His master’s voice
Writing about The White Tiger, several readers both below and via email have mentioned that they didn’t find the voice authentic:
… The White Tiger, despite its topicality and its readability, is somehow fundamentally fake… it’s quite common for Indian authors to be accused of composing narratives about India’s poor primarily for non-poor, non-Indian readers. It’s a ubiquitous complaint — almost a critical cliché — which doesn’t make it any less true. [SM]
Would a man like Balram, who calls himself a “half-baked man” because he was never allowed to complete his schooling, be able to declare, as Balram does, that “Only three nations have never let themselves be ruled by foreigners: China, Afghanistan, and Abyssinia”? [MiddleStage -- thanks, Suresh]
The author was too apparent as being separate from the character who was supposed to be writing, I realise it’s a tough task, but he didn’t convince me that he was giving the genuine perspective of someone from the ‘other’ India. [Rohan]
I’m going to tease apart two separate kinds of complaints about authenticity. One kind is whether the author successfully executes what he’s attempting, whether you’re pulled jarringly out of the narrative. The other is whether the very endeavor of a highly-educated proxy tackling the voice of the underclass is plausible.
The first question is valid. I’ll have no quibble with those who say Aravind Adiga did not achieve what he set out to do. The suspension of disbelief needed to make a story work has to be paired with some level of authorial skill, and whether readers felt pulled out of the story midstream is highly subjective. I’ll simply say that I was not challenged thus. The story has great velocity, and its corrosive sarcasm and dark humor kept me engaged until three-quarters of the way through. But it had built up enough goodwill that I was willing to overlook minor bumps along the way.
To some extent, a first person lit fic novel ought to get wide latitude on voice. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle also took on the troubles of the underclass, but did so in the third person. Their choice was fraught with less risk than Adiga’s, who’s doing something akin to a musical where the artifice is integral. The first-person literary novel is always going to be exaggerated if the author’s style is at all baroque and the narrator is anyone less than a cultural elite. You know that going in. It’s not like a third-person novel with dialogue so literary, it’s rendered unbelievable. With first person, the entire novel is the author’s voice. Philip Roth escapes the dilemma, but confining your writing to the immediate surrounds of Lincoln Center is limiting.
To demand absolute verisimilitude is like filming movies about life in real time, bathroom breaks and all. You could end up with the Brick Lane stunt of tens of pages written in pidgin English. It may be accurate, but it’s hardly entertaining.
The second complaint goes against the whole grain of literary fiction and, for that matter, arthouse film. Were this book written by an actual Delhi servant, it would read more like a diary, like Baby Halder’s A Life Less Ordinary – still enjoyable, but entirely a different beast. It’s the difference between a documentary and a movie with the best actors of your generation chewing scenery. It’s the difference between Fahrenheit 9/11 and W.
Indian arthouse filmmakers, of course, are famous for tackling poverty and exploitation, and they were largely rich in education even if not in pocket. Mrinal Sen’s Kharij documented the exploitation of servants by their employers (thanks, anonandon). Even Bollywood gets into the act with movies like Krantiveer. Yet few today say they were unconvincing in expressing the plight of the rural poor.
The White Tiger is primarily a novel of ideas over plot. It goes down more smoothly as a parable, an argument, an exposé rather than purely as a telling of events. Tell me Adiga didn’t hit his mark and I’ll have no quarrel. Tell me the mark is illegitimate in the first place, that an Oxbridge-walla has no business writing in a driver’s voice, and we’ll be forced to part ways faster than a Delhi three-wheeler spotting its prey.
on Thursday, October 16th, 2008, 9:31 pm in Booker Prize, Literature › 
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Manish: in fairness, most of the intelligently written negative reviews I’ve read of TWT say that Adiga didn’t hit the mark. Saying that “an Oxbridge-walla has no business writing in a driver’s voice” would be a very shaky starting point for a review anyway.
…akin to a musical where the artifice is integral. The first-person literary novel is always going to be exaggerated if the author’s style is at all baroque and the narrator is anyone less than a cultural elite. You know that going in.
Well said. I’m still a little surprised by the literalist-minded readers who go on about how the device of Balram addressing the Chinese Premier is “unrealistic”. Saying that it isn’t well-executed would, of course, be another thing altogether.
Haven’t read TWT. but indulge me.
Is there a lot of Hindi in the mix?
Would a good translation sound more authentic?
