As I have a few times in class, this book intensely reminds me of Joyce's work (Ulysses more than Portrait). Since we only read Portrait though, I shall try to base my comparison on that alone.
With Portrait, we follow Stephen's thought process down every rabbit trail it goes. Whether he is daydreaming about his name in the Greek form or being a horny teenager and spying on a girl in the water, we are taken with him down the road of his associations and rationalizations, along with his reactions and opinions.
H. Hatterr does a lot of the same thing. When he is in the dark with the lion, his mind goes off into visualizing his own death and funeral. We hear his thoughts about the beautiful man he encounters, Always-Happy. We are given insight into his observations at great detail. When he meets the sage who makes him strip, we know the awe he experiences because of his thorough description of it. When Stephen goes into the bishop's office, we are also faced with detailed and minute observations.
These methods of inner thoughts and monologues are notable because of how accurately they portray the process of any person's internal thinking. Joyce and Desani do a great job of exposing the inner workings of their main characters.
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Desani's style of writing (though maybe not so much ostensibly) truly is rather comparable to that of Joyce's in Portrait. Though the thoughts of Stephen Dedalus do seem a bit more developed in terms of complexity, each narrator does somewhat demonstrate how their thought processes develop. I feel as though Hatterr's thought processes though never really follow completely through. We see each situation unfold rather humorously, portraying some of the character's thoughts, but more I feel in adding to the nonsensical effect of the random happenings than in expressing the character's actual ideas or emotions. This is understandable, though, as the narrator clearly does not have the same intentions for writing his novel as Joyce.
ReplyDeleteI think Desani is brave in doing this. Not only is he defying traditional standards of English writing, he is defying traditional standards of what should be talked about. We are advised to organize our thoughts into a coherent cenetered statement which summarized them. But Desani says whatever the hell he wants to which makes him seem more human, more real, and less out to impress his readers. The book becomes some kind of diary as it documents the inner-most thoughts of H. Hatterr and the reader almost feels as if they know too much. This style is very modern, unique, and ultra-defiant of traditional colonial teachings.
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