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The Artist of Disappearance
In this trio of exquisitely crafted novellas, experience the soaring brilliance and delicate restraint of one of India’s great writers. In the opening novella, ‘The Museum of Final Journeys’, a junior Civil Service officer is assigned to a remote outpost. Bored with his new surroundings, he welcomes the diversion when he is called upon by an old retainer to help preserve the decaying treasures of one family’s private museum. Tantalizing and nostalgic, this is an allegory of time and dissolution, and of how the past erodes beauty and the present. In the second novella, ‘Translator Translated’, a prematurely aged lecturer at a girls’ college chances upon the opportunity of a lifetime when a self-absorbed publisher commissions her to translate to English a collection of short stories of an obscure Oriya author. The assignment transforms her humdrum life, but when the author’s family complains about a translation with which she has taken artistic licence her life unravels. Finally, in the title novella, set in Mussoorie, the reclusive son of wealthy, neglectful parents has a solipsistic existence in the remains of a burnt house high on a mountain. The arrival of a venal film crew from Delhi, making a film about environmental degradation, compels him to withdraw even further into seclusion. Intense, haunting and evocative, The Artist of Disappearance is a delightful rumination on solitude and human frailties.
Unknown Binding
First published December 6, 2011
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About the author
Anita Desai
83 books913 followersAnita Desai was born in 1937. Her published works include adult novels, children's books and short stories. She is a member of the Advisory Board for English of the National Academy of Letters in Delhi and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in London. Anita Mazumdar Desai is an Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been shortlisted for the Booker prize three times. Her daughter, the author Kiran Desai, is the winner of the 2006 Booker prize.
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March 29, 2021
ثلاث روايات قصيرة للكاتبة الهندية أنيتا ديساي
الرابط بين الروايات هو الرغبة في الحفاظ على شيء جميل وأصيل
التحف الفنية, اللغة, الطبيعة بكل تنوعها وجمالها
ومع كل رواية تعرض معاني مختلفة, خيارات الانسان في المراحل الانتقالية والمهمة في حياته.
الشغف لتحقيق الأحلام الذي يقوى من فترة لأخرى في الحياة إلى أن يختفي في اعتيادية الواقع.
البيئة الطبيعية وما تتعرض له من انتهاكات وتدهور
أسلوب جميل وغني بالوصف للشخصيات وعوالمها المختلفة"
الرابط بين الروايات هو الرغبة في الحفاظ على شيء جميل وأصيل
التحف الفنية, اللغة, الطبيعة بكل تنوعها وجمالها
ومع كل رواية تعرض معاني مختلفة, خيارات الانسان في المراحل الانتقالية والمهمة في حياته.
الشغف لتحقيق الأحلام الذي يقوى من فترة لأخرى في الحياة إلى أن يختفي في اعتيادية الواقع.
البيئة الطبيعية وما تتعرض له من انتهاكات وتدهور
أسلوب جميل وغني بالوصف للشخصيات وعوالمها المختلفة"
May 19, 2023
Indian writer Anita Desai included three novellas in this collection, set in some of the more remote areas of contemporary India. All three novellas are loosely connected by themes of artistic expression and loss.
"The Museum of Final Journeys" involves a decaying private art museum, and the government official who is asked to save it.
"Translator Translated" tells about a woman translating a work from a minor language into English. She does more than translate, rewriting the text to make the work more vibrant.
"The Artist of Disappearance" is about Ravi, a psychologically-damaged artist who uses found objects in nature. He lives in solitude in the Himalayan mountains. When a film crew comes to film environmental destruction, they stumble upon his hidden artistic garden.
All three main characters feel socially uncomfortable in their environment. The novellas involve the decay and destruction of India's cultural and environmental treasures. 3.5 stars.
"The Museum of Final Journeys" involves a decaying private art museum, and the government official who is asked to save it.
"Translator Translated" tells about a woman translating a work from a minor language into English. She does more than translate, rewriting the text to make the work more vibrant.
"The Artist of Disappearance" is about Ravi, a psychologically-damaged artist who uses found objects in nature. He lives in solitude in the Himalayan mountains. When a film crew comes to film environmental destruction, they stumble upon his hidden artistic garden.
All three main characters feel socially uncomfortable in their environment. The novellas involve the decay and destruction of India's cultural and environmental treasures. 3.5 stars.
October 21, 2021
Desai deftly evokes the recalcitrance of nostalgic reveries, the introspective tint of memories, and the transformative gaze of the artist that seeks patterns within nature and finds sublimity enmeshed in the recesses of ephemeral emotions.
November 22, 2011
Ever since discovering Anita Desai's novels in the late 1970s, I have been drawn to her gentle and elegant writing, her subtle humour, and her ways of bringing to life an India of the early post-colonial times, i.e. on the cusp of change into a modern society. Award winning author and three-time Booker Prize finalist, Anita Desai, was born and raised in India by her German mother and Indian father. Despite having lived outside India for decades now, she has maintained strong emotional ties to India, to her past experiences, and to memories of individuals who lived on the margins or outside society's mainstream, whether socially, culturally or linguistically. In her new book "The Artist of Disappearance" she returns to familiar themes in the more condensed format of three novellas. She reminds us of an Indian past where tradition and modernity can often stand in more or less stark contrast with each other and where change for an individual can entail a deep feeling of insecurity and apprehension of the unknown. She is a master of creating a sense of place for her stories and beautifully evokes the natural environments with poetry and lyrical language.
The novellas in this collection, while independent snapshots on three individuals at a specific, significant point in their lives, are, nonetheless, thematically connected at a deeper level. Not only is their setting primarily rural and remote from urban, modern centres, each protagonist is presented with an option for change - a window of opportunity - that would take him or her beyond their current station. For me, each novella connects to the next in a build-up, like pieces of music where intensity and crescendo grow until something new and different can emerge.
In the first novella, a junior bureaucrat, stationed in a remote district as part of his slow but steady climb up the civil service ladder, is pulled out of his doldrums by a visit the "Museum of Final Journeys". What he sees there, and what Desai conveys with exquisite visual descriptions, is a wide-ranging collection of precious artifacts from all over the world, collected by the once wealthy owners' son, that is, however, in danger of decay or being dismantled by theft. What can he do?
The second novella, likely the most personal, has as its theme the art of translation from a little-known (tribal) language. A teacher, Prema, who recalls her mother's language from her early childhood, dedicates herself to its study and eventually translates a local author's work for the wider Indian audiences. Success? Maybe not the way Prema anticipated and hoped for. What can she do? With great subtlety, Desai draws a multitude of lessons from this touching story.
The last and title story focuses on Ravi, now a recluse living in the ruins of his late parents' house. Since childhood he has developed a closer connection to nature and critters than to the people around him. Growing up alone, assisted only by the former servant family, he creates his own harmonious environment out of living and dead elements that nature offers him. It also opens a window of opportunity. Yet, when his "cave" is discovered, he is also in danger of being exposed… What will he do?
While I can connect in a very personal way with the second novella, easily imagining the parallels to experiences far beyond India, the last novella is for me still the most powerful and most exquisitely rendered story. Desai touches here on so many important aspects of growing up, of societal traditions and introducing the natural environment as a healing force that reach beyond the actual events depicted. It also brings back to mind Desai's beautiful early novels that attracted me to her writing in the first place, especially Fire on the Mountain (1977).
The novellas in this collection, while independent snapshots on three individuals at a specific, significant point in their lives, are, nonetheless, thematically connected at a deeper level. Not only is their setting primarily rural and remote from urban, modern centres, each protagonist is presented with an option for change - a window of opportunity - that would take him or her beyond their current station. For me, each novella connects to the next in a build-up, like pieces of music where intensity and crescendo grow until something new and different can emerge.
In the first novella, a junior bureaucrat, stationed in a remote district as part of his slow but steady climb up the civil service ladder, is pulled out of his doldrums by a visit the "Museum of Final Journeys". What he sees there, and what Desai conveys with exquisite visual descriptions, is a wide-ranging collection of precious artifacts from all over the world, collected by the once wealthy owners' son, that is, however, in danger of decay or being dismantled by theft. What can he do?
The second novella, likely the most personal, has as its theme the art of translation from a little-known (tribal) language. A teacher, Prema, who recalls her mother's language from her early childhood, dedicates herself to its study and eventually translates a local author's work for the wider Indian audiences. Success? Maybe not the way Prema anticipated and hoped for. What can she do? With great subtlety, Desai draws a multitude of lessons from this touching story.
The last and title story focuses on Ravi, now a recluse living in the ruins of his late parents' house. Since childhood he has developed a closer connection to nature and critters than to the people around him. Growing up alone, assisted only by the former servant family, he creates his own harmonious environment out of living and dead elements that nature offers him. It also opens a window of opportunity. Yet, when his "cave" is discovered, he is also in danger of being exposed… What will he do?
While I can connect in a very personal way with the second novella, easily imagining the parallels to experiences far beyond India, the last novella is for me still the most powerful and most exquisitely rendered story. Desai touches here on so many important aspects of growing up, of societal traditions and introducing the natural environment as a healing force that reach beyond the actual events depicted. It also brings back to mind Desai's beautiful early novels that attracted me to her writing in the first place, especially Fire on the Mountain (1977).
September 2, 2017
Anita Desai’s triptych of stories in ‘The Artist of Dissapearance’ depict of lives three different characters, an aged civil servant reminiscing about a youthful adventure, a spinsterish lecturer of English Literature and a recluse who haunts his family’s burned family home-all of these characters are linked by a common desire to rise above the mediocrity which has enveloped their lives. Whether it be Ravi’s ineffable artistic recreation of the Himalayas in his garden, Prema’s attempts at becoming an artist by her plagiarizing the translations of an obscure writer named Suvarna Devi, there is a Chekhovian pathos to Desai’s stories, a feeling of tenderness and empathy for the drudgery of her characters lives , yet Desai is able to draw beauty and bathos from the plaintive patheticness of their existence, to beautify it and to imbue their lives with a sense of meaning. ‘Translator, Translated’ is the strongest story of the three, a kind of Borgesian meta-fiction where the nondescript narrator blurs the line between translation and artistic creation in her attempts to ‘improve’ her translation of an obscure book in an obscure Indian dialogue, the story also explores the pervasiveness of the English language in post-colonial India and its power to delegitmize Indian culture and language, as well as the mania and egotism of artistic creation.