Very little, if I recall correctly.
http://middlestage.blogspot.com/2008/05/double-darkness-of-aravind-adigas-white.html
for Chandrahas’ negative review. Not that it matters but it was written well before the Booker brouhaha.
The question of authenticity in this context is difficult because all of the discussion is between people who are themselves not deprived. Yet, there is literature, produced mostly in languages other than English which are produced by Dalits and other deprived people ….Not all Dalits are illiterate. One of the things that I don’t like in this entire discussion is the fact that this literature has been almost totally ignored. Jabberwock - one of the contributors here - has himself reviewed a book “Kisumbukkaran” by the Tamil writer Bama on his blog. I wonder why he - or someone else - doesn’t compare the voices of the deprived in Dalit literature and as articulated in Adiga’s novel to make some inferences about authenticity. That, to say the least, would be interesting
Just to underscore the point being made, is it not fair to say that Vikram Chandra did make Ganesh Gaitonde sound
`authentic’ and believable? Chandra may have had some contact with his `bholenath worshiping, glock firing’ bhais, through his association, with Bollywood, but does his ability to bring his characters to life simply exemplify good writing, rather than a life lived in the universe that his characters inhabit?
When I picked up and skimmed Adiga’s White Tiger in a bookshop in Delhi, the slight weirdness of the narration ‘voice’ did put me off a bit (so I bought A Case of Exploding Mangoes instead). But I’d be willing to give it a chance, and Manish is absolutely right about the necessary artifice of writing in the voice of an underling - especially in the very classist Indian context. I did wince a bit at Ganesh Gaitonde’s voice in Sacred Games when he was going off on philosophical riffs but the rest of the time it worked, more or less. Novelists have to get in the position of speaking for those with different life experiences and less education on a regular basis so of course it’s asking too much for them to have real-life experience of every character or situation they write about; but for a believable (the word ‘authentic’ is too charged) voice to be achieved, the author has to have *something* to go on, to relate to the character with, and it’s not enough to just know someone who comes to clean for you and project an imaginary world view onto what you see of his or her life.
I haven’t read AA’s TWT. Yet. I will be starting on it soon. (SP, I’m reading ‘Mangoes’ myself right now!). However, the novel to which TWT is being thematically compared - ‘Animal’s People’ - I couldn’t even get started on. That’s BTW.
On TWT - apart from authenticity and versimilitude (the two points raised by Manish) - the interesting thing to me is also how the Booker Prize committee, in pointedly passing over Ghosh’s SoP (which I also will be reading - soon), consciously seem to be promoting a story about within-country exploitative dynamics over a story about between-country exploitative dynamics (England and India).
It’s as if they said to Indians, consciously, don’t waste your time on the 19th Century shenanigans our forebears indulged in, worry about the way you treat others who mostly look like yourself, in your own country, today. So one may say they’re attempting to de-historicize (and localize) the “authentic” narrative focus. What good boys must do to get a sweety from the teacher.
Now Ghosh is writing a trilogy, and perhaps they can recognize that later. Plus, he views prizes as being more relevant for younger, less well-known authors, and has poked British literary prizes in the eye before, especially in their separation of Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth authors. So maybe all’s well, and AA deserves a chance to be read.
However, for someone who hasn’t read it yet, permit me to say that - a novel whose main conceit is a semi-literate Indian ’servant’ writing a long novel-length letter to the Chinese premier - seems ipso facto absurd. However, I will read it, and write my own review, soon.
Suresh,
Can we put the english-is-a-language-of-the-elite issue to rest? Please.
Neale,
What’s your point? Mine was that the only way we can settle questions of authenticity or believability (call it what you will) is if the people being written about - those inhabiting Adiga’s “area of darkness” - participate directly in this discussion. They don’t seem to: almost all the comments and reviews here and elsewhere are those of people who seem to belong to Adiga’s “area of light.” (Perhaps that itself is a good indicator of the inequities that Adiga is worried about.) I suggested one indirect way of addressing this issue could be to look at Dalit literature - some translated into English, a lot of it not - and compare their voices to Adiga’s protagonist, Balram Halwai. What’s elitist about this?
If I wanted to make a stupid and silly point like “English is the language of the elite, it’s not the language of the *real* India!” I’d have done so directly. And a gentle request: do please be less pompous.
This is quite simply a brilliant novel. I have finished both Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Enchantress of Florence’ and Amitav Ghosh’s ‘Sea of Poppies’ both outstanding novels; I wouldn’t expect anything less.
