The two volumes titled Chouboli and Other Stories are not mere compilations of stories written by Vijayad?nna Deth? and translated by Christi A. Merrill and Kailash Kabir. These are not conventional works of fiction reproduced with optimal precision through the techniques of translation. These are not two books to be read once and then placed on the bookshelf to collect the dust of posterity. Risking a bit of hyperbolism, one could say that these two volumes are goldmines of meaning, treasures of archetypes and motifs, and whirlpools of the psychic underpinnings of humanity, for the two volumes offer too much to be contained in a nutshell. This is precisely because Deth?, as the translators ingeniously inform us in the introduction, does not aim merely to tell stories. Instead, he recreates the worldview of the real-life storytellers.
And who are his storytellers from whom he learnt the art and craft of telling, as well as the basic seeds of his tales? As Merrill notes, “Deth? told me he had heard these stories from aunts and neighboring potters and peasants and courtly servants, visiting holy men and thieves” (16). It is no wonder, then, that there emerges a narrative voice that reflects not only the phenomenon of Vaat (recalling and reproducing the fables of yesteryear), but also a sense of orature that linguists might be interested to explore. This technique also contributes fluidity to the stories recounted by each teller. Indeed, the fluidity of tales gives immense creative liberty to the storyteller.
By focusing on specific tellers and tellings in contemporary contexts, Deth? challenges older notions of folklore, for he shows that these stories are not fossil-material from dead (or dying) traditions. Rather, his stories unfold in a framework with apt devices that fuse tellers and listeners, as well as readers of the book, into one entity embedded in the stories. By starting stories with nonsense rhymes or convincing readers of the significance of hunkara (the nods of listeners to ensure the bilateral transaction of stories), each story merges the subjectivities of listeners with those of characters in the tales. In this way, ideas of the living and dead, natural and supernatural, flora and fauna, historical and mythological, social-mundane and divine-excellence, join in a conversation that leads the tales to myriad inconclusive conclusions. Thus, at the end of each story there is an instant need to go back to the beginning for another reading and for another way of comprehending. In spite of the hermeneutic openness of the literary style, these works should not be taken as evidence of postmodern fragmentation, for there is a sense of Marxism here, and a feeling of advocacy for social justice. In sum, Detha rekindles hope by making the subjugated tide over their challenges, and the stories, despite the simplicity of their narrative contours, allude to the complexity of human life.
The two volumes, with applique art on the covers and interior pages, consist of eighteen stories including the serialized “Chouboli.” At the end of each volume there appear astonishing biographical notes on Vijayad?nna Deth?, as if his life were yet another fascinating tale. The second volume also charts the genealogies of each tale to reveal in detail the becoming of these tales. The becoming of these tales is a process characterized by dynamic metamorphosis, from the (over)heard to the written, from the written to the translated, from the translated to the told, and so on and so forth.
At several junctures, the dynamics of translation add to the distinctive character of the volumes. Thus the question of originality, in the sense of who the original tellers of these stories were, comes to a creative halt. Despite modern tellers’ urge to depart from convention in telling stories to modern audiences, these stories exhibit a basic continuity with folk tradition vis-à-vis respect for the anonymity of the original authorship. The stories bridge the gap between oral and written, anonymous folk and recognizable individual teller, and also between the teller/writer and listener/reader, by maintaining recurrent refrains such as chogua and hunkara.
In addition, in the middle of the flowing stories, there appear questions posed to the listener/reader, as if the reader were a part both of the storytelling event and the story being told. This technique invites social scientists, especially social anthropologists and sociologists of knowledge, to rethink approaches to folk worldview. Also, by questioning colonial categories of power relations, the book solicits the attention of ethnographers of the postcolonial world. In the world of Vijayad?nna Deth? as well as in the folk worldview, epistemological categories are not divorced from ontological-existential undercurrents. In other words, the folk intellect and the folk being are one and same. Thus, the nuanced subversion of the social order by human or nonhuman protagonists is not unilaterally a struggle in a zero-sum power game. Even apparently powerless characters may embody power, and the apparently powerful may be vulnerable. Hence, profound ambiguities pregnant with meaning punctuate these stories.
In a nutshell, when a sense of hopelessness begins to overwhelm readers/listeners, the sound of hope takes instant flight. In the world of Vijayad?nna Deth?, there is no Sisyphus who is susceptible to the dead-end of hopelessness; never does the absurd triumph over the socio-fictional structure. In this way, characters in the tales disrupt relatively established discourses in the psychoanalysis of culture and personality.
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[Review length: 887 words • Review posted on March 19, 2012]