Desai has wonderful powers of evocation, from the whispers of bamboo leaves beneath the feet of an aged elephant, or the opalescent forest mists following a monsoon, there is a vibrancy to Desai’s prose, as the landscapes and prose;
“some ferns might have unfolded their tight knots of brown fur and transformed themselves into waving green fans; the family of pallid mushrooms of the day before might now be scattered and lie in fawn suede tinged with muave.”
A sense of mellifluousness pervades the stories, a pale, pathetic beauty emanates from the lives of the characters depicted, demonstrating Desai’s skills as a narrator and story-teller for the disenfranchised and ineffectual, a stark contrast with mainstream India’s obsession with the grand and the beautiful.
Desai has wonderful powers of evocation, from the whispers of bamboo leaves beneath the feet of an aged elephant, or the opalescent forest mists following a monsoon, there is a vibrancy to Desai’s prose, as the landscapes and prose;
“some ferns might have unfolded their tight knots of brown fur and transformed themselves into waving green fans; the family of pallid mushrooms of the day before might now be scattered and lie in fawn suede tinged with muave.”
A sense of mellifluousness pervades the stories, a pale, pathetic beauty emanates from the lives of the characters depicted, demonstrating Desai’s skills as a narrator and story-teller for the disenfranchised and ineffectual, a stark contrast with mainstream India’s obsession with the grand and the beautiful.
November 7, 2011
The three novellas that comprise Anita Desai’s newest collection all focus on the shutting of the windows of opportunity. In Anita Desai’s own words: “We are all in this together, this world of loss and defeat. All of us, every one of us, has had a moment when a window opened, when we caught a glimpse of the open, sunlit world beyond, but all of us, on this bus, have had that window close and remain closed.”
In the first, The Museum of Final Journeys, a minor civil servant is approached by an elderly curator and allowed a glimpse of a mysterious museum filled with priceless treasures, and beseeched to save it. Yet he cannot or more accurately, will not: he must forever live with the question: Could he have done more?
The middle novella focuses on a bland English teacher, Prema, who is given the opportunity to rise from her humdrum life and serve as the esteemed translator for an obscure literary author she has worshipped from afar. She must come to grips with the reality: “I had been writing under her influence, with her voice; it was not mine. In adopting hers, I had lost mine.”
Both the civil servant and the English teacher disappear back into their fates. In the last novella, the key character quite literally disappears: Ravi, the neglected adopted son of careless parents. For a brief period of time, he achieves his dream of withdrawing from the world and creating art out of nature’s materials, only to be “discovered” by a documentary TV crew. To maintain his anonymity, he must pull a sleight of hand and – for all intents and purposes – not exist.
Each of the three novellas is lusciously written, illustrating the futility of coming face-to-face with unexpected hopes and possibilities…only to have them dashed. These stories of disappointment do anything but disappoint.
In the first, The Museum of Final Journeys, a minor civil servant is approached by an elderly curator and allowed a glimpse of a mysterious museum filled with priceless treasures, and beseeched to save it. Yet he cannot or more accurately, will not: he must forever live with the question: Could he have done more?
The middle novella focuses on a bland English teacher, Prema, who is given the opportunity to rise from her humdrum life and serve as the esteemed translator for an obscure literary author she has worshipped from afar. She must come to grips with the reality: “I had been writing under her influence, with her voice; it was not mine. In adopting hers, I had lost mine.”
Both the civil servant and the English teacher disappear back into their fates. In the last novella, the key character quite literally disappears: Ravi, the neglected adopted son of careless parents. For a brief period of time, he achieves his dream of withdrawing from the world and creating art out of nature’s materials, only to be “discovered” by a documentary TV crew. To maintain his anonymity, he must pull a sleight of hand and – for all intents and purposes – not exist.
Each of the three novellas is lusciously written, illustrating the futility of coming face-to-face with unexpected hopes and possibilities…only to have them dashed. These stories of disappointment do anything but disappoint.
August 26, 2024
وينضم هذا الكتاب لأجمل كتب العام 2024
هي ثلاثة روايات قصيرة مترجمة عن الهندية وكانت تلك المرة الأولى التي أقرأ فيها كتاباً هندياً ويالها من تجربة جميلة لابد أن أقرأ المزيد من الكتب الهندية بعد الآن
يجمع الروايات الثلاث موضوع واحد هو: الفن والفنون بأنواعها .. ومرتبة تصاعدياً من الأقل جمالاً إلى الأكثر جمالاً
أزعجتني جداً مقدمة المترجم للكتاب التي كتب فيها ملخصاً عن كل قصة والتي قرأتُ منها ملخص الأولى فقط فوجدته كتب الأحداث من البداية إلى النهاية فحرق لي متعة الاكتشاف صفحة بعد صفحة ومتعة معرفة النهاية والمفاجأة بها
لذلك أنصح القارئ الجديد أن يتجاوز الملخص وينتقل إلى القصص فوراً
شكراً للمجلس الوطني الكويتي للثقافة والفنون على تقديم هذه التجربة الجميلة
هي ثلاثة روايات قصيرة مترجمة عن الهندية وكانت تلك المرة الأولى التي أقرأ فيها كتاباً هندياً ويالها من تجربة جميلة لابد أن أقرأ المزيد من الكتب الهندية بعد الآن
يجمع الروايات الثلاث موضوع واحد هو: الفن والفنون بأنواعها .. ومرتبة تصاعدياً من الأقل جمالاً إلى الأكثر جمالاً
أزعجتني جداً مقدمة المترجم للكتاب التي كتب فيها ملخصاً عن كل قصة والتي قرأتُ منها ملخص الأولى فقط فوجدته كتب الأحداث من البداية إلى النهاية فحرق لي متعة الاكتشاف صفحة بعد صفحة ومتعة معرفة النهاية والمفاجأة بها
لذلك أنصح القارئ الجديد أن يتجاوز الملخص وينتقل إلى القصص فوراً
شكراً للمجلس الوطني الكويتي للثقافة والفنون على تقديم هذه التجربة الجميلة
October 30, 2012
This is the first book I have read by Anita Desai, an author who has been on my to-read list and ashamedly unread for far too long. I am glad that I picked this book because it’s an interesting example of Desai’s masterful lyrical prose without the heaviness of philosophical musings. “The Artist of Disappearance” is a collection of three novellas linked by common threads of loss and solitude. Though the settings of place and era are unspecified, the book has a delicate aura of a young, post-colonial India when life was simpler, etiquette and hierarchy held supreme and trust was an easy thing to win.
The first story “The Museum of Final Journeys” is about a civil servant who on his very first posting is stationed in a remote district so far removed from his known existence that it makes him question his life choices. However, he gets a new mission in the shape of a chance to save the decaying “Museum of Final Journeys”, an oddball collection of exquisite relics and artefacts, acquired from all over the world by an elusive master. Out of the three novellas I find this one the most exotically written; the visual descriptions and unforgettable details are just breath-taking.
“And there was still more to see: cases that held all manner of writing materials with inks reduced to powder at the bottom of glass containers, pens and quills no one would ever use again, seals that no longer stamped; a chamber of clocks where no sand seeped through the hourglass, water had long since evaporated from the clepsydras, bells were stilled, cuckoos silenced, dancing figures paralysed. Time halted, waiting for a magician to start it again.”
The second story “Translator Translated” is about Prema, a mild-mannered, seemingly dull English teacher who rediscovers her passion for a little known Oriya author after she is commissioned to translate her work. Prema, who sees herself as a failure, finds her sense of purpose and turns her life around but things don’t turn out the way she wants them to. The question of success or failure is left to the reader to decide. This story is the closest to me since it involves victory and loss in a way that provides no epiphanies, no flashy revelation of some great truth or conclusions shoved down one’s throat. Desai highlights the subtleties of the human condition and the extent to which we go to hold onto our dreams. The only drawback is the way the POV randomly shifts from third-person to first-person and back again. It gets irritating after a while.
In the final and title story of the collection, Ravi an adopted child of negligent parents, creates an environment of complete solitude with just Nature being his life-long companion. His foggy peace is disrupted when his “ruins on the hill” are visited by a film crew who wish to expose the devastation of the natural beauty of the area. This story is such an elegant tapestry woven out of reflections and memories; bursting with details and metaphors. The connection between Nature and Ravi is one of the most convincing relationships I have read in a long time.
Desai’s prose is both restrained and erotic at the same time. She has mastered the art of telling the profoundest of stories with the simplest of words. In the three stories, each of the main characters finds within themselves a vast sea of melancholy which warms one’s heart instead of breaking it. The situations may not be life-threatening but it makes them rise above their mediocrity. There are no crystal clear resolutions and that makes the stories more compelling. The themes of isolation, loss and art are handled with grace and sensitivity and I find the insights fascinating without being overbearing. I am looking forward to reading more of her work.
The first story “The Museum of Final Journeys” is about a civil servant who on his very first posting is stationed in a remote district so far removed from his known existence that it makes him question his life choices. However, he gets a new mission in the shape of a chance to save the decaying “Museum of Final Journeys”, an oddball collection of exquisite relics and artefacts, acquired from all over the world by an elusive master. Out of the three novellas I find this one the most exotically written; the visual descriptions and unforgettable details are just breath-taking.
“And there was still more to see: cases that held all manner of writing materials with inks reduced to powder at the bottom of glass containers, pens and quills no one would ever use again, seals that no longer stamped; a chamber of clocks where no sand seeped through the hourglass, water had long since evaporated from the clepsydras, bells were stilled, cuckoos silenced, dancing figures paralysed. Time halted, waiting for a magician to start it again.”
