Books & Reviews Archive

The book is a collection of short stories set in a town in South-Western India, Kittur. The author traverses the various corners of the city, its people, and its social life, like a modern-day Guy de Maupassant. Yet in truth, as an editor remarks when rejecting the stories, > your characters want absolutely nothing. They simply walk through richly described situations and think deeply. They walk through cows, trees, roosters, and think, and then walk through roosters, trees, and cows, and think a bit more. That is all. The narrative, in fact, unfolds between the realistic, stark, and often repetitive depiction of modern Indian society, and the pessimistic chronicle of an unalterable social and existential condition. Despite India’s intense economic dynamism, there is no real shift in the social fabric, in caste relations, in the mechanisms of power—ever dominated by corruption and abuse—nor in the lives of the characters, who, whenever they aspire to or believe they have attained even a modicum of social mobility, are thrust back into the immutable roles of a stratified society. All the stories are remarkably fine, but the most emblematic of the entire collection is *“Market and Maiden”*. Keshaya is a boy from the countryside looking for work in the city: “he is small, thin, dark-skinned, with huge eyes that wander dreamily.” Full of energy yet at the same time “capable of staring at the ceiling for hours,” the boy does not quite know what he wants, but remains captivated by the life of the tram conductor, who works outside, clinging perilously to the vehicle. He manages to secure this job and is thrilled because he rides to work on a bicycle given to him by his employer. It belonged to a former tram conductor, who now begs in the street after being crippled in an accident. One day, Keshaya falls, strikes his head, is fired, and finds himself wandering through the market like a madman, like a wild man. And everyone pretends not to recognize him, yet “he was the king of tram number 5,” cries the lame man, the only one standing by him, bound by the solidarity shared among the poor and the wretched. “That is the way of the world,” remarks the protagonist of another story, “and so it’s a rotten world.” And what can the writer do? If he does not wish to go mad, like another character in the book, he must convince himself that > every true word, as soon as it has been written, is like the full moon, in a day it vanishes and passes entirely into darkness. And this is the way of all things . What is truly remarkable in these stories is Adiga’s writing. It succeeds in transfiguring social realism into the anticipation, or the possibility, of an escape—wholly contemplative and interior—from the deterministic and inexorable forces of economics and sociology. In *“The Bunder”*, Abasi is a small-business owner, beleaguered by the corruption of public officials, who endures a profound inner conflict between the necessity of providing security for his family and the harrowing awareness that the manufacturing processes in his factory will inexorably lead the female laborers to blindness. What is to be done? He climbs onto the roof of his factory: > from here a man can see the limits of Kittur... and see the Arabian Sea stretching out from Kittur. The setting sun is shining above it. A ship is slowly leaving the harbor, sailing where the blue waters of the sea change color and turn a deep dark. And it is about to meet a broad swath of the brilliant setting sun, an oasis of pure light Will Abisa throw himself from the roof, or will he submit to the inexorable laws of economics? We are left in a state of suspense, of waiting, which forms the resolution to most of the stories. Why read it? Splendid stories, marvelous prose, and human and social narratives of powerful resonance.

