Modern Bengali Fiction

The title should really have been "Ultra-modern Bengali Fiction", as I wish only to discuss a group of young Bengali novelists of the present day, and, moreover, fiction itself is very, very modern phenomenon in Bengali literature. Strictly speaking, therefore, any discussion of modern Bengali fiction ought to include the novels of Tagore and Mr. Sarat Chandra Chatterjee. But that is not my object here. It is rather with those young novelists who profess to be different from their immediate predecessors, both in method and outlook, that I am concerned. First let me name these writers in order of seniority–not the seniority of individual age but the seniority of first published works: Mr. Sailajananda Mukherji, author of nearly a dozen works, of which perhaps the best two novels are Mahajuddher Itihas (The Tale of a Battle) and Ban-Bhasi (Flood) and two volumes of short stories, most typical of the author, Atasi and Nari-Medh (The Butchery of A Woman). Mr Mukherji is in many respects the pioneer of the ultra-modern type of Bengali fiction, and was followed by Messrs. Premendra Mitra, Achintya Kumar Sen-Gupta, Jagadish Gupta and Buddhadev Bose, each one of whom has to his credit at least two or three works of fiction of outstanding merit. Among the most notable of Mr. Mitra's works may be mentioned his novel Pank (Mud) and collected short stories, such as Panchashar (Cupid) and Benami-Bandar (The Nameless Harbour). Mr. Sen-Gupta's first novel is Bedey (The Gipsy), and the second and more ambitious work is Akasmik (The Unexpected); and Tuta-phuta (Flotsam and Jetsam) is his only book of short stories so far published. Mr. Jagadish Gupta, in spite of his admitted imitation of the methods of Mr. Mukherji, is a promising author of a book of short stories named Binodini and a novel entitled Asadhu Siddhartha (The Dishonest Siddhartha). Mr. Buddhadev Bose is the youngest and most puzzling of modern Bengali writers. Some of them are equally good, if not better, as poets and writers of short plays, specially Mr. Sen-Gupta and Mr. Bose. Mr. Bose has been a bit of a versatile writer ever since he began to write. His first novel, rather of a juvenile type, is Sara (Response) and his first volume of short stories to be published is Abhinoy, Abhinoy Noy (The Play is the Thing, and is Not). He is the most prolific of writers of the new school and his contributions range from fiction to poetry, plays, critical essays, etc.

As a group, these writers are distinguishable by several very broad features, both of style and subject-matter, which link them up together. All of them claim to be anti-romanticists, and, naturally, followers of the cult of realism–realism often in its utter shamelessness and stark nudity, and more often than not, at the deliberate risk of what readers and critics in general would consider to be the basic doctrines of aesthetics and indispensable conditions of artistic work. This is one of the reasons why they have not yet been successful in getting the audience they rightly deserve. At the present moment, they only appeal to a small minority of Bengali readers. In Bengal, today, Tagore is more or less an intellectual necessity, which none of these writers is. Every age, somehow or other, invariably reduces itself to a catch-word or slogan. The slogan of these ultra-modern Bengali novelists is neither ‘reason’ nor ‘restraint’ nor ‘golden mean’, as opposed to the sickly and frothy sentimentalism of the followers of Tagore, such as Messrs. Charu Bannerji, Manilal Ganguly and Manindralal Bose, or the meaningless artificiality, bumptiousness and verbosity of the earlier Bengali novelists like Bankim Chandra Chatterji and Ramesh Chandra Dutt, but their slogan is ‘uniqueness’. In one word, they claim to be different from their precursors and contemporaries alike. For all practical purposes, this uniqueness may be translated into what one may call cynicism–a kind of contemptuous mental and intellectual detachment. I doubt very much if any of these writers have themselves any precise conception of realism, cynicism, or uniqueness, call it what you like. They believe realism to be more or less an end in itself. Where Tagore would be inclined to glorify real life, they would subject it to merciless scrutiny and expose it inside out. Both extremes. Their observation of things, albeit reproduced with scrupulous fidelity, is generally limited to objects which suggest ugliness rather than beauty, specifically in the works of Messrs. Mitra and Sen-Gupta, things like dirt, garbage, dust-heap, damp darkness, rotten rags and shells of eggs, stinking smell of decayed matter, dilapidated dwellings, ruins, etc. To Mr. Sen-Gupta, these are the only realism, the representation of the real in actual appearance, not by any means in accordance with intrinsic probability. Mr. Sen-Gupta was a romanticist to start with, and even in his very latest works, his characters exhibit predilections for day-dreaming and sentimentalising. The core of each one of his stories is that kind of incorrigible idealism which, at the beginning of his career, he took in large doses from Mr. Manindralal Bose. Mr. Sen-Gupta's affinity with the ultra-moderns is more an affinity of style than of treatment or attitude. He has worked hard, rather painstakingly at times, to make his style appear, at least on the surface, brisk, crisp, and staccato to such an extent that it seems at times merely decorative and artificial. Tennyson in his Locksley Hall spoke of "maiden-fancies wallowing in the troughs of Zolaism". Mr. Sen-Gupta's art deserves that description, not exactly Zolaism perhaps, but the cult of Knut Hamsun and Johan Bojer. No ‘-ism’ ever saved a book beyond a day, and I would venture to say that if Mr. Sen-Gupta does not get rid of this pernicious habit of wearisome word-painting of merely physiological sort, he might some day get lost. You cannot produce a fine novel by merely scientific recording of facts, any more than you can produce a great picture by an endless succession of photographs. Fact is not fiction. Technique cares for facts, no doubt; but Art cares for facts only as they reveal realities. The bankruptcy of realism is complete when artists, in pursuit of anatomical facts, forget to see, feel and think.

