By Dr. Subhasis Chattopadhyay –
When I am alone I read – I hide myself in my books. In them I can find the faith of better men than myself… (Monsignor Quixote , Graham Greene)
One of the best books I read last year was Monsignor Quixote (1982) by Graham Greene. Greene is taught in English literature departments all over the world and they focus on his The Power and the Glory (1940) and The Heart of the Matter (1948) and A Burnt-Out Case (1960). While all Greene’s works including his thriller Our Man in Havana (1958) are high literature, very few read Monsignor Quixote. This book has a surreal quality missing in all other books by Greene. The diocesan priest elevated to being a Monsignor; Monsignor Quixote’s meditations on sin, life, God and mercy makes this a must-read for both Hindus and Christians and even those who have nothing to do with religion. Greene’s book is more of an existential treatise than it is about any particular religion. The prose is hallucinatory and beautiful. Anecdotal stories say Greene was denied the Nobel because of his Catholic faith.
James Joyce was a crypto-Jesuit whose Thomist conception of art in his Ulysses (1922) remains unparalleled. Yet Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree (1979) has now surpassed Joyce’s long mediations on the inner life of man. Suttree resonates in lyrical prose the concerns of liberation theologians without being a theology tome. But if Suttree is not about existential issues and therefore, about theology, which book is? This is the eponymous Suttree’s advice to all of us:
“Somewhere in the gray wood by the river is the huntsman and in the brooming corn and in the castellated press of the cities. His work lies all wheres and his hounds tire not. I have seen them in a dream, slaverous and wild and their eyes crazed with ravening for souls in this world. Fly them.” (Suttree)
After reading Suttree, read Ulysses. After finishing both Suttree and Ulysses, to understand life, listen to Lodovico Settembrini and the Jesuit, Leo Naphta debate everything from humanism to bygone forms of revolutionary Marxism in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain (1924). And, before you proceed to other genres, do read Fyodor Dostoevsky’s meditations on sin and redemption in his Crime and Punishment (1856). If I were you, I would not leave this lot without reading Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov (1880), just to know about one’s inner demons. Speaking of demons, Dostoevsky’s Demons (1872) is about revolutions, systemic injustices and despair. I bet you will be a changed person if you read all these books. No wonder that both theists and atheists agree that literature has a profound possibility to guide us to transcendence.
In 2020 when Covid came to my country, I was asked by the then editor of Prabuddha Bharata to make a reading list for the Journal’s readers. One does not refuse a monk. Swami Narasimhananda was insistent that it be done. I named it Reading Slant During Covid-19: A Contrarian List. That list has books on spirituality and literature. This list should be read in conjunction with Reading Slant and other blog entries I wrote here, for this website, long ago; Catholic Littérateurs: A Beginner’s Guide and 10 Great Books for Your Catholic Moorings. Even if one is not a Christian, the books mentioned in these two posts are meant for everyone who has felt lonely, abandoned and is on the verge of giving up all hope. Who amongst us does not feel crushed by life and hopelessness?
Before I sign off this dawn when Calcutta is under Covid curfew, one must mention three Indian books in English which should be read by anyone who wants to understand India. The prose in two of these books set them apart from all other Indian novels in English and through their epic portrayals of life, like all other great works of fiction, rewire our neurons and facilitate neuroplasticity, calming us. Books as medical humanists have proven, rewire the brain and create new connections within the brain releasing relaxing neurotransmitters. This is one of the reasons why ancient Hindus stressed self-study, or ‘swadhyaya’ and the ancient Church Fathers; ‘Lectio Divina’.
Let me begin with the third book. This is non-fiction and a scathing attack against the injustices done to our nation by the British. An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India (2016) is all the more important now since British politicians are baying for the blood of countries like ours to reduce carbon emission when they built their mansions and chic lives on the blood of Indians. Whether you are a Christian or a Hindu, if you have subscribed to this website, you love India. Thus, take time off during these Covid micro-lockdowns and containments to understand why and who made us a poor nation. Tharoor’s language is mercifully free of jargon and it is not the usual abracadabra that social scientists and career historians spout. Tharoor’s prose is simple but bristles with fury. It is not an easy feat to write like Tharoor.
The second book as I mentioned earlier is fiction. Marriages are strained all over the world and India is no exception. These lockdowns have created an immense strain on many marriages, and it would not be amiss to read Manju Kapur’s A Married Woman (2002). Marriages need effort at lasting. One would expect that couples would grow closer during these lockdowns, but sociologists inform otherwise. Cutting across religions, many couples want out of claustrophobic marriages. Yet marriage is a sacrament within Hinduism and Christianity. A Married Woman is set in another century and in an era when there was no internet or even mobile phones. But couples faced the same problems. Both men and women will learn from this novel how to work at their marriages. Literature, as all holy women and men insist, leads to God. If you want to make your marriage work, do read A Married Woman.
Finally, Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown (2005) is about many things. It is about the hardening of hearts; it is about losing paradise and it is about evil and how we freely choose to reject the sovereign good.
Subhasis Chattopadhyay has a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Calcutta. He has separate qualifications in Biblical Studies, Formative Spirituality and in various branches of Hinduism. Within the behavioural sciences, he has specialised in positive psychology and geriatric psychology. He is working on the Book of Job for this website and another literary project. He is a recluse and a bibliophile. He teaches English Literature as tenured faculty in a non-community college’s PG and UG Department. The college is affiliated to the University of Calcutta. His book reviews at Prabuddha Bharata have been showcased globally by Ivy League Presses. Before that, he wrote for The Herald and The Statesman.