All About H. Hatterr

I don't think I've ever read anything as puzzling and complex as All About H. Hatter. I think Desani intended his writing to be interpreted as "Life" that Hatterr narrates he is in quest of. Instead of attending school or college, Hatterr dedicates his whole to searching for Life and learning from the "school of Life" (p. 33). Therefore, the author and/or narrator is deliberately vague about almost everything we read for that very purpose - learning of life.

We also talked in class about Hatterr's hybridity - I thought back to his name and the link we made between Hatterr and the Mad Hatter (Alice in Wonderland). Mad Hatter's preoccupation with time finds an echo in H. Hatterr's failure to fulfil his quest because time works in such a different manner between the fantasy (Mad Hatter) and the reality (Hatterr). This hybridity propels logic to the relation between language and reality. Like Alice, Hatterr is caught in a world he does not understand but attempts to learn of it, we are forced to recognize that language creates its own reality and identity is undetermined. In this way, Desani's departure from standard English, simple and to the point, becomes his way of articulating the reality of the local. Therefore, I think Desani's play on words (i.e., extraordinary rather than extraordinarily) is his way of experimenting with language - presenting the versatality of the local, the colloquial, and the masterful. Since we're told not to read for content, to focus on words, it's quite fascinating to see the words he chooses. If you read word for word, Desani definitely knows how to manipulate words.