I think ‘The White Tiger’ is better than both these book. Technically the other books are better: language, plot and scope, yes. However, in terms of depth of character this novel stands above the other novels and with distinction. This novel has been talked about in terms of the great American Richard Wright’s novel ‘Native Son’ It is NOT as good as ‘Native Son’ which is a giant of the 20th centur and my best book. However, the comparisons are justified, Agiga’s novel is a proud achievement, it is a novel I recommend everyone read; it deserves a wide audiance.
I look forward in great anticipation to his next novel.
>
Suresh,
I know you are smarter than to have made the “English is the language of the elite” statement directly.
Phrases like “…all discussions between people who are themselves not deprived…” are unwarranted.
unwarranted? geez, can’t you be less pompous? Anyway, do learn to quote properly - I didn’t say the phrase you quote. What I said was
The question of authenticity in this context is difficult because all of the discussion is between people who are themselves not deprived. Since you object, do tell me how many of Adiga’s deprived people are participating on internet forums?
And since you seem to be mentally challenged let me add that I count myself also as one of the “not deprived.”
What baffles me is how you managed to jump from here to inferring that I think that English is the language of the elite blah blah
I am sure you will come up with some nonsense or the other but I have no desire to engage with you. Now do get lost. Please.
Well written post, you pull apart the two arguments well.
As you said, the sarcasm and wit takes me through the book about half-way, but I felt his immersion in the events of plot neglects the need to keep up the smart narrative, which was slightly jarring. (And that sentence shows why I don’t write for a living, yet)
(Which is also why I think it would’ve have been a great series of blog posts. Maybe that jarring feeling only came because I read the book in one sitting. Each of those letters as a separate blog post over a couple of weeks? Might’ve had a different opinion then. We need a Booker equivalent.)
What really annoys me though, is the contention by many newspapers, including the esteemed-by-me Guardian, that people in India didn’t like it because it ‘dared to show the other side of India’. C’mon! An ‘other side of India’ article is today a requirement for every newspaper in conjunction with a ‘Booming India’ article, so it’s not like we’re keeping that side hidden. Also, personally speaking, I would love to see more books about that ’side’ of India, seems like there’s plenty of material out there to work with.
Finally, that language thing has me thinking. It’s very possible that the ‘jarring’ feeling came from the erudite english throughout the book. But i’m not sure that it’s impossible to write an ‘authentic’ other side story entirely in English.
Getting into specifics, Adiga’s style is terribly inconsistent. There are moments when his English is halting and full of errors, and then there are times, when he is all eloquence ( “when you come to Bangalore, and stop at a traffic light, some boy will run up to your car and knock on your window, while holding up a bootlegged copy of an American business book, wrapped carefully in cellophane”)…seriously if Balram can use words like “bootlegged” he should surely be able to find himself a job in India. Also, I don’t think this letter business in halting English is original at all. Monica Ali had them in Brick Lane.
I haven’t read the book and would love to know if snake charmers make an appearance.
Suresh,
“Pompous” is your “Joe the Plumber”, IMHO.
I really enjoyed “The White Tiger” and was hoping for it to win the Booker. I haven’t read “Sea of Poppies”, but have read some of Ghosh’s other works (”The Glass Palace” and “The Hungry Tide”). While I found both interesting, particularly “Glass Palace” for its epic qualities, it sometimes tended to become to soap-operatic. In my opinion, Ghosh is not an Indian writer of the first rank, certainly not to be compared to someone like Rushdie or Vikram Seth (I’m thinking of “A Suitable Boy” here), but again that’s just my subjective opinion.
Returning to “The White Tiger”, I thought the narrative voice was really well done, the character of Balram was interesting, and the framing device of letters to the Chinese Premier was clever. Some of the observations that Adiga made about the master/servant relationship and the class structure in general were really good. However, I wouldn’t place this novel in the category of “great literature”. That said, it was Adiga’s first novel and it would be unfair to expect perfect craftsmanship. I offer him my congratulations on winning the prize and I look forward to reading his next work.
Neale, to be fair, isn’t it okay (it may not be feasible) to see what the people Adiga writes about have to say about the realism of his characterizations and descriptions? One critic may not think this is relevant at all — we might say the point of Adiga’s novel is purely to raise uncomfortable questions for affluent urban Indians. That novel could well be set up as Ashok’s nightmare — that his complicity with feudal India could well be his undoing. I think that that line of criticism is quite plausible (e.g. Manish calls the novel a parable or an expose). But the other line of criticism, such as Suresh’s seem pretty valid too. A critic like him might care about verisimilitude and about whether Adiga has penetrated the consciousness of those whom he writes about. One might think that getting that bit right is crucial to maintain the velocity of the plot: is Halwai’s desperation to escape the coop sufficient to fuel his subsequent plan of action? I think Ghosh’s essay in the Boston Review renders the realism question quite nicely.