The second story “Translator Translated” is about Prema, a mild-mannered, seemingly dull English teacher who rediscovers her passion for a little known Oriya author after she is commissioned to translate her work. Prema, who sees herself as a failure, finds her sense of purpose and turns her life around but things don’t turn out the way she wants them to. The question of success or failure is left to the reader to decide. This story is the closest to me since it involves victory and loss in a way that provides no epiphanies, no flashy revelation of some great truth or conclusions shoved down one’s throat. Desai highlights the subtleties of the human condition and the extent to which we go to hold onto our dreams. The only drawback is the way the POV randomly shifts from third-person to first-person and back again. It gets irritating after a while.
In the final and title story of the collection, Ravi an adopted child of negligent parents, creates an environment of complete solitude with just Nature being his life-long companion. His foggy peace is disrupted when his “ruins on the hill” are visited by a film crew who wish to expose the devastation of the natural beauty of the area. This story is such an elegant tapestry woven out of reflections and memories; bursting with details and metaphors. The connection between Nature and Ravi is one of the most convincing relationships I have read in a long time.
Desai’s prose is both restrained and erotic at the same time. She has mastered the art of telling the profoundest of stories with the simplest of words. In the three stories, each of the main characters finds within themselves a vast sea of melancholy which warms one’s heart instead of breaking it. The situations may not be life-threatening but it makes them rise above their mediocrity. There are no crystal clear resolutions and that makes the stories more compelling. The themes of isolation, loss and art are handled with grace and sensitivity and I find the insights fascinating without being overbearing. I am looking forward to reading more of her work.
September 1, 2017
This is a collection of three novellas, one of which I had already read in 2016 (did not re-read); The Museum of Final Journeys, Translator Translated and The Artist of Disappearance. I love Anita Desai's writing, and while each of the three novellas has something to recommend it, as a collection it didn't blow me away. But I liked it.
In The Museum of Final Journeys a junior civil servant is bored and disappointed in his remote posting, dealing with the property disputes of people who, in his opinion, have very little property worthy of fighting over. He is visited by a family retainer, who implores him to undertake the 35-mile journey to take a look at the family's decaying private museum. As they walk through the museum together, Desai describes the (former) riches so vividly and in such detail that I found it gloriously overwhelming. Behind the museum we discover the real reason that the family needs the government's help and the civil servant has the opportunity to redeem himself and his poor attitude towards his posting.
In Translator Translated, the translator character in this story learned Oriya/Odia as a tribute to her deceased mother, because it was literally her 'mother' tongue, and this led to the opportunity to take on the role of translating the work of an unknown author. Unknown because she writes in Oriya, a supposedly minor indigenous language. This prompted me to do some research on indigenous Indian languages. I was surprised to discover (from Wikipedia!) that Odia is spoken by more than 40 million people on the sub-continent. In hindsight it shouldn't be a surprise, considering the size of the population.
The final novella and the longest, The Artist of Disappearance is about a young man named Ravi who basically becomes a hermit in the foothills of the Himalayas. He spends his days creating a garden in the forest, which comes to the attention of a visiting documentary film-crew from Delhi. It was a strange place she had stumbled on, made entirely of nature, yet not by nature. Someone had made it. Or was making it. Some kind of artist perhaps. The crew is intent on finding the myterious artist, and Ravi is intent on disappearing. What I loved about this story was the monsoonal atmosphere that Desai evokes - thus the quotes saved below.
All in all it was worth spending a day or two on this, but I think for my next meeting with Mrs Desai, I'll opt for something a bit meatier.
In The Museum of Final Journeys a junior civil servant is bored and disappointed in his remote posting, dealing with the property disputes of people who, in his opinion, have very little property worthy of fighting over. He is visited by a family retainer, who implores him to undertake the 35-mile journey to take a look at the family's decaying private museum. As they walk through the museum together, Desai describes the (former) riches so vividly and in such detail that I found it gloriously overwhelming. Behind the museum we discover the real reason that the family needs the government's help and the civil servant has the opportunity to redeem himself and his poor attitude towards his posting.
In Translator Translated, the translator character in this story learned Oriya/Odia as a tribute to her deceased mother, because it was literally her 'mother' tongue, and this led to the opportunity to take on the role of translating the work of an unknown author. Unknown because she writes in Oriya, a supposedly minor indigenous language. This prompted me to do some research on indigenous Indian languages. I was surprised to discover (from Wikipedia!) that Odia is spoken by more than 40 million people on the sub-continent. In hindsight it shouldn't be a surprise, considering the size of the population.
The final novella and the longest, The Artist of Disappearance is about a young man named Ravi who basically becomes a hermit in the foothills of the Himalayas. He spends his days creating a garden in the forest, which comes to the attention of a visiting documentary film-crew from Delhi. It was a strange place she had stumbled on, made entirely of nature, yet not by nature. Someone had made it. Or was making it. Some kind of artist perhaps. The crew is intent on finding the myterious artist, and Ravi is intent on disappearing. What I loved about this story was the monsoonal atmosphere that Desai evokes - thus the quotes saved below.
All in all it was worth spending a day or two on this, but I think for my next meeting with Mrs Desai, I'll opt for something a bit meatier.
March 10, 2012
All three of these stories show the gulf between what life would be if it lived up to our idealistic expectations and what life really is. And life in the India portrayed in the three novellas is just not that great. The characters don't often make the brave choices they could make, or if they do, they backfire.
My favorite of the three was "Translator Translated," about the woman who translates the work of an Oriyan author into English and it doesn't go as she had hoped.
Still, I lacked much of a connection to these stories, and I'm not sure I can explain why. The translator one had what seemed like a random shift in voice, and it was disconnecting as a reader. The title story was arranged in a way that by the time I was getting the details of his burned down house, I didn't care much about it. I would have chopped 2/3 of it off and leave it as this quirky mystery.
My favorite of the three was "Translator Translated," about the woman who translates the work of an Oriyan author into English and it doesn't go as she had hoped.
Still, I lacked much of a connection to these stories, and I'm not sure I can explain why. The translator one had what seemed like a random shift in voice, and it was disconnecting as a reader. The title story was arranged in a way that by the time I was getting the details of his burned down house, I didn't care much about it. I would have chopped 2/3 of it off and leave it as this quirky mystery.
June 1, 2014
Years ago, I had read Anita Desai's Baumgartner's Bombay and enjoyed it immensely. Why I have waited some quarter of a century before taking on another of her works, I do not understand or condone. The Artist of Disappearance is the latest of her fictions in a long and illustrious career. It consists of three novellas entitled "The Museum of Final Journeys," "Translator Translated," and "The Artist of Disappearance."
In many ways, Desai reminds me of Joseph Conrad, whose background as a Pole and a Englishman (and a sea captain) enabled him to see well behind the self-imposed borders that otherwise hamper so many writers. Hers is a mixed German-Bengali background, which curiously gives her a unique insight into the strange Anglo-Indian world that, while dying out, still is redolent with repercussions on the Subcontinent.
The first story tells of a young Anglo-Indian administrator's visit to a rotting old museum at the importunate request of its curator, and how what he found there changed him forever.
"Translator Translated" is the ultimate Traduttore, traditore! tale in which a teacher who is a native speaker of the vanishing Oriya language (India has dozens of languages within its borders) talks a publisher friend into translating a book of short stories into English by a writer named Suvarna Devi. All goes well until the translator is embarked on translating Devi's new novel that she runs into seemingly insuperable difficulties.
"The Artist of Disappearance" is Ravi, the adopted son of a feckless couple who goes off elsewhere to die, leaving him nothing. Ravi becomes a child of the wild -- until a Delhi film crew comes to town to document the environmental degradation wrought by minors and timber-cutters. They come across Ravi's garden in the wild. But Ravi is, very deliberately, nowhere to be found. It's like the old rope trick.
I hope I will read some more Desai soon. She is deserving, and her writing is limpid and wise.
In many ways, Desai reminds me of Joseph Conrad, whose background as a Pole and a Englishman (and a sea captain) enabled him to see well behind the self-imposed borders that otherwise hamper so many writers. Hers is a mixed German-Bengali background, which curiously gives her a unique insight into the strange Anglo-Indian world that, while dying out, still is redolent with repercussions on the Subcontinent.
The first story tells of a young Anglo-Indian administrator's visit to a rotting old museum at the importunate request of its curator, and how what he found there changed him forever.
"Translator Translated" is the ultimate Traduttore, traditore! tale in which a teacher who is a native speaker of the vanishing Oriya language (India has dozens of languages within its borders) talks a publisher friend into translating a book of short stories into English by a writer named Suvarna Devi. All goes well until the translator is embarked on translating Devi's new novel that she runs into seemingly insuperable difficulties.
"The Artist of Disappearance" is Ravi, the adopted son of a feckless couple who goes off elsewhere to die, leaving him nothing. Ravi becomes a child of the wild -- until a Delhi film crew comes to town to document the environmental degradation wrought by minors and timber-cutters. They come across Ravi's garden in the wild. But Ravi is, very deliberately, nowhere to be found. It's like the old rope trick.
I hope I will read some more Desai soon. She is deserving, and her writing is limpid and wise.
December 18, 2011
A slim volume containing 3 novellas about preservation and change. What value does something have over time, and how much of it should be preserved for generations to come?
In 'The Museum of Final Journeys', a new officer of the British government is sent to a backwater town for training. He is approached by an old man from the countryside who seeks his assistance in preserving a house that has turned into a museum of beautiful, strange and exotic items. The house belonged to a woman who had long passed, and whose son had traveled the ends of the earth, sending items home to his mother in lieu of his visits. There is, however, one item that the old man holds dearest, but which requires high maintenance. The officer's actions following the visit to the museum haunts him in the years to come.
In 'The Translator Translated', a quiet, seemingly dull teacher with a hidden passion for Oriya, a little known language meets a publisher and is infused with a new lease in life when she's asked to translate her favorite author's first book into English. The new spark within her changes her and gives her a sense of purpose and for the first time, a sense of self-importance. When the author releases her second book, the teacher is disappointed with the work and takes it upon herself to provide a loose translation and to make changes to the text as she deemed fit without thought to the repercussions.
In 'The Artist of Disappearance', we're given the story of Ravi and how he came to be living in a burned ruin of a house. But the hermit starts building a garden, discovering and exhibiting beauty out of the devastation around him. The villagers protect his isolation until a film crew from Delhi accidentally discover his work and wish to interview him.