Mr. Mitra prefers a heap of ruins to a landscape, Mr. Mukherji a tenement house to a mansion, and Mr. Sen-Gupta the stench of filthy poverty to the perfume and light of a parlour. So realism has come to be associated with their names as something unpleasant–things that are physically repellent, or things that offend aesthetic sensibilities, or very likely a combination of both. In any case, to my mind, the greatest contribution of these writers to Bengali literature has been the creation of a new technique of writing–free from wordiness and vapour of rhetoric. In it there is dramatic vitality, vividness, and life-likeness. They have freed the Bengali language from the bondage of long, windy narrations, and intensified it with the pulse-beats of the spoken word. They have scrupulously avoided pictorialness. They have given the Bengali prose a fresh lease of life. The only trouble is that technique and nothing else at the of it has been the besetting sin of all realists in all ages. It is very easy to outdo literary rivals in cleverness and tricks of the pen, and the temptation is rather strong. These young Bengali writers must, therefore, be definitely on their guard that their technique does not get stultified, as may already be noticed in some of their works.

The influences in operation amongst this group of young writers are mainly two; firstly, the almost overpowering impression of European literature, and secondly, the strong but very legitimate desire in them to find a public which has hitherto been ‘doped,’ to use their own language, by the methods and practices of the old-fashioned periodicals of the orthodox school, like Prabasi and Bharatbarsha. First let me speak of the second factor. In the beginning, one or other writer of this group, notably Mr. Mukherji, could manage to get his stories published by these magazines of established reputation. But later, their works were generally ignored, especially when they formed among themselves a sort of literary coterie. But they themselves brought into being half a dozen literary monthlies, no doubt of necessity, as vehicles of their own ideas and line of thinking. Unfortunately, most of these magazines have now ceased to exist. In spite of the fact that they were of an ephemeral nature, each one of them served its purpose, because individually and collectively they succeeded in getting a section of the Bengali public to read their works and talk about them. To their credit it must be said that these writers were not intolerant of criticism, however unkind or adverse. In fact, they were almost impervious to it. At one time a violent campaign was started against them by a now defunct periodical, called The Saturday Letter. First week after week, then month after month, by parody, burlesque, satire, lampoon, direct orindirect insinuation, personal vilification and what not, this paper poured out its wrath upon these writers. The Saturday Letter, apparently, claimed to stand for commonsense and truth and took into its head the noble mission of defending Bengali society, morals, and literature from what is known as vulgarity, indecency and pornography in modern Bengali fiction, The moderns rebutted the attack as best as they could, at least showing better taste than their literary antagonists, and disinterested spectators watched the spectacle with much amusement. Financially and in other respects, the moderns were a trifle helpless. However, the only practical effect of this campaign of The Saturday Letter was to make the moderns notorious, if not famous. The trouble with The Saturday Letter was that it had itself no constructive programme to offer in place of the things it criticized and disapproved of. During the fag-end of its career it had antagonised even the celebrities of Bengali literature, and it looked as if it was doing the madness of trying to destroy all old reputations and personalities, not excepting even Tagore. The net result was, therefore, purely negative. Looking now, the whole affair seems so utterly grotesque and ridiculous that this washing of dirty linen in public and indiscriminate mud-flinging, could really have so much sting as even to hurt any body. Bengali literature is no longer an infant; it is strong enough to withstand assaults of this nature. So, it is not surprising that the young writers have partially survived the attack, although much damaged and dispirited. At all events, the question of vulgarity or indecency in literature is so very ticklish that, except from the artistic point of view, it is difficult to draw the line. The subjective element which necessarily enters into every product of man's creative effort is precisely what gives the highest