|
Makarand Paranjape, author of two other volumes
of poetry, The Serene Flame and Playing The Dark
God, a collection of short stories, This Time I
Promise It'll Be Different, and a novel, The
Narrator, is also a widely published scholar,
critic, reviewer and a columnist. He is
currently Professor of English at the Jawaharlal
Nehru University, New Delhi.
Used Book
Used Book, appearing nine years after Playing
The Dark God, brings into life "characters" –
both ordinary and not so ordinary. From romantic
suicides and consumptive chauffeurs to aging
secretaries and degraded poetesses, from gifted
healers and vivacious stars to dispirited models
and doddering princelings. Here, places tell
tales too. Desolate ruins and spooky tombs,
ravaged cityscapes and lush hill stations,
humdrum suburbs and lost childhood homes reveal
their sudden secrets.
Used Book moves from the predominant mood of
love, the sringara rasa that distinguishes
Paranjape's two earlier collections, to a deeper
sympathy and a sense of engagement. A sharper
awareness of the bitter ironies and tendentious
follies of the human condition now temper his
postmodern playfulness and compelling wit.
Dexterously woven into these poems are inspired,
inane, triumphant, or oppressive journeys into
childhood and adolescence, social and emotional
deprivation, exile and expatriation. Past and
present, fact and fiction, memory and oblivion
contend with plangent sufferings or luminous
liberations, testing in the process the very
limits of apprehension and textuality.
Used Book comprises ten sections with four poems
in each section. The poems are preceded by a
prologue and conclude with an epilogue. |