In the three stories, each main character recognizes something of beauty they wish to preserve, but the choices they make have wider implications than they realize. Very concise writing that subtly carries weighty subjects that would be fuel for an afternoon of discussion.
In 'The Museum of Final Journeys', a new officer of the British government is sent to a backwater town for training. He is approached by an old man from the countryside who seeks his assistance in preserving a house that has turned into a museum of beautiful, strange and exotic items. The house belonged to a woman who had long passed, and whose son had traveled the ends of the earth, sending items home to his mother in lieu of his visits. There is, however, one item that the old man holds dearest, but which requires high maintenance. The officer's actions following the visit to the museum haunts him in the years to come.
In 'The Translator Translated', a quiet, seemingly dull teacher with a hidden passion for Oriya, a little known language meets a publisher and is infused with a new lease in life when she's asked to translate her favorite author's first book into English. The new spark within her changes her and gives her a sense of purpose and for the first time, a sense of self-importance. When the author releases her second book, the teacher is disappointed with the work and takes it upon herself to provide a loose translation and to make changes to the text as she deemed fit without thought to the repercussions.
In 'The Artist of Disappearance', we're given the story of Ravi and how he came to be living in a burned ruin of a house. But the hermit starts building a garden, discovering and exhibiting beauty out of the devastation around him. The villagers protect his isolation until a film crew from Delhi accidentally discover his work and wish to interview him.
In the three stories, each main character recognizes something of beauty they wish to preserve, but the choices they make have wider implications than they realize. Very concise writing that subtly carries weighty subjects that would be fuel for an afternoon of discussion.
Read
May 16, 2016The three stunning novellas that apparently have different settings and characters, but inherently go with a singular theme, that is, the sense of alienness and the urge to hide away from the world, which make this book a memorable read. The first novella, namely, The Museum of Final Journeys shows how beauty hidden in mundane can transfix one's mind and urge him to runaway and fall hands of languid fate. In Translator Translated, we see a soul searching for meaning of her lifelong work and upon getting the chance, she crosses the thin line, which makes her lose herself in indifference of mundane and obscure fate.
The final one, i.e. The Artist of Disappearance is the most meaningful and ironical one and aptly chosen as the title to be imprinted on the whole collection. Here, how the artificiality of cruel cities is gnawing on the lively natural beauty is drawn, where the mock-saviors themselves eat away and the ruin the world they are meant to save. The artist of the nature, the nature itself find solace in mutely bearing its own destruction.
Anita Desai's impeccable sense of human emotions and her accurate depiction of the actions resulting from the same make this book a treasure to be savored again and again.
The final one, i.e. The Artist of Disappearance is the most meaningful and ironical one and aptly chosen as the title to be imprinted on the whole collection. Here, how the artificiality of cruel cities is gnawing on the lively natural beauty is drawn, where the mock-saviors themselves eat away and the ruin the world they are meant to save. The artist of the nature, the nature itself find solace in mutely bearing its own destruction.
Anita Desai's impeccable sense of human emotions and her accurate depiction of the actions resulting from the same make this book a treasure to be savored again and again.
March 17, 2017
For some reason unbeknownst to me, I had never read Desai before picking up The Artist of Disappearance. I have no idea at all as to why this is the case. I loved her writing style; it is at once reflective and intelligent. Whilst the plot of the first story in this three novella collection did not personally appeal to me, the second was fantastic, and I was swept away. Desai is deft and versatile, and here, she presents three societally fascinating novellas, which are well worth a read. Thought-provoking and varied, I am very much looking forward to my next Desai book.
October 22, 2014
Desai writes beautifully -- reading is effortless, meanings are personal and subtly piercing. The first and third novellas laid down calm and peaceful; the second one stirred me up.
We want art to last, leave an impression beyond ourselves. It is heartbreaking when we fail...
We want art to last, leave an impression beyond ourselves. It is heartbreaking when we fail...
September 16, 2021
ba nhân vật chính của ba truyện này cứ như kiểu ba nhân vật nền, đương lờ nhà lờ nhờ thì bị đẩy vào trung tâm, thình lình phải đối diện với những biến cố kịch tính quá sức và buộc phải đưa ra những hành động mang tính quyết định quá khả năng; khổ nỗi vì số phận đã định họ không sinh ra cho huy hoàng hay chói sáng dù chỉ một thoáng trên nhân gian nên khó trông mong ở ba cái truyện này chút gì thỏa mãn mà chỉ có thể ngồi đó, chẳng thể quay mặt đi, chứng kiến từ tốn và tỉ mỉ cái quá trình downfall của họ,
có lẽ cùng vì thế mà đọc thấm thía và ám ảnh :-ss
truyện thứ hai, Translator Translated thực sự painfully relatable :-ss
We are all in this together, this world of loss and defeat. All of us, every one of us, has had a moment when a window opened, when we caught a glimpse of the open, sunlit world beyond, but all of us, on this bus, have had that window close and remain closed.
có lẽ cùng vì thế mà đọc thấm thía và ám ảnh :-ss
truyện thứ hai, Translator Translated thực sự painfully relatable :-ss
December 8, 2023
Since I will probably be swapping this book soon, I thought I’d better write a review now because “The Artist of Disappearance” has almost disappeared from my memory!
There are three stories here and none is particularly spectacular but there is a difference in quality, in my opinion. In the first, a government official is accompanied, by someone he meets, to a decaying mansion in the jungle where he discovers a museum of hidden treasures, including a final startling one. This story did nothing much for me except that since I read it before bedtime, it guaranteed a good night’s sleep.
The next story was definitely better, about a woman who has become a translator of an Indian language which is of little interest to most editorials in India. Investigating, I found that there are popular authors in this language but maybe not translated into English. The translator finds a writer there whose book she falls in love with and decides to translate into English, with great success. After asking for and receiving other stories by the writer, she decides these are flat and uninteresting so she “spices” them up for publication. A commentary not only about the frequently thankless job of a translator but about the repercussions of translating from languages which are considered “national treasures.”
The last story, about a man living as a hermit in a burnt-out mansion, was probably the best. A documentary crew comes to film the area, which they find generally unexciting, and then finds out about him and decide to make a new film.
I can’t say I particularly recommend this collection. Although Anita Desai is an acclaimed writer (and her daughter, Kiran, even more acclaimed), I didn’t find anything here to inspire me. That doesn’t mean I won’t read more from her, just that I was a bit disappointed.
There are three stories here and none is particularly spectacular but there is a difference in quality, in my opinion. In the first, a government official is accompanied, by someone he meets, to a decaying mansion in the jungle where he discovers a museum of hidden treasures, including a final startling one. This story did nothing much for me except that since I read it before bedtime, it guaranteed a good night’s sleep.
The next story was definitely better, about a woman who has become a translator of an Indian language which is of little interest to most editorials in India. Investigating, I found that there are popular authors in this language but maybe not translated into English. The translator finds a writer there whose book she falls in love with and decides to translate into English, with great success. After asking for and receiving other stories by the writer, she decides these are flat and uninteresting so she “spices” them up for publication. A commentary not only about the frequently thankless job of a translator but about the repercussions of translating from languages which are considered “national treasures.”
The last story, about a man living as a hermit in a burnt-out mansion, was probably the best. A documentary crew comes to film the area, which they find generally unexciting, and then finds out about him and decide to make a new film.
I can’t say I particularly recommend this collection. Although Anita Desai is an acclaimed writer (and her daughter, Kiran, even more acclaimed), I didn’t find anything here to inspire me. That doesn’t mean I won’t read more from her, just that I was a bit disappointed.
December 27, 2011
The three novellas in Anita Desai’s, The Artist of Disappearance, revolve around the concept of art. While all are interesting and contain her usual lyrical writing, the strongest is the one that shares the book’s title. It stands on its own as a complete work, where the other two are made stronger by their connection to one another. One of the most compelling issues brought out by this book is the question of aesthetics. What makes something art and does it have to be accepted and seen or read by others to make it true art? Who determines what is and is not art? Desai also portrays an ever changing India. One who is losing its indigenous life and languages to a seemingly uncaring populace, ashamed of its history. Despite these, and other, insightful thoughts Desai brings to her readers, this novel as a whole falls short, in terms of impact. This is due to the lack in her first two stories. The short story, The Artist of Disappearance, is enough and does not need to be published with the others. It stands more powerfully on its own.
May 16, 2017
مجموعه سه داستان دلنشین : اولی درباره کارمندی که در دوره آموزشی موزه ای عجیب را در روستایی دور افتاده پیدا می کند،
داستان دوم که داستان موردعلاقه ام هم است درباره زنی معلم است که با پیشنهاد دوستش دست به ترجمه کتاب از یک نویسنده محلی به زبان انگلیسی می زند که با واکنشهای متفاوتی روبرو می شود.
داستان سوم هم درباره مردی منزوی است که با سنگ و چوب باغی متفاوت میسازد که مورد توجه گروهی فیلم ساز قرار می گیرد.
داستان دوم که داستان موردعلاقه ام هم است درباره زنی معلم است که با پیشنهاد دوستش دست به ترجمه کتاب از یک نویسنده محلی به زبان انگلیسی می زند که با واکنشهای متفاوتی روبرو می شود.
داستان سوم هم درباره مردی منزوی است که با سنگ و چوب باغی متفاوت میسازد که مورد توجه گروهی فیلم ساز قرار می گیرد.
August 6, 2019
A collection of three sad stories that will keep haunting you long after you have finished reading them. I have always found her stories dark and sad. The only reason i picked this one up was for its third story that is set in Mussoorie, my favourite hill station. Except for a page where she describes the forest i found the story un interesting with too many ideas all jumbled up.
October 26, 2025
Well written short stories...definitely a good read.
Reread. Beautiful writing!
Reread. Beautiful writing!
July 2, 2012
Good writing, except the endings always are powerfully deflating denouements, like excellent foreplay and build-up and then the sudden cessation of sexual activity b/c the other party loses interest completely in the act itself.
