THE IMPRESSIONIST BY HARI KUNZRU ? A REVIEW
What would remain if a person were divested of environmental, social or regional factors like race, country, language, religion, caste and family, and also of individual traits like strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, goals and dreams? The quest for knowing one?s real self has been explored innumerable times by writers and philosophers. Mr.Hari Kunzru?s debut novel, ’The Impressionist’ is another venture on the much treaded terrain of self-exploration. Set in the early 1900s, The Impressionist relates the story of a boy who goes through several mutually disjoint incarnations, travelling from India to England and finally to Africa, in search of a meaningful existence.
The plot is set along the lines of a miniature epic and comprises of a series of distinct subplots set in separate, unrelated, worlds linked together by the twin factors of the protagonist who lives through them, and the anthropological effects of hybridisation on culture, society and civilization.
Pran Nath Razdan, the protagonist is conceived in a chance liaison between an English forest officer and a Kashmiri bride. The Englishman and the girl die soon after, and only a maid knows the dark secret of illegitimacy that lies concealed behind Pran?s startlingly fair skin, that his family considers as proof of their superior Kashmiri heritage. When she reveals it, he is thrown out of the house, bereft of inheritance or identity except a picture of his English father.
The journey of the Impressionist commences at this point, a path that had revealed itself to the family astrologer when he tried to write Pran?s horoscope ? The planets arranged themselves in a criss-cross maze unpredictable paths of delusions, that inexplicably led to the dissolution of delusion, an ultimate realisation. Pran?s life from here becomes one long struggle for survival.
Yet, Pran Nath Razdan is nowhere comparable to Herman Hesse?s Siddhartha. He is not lucky like Evelyn Waugh?s Paul Pennyfeather either, to escape out of unpleasant situations unscathed. Pran?s unusual good looks prove detrimental and he gets trapped in a brothel. Dressed like a girl, drugged, whipped and abused for weeks, he finds deliverance in the form of two eunuchs who take him to Fatehpur, a small kingdom in Lahore under the identity of a transvestite, Rukhsana.
Rukhsana is a means to frame the perverted resident Major Privett Clampe to safeguard the throne of Fatehpur. His chance for escape comes during a pseudo tiger hunt arranged for the Viceroy that collapses into a comical melange of hunters, kleptomaniacs, hedonists and scheming princes trapped in a forest with spasms of diarrhoea, all captured by movie and photographic cameras.
Escaping from Fatehpur, he stumbles across post Jallianwalabagh Amristar where he finds that he can pass off as a Sahib, a white boy. Adopted by a Scottish missionary couple in Bombay, he spends a few years there alternating as Robert, the ?nearly Scottish mongrel? to the missionary Rev.McFarlane, Chandra, the Indian boy to the Reverend?s estranged wife Mrs.McFarlane, and metamorphoses into Pretty Bobby, the friendly conman of the neighbourhood?s red light district by night.
Of all the many incarnations, Pretty Bobby alone has some kind of character, albeit a street urchin?s character ? He is sure of himself, confident and at home in the world of pimps and prostitutes. In a chance encounter with a white woman, he realises his ambition - to become White.
Opportunity once again takes the form of riots, and Bobby boards a ship to England under the identity of Jonathan Bridgeman, a victim of the riots. In this avatar, Jonathan Bridgeman tries his best to cast himself as a typical John Bull, abandoning scruples, morals and even a rare chance of friendship. He is far too successful in this attempt that ends in disaster when Astarte, the English girl of his dreams rejects him for being ?Too English?.
In frustration, a desperate Jonathan joins Astarte?s father in an anthropological study mission to Fotseland in Africa. The expedition, like almost all the entities that Pran associates with, is doomed to destruction. However, the Fotse set him free after exorcising the ?European spirit? out of him.
Slipping off all masks, the impressionist walks away, like an enlightened soul finally free from illusion, in a fable-like ending that seems to imply an Upanishadic view of existence.
There are several unique features of this novel. One of the most interesting is the contrast between the viewpoints, expectations and conceptualisations of the East regarding the West and vice-versa. Elspeth McFarlane?s visions of India (Sandy beaches and colourful women of the Orient waiting to be converted into a sea of smiling brown faces in the Lords work) before she visits the country, and gradual acceptance of Indian culture and the Eastern way of thinking is diametrically different from Pran?s concept of England (The mystic Occident, land of wool and cabbage and lecherous round-eyed girls).
Dark Humour is woven into every part of the book, but while it is ludicrously farcical and delightful in some places, it can also be gruesome, melancholy and shattering in others. The polite talk between the Fatehpur Nawab and Sir Wyndham Braddock during the garden party, the exchanges between the original Jonathan and a cow, the poetry reading of a pseudo poet in Oxford circles, the history of Bridgeman?s Old Malt ?Tisky?, the tiger-hunt in Fatehpur are sure to have the reader in splits of laughter.
The subplots have been handled with great care and sensitivity. Characterisation is another strong point of the book. Except for the main protagonist, almost all other characters have been lovingly sketched out in depth and detail, though a common reader is likely to complain that there are no normal people in the book. For example, Pran?s foster father Pandit Razdan is obsessed with purity. When the influenza epidemic strikes Agra, he is more disturbed by the fact that the disease affects Brahmins, White men and untouchables alike, without distinction of race, caste or class.
Pandit Razdan is only one of the many weird, eccentric characters. One of the important reasons a reader enjoys a book is being able to empathise with the characters or finding a familiar situation, environment or plane of thought to relate to. A common reader would probably have nothing in common with most of the things in the book. The success of Mr. Kunzru?s novel lies in its ability to evoke empathy with the narrators voice rather than the protagonists. A small factual quibble, Arjuna, if the intended reference was to the Pandava hero, did not become a wandering hermaphrodite conjuror as mentioned in the book.
This is nevertheless a metaphorical drop in the ocean of an epic-like narrative. Mr.Kunzru is brilliant at creating striking (If sometimes revolting) characters, portraying haunting visual images from India, England and Africa as of a century ago, and flavouring his work with a liberal dose of humour in all imaginable (and unimaginable) nuances. He is a great storyteller who entertains easily while catalysing thoughts and perceptions in a subtle manner. It is interesting to imagine what kind of book would result if Mr.Kunzru applies his obvious talent to everyday characters closer to real life.