value to Art–the subject-matter being practically of no importance. What is commonly taken to be vulgarity in the hands of superior craftsmen like Flaubert, Anatole France, or Maupassant, may give to Art the enduring significance and beauty as a record of the human spirit. In any case, Mr. Buddhadev Bose or Mr. Sen-Gupta seems very mild and harmless beside the late Mr. D. H. Lawrence or M. Marcel Proust, just as water unto wine. So the entire question boils down to precisely how much should be permitted in literature; and considering that fact and the existing conditions of Bengali life and thought, I have no doubt that Mr. Bose and his friends would now own up that they overdid it a bit. Like other provinces, Bengal is firmly rooted in established traditions and customs, in Art as well as in morals. So, in this country, for a sincere artist it would be merely a waste of time to try to shock it, just for the sake of shocking it, unless he has something more than shocking to say. The art of shocking is not exactly a vice, but it is not a virtue; it is as unnecessary as silly. But to have an ideal of inciting the people to think rationally and face the facts squarely is commendable. Literature can never be merely an advertisement of goods, damaged or perfect; it can at best within its proper limits serve as a medium for literary cults or slogans.

The influence of foreign literature on Bengali literature goes a long way, and it has proceeded with accumulative force for nearly two hundred years. In fiction, as in other things, Tagore, of course, has tried to pour Western wine into his country's old bottles, but Western wine is much less strong in his novels than in those of the writers under review. Of the ultra-modern group, Mr. Buddhadev Bose is perhaps the most Europeanized writer. His recently published volume of short stories, The Play is the Thing and is Not bears ample testimony to this. He draws the characters of his stories from the Anglicized, and, to his view, the only cultured section of Bengali society. They speak the language of highly sophisticated men and women; they talk of theatre and tennis, musical comedies and champagne, of Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward, of European art, painting, music, and morals. In one word, they are the so-called ‘highbrows’ of modern Bengali society. But, I am afraid, Mr. Bose's pictures lack reality, simply for this reason, that he has not yet had the requisite experience to be able to paint them in a convincing fashion. They are, one and all, exaggerated figures, lacking in actuality, but certainly they are not just caricatures. Again, his stories of this Anglicized society are altogether too full of trivialities and trifles, which give the impression of merely slices of only one cross-section of modern Bengali society–the kind of society which, I am afraid, generally consists of snobs and bores. Even as slices of life, glittering with ‘talking shop’ and spurious smartness, one would have hardly any cause to grumble if Mr. Bose had intended them purely as satires. Mr. Bose has a certain amount of satirical sense in him, no doubt, but being essentially a poet, he cannot help investing his creations with high seriousness. This naturally leads one to suspect that perhaps he himself prefers, and therefore paints in such glowing colours, the idiosyncracies and ideas of this highly sophisticated Bengali community. His real purpose does not appear to be quite clear. As satires, they are failures, and as serious stories, they do not always ring true. Mr. Bose is rather inclined to hero-worship; he has his periodic literary gods to whom he offers worship, and they range from George Bernard Shaw to Mr. Michael Arlen, none of whom, to laymen, would be worthy of being considered as Olympians. Undoubtedly, he is a well-read man, but one doubts if he has quite digested everything he has devoured. Except for this particular phase of his work, we have every reason to be proud of his achievement. His craftsmanship is spontaneous and effortless, his style has vigour and masculinity; and, above all, his mind has colour and variety. He is still young, but the flood of reading matter that has flowed from his pen is astoundingly large and varied. We expect he will yet give us really great things, provided in future, I venture to presume, he concentrates more on fiction of a psychological type. We have had occasional glimpses of his ability to portray characters from the intellectual and mental side, which suggests that, should he care more for the life in the mind of his characters rather than for their external mannerisms and habits only, he is likely to achieve much better results.