"Translator Translated"
How easy to see that these words worked, the others did not. I hurried on, hurried while that sense lasted of what was right, what was wrong, an instinct sometimes elusive which had to be courted and kept alert. Selecting, recognising, acknowledging. I was only the conduit, the medium between that language and this.... Translating Suvarna Devi's words and text into English were not so different, I thought, from what she herself must have felt when writing them in her own language, which was, after all, a kind of translation too -- from seeing and hearing and feeling into syntax. (p. 60)
"The Artist of Disappearance" (Ravi bears strong similarities to MEP)
Outdoors was freedom. Outdoors was the life to which he chose to belong -- the life of the crickets springing out of the grass, the birds wheeling hundreds of feet below in the valley or soaring upwards above the mountains, and the animals invisible in the undergrowth, giving themselves away by an occasional rustle or eruption of cries or flurried calls; plants following their own green compulsions and purposes, almost imperceptibly, and the rocks and stones, seemingly inert but mysteriously part of the constant change and movement of the earth. One had to be silent, aware, observe and perceive -- and this was Ravi's one talent as far as anyone could see.
Outdoors, Ravi had watched as a snake shed itself of its old skin, emerging into a slithering new length, leaving behind on the path a shroud, transparent as gauze, fragile as glass. Once he had come upon a tree with long, cream-coloured cylinders for flowers, attracting armies of ants coming to raid their fabled sweetness and sap, armies that would not be deflected by the intervention of a stick, a twig, and would persist till they reached the treasure, and drowned.
Outdoors, the spiders spun their webs in tall grass, a spinning you would not observe unless you became soundless, motionless, almost breathless and invisible, as when he had seen a praying mantis on a leaf exactly the same shade of green as itself, holding in its careful claws a round, striped bee buzzing even as it was devoured, which halted when its eyes swiveled towards him and became aware it was being watched.
And there was always the unexpected -- lifting a flat stone and finding underneath an unsuspected scorpion immediately aroused and prepared for attack, or coming across an eruption from the tobacco-dark leaf mould of a family of mushrooms with their ghostly pallor and caps, hats and bonnets, like refugees that had arrived in the night.
Or a troop of silver-haired, black-masked monkeys bounding through the trees to arrive with war whoops, or sporting like trapeze artists at a circus, then disappearing like actors from a stage that the forest had provided
And everywhere the stones -- flat blue splinters of slate, pebbles worn to an irresistible silkiness by the weather and that could be collected and arranged according to size and colour in an infinite number of patterns and designs, none of which were ever repeated or fixed. (p. 101-103)
The boulder presented a block to others but not to Ravi: he would slip around and let himself through the crease between it and the hillside, and so into the hollow below where only the merest trickle of water made its way from the lip of the cliff above, if the weather was not too dry. Then he had only to part the branches of the chestnut tree that drooped over the opening to the glade, curtain-like, and let them come together again to conceal him. The liquid flow of this path then entered into the hidden pool of the glade that no one else knew existed.
All signs of the outer world vanished: the distant halloos criss-crossing the terraced fields in the valleys below, the braking of a dog in the village on the other side of the stream, the grinding of the stones of the watermill. Only a bird sang, with piercing sweetness, till it noted Ravi's appearance, and took off.
He then prowled around like an animal returning to its shelter: some ferns might have unfolded their tight knots of brown fur and transformed themselves into waving green fans; the family of pallid mushrooms of the day before might now be scattered and lie in shreds of fawn suede tinged with mauve. The leaves of the chestnut could be studied for signs of turning and he would watch and wait for the precise shade of dark honey that he wanted before he collected the leaves and filled the clearing he was making around the strange conical stone at centre of the hollow. And the broken branch he had found on the way and dragged in with him, once dried and bleached to suggest a skeleton, could be added to the design. the berries he picked along the way could be worked into the creases of the rock so it might be seem inlaid with strands of gleaming gems or as if it had sprung veins of precious ore.
He considered enlarging the design by bringing enough pebbles, or perhaps some sand from the stream-bed below, to see how they could be arranged to suggest a pool in which the rock formed an island.
Spider-like, Ravi set to work spinning the web of his vision over the hidden glade. And each day it had to be done before night fell. (p. 126-127)
What she came upon was a kind of glade, so secluded it might have been undiscovered and untrodden by anyone. A wild place, half concealed from view by an enormous chestnut tree. It could have been the lair of a wild animal or perhaps even a secret hermitage.
Instead, as she peered past the overhanging branches of the tree, she saw something entirely different -- a place surely ordered by human design, human hands, not nature. Nature could not have created those circles within circles of perfectly identical stone rings of pigeon shades of grey and blue and mauve, or hoisted fallen branches into sculpted shapes, or filled the cracks in granite and slate with what seemed to be garlands of beads and petals. It looked like a bower -- but of bird, beast, or man? Any one of these was barely credible.
It seemed totally deserted, as composed an still as a work of art. Or nature. Or both, in uncommon harmony, The place thrummed with meaning. But what *was* the meaning? Was it a place of worship? But of what? There was no idol -- unless that rock, that pattern of pebbles or that stripped branch constituted an idol. It seemed antithetical to any form or concept. (p. 138-139)
Good, bad -- hardly the words that applied. He was not even sure this garden -- this design, whatever it was -- was man-made. How could anything man-made surpass the Himalayas themselves, the flow of the hills from the plains to the snows, mounting from light into cloud into sky? Or the eagles slowly circling on currents of air in the golden valleys below, or the sound of water gushing from invisible sources above?
What he saw here, however, contained these elements, the essence of them, in constricted, concentrated form, as one glittering bee or beetle or single note of birdsong might contain an entire season. (p. 144)
He had no way of making any connection with those in Bhola's family but he knew he did not want to: they in in way compensated for what he had lost -- his space, his enclosure, the pattern and design he had created, was creating within it. Would those barbarians in the city have stepped on it? Touched it, broken and wrecked it? Their gaze alone was a desecration. Then there were all the natural changes that were wrought daily and nightly by a passing breeze, a fall of leaves, a dwindling and dying of what had been fresh and new the day before, or else the eruption of the renewed and unexpected -- and he was not there to observe and mark and celebrate them. He knew he would never go there again. It would revert to wilderness. His longing to resume what was his real life was left smouldering inside him like a match blown at but not put out. Brooding, he sat studying his hands as if they were all that were left to him now that he had nothing to work on.
Then, after a glass of tea and some bread in Bhola's hut one morning, after everyone had gone their separate ways, he saw that Manju Rani had left an empty matchbox on the clay hearth. He picked it up and went outdoors with it in his hands. It was his way, to observe and study. Seating himself on the log in his corner, he slid the flimsy container open and studied its emptiness with his habitual concentration. It might have been a crib, a cradle -- but to hold what? Looking around for something small enough to fit in it, he found a sliver of bark and a scrap of moss but they left room for more. In the ground at his feet he spied a fragment of quartz that could be added. He slid the box shut and put it in the deep pocket of his shirt. All day long he reached to touch it, finding there a source of contentment and wonder at what other collections might be made.
He began to look out for empty matchboxes. Each offered a world of possibilities for the minute objects and the patterns he could make of them, patterns that he could alter endlessly as pieces of coloured glass can be shifted in a kaleidoscope. Lying open, they revealed themselves like constellations in the night. Shut in a box, they became invisible. And he could carry them on him, keep them to himself; no one would ever know. (p. 152-153)
"Translator Translated"
How easy to see that these words worked, the others did not. I hurried on, hurried while that sense lasted of what was right, what was wrong, an instinct sometimes elusive which had to be courted and kept alert. Selecting, recognising, acknowledging. I was only the conduit, the medium between that language and this.... Translating Suvarna Devi's words and text into English were not so different, I thought, from what she herself must have felt when writing them in her own language, which was, after all, a kind of translation too -- from seeing and hearing and feeling into syntax. (p. 60)
"The Artist of Disappearance" (Ravi bears strong similarities to MEP)
Outdoors was freedom. Outdoors was the life to which he chose to belong -- the life of the crickets springing out of the grass, the birds wheeling hundreds of feet below in the valley or soaring upwards above the mountains, and the animals invisible in the undergrowth, giving themselves away by an occasional rustle or eruption of cries or flurried calls; plants following their own green compulsions and purposes, almost imperceptibly, and the rocks and stones, seemingly inert but mysteriously part of the constant change and movement of the earth. One had to be silent, aware, observe and perceive -- and this was Ravi's one talent as far as anyone could see.
Outdoors, Ravi had watched as a snake shed itself of its old skin, emerging into a slithering new length, leaving behind on the path a shroud, transparent as gauze, fragile as glass. Once he had come upon a tree with long, cream-coloured cylinders for flowers, attracting armies of ants coming to raid their fabled sweetness and sap, armies that would not be deflected by the intervention of a stick, a twig, and would persist till they reached the treasure, and drowned.
Outdoors, the spiders spun their webs in tall grass, a spinning you would not observe unless you became soundless, motionless, almost breathless and invisible, as when he had seen a praying mantis on a leaf exactly the same shade of green as itself, holding in its careful claws a round, striped bee buzzing even as it was devoured, which halted when its eyes swiveled towards him and became aware it was being watched.
And there was always the unexpected -- lifting a flat stone and finding underneath an unsuspected scorpion immediately aroused and prepared for attack, or coming across an eruption from the tobacco-dark leaf mould of a family of mushrooms with their ghostly pallor and caps, hats and bonnets, like refugees that had arrived in the night.
Or a troop of silver-haired, black-masked monkeys bounding through the trees to arrive with war whoops, or sporting like trapeze artists at a circus, then disappearing like actors from a stage that the forest had provided
And everywhere the stones -- flat blue splinters of slate, pebbles worn to an irresistible silkiness by the weather and that could be collected and arranged according to size and colour in an infinite number of patterns and designs, none of which were ever repeated or fixed. (p. 101-103)
The boulder presented a block to others but not to Ravi: he would slip around and let himself through the crease between it and the hillside, and so into the hollow below where only the merest trickle of water made its way from the lip of the cliff above, if the weather was not too dry. Then he had only to part the branches of the chestnut tree that drooped over the opening to the glade, curtain-like, and let them come together again to conceal him. The liquid flow of this path then entered into the hidden pool of the glade that no one else knew existed.
