium between that language and this -- but I was the one doing the selecting, the discriminating, and I was the only one who could; the writer herself could not. I was interpreting the text for her because I had the power.” Prema attends a promotional press conference where she is confronted with the question of cultural imperialism head-on when a critic accuses her of “destroying the original language” in order to appeal to a Western audience. Desai cleverly uses this opportunity to make a subtle critique of the world of academia; the participants are soon throwing words around like “subaltern, discourse, reify, validate,” which Prema cannot understand despite her education.

When Prema begins translating Suvarna Devi’s latest novel, which she finds to be disappointing even in the original, she must choose between creating an accurate translation or preserving Devi’s reputation, “which [she] had worked hard to establish,” by rewriting the text to liven it up. Prema’s dilemma raises complicated issues concerning the role of translation in preserving native texts: she wants to remain faithful to the original language, but how can she promote Devi’s work and the importance of Oriya writers if no one will enjoy it? Desai seems uncertain as well, switching between first and third person at random, a narrative choice that is quite jarring at first. Perhaps like Prema, she too cannot decide whether to stick to the objective truth or insert a subjective voice.

The final novella, “The Artist of Disappearance,” follows a man named Ravi from childhood into his adult life as he lives reclusively in the Himalayas. Surviving a series of tragedies including the death of his parents and his mother’s old English nurse, Ravi chooses to live alone in the burned-out hull of his childhood home, surrounded by wild nature. “Outdoors was freedom” for him, unconstrained by the mores of British society or Indian culture; he expresses his freedom by transforming a secluded glade into an elaborate rock garden, hidden from the outside world.

But Ravi’s world is interrupted by a film crew making a TV documentary about environmental degradation, who stumble across his grove. Shalini, the producer’s assistant, suggests that the grove can be used as an uplifting note to conclude the documentary, a hint of hope for the preservation of nature to counterbalance the destruction of the logging and mining industries. To Ravi, however, “their gaze alone was desecration.” Here Desai presents a conflict of interests between Ravi’s desire to control his own life, to organize his surroundings into beauty, and the film crew’s assignment to document the destruction of the very nature that Ravi strives to preserve.

Desai consistently shows a keen awareness of the hypocrisies and pretenses her characters tend to exhibit; like Prema, the character Bhatia from the film crew is more concerned with his own self-serving interests, even while he is ostensibly committed to a larger goal. However, “Artist” is the clear standout piece in the collection. “Museum” and “Translator” fell a little flat for me -- perhaps it was the unsatisfying conclusions they both had, or that I felt that the officer and Prema both had more or less “right” solutions to their problems. On the other hand, the central conflict in “Artist” was much more ambiguous, as it wasn’t necessarily a conflict between right and wrong, but rather between two parties with their own distinct motivations. Further, the prose in “Artist” is in my opinion the most polished; it is neither unnecessarily verbose as in “Museum” nor as confusing as the switching between first and third person in “Translator.” Rather, it is almost cinematic in scope, while retaining the introspective quality that Desai employs quite adeptly, to create a story that continues to haunt me long after I finished reading.

Eric Zhang has a background in Asian American studies, art, and visual culture. He currently lives in New York, where he works at NYU and MOCA.