The book’s subtitle is “the epic story of Kit Carson and the conquest of the West.” Indeed, the book spans a very long period, from 1809, the year of Kit Carson’s birth, to his death in 1868. Even though the great scout lies at the heart of the book, in reality it features all the protagonists of those years who contributed to an exceedingly complex and multifaceted history, shaped by competing ambitions: the imperial dream of the United States aimed at conquering the entire continent from East to West at the expense of a weaker nation, Mexico; economic expansion toward territories whose wealth was often overstated; the American Civil War and the role played by Indigenous nations; the clash of cultures (North Americans, Mexicans, and Indians); and, finally, the heavy imprint of a Methodist vision intent on imposing its own rules without acknowledging particularities and cultural distinctions. At the core of the book, therefore, lies the American dream: the conviction of being inherently in the right, and consequently the inability to understand the indigenous peoples. The latter, accustomed to a nomadic society rooted in raiding, fail to realize that they are up against a new adversary—one quite different from the Spanish and the Mexicans, equipped with technological superiority and, above all, an obstinacy driven to see matters through to the bitter end. It is the Navajos who pay the heaviest price, despite having been one of the strongest and wealthiest Indian nations. They are destroyed: first by starvation, then by the long march toward a settlement intended to serve as an experiment in civilization, which proves instead to be an inhospitable wasteland where disease, poor harvests, and contaminated water deal a mortal blow to the Navajos. It is a chronicle of clashes and battles, of plunder and cruelty, laying bare a violent society on both sides. A curious code of conduct effectively binds Americans and Indians alike: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. In this context, Kit Carson—already a legend in his own lifetime—stands as an emblematic figure: a consummate scout gifted with both diplomatic and martial prowess, a commander, yet ultimately an executor who, against his own inclinations, is compelled by obedience and gratitude toward others to wage wars and endure conditions he does not himself condone. Deep down, he is frail, a weakness evident in his physique and his voice to such a degree that visitors who had read accounts of his life and exploits failed to recognize him when meeting him in person. He is a hero who becomes one in spite of himself, almost an artfully crafted figure within the American collective imagination. This persona served to open the conquest of the West to the American people and to rationalize the slaughter of the Indians. Like all heroes, he is also an antihero. The book is a compelling work. It appears historically well-documented, and while not a novel in the strict sense, the narrative possesses all its hallmarks. The overlapping of episodes, which develop in parallel before converging into a central storyline, likewise generates an atmosphere of suspense typical of a detective story or contemporary fiction. The approach is cinematic. Its most compelling aspect is the extensive reliance on the very diaries of those who took part in the events. For instance, a woman who followed the wagon train toward the conquest of Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico, writes with scandalized outrage about a ball held in honor of the conquerors, where Mexican women appeared in low-cut, provocative gowns.

Henry Molise is the son of a tyrannical, drunken father. Summoned by his siblings because their parents appear poised for divorce after yet another of the father’s abusive outbursts, Henry finds himself roped into helping his father build a small stone shed at an out-of-town motel. During the journey in the company of his father’s old friends and by working alongside him, Henry rediscovers, with horror, his own familial matrix and his affection for his father. The shed, scarcely finished, is destroyed by a windstorm, starkly demonstrating that the aging father, once a renowned and skilled craftsman, is no longer physically and intellectually capable of carrying out a job, however simple. At this point, the story hurtles to its crisis: the father falls ill, is hospitalized, and subsequently flees the hospital to die at the home of an old friend who owns a vineyard and produces excellent wine. The overarching threads of the book are fundamentally two: the familial context, from which Henry sought to escape, only to rediscover through this homecoming that he belongs to it indelibly. This familial context is composed not only of the characters (the mother, the siblings, the father’s friends and the barroom regulars, the neighbors who endure the father’s excesses), but also includes objects (above all, wine and food) and the memories of a childhood deeply shaped by Italian roots. *The Brotherhood of the Grape* is the setting of a series of primordial relations that forge profound bonds among men. Emblematic in this regard is the figure of Angelo Musso, a sublime winemaker deprived of speech, who represents a “Greek god” to the members of the brotherhood, and who, when Henry comes to retrieve his father to return him to the hospital, proclaims with wise fatalism: “it’s better to die drinking than to die of thirst” and “it’s better to die among friends than among doctors.” Evident here is a nostalgia for an ancient time in which the rhythm of life and the bonds between men were determined by an authentic wisdom; the relationship with the father, who shaped the lives of all his children without ever succeeding in fulfilling his desire to pass on his craft as an artisan. This is not merely a question of traditional bonds, forged of conflict and affection toward the paternal figure; the core of the narrative lies primarily in the trade of stone quarrying and masonry, handed down to the father by his parents. The children reject this trade, which has weighed heavily upon their lives. The father’s failure in his final endeavor exposes all his fragility and weakness, thereby reopening the relationship with his son, who rediscovers an affection and a bond with his parent, but also with his craft, which had been lost over time due to the presumed omnipotence of the paternal figure. The style recalls that of the great American writers, such as Faulkner and Chandler, yet it is grounded in the deliberate use of words, in their careful juxtaposition so as to articulate a poetic and musical rhythm. The meaning of the narrative emerges not so much from the plot, nor from character study and the description of settings, but above all from the sensations that arise from the sequence of words and sounds.