All signs of the outer world vanished: the distant halloos criss-crossing the terraced fields in the valleys below, the braking of a dog in the village on the other side of the stream, the grinding of the stones of the watermill. Only a bird sang, with piercing sweetness, till it noted Ravi's appearance, and took off.
He then prowled around like an animal returning to its shelter: some ferns might have unfolded their tight knots of brown fur and transformed themselves into waving green fans; the family of pallid mushrooms of the day before might now be scattered and lie in shreds of fawn suede tinged with mauve. The leaves of the chestnut could be studied for signs of turning and he would watch and wait for the precise shade of dark honey that he wanted before he collected the leaves and filled the clearing he was making around the strange conical stone at centre of the hollow. And the broken branch he had found on the way and dragged in with him, once dried and bleached to suggest a skeleton, could be added to the design. the berries he picked along the way could be worked into the creases of the rock so it might be seem inlaid with strands of gleaming gems or as if it had sprung veins of precious ore.
He considered enlarging the design by bringing enough pebbles, or perhaps some sand from the stream-bed below, to see how they could be arranged to suggest a pool in which the rock formed an island.
Spider-like, Ravi set to work spinning the web of his vision over the hidden glade. And each day it had to be done before night fell. (p. 126-127)
What she came upon was a kind of glade, so secluded it might have been undiscovered and untrodden by anyone. A wild place, half concealed from view by an enormous chestnut tree. It could have been the lair of a wild animal or perhaps even a secret hermitage.
Instead, as she peered past the overhanging branches of the tree, she saw something entirely different -- a place surely ordered by human design, human hands, not nature. Nature could not have created those circles within circles of perfectly identical stone rings of pigeon shades of grey and blue and mauve, or hoisted fallen branches into sculpted shapes, or filled the cracks in granite and slate with what seemed to be garlands of beads and petals. It looked like a bower -- but of bird, beast, or man? Any one of these was barely credible.
It seemed totally deserted, as composed an still as a work of art. Or nature. Or both, in uncommon harmony, The place thrummed with meaning. But what *was* the meaning? Was it a place of worship? But of what? There was no idol -- unless that rock, that pattern of pebbles or that stripped branch constituted an idol. It seemed antithetical to any form or concept. (p. 138-139)
Good, bad -- hardly the words that applied. He was not even sure this garden -- this design, whatever it was -- was man-made. How could anything man-made surpass the Himalayas themselves, the flow of the hills from the plains to the snows, mounting from light into cloud into sky? Or the eagles slowly circling on currents of air in the golden valleys below, or the sound of water gushing from invisible sources above?
What he saw here, however, contained these elements, the essence of them, in constricted, concentrated form, as one glittering bee or beetle or single note of birdsong might contain an entire season. (p. 144)
He had no way of making any connection with those in Bhola's family but he knew he did not want to: they in in way compensated for what he had lost -- his space, his enclosure, the pattern and design he had created, was creating within it. Would those barbarians in the city have stepped on it? Touched it, broken and wrecked it? Their gaze alone was a desecration. Then there were all the natural changes that were wrought daily and nightly by a passing breeze, a fall of leaves, a dwindling and dying of what had been fresh and new the day before, or else the eruption of the renewed and unexpected -- and he was not there to observe and mark and celebrate them. He knew he would never go there again. It would revert to wilderness. His longing to resume what was his real life was left smouldering inside him like a match blown at but not put out. Brooding, he sat studying his hands as if they were all that were left to him now that he had nothing to work on.
Then, after a glass of tea and some bread in Bhola's hut one morning, after everyone had gone their separate ways, he saw that Manju Rani had left an empty matchbox on the clay hearth. He picked it up and went outdoors with it in his hands. It was his way, to observe and study. Seating himself on the log in his corner, he slid the flimsy container open and studied its emptiness with his habitual concentration. It might have been a crib, a cradle -- but to hold what? Looking around for something small enough to fit in it, he found a sliver of bark and a scrap of moss but they left room for more. In the ground at his feet he spied a fragment of quartz that could be added. He slid the box shut and put it in the deep pocket of his shirt. All day long he reached to touch it, finding there a source of contentment and wonder at what other collections might be made.
He began to look out for empty matchboxes. Each offered a world of possibilities for the minute objects and the patterns he could make of them, patterns that he could alter endlessly as pieces of coloured glass can be shifted in a kaleidoscope. Lying open, they revealed themselves like constellations in the night. Shut in a box, they became invisible. And he could carry them on him, keep them to himself; no one would ever know. (p. 152-153)
July 12, 2021
Un trittico di racconti ambientati nell'India contemporanea, che risente profondamente del suo passato coloniale.
Nel primo, Il museo dei viaggi ultimi (***), un giovane funzionario distrettuale (il narratore, che adesso è diventato anziano) viene mandato nel suo anno di tirocinio in un distretto sonnolento in cui si annoia profondamente e ha scarsissima compagnia. Quindi, quando il custode di un museo di oggetti peculiari, gli richiede il suo aiuto per intercedere presso il governo, essendo l'anziana proprietaria ormai defunta e il figlio disperso per il mondo, accoglie la sua preghiera di visitare il museo, ma si sente quasi impotente, incapace di trovare una soluzione per aiutare l'uomo. E, diventato vecchio, si sente ancora in imbarazzo per quel suo primo fallimento.
Nel secondo, il mio preferito, Tradurre, tradursi (*****), la protagnista è Prema, una donna che si è sempre sentita invisibile; per esempio, ha subito il fascino della sua compagna di scuola Tara, che adesso dirige una casa editrice. Quindi, quando in una riunione di vecchie allieve della scuola scopre che Tara vuole pubblicare autori indiani che scrivono in una delle ventuno lingue indiane trascurate dall'editoria a favore della lingua dei dominatori inglesi, le propone i racconti di Suvarna Deva, su cui ha basato la propria tesi di laurea, scritti in lingua oriya, la lingua di sua madre.
Tara le chiede dunque di tradurre i racconti, facendola diventare la talent scout oltre che la traduttrice di Suvarna Deva. Ma quando, dopo un discreto successo dei racconti, Suvarna Deva decide di scrivere un romanzo, Prema lo trova molto al di sotto del livello dei racconti, sia come trama che come ricchezza della lingua. Che fare? Dire a Tara che il romanzo non è all'altezza dei racconti, forse addirittura non pubblicabile, o fare un editing arbitrario - senza consultare l'autrice - nel corso della traduzione, diventando l'effettiva co-autrice del romanzo? Ecco che viene sollevato un problema scottante quando si parla di traduzione letteraria in tutte le lingue, quando si deve decidere se prediligere una traduzione più libera o una più letterale ma più arida. Certo, Prema si prende troppe libertà, tagliando arbitrariamente parti del romanzo e a volte, addirittura, aggiungendo parti sue. Il problema è che si è sentita tradita dall'autrice che le ha permesso di uscire dall'anonimato agli occhi del mondo (e soprattutto di Tara) e non vuole tradire la sua amica, che si aspetta di nuovo un buon libro da parte di Survana Deva, ma, di fatto, è lei a tradire la sua protetta.
Nel terzo racconto, che dà il nome alla raccolta, L'artista della sparizione (***), il protagonista, Ravi, ha imparato a mimetizzarsi perché ama vivere nella natura che circonda la sua casa sulle pendici dell'Himalaya. Addirittura per i ricchi genitori stessi che l'hanno adottato, lui è un'appendice del paesaggio. Durante l'inverno lo mandano a studiare. D'estate lo lasciano in casa per frequentare luoghi mondani dove si dimenticano della sua stessa esistenza. Quando, dopo la morte dei genitori, la casa è rasa al suolo in un incendio, Ravi prende a vivere sulle pendici della collina come un eremita e si crea un paesaggio a sua misura, un paesaggio dove riesce perfettamente nella sua arte di mimetizzarsi. Tanto che quando arriva una troupe televisiva per riprendere ciò che ha creato, lui riesce a scomparire lasciando ai documentaristi solo delle immagini finte e inutilizzabili.
Nel primo, Il museo dei viaggi ultimi (***), un giovane funzionario distrettuale (il narratore, che adesso è diventato anziano) viene mandato nel suo anno di tirocinio in un distretto sonnolento in cui si annoia profondamente e ha scarsissima compagnia. Quindi, quando il custode di un museo di oggetti peculiari, gli richiede il suo aiuto per intercedere presso il governo, essendo l'anziana proprietaria ormai defunta e il figlio disperso per il mondo, accoglie la sua preghiera di visitare il museo, ma si sente quasi impotente, incapace di trovare una soluzione per aiutare l'uomo. E, diventato vecchio, si sente ancora in imbarazzo per quel suo primo fallimento.
Nel secondo, il mio preferito, Tradurre, tradursi (*****), la protagnista è Prema, una donna che si è sempre sentita invisibile; per esempio, ha subito il fascino della sua compagna di scuola Tara, che adesso dirige una casa editrice. Quindi, quando in una riunione di vecchie allieve della scuola scopre che Tara vuole pubblicare autori indiani che scrivono in una delle ventuno lingue indiane trascurate dall'editoria a favore della lingua dei dominatori inglesi, le propone i racconti di Suvarna Deva, su cui ha basato la propria tesi di laurea, scritti in lingua oriya, la lingua di sua madre.
Tara le chiede dunque di tradurre i racconti, facendola diventare la talent scout oltre che la traduttrice di Suvarna Deva. Ma quando, dopo un discreto successo dei racconti, Suvarna Deva decide di scrivere un romanzo, Prema lo trova molto al di sotto del livello dei racconti, sia come trama che come ricchezza della lingua. Che fare? Dire a Tara che il romanzo non è all'altezza dei racconti, forse addirittura non pubblicabile, o fare un editing arbitrario - senza consultare l'autrice - nel corso della traduzione, diventando l'effettiva co-autrice del romanzo? Ecco che viene sollevato un problema scottante quando si parla di traduzione letteraria in tutte le lingue, quando si deve decidere se prediligere una traduzione più libera o una più letterale ma più arida. Certo, Prema si prende troppe libertà, tagliando arbitrariamente parti del romanzo e a volte, addirittura, aggiungendo parti sue. Il problema è che si è sentita tradita dall'autrice che le ha permesso di uscire dall'anonimato agli occhi del mondo (e soprattutto di Tara) e non vuole tradire la sua amica, che si aspetta di nuovo un buon libro da parte di Survana Deva, ma, di fatto, è lei a tradire la sua protetta.