A different aspect of the same Western influence is to be noticed in Mr. Mukherji and Mr. Mitra. In the case of Mr. Mukerji, it is to be found in his preference for drawing material from inferior classes of people–coolies, mine-hands, day-labourers, rustic folk, semi-educated clerks, maid-servants, etc.; and in the case of Mr. Mitra, the tendency goes one step lower– into the lower depths of humanity, such as pick-pockets, habitual drunkards, gamblers, generally men and women outside the pale of society. Mr. Mitra's Mud is a full-length portrait of the fallen, despised, and destitute in their shameless ugliness and distress, but painted with pity, love and understanding. In this, the influence of Russian novelists, specially of Gorkii is more than apparent. Going still lower down, Mr. Sen-Gupta delves into the life of brothels and the demi-mondes, but, curiously enough, on account of the characteristic idealistic tendency of his, to which I have referred before, the all-too-realistic harlots of his novels seem to be infectiously idealistic. The author has ascribed to them feelings, emotions and ideas which it would be difficult to find in them in their habitual attitudes and environments. Mr. Mukherji's small sketches of the simple, unsophisticated folk in Atasi are extremely powerful in their own way; in fact, these are the best he has done so far. The disciples of Tagore had never even thought of considering this section of Bengali life as fit material for fiction, far less of exploiting it. Mr. Mukherji has revealed what an ample store lies there for Bengali story-tellers to draw from. Moreover, Mr. Mukherji possesses an intimate knowledge of it. The ideas of socialism and liberation of the poorer classes from the age-long tyranny of wealth and caste, did not apparently take very long to make an impression in the minds of the Bengali youth. Mr. Mukherji's style is simple and straightforward, although lately, he is showing a tendency for unnecessary ruggedness. Most typical of his longer works is The Butchery of A Woman, a much more balanced work than Flood, for instance. In The Butchery of a Woman he has skillfully handled the theme of man as an eternal tyrant, merciless and brutal in his treatment of woman. It is, however, on a smaller canvas than on a large, that is to say, in the short story, that Mr. Mukherji and his friends have been most successful. And in this field, Mr. Mitra is unrivalled; for, he has the surest touch of them all. In spite of Gorkii or his other masters, he stamps each one of his short tales with his own individuality, Cupid is perhaps the finest example of Mr. Mitra's art. Mr. Sen-Gupta’s stories in the Flotsam and Jetsam, quite good in their own way, do not possess either the structural beauty or imaginative vitality of those in Mr. Mitra's The Nameless Harbour. Mr. Mitra's favourite theme is either frustrated love, or the love which has a way of remaining unfulfilled by some sudden turn in the course of events or some disconcerting twist in human affairs. Mr. Mitra has the right instinct for constructing the right kind of framework for his stories and builds it on a marvellous economy of words. The artistry that these writers have shown in the selection of their material, in the grouping, of their characters, and the judicious choice of necessary matter, is to a large extent due to the influence of the European type of short story.

In Bengal, today, we are living in the most incongruous of all possible worlds. It is an absurdly hybrid world–a mixture of insoluble ingredients. We still suffer from the inhibitions of old antiquated ideas in art and morals, and, strangely enough, the new ideas that we often welcome are only for the purpose of just theorising upon or academic disputations. At any rate, it is a world of which any intelligent man or woman in Bengal must feel ashamed. The old path is precarious to tread on, and the new path also seems full of pitfalls. The older writers feed us on sops and soap-bubbles, and the young writers insist only on man's immediate acts and needs, means and ends, and always with a touch of cynicism. Of course, the cause of this is the Bengali youth's violent disillusionment, which is now acting on a rebound. Cynicism is inverted love; and, as Sainte-Beuve has said, nothing represents a hollow so much as a swelling. But is it altogether impossible for the disillusioned Bengali youth to make some effort to impress their fellowmen with the necessity for straight thinking and clear perception, instead of being only cynical and bitter? From their pictures of life some day we should like to feel the conviction of ascertained values of art and morals, and the vibrations of disciplined and instructed hearts.