So I agree that the English question inserted into this debate is annoying, yet there are fundamental questions about criticism that are raised in the argument you and Suresh seem to be having. If Adiga’s novel is a parable, does it work? And even if it works, is it still okay to say that this novel actually illustrates how the Indian in the ‘coop’ thinks and feels? Does he feel (s)he is in the ‘coop’ in the first place (what the really pompous might call the Spivak question :))? Or is it more like a classic morality tale (epics with flat characters) and therefore, again, the sort of novel which basically instructs its comfortable readers to change their ways or face the consequences?
I loved the ideas presented in “The Hungry Tide,” for instance. But his high regard for documenting the real made the novel seem like an inventory of his environment at times (these are the myths of the Sunderbans, this is the ecology, this is how a cetologist works, here is what a rural community organization does), a well-written dissertation on the Sunderbans. It was interspersed with lines of great feeling, but those that summarized what Ghosh wanted to the reader to take away from the book. So a part of it was documentation (”this is what it looked like, make of it what you will”), which was rounded neatly with a well-written summation (”read my lips”). To me, this approach made the book very heavy-handed. I like Ghosh for the settings and issues he chooses to write about, but I don’t think his writing is quite as exemplary. But, of course, the ‘Sea of Poppies’ trilogy seems to be his opus, and he could prove us all wrong with it.
I will join in the argument on the side of Suresh (I think),
People questioning the authenticity of the characters of the underclass are not underclass themselves. How can they be so sure that people down there don’t actually think that “intelligently”? That’s one point that AA seems to be making. Ofcourse, you are free to question the authenticity, but don’t be quick to trash it out completely.
PW,
All i am saying is that in India, given its unique strain of diversity, it is entirely possible to penetrate the consciousness of your fellow sufferer even if you do not speak/understand his/her language.
Like this literary depth in this post Manish and also enjoyed reading comments and links in this post with various opinions
I just started reading this novel..though too early to write comments without finishing the novel..just couldnot hold myself from writing comments here..
Adigas novel felt like mohsin ahmeds first person ” reluctant fundamentalist” narrative kind of brutally honest novel in the first few pages..
writing about realistic day to day issues, about poor corrupt class caste struggles in India in first person is the most effective way to write a novel, I think Adiga made the right choice of writing the novel in first person specially considering the topic he choose to write on..
Some places I felt the tinge of Naipauls frank writing about India..
That is why probably Adiga got the award..sometimes honest portrayal of powerful issues like poverty , corruption, class struggels etc., in todays India conveyed in first person are very very effective and interesting to read for NRIs as well as foreigners in this global economy. May be that is why he won the booker..
Finally I read the novel.
I have to say Adiga is even better than Naipaul and better than Kiran Desai too. He is going to be a powerful writer.
I grew up in India with car drivers all the time, sometimes while coming back to US I would tell our car driver to take care of my dad and make sure dad took medicines on time as most of the time my dad traveled alone with the driver..we considered our drivers part of family… drivers lived in servant quarters, left families far off, traveled with us where ever we went..our family spoke in english when we felt conversations had to be private..the drivers knew everything about us as they are 24 *7 with us..
when I read Adigas novel I found out very realistic..every bit of it..Its amazing that Adiga did not live in India all his life and yet captured India, its corruption, the caste politics, life of a driver and everything so so well, unbelievable.
Richly deserves a booker.
Also I like the tone of his voice, narration, brutally frank honesty about India..
cant believe someone wrote a novel on a ordinary car driver and managed to make it so interesting and gets a booker..
Adiga is gifted , he managed to capture the entire poor and rich indians world so well through a ordinary car drivers narration,thats why he won..the contrast and little little details he points out are amazing..
Having lived in India first 20yrs of my life I can see how real his writing is and how sensitive adiga is to pick all those finer nuances of every day life of a poor driver in india and also the rich upper class of india..
Lessons to learn are You can tell a ordinary story of an ordinary man in an extraordinary way by capturing all the sensitive details and everyday stuff so well that if u are a good writer u can make anything and anyone interesting..
Adiga is going to be one of the finest honest writers of this century…he richly deserves his booker