Fathers and Sons

I suspect that Amitabha Bagchi's novel, Half the Night is Gone, would benefit from a second reading. So many events, so many relationships, so many big themes are packed and layered into this relatively small volume that I hardly know where to begin. 

At its simplest, this is a story of fathers and sons. Famous writer Vishwanath begins writing again, spurred by the death of his son in an accident. His new novel focuses on the wealthy head of a family business, known as Lala Motichand ("lala" being a term of respect) and his three sons. One son is suited for the family business, one son prefers poetry, and the third son is a schoolteacher who is kept on the edge of the family because of his illegitimacy. Vishwanath decides to tell the story of Lala Motichand's personal servant and his son, as well. 

It's particularly interesting that in this male-oriented world, women play significant roles while remaining under the domination of the patriarchy. A young woman seeks education, a servant maneuvers her way into unquestioned authority, a widow succeeds at petty household politics. These secondary stories add complexity, while illustrating that these dramas take place in the background of the men's stories.     

The similarities and differences between the fathers and sons make up the main tension in the novel within a novel, bringing up themes of family, childhood, loyalty, and personal fulfillment, all set within Indian culture. It's a dizzying, dazzling assembly, dense with correspondences and possibilities.     

Excerpt:

And while the entire household and the ashram, including Kamala, busied themselves in preparing for his wedding, the hero of the drama they were staging, the centrepiece of this magnificent tableau, the groom Diwanchand, sat around his rooms listlessly, turning one book over then another but unable to attend to any of the various readings he had set himself because whenever he did manage to get to his desk either his sister-in-law would send a tailor to him to fit him out for yet another suit of clothes or his brother or his father would send for him because he was needed to come along to an associate's house where an invitation was to be delivered. Although he did each of these things without protest . . . he found himself drifting further and further away, feeling more and more like a counter that was being moved around a board to which it didn't belong, by players who didn't care.

Note: This book counts toward the Color Coded Reading Challenge and the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.