Nel terzo racconto, che dà il nome alla raccolta, L'artista della sparizione (***), il protagonista, Ravi, ha imparato a mimetizzarsi perché ama vivere nella natura che circonda la sua casa sulle pendici dell'Himalaya. Addirittura per i ricchi genitori stessi che l'hanno adottato, lui è un'appendice del paesaggio. Durante l'inverno lo mandano a studiare. D'estate lo lasciano in casa per frequentare luoghi mondani dove si dimenticano della sua stessa esistenza. Quando, dopo la morte dei genitori, la casa è rasa al suolo in un incendio, Ravi prende a vivere sulle pendici della collina come un eremita e si crea un paesaggio a sua misura, un paesaggio dove riesce perfettamente nella sua arte di mimetizzarsi. Tanto che quando arriva una troupe televisiva per riprendere ciò che ha creato, lui riesce a scomparire lasciando ai documentaristi solo delle immagini finte e inutilizzabili.
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July 20, 2023"I det fria vävde spindlarna nät i det höga gräset, ett vävande som man bara fick se om man var ljudlös, blickstilla, nästan andlös och osynlig, som när han sett en bönsyrsa på ett löv i exakt samma gröna nyans som den själv, som i sina försiktiga klor höll ett runt, randigt bi, fortfarande surrande fastän det höll på att uppslukas, och som stannade upp och vred ögonen i hans riktning när den märkte att den var iakttagen"
Ur novellen Försvinnandekonstnären
Ur novellen Försvinnandekonstnären
June 19, 2025
3.5/5
I loved the writing style, and the second story "Translator Translated". The other two were fine, but I guess this is a good short and casual read, to wile away a summer afternoon.
I loved the writing style, and the second story "Translator Translated". The other two were fine, but I guess this is a good short and casual read, to wile away a summer afternoon.
December 23, 2012
By Anita Desai. Grade B
When I got The Artist of Disappearance, I was on cloud nine. I hadn’t read anything written by her until I encountered an excerpt from some of her book in my Functional English Textbook.
I was so moved. I wanted to read more of her, and thus, The Artist of Disappearance.
In this trio of exquisitely crafted novellas, experience the soaring brilliance and delicate restraint of one of India’s great writers.
In the opening novella, The Museum of Final Journeys, a junior Civil Service officer is assigned to a remote outpost. Bored with his new surroundings, he welcomes the diversion when he is called upon by an old retainer to help preserve the decaying treasures of one family’s private museum. Tantalizing and nostalgic, this is an allegory of time and dissolution, and of how the past erodes beauty and the present.
In the second novella, Translator Translated, a prematurely aged lecturer at a girls college chances upon the opportunity of a lifetime when a self-absorbed publisher commissions her to translate to English a collection of short stories of an obscure Oriya author. The assignment transforms her humdrum life, but when the authors family complains about a translation with which she has taken artistic licence her life unravels.
Finally, in the title novella, set in Mussoorie, the reclusive son of wealthy, neglectful parents has a solipsistic existence in the remains of a burnt house high on a mountain. The arrival of a venal film crew from Delhi, making a film about environmental degradation, compels him to withdraw even further into seclusion.Intense, haunting and evocative, The Artist of Disappearance is a delightful rumination on solitude and human frailties.
The Artist of Disappearance
The Artist of Disappearance is a collection of three novellas by the celebrated author of India, Anita Desai, who has been a nominee of the Man Booker Prize twice. Though, she was beaten by her daughter Kiran Desai in the run (Kiran won the Booker Prize for her book The Inheritance of Loss).
Anita Desai claims that she’s too old to write yet another novel, so she chose to write a set of three novellas in this one.
The first piece, The Museum of Final Journeys is about a newly appointed Civil Servant who is posted to a rural area. Having spent all his life in the Urban India, the man is quite frustrated with the slow pace and technology-sans life in the village he is posted. The lack of company makes the Civil Servant edgy with time. When he is asked by an old man to save a dying museum, it’s just the challenge he was looking for.
The second, Translator Translated is about a dull English Lecturer, Prema, who is made to generate translations of the works of Suvarna Devi, an Oriya writer. She becomes so caught up in her project that she crosses the invisible boundary separating creator and translator.
The third novella, on which the collection of the novellas is named, is The Artist of Disappearance. Ravi lives in a ramshackled house on top of a hill. He has been living there as a hermit since his parents forsook him, until a group of documentarians invade his life.
This book was everything I didn’t expect it to be. There is no doubt about it that Anita Desai is one of the best novelists we’ve ever had in our country, but I didn’t like the way the novellas tread along.
The novellas, all three of them, were miserably bereft of any emotion. For me, a book is all about emotions it induces in you. If I fail to get any, even if the book is written by William Shakespeare, I would not think of it being worthy of the money I spend on it, let alone the time that goes away. Even if it is seemingly a small book, it is very, very heavy to read. Difficult, and a little dry, I would say.
There is also no plot. I know that her books are mostly character-driven, I still couldn’t take many deeper meanings away from the text, apart from those of missed opportunities, isolation, art and artifice.
I give it a rating of B only because the figures of speech used in the book are absolutely great. The imagery and visuals are breathtaking. And there has to be no surprise about it as the writer herself is one of the great ones of her times, The Grandma of Indian Literature, as she is called.
Originally reviewed at http://vaultofbooks.com/
When I got The Artist of Disappearance, I was on cloud nine. I hadn’t read anything written by her until I encountered an excerpt from some of her book in my Functional English Textbook.
I was so moved. I wanted to read more of her, and thus, The Artist of Disappearance.
In this trio of exquisitely crafted novellas, experience the soaring brilliance and delicate restraint of one of India’s great writers.
In the opening novella, The Museum of Final Journeys, a junior Civil Service officer is assigned to a remote outpost. Bored with his new surroundings, he welcomes the diversion when he is called upon by an old retainer to help preserve the decaying treasures of one family’s private museum. Tantalizing and nostalgic, this is an allegory of time and dissolution, and of how the past erodes beauty and the present.
In the second novella, Translator Translated, a prematurely aged lecturer at a girls college chances upon the opportunity of a lifetime when a self-absorbed publisher commissions her to translate to English a collection of short stories of an obscure Oriya author. The assignment transforms her humdrum life, but when the authors family complains about a translation with which she has taken artistic licence her life unravels.
Finally, in the title novella, set in Mussoorie, the reclusive son of wealthy, neglectful parents has a solipsistic existence in the remains of a burnt house high on a mountain. The arrival of a venal film crew from Delhi, making a film about environmental degradation, compels him to withdraw even further into seclusion.Intense, haunting and evocative, The Artist of Disappearance is a delightful rumination on solitude and human frailties.
The Artist of Disappearance
The Artist of Disappearance is a collection of three novellas by the celebrated author of India, Anita Desai, who has been a nominee of the Man Booker Prize twice. Though, she was beaten by her daughter Kiran Desai in the run (Kiran won the Booker Prize for her book The Inheritance of Loss).
Anita Desai claims that she’s too old to write yet another novel, so she chose to write a set of three novellas in this one.
The first piece, The Museum of Final Journeys is about a newly appointed Civil Servant who is posted to a rural area. Having spent all his life in the Urban India, the man is quite frustrated with the slow pace and technology-sans life in the village he is posted. The lack of company makes the Civil Servant edgy with time. When he is asked by an old man to save a dying museum, it’s just the challenge he was looking for.
The second, Translator Translated is about a dull English Lecturer, Prema, who is made to generate translations of the works of Suvarna Devi, an Oriya writer. She becomes so caught up in her project that she crosses the invisible boundary separating creator and translator.
The third novella, on which the collection of the novellas is named, is The Artist of Disappearance. Ravi lives in a ramshackled house on top of a hill. He has been living there as a hermit since his parents forsook him, until a group of documentarians invade his life.
This book was everything I didn’t expect it to be. There is no doubt about it that Anita Desai is one of the best novelists we’ve ever had in our country, but I didn’t like the way the novellas tread along.
The novellas, all three of them, were miserably bereft of any emotion. For me, a book is all about emotions it induces in you. If I fail to get any, even if the book is written by William Shakespeare, I would not think of it being worthy of the money I spend on it, let alone the time that goes away. Even if it is seemingly a small book, it is very, very heavy to read. Difficult, and a little dry, I would say.
There is also no plot. I know that her books are mostly character-driven, I still couldn’t take many deeper meanings away from the text, apart from those of missed opportunities, isolation, art and artifice.
I give it a rating of B only because the figures of speech used in the book are absolutely great. The imagery and visuals are breathtaking. And there has to be no surprise about it as the writer herself is one of the great ones of her times, The Grandma of Indian Literature, as she is called.
Originally reviewed at http://vaultofbooks.com/
April 29, 2016
Three novellas -- two of them really longish novelettes -- told in a simple, fluent, quite poignant style.
"The Museum of Final Journeys" is a riff on the White Elephant legend, although the tale is much more than that, as the narrator is led to a remote mansion full of treasures that have no value because no one ever comes to see them; the gifts sent from abroad by a prodigal son who never came home, they've become an increasing burden on the sole remaining family servant, loyal to a family that no longer exists.
"Translator Translated" is the best of the tales. An anonymous schoolmarm, Prema, is given the chance to translate into English from an obscure regional language the book that she feels most magically embodies the culture of her childhood. When the author is coaxed into producing a new novel, Prema discovers that all the magic of the former book is missing, and so takes it upon herself to "improve" the text as she translates it. One of the things that I especially liked about the story is that it's left open to us to guess whether Prema did indeed do the author a favor, or if she committed a travesty. I suspect the former.
