| Username |
Post |
| ashu |
Posted
on 27-Apr-01 03:09 AM
What follows was written by Ajit Baral
(ajit_ab@hotmail.com) of Martin Chautari
--- Martin Chautari wrote:
>
> Last Tuesday at Martin Chautari, we had a particularly
> good discussion of Abstract Chintan: Pyaz-a
> collection of essays by Shankar Lamichane. It is a
> Madan Puruskar winning book and for the same token,
> had to be a good book. But surprisingly, most of the
> people participating in the discussion said it
> wasn't. In fact, dhostai parne criticism was meted
> out to the book. (Little unfairly, I guess) .
> Ashutosh, a pandit for that discussion was the chief
> destroyer, who seems to imply that the essays lacked
> coherency-beginning here, then traversing far and
> wide, but ending no where. Madan Mani Dixit chipped
> in with his own criticism when he said that his
> ideas are very disorderly, unstructured.
>
> What if Sankhar Lamichane made, purportedly, his
> essays incoherent? His ideas unstructured?
> (Shouldn't we give him the benefit of doubt?) After
> all there is no coherency in our ideas, and our life
> is marked by the contradiction-of ideas, thoughts,
> behavior etc. He is simply being true to himself,
> expressing what his ideas/ our ideas stand for. His
> is catharsis of feeling, which is fickle, prone to
> be swayed by time and tides. So his essays naturally
> are loose or unstructured. But can they be called
> inferior work of art? Most importantly, do essays
> need to flow in a certain prescribed framework?-of
> beginning, middle and end. Not necessarily. Would
> Kafka have been the Kafka we know and Gabriel Garcia
> Marquez the Marquez we know, if they hadn't flouted
> the conventional style of story writing?
>
>
> I haven't read many essays. Much less (better say
> none of ) Sankhar Lamichane's kind. So I don't know
> if there are/were people writing loose essays. If
> there aren't/weren't, should we not praise (instead
> of criticizing) Shanker Lamichane for trend
> setting:?
>
> Ajit
>
>
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 28-Apr-01 11:44 PM
I think it is better to chip in something in this saga.
People shouldn't forget the time factor when evaluating the work
created decades ago. Someworks are often great in their
revolutionary character, their innovative technique and their
time defying tenor. Such works get imitated often , and for the
leaders of future, the work may well appear platitudinous.
Works like 'Atal Bahadur', 'Munamadan', 'The tale of two cities',
'Robinson Crusoe' are very likely not to be enjoyed now with the
same ardor with which they were enjoyed in their own time.
Especially, for the younger generation, it is true, because they
go through other imitated books or form of genre before, and they
don't find any newness in those works when they read it. Movies
can serve as a tangible index of such fatigue: we rarely find
'Citizen Kane' or 'Shane' as great now as they were found in
their time.
When we talk about Shankar Lamichhane, it is very important to
take into account the time period in which he lived. He lived
in Kathmandu three decades ago, I guess. No Rushdie's midnight
children, or magical realism laden 'Satanic Verses' was published
by then, nor were probably those essays Ashu talked about(correct
me if I am wrong). Ellyses was still considered indecipherable,
and banned in several countries. 'One hundred years of solitude'
was feted, but Marquez was yet to win Nobel Prize,and the
concommitant fame(in South Asia).If Shankar chose to imitate
Marquez,then it indicates that he was wise enough to keep himself
abreast of new wave of literature, or probably to say it more
correctly,he was intelligent enough to identify futuristic trend.
Not asmall feat, considering semipreliterate world of Nepal of
those days!! Those essays were trying to set trend in Nepali
literature, and were probably as important as dimensional
(aayaameli) literature, or jharro(dialectical) literatures.
This by no means mitigates his excursion to the world of
plagiarization. It is also unfathomable why he attempted to copy
others when he himself was a good writer. The result for himself
was not very good, he was embarrased to the extent that he gave up
writing altogether later. He also embarrased us with his deed
because we will always remember one of our best essay writers
as a plagiarist also.And we know that had he done such
escapade earlier in his literary life, he couldn't have even got
chances to introduce himself as an essayist in Nepal.
|
| Biswo |
Posted
on 29-Apr-01 12:11 AM
Sorry, Ulysses not ellyses.
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