BOOKSin review
“B
ut herewe confront
aphilosophical
question:Is Godareliable
factorwithregardto Com-
passion? Howdo we know
Shehas an abidinginterest
in thecuttingedgeof the
subject?Is it notpossible
thatShemustbe pushing
Evolutionto apointwhere
the task of promoting
Compassionis franchised
to the common coldvirus?
AnddoesHistorybearout
God’scompassionatecre-
dentials?It is doubtfulin
the extreme.Lookat all the
butchers whohave domin-
atedHistory.”
Thusreadsapart of the
“Essay on Compassion”
thatLordSpider’scollab-
oratorJL Pillai dictatesto
him.Spider andPillaiare
the leadcharacters in Paul
Zacharia’sfirst full-length
Englishnovel,ASecretHis-
toryof Compassion.
Icameacross Paul
Zacharia’s Malayalam
storiesfor thefirst timein
themid1970s.Theywere
strikingly different from
the moderniststories of M.
Mukundan, Kakkanadan,
M.P.NarayanaPillaiand
otherleadingliterary lu-
minaries of the time.
Zacharia, as PaulZacharia
is known to Malayalee
readersworldwide,wrote
storiesstretchingthe limits
of imagination,challen-
hasdefinitely usheredina
newsensibility,anew ap-
proach, examining in a
playfullysceptical veinall
thatwe hold“solemn”.One
candoubtlessly say thathe
hasintroducedan entirely
newnarrativestructurein
fictionwriting.Without be-
ingruthlessanddenigrat-
ingtowardshis imaginary
targets, he presentsthe
dramaof life in our timesas
agrandburlesque.
Laughingevenat the
prospectofdeath is the
markof heroes;“grinning
andbearingit” seemsto be
thelot of sensitivepeople.
Butlaughingat the futility
of it all,withan inherent
senseof ironyandatingeof
melancholy, seemsto be
thebestway to confront
reality.Zacharia’s one-of-
a-kindnovelaccomplishes
this.It definitely is an excit-ingentryintotheIndian
Englishnovelscene.
Micro-sensitive, com-
ingalivein its details, the
narrativeprogressesby de-
constructingtheideal,the
lyrical,theromantic, the
political,thereligious—all
the givensof contemporary
existence.Agrandparody
of ourworldandits work-
ings,feistyin its exuber-
ance,Zacharia’snarrative
surges ahead, ICBM-like
(to borrowoneof his own
conceitsemployedin the
novel),piercingthecirrus
clouds of such precon-
ceivednotions.Thefemale
principlegetsvalidationin
thisnovelthroughthede-
pictionof Godas an allur-
ing 20-somethingyoung
womanin jeans,topand
goggles, singing popular
Westernsongs.Eventhe
SovietleaderJosephStalin
is thesubjectof acharm
offensive,as the author de-
scribeshimas beingawo-
mansecretly.
Zacharia, the wizardof
wordsthathe is, weaves
the webof agrandillusion.
Spider,interestingly,is the
nomde plumeof the cent-
ral character—a writer,
whohasfourothernames:
“YellowMan”, “Lightning
Hero”, “Jack of Spades”
and “King Cobra”. We
neverget to knowhis real
name.Hiswife,a“freelan-
cing philosopher”, is
knownby the name“Rosi”.
The family is complete
withtheircaninecompan-
ion of deadlymien,Brother
Dog,whomthewriteris
obsessivelyjealousofand
describesas an agentofthe
Devilbecausehe suspects
thedog to be his wife’s
paramour.The dramatis
personaeis complete with
theinclusionof theonegingthe prevailingsensib-
ilities and elevating his
readersto newlevelsof
aestheticexperience.The
storieswerefreshandori-
ginal.
No such stories had
beenwritten by anyonebe-
fore.Theycreatedan en-
tirely new magical
aesthetic space for the
reader hungry for new
readingexperiences.This
wassimilarto whatRay-
mond Carver or Tobias
Wolff, Zacharia’s Amer-
icancontemporaries, had
doneto the Americanshort
story.
InASecretHistoryof
Compassion,Zacharia
takesoff fromall the dizzy-
ing heights he had
conqueredin hisstories,
flying,as the main charac-
tersin thenovelareseen
doing.Withthisnovel,heBold imagination
PaulZacharia,in thisnewnarrativestructure,
ushersin anewsensibility,anewapproach,
examiningin aplayfully scepticalveinallthatis
held“solemn”.BYA.J.THOMAS
ASecretHistoryof
Compassion
ByPaulZacharia
Context,an Imprint
of AmazonWestland,
2019
Pages: 442
Price:Rs.699