"The Artist of Disappearance," the longest piece, reads less like a single story than like two segments of an unfinished novel. One part is the story of Ravi, the adopted son of a wealthy family who now lives an eremitic existence in the sole habitable room of the burnt-down family mansion. The other concerns a TV-documentary crew who're visiting that part of the country to shoot scenes of environmental devastation but instead come across the superb rock garden (not garden of rock plants) that Ravi has been creating in the wilderness all these years. Since the characters of one segment barely if at all interact with the characters of the other, I think I'd have been happier with this as two shorter stories. Even so, the writing -- which is not impeccable but has a sort of placid flow that's very agreeable -- carries the piece.
This book has been my introduction to Desai's work, and despite some reservations I can certainly see its attractions. I'll be keeping an eye out for her novels.
"The Museum of Final Journeys" is a riff on the White Elephant legend, although the tale is much more than that, as the narrator is led to a remote mansion full of treasures that have no value because no one ever comes to see them; the gifts sent from abroad by a prodigal son who never came home, they've become an increasing burden on the sole remaining family servant, loyal to a family that no longer exists.
"Translator Translated" is the best of the tales. An anonymous schoolmarm, Prema, is given the chance to translate into English from an obscure regional language the book that she feels most magically embodies the culture of her childhood. When the author is coaxed into producing a new novel, Prema discovers that all the magic of the former book is missing, and so takes it upon herself to "improve" the text as she translates it. One of the things that I especially liked about the story is that it's left open to us to guess whether Prema did indeed do the author a favor, or if she committed a travesty. I suspect the former.
"The Artist of Disappearance," the longest piece, reads less like a single story than like two segments of an unfinished novel. One part is the story of Ravi, the adopted son of a wealthy family who now lives an eremitic existence in the sole habitable room of the burnt-down family mansion. The other concerns a TV-documentary crew who're visiting that part of the country to shoot scenes of environmental devastation but instead come across the superb rock garden (not garden of rock plants) that Ravi has been creating in the wilderness all these years. Since the characters of one segment barely if at all interact with the characters of the other, I think I'd have been happier with this as two shorter stories. Even so, the writing -- which is not impeccable but has a sort of placid flow that's very agreeable -- carries the piece.
This book has been my introduction to Desai's work, and despite some reservations I can certainly see its attractions. I'll be keeping an eye out for her novels.
December 3, 2011
In just a few days this book will hit the stores and I hope that many of you will go out and buy it because it is, in a word, wonderful. The rich and elegant writing transports you into the characters' worlds and makes you feel like you're right there with them, living their lives, feeling their pain, their joy, their turmoil and their bliss. It did that for me anyway. The relatively short novellas surprised me by how much substance there was in their pages, how I had to take a break between each one to reflect upon the characters, the time and place, the circumstances. This reflection wasn't a matter of choice, I really had to do it, let everything sink in, work its way through me, and that made the experience all the more fulfilling because it's not often that I find books that pack that kind of punch.
All three novellas are powerful in their own way but the third one, the one that lends its title to the collection, is my favorite because it is the most multi-faceted and most positive of the three. While Ravi is a textbook recluse his joy from creating and his lack of desire to have anyone else's approval were in such refreshing contrast to the mode of thinking which almost dictates that if one spends their time doing something the activity must be financially gainful or at least bring some sort of renown. My favorite thing about Ravi though wasn't that he was a person who created simply to create, but that he was a person who didn't become discouraged by setbacks, he just changed direction and proceeded on a different path. I think that's an excellent message since we all can become discouraged if things don't go exactly the way we plan.
There really wasn't anything that I didn't like about this book, it was deeply satisfying and made me curious to read Anita Desai's other works. I highly recommend it to anyone.
All three novellas are powerful in their own way but the third one, the one that lends its title to the collection, is my favorite because it is the most multi-faceted and most positive of the three. While Ravi is a textbook recluse his joy from creating and his lack of desire to have anyone else's approval were in such refreshing contrast to the mode of thinking which almost dictates that if one spends their time doing something the activity must be financially gainful or at least bring some sort of renown. My favorite thing about Ravi though wasn't that he was a person who created simply to create, but that he was a person who didn't become discouraged by setbacks, he just changed direction and proceeded on a different path. I think that's an excellent message since we all can become discouraged if things don't go exactly the way we plan.
There really wasn't anything that I didn't like about this book, it was deeply satisfying and made me curious to read Anita Desai's other works. I highly recommend it to anyone.
June 30, 2014
ده واحد من الكتب القليلة أوي اللي حتى لو مش عجبك لازم هتعترف بمقدرة الكاتب
الكتاب عندي ياخد ثلاث نجمات والكاتبة فوق خمس نجمات والمحصلة أربعة :D
دي تاني حد هندي أقرأ له ، وتقريبًا في نظام هندي متبع إنهم بيوصفوا تفاصيل تفاصيل التفاصيل والله أعلم
الكتابة متمرسة جدًا في النهايات ، ومش النهاية المفاجأة أو الصدمة ، إنما النهاية الفنية الهادية ومش الرخمة ولا المستفسزة ، تقدر توهمك بحاجة والنهاية حاجة تانية خالص ومش تخليك تحس إنها خدعتك ولا نقلتك بسرعة , مش أي حد بردوا يكتب نهاية ي قوم
الكتاب عبارة عن ثلاث روايات مش ممكن تحدد ايه هو الواقعي والخيالي فيهم لأنك من جواك مش عايز تفرق عايز الروايات دي تستنى كدا حاجة بين الواقع والخيال
الرواية الأولى (متحف الرحلات الأخيرة) كانت سريعة رغم الوصف الطويل جدًا ، مسار التطور بتاعها يمكن يكون متوقع ، النهاية جميلة جدًا في اللغة والشعور بتاعها ما عدًا آخر تلات سطور
الرواية التانية (المُترجِمة مترجَمَة)حكت القصة بسلاسة عجيبة ، ووضحت قضية الترجمة من غير ما تدفعك إلي إنك تاخد موقف معين بما يعني منتهى الحرفية الفنية ، النهاية عبقرية
الرواية التالتة(فنان الإختفاء)البطل له قدرة رهيبة على الاختفاء وهو فعلًا كان مختفي داخل الرواية بتلك القدرة العجيبة ، اللحظات اللي كان بيظهر فيها في الرواية مباشرة هتحس إن الصفحات والكلمات بتحاصره وإنك نفسك تتحرك وتنقذه وتخليه يختفي تاني بدافع ذاتي منك ،النهاية عبقرية بردوا
المعنى الحقيقي لاحتراف الكتابة الإبداعية <3
جبيتها أوي الست أنيتا <3
الكتاب عندي ياخد ثلاث نجمات والكاتبة فوق خمس نجمات والمحصلة أربعة :D
دي تاني حد هندي أقرأ له ، وتقريبًا في نظام هندي متبع إنهم بيوصفوا تفاصيل تفاصيل التفاصيل والله أعلم
الكتابة متمرسة جدًا في النهايات ، ومش النهاية المفاجأة أو الصدمة ، إنما النهاية الفنية الهادية ومش الرخمة ولا المستفسزة ، تقدر توهمك بحاجة والنهاية حاجة تانية خالص ومش تخليك تحس إنها خدعتك ولا نقلتك بسرعة , مش أي حد بردوا يكتب نهاية ي قوم
الكتاب عبارة عن ثلاث روايات مش ممكن تحدد ايه هو الواقعي والخيالي فيهم لأنك من جواك مش عايز تفرق عايز الروايات دي تستنى كدا حاجة بين الواقع والخيال
الرواية الأولى (متحف الرحلات الأخيرة) كانت سريعة رغم الوصف الطويل جدًا ، مسار التطور بتاعها يمكن يكون متوقع ، النهاية جميلة جدًا في اللغة والشعور بتاعها ما عدًا آخر تلات سطور
الرواية التانية (المُترجِمة مترجَمَة)حكت القصة بسلاسة عجيبة ، ووضحت قضية الترجمة من غير ما تدفعك إلي إنك تاخد موقف معين بما يعني منتهى الحرفية الفنية ، النهاية عبقرية
الرواية التالتة(فنان الإختفاء)البطل له قدرة رهيبة على الاختفاء وهو فعلًا كان مختفي داخل الرواية بتلك القدرة العجيبة ، اللحظات اللي كان بيظهر فيها في الرواية مباشرة هتحس إن الصفحات والكلمات بتحاصره وإنك نفسك تتحرك وتنقذه وتخليه يختفي تاني بدافع ذاتي منك ،النهاية عبقرية بردوا
المعنى الحقيقي لاحتراف الكتابة الإبداعية <3
جبيتها أوي الست أنيتا <3
October 12, 2012
These three captivating novellas are delight to read and a sensuous evocation of India. In The Museum of Final Journeys, a junior government officer begins his career in remote and inhospitable outpost. An elderly servant implores the officer to visit the Mukherjee family estate. His mistress, the last remaining family member, has long departed. The house, now a decaying museum, contains a fabulous collection of objects gathered from across the globe. One surprising final treasure is consuming the health and strength of the frail retainers.
In Translator Translated, a schoolteacher devotes her life to studying a regional language that was her mother’s tongue. She translates the story of a little known author, feeling a powerful link. “The art of translation brought us together as if we were sisters.” This is the most significant relationship of the teacher’s life; but the author’s next novel disappoints, and so …
The Artist of Disappearance, Ravi, lives in the ruins of his family’s burnt-out house in the Himalayas. His real life is outdoors, where he achieves something quite astonishing.
Brimming with colour and detail, the writing is exquisite.
In Translator Translated, a schoolteacher devotes her life to studying a regional language that was her mother’s tongue. She translates the story of a little known author, feeling a powerful link. “The art of translation brought us together as if we were sisters.” This is the most significant relationship of the teacher’s life; but the author’s next novel disappoints, and so …
The Artist of Disappearance, Ravi, lives in the ruins of his family’s burnt-out house in the Himalayas. His real life is outdoors, where he achieves something quite astonishing.
Brimming with colour and detail, the writing is exquisite.
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