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trend Zia
Mohyeddin column
trend In the e-tablet and
Kindle world populated with smartphones, it is interesting to ponder upon
what will happen to all of us who run out of their houses to escape into the
mysteries of bookshops. Are we really ready to download all our books from
the internet? If we are, then that also entails we need not look at a lot of
book displays and shelves in order to make a selection. We will do that by
looking at the screen of our devices. So here we have a whole system of
buying and selling books undergoing a steady revolution. Though I do believe the
cafeteria culture in bookshops will survive because no matter how hard we
try, it seems quite difficult to drink a cup of tea in the website called
Amazon until the internet also starts teleporting. That would surely be the
Star Trek of Buying Books. In a conversation at BBC
World Book Club, Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafon said that he will never
allow his book ‘The Shadow of the Wind’, to be turned into a film because
he wanted to preserve the written medium. In his first major work for adults,
the author had the main character save a book from a cemetery of forgotten
books. Here we have an author who believes in the sanctity of the written
word to an extent that he does not wish to have the medium violated in film.
If one reads books on tablets or Kindle, there might never be a cemetery of
forgotten books. Or in any case, it would be located not in a secret alley
way but just a click away, saved in the Cloud. The discussion on whether
to read books on paper or on a screen can have a philosophic or traditional
aspect. For example, a complete switch to ebooks would mean that parents will
not be able to take little children for a visit to the bookstore. For those
of us who went on such visits at a young age, the romance of the bookstore is
still very much alive. In fact, half the time, that was the stimulus for
reading. I doubt if net surfing can resurrect that magic of a real visit. On
the other hand, ebooks seem more environment-friendly; we are cutting less
trees. But surely in our country the question is, can you charge your reading
device at all? Putting aside all these
arguments, the truth is that etablets, smart phones and Kindle are devices
meant to facilitate reading experience and that is exactly what they do. Do
they work for us is something we can only answer if we decide to use them. Recently I had the
experience of reading a book on Kindle (I read a murder mystery). The latest
edition of Kindle called Paper White is an amazing device, with touch screen,
and the ability to annotate books as one reads them; it also keeps track of
one’s reading speed. With front lighting, it recreates a dim paper white
display where one can change the font size and brightness according to
personal taste. It also allows you to read
in bright sunlight, which many tablets do not. The display on Kindle can be
locked in either portrait or landscape autorotation mode, which means that if
you lie down to read, it won’t change sides the way other devices do. The question is how good is
Kindle if you do not have access to an Amazon account with a US id. In fact,
this would mostly depend on the types of books one wants to read. Though
without an Amazon account, one cannot use the Cloud backup that Amazon
offers. In Project Guttenberg, we have a whole lot of classics available in
ebook format. Where new books are concerned, one can search for a Torrent.
This sort of freedom in book download leads to obvious issues like piracy and
copyright. In short, even if readers
don’t have proper access to legal book purchase, they will always find a
way to get the book they want. Probably the best part about Kindle paper
white is its lightness and an amazing battery life that can last upto two
months. Other than Kindle, we also
have apps designed for tablets and smartphones. Even though the display
screen on a tablet isn’t as comfortable for the eyes as Kindle, these would
still be in great demand by the reading public. With Google nexus and iPad,
the tablet allows us to view comics and magazine articles in colour where
Kindle has a black and white display. The book cover is also lost on Kindle,
which isn’t capable of showing any colour illustration. Though unlike
Kindle, the screen on tablet can be tiring to look at for longer periods of
time but here each reader must decide her own preference. Reading apps, like ibooks,
Barnes and Noble ebook readers, offer a decent reading experience, and if one
is not much concerned with copyright, a lot of other e-reading apps are
available. A very interesting one is Wattpad 100,000+ Books that even
publishes online works written by amateurs. So there is this brave new world
of online reading out there waiting to be explored. One can surely expect the
younger generations to be fairly apt at making excellent use of these
opportunities. For the time being, a major
concern of mine is reading absorption. For the generation that has started
reading with ebooks and the one that was brought up on paper bound books, it
would be interesting to compare what sort of reading absorption they display.
Since I belong to the latter, even though Kindle is great for pleasure
reading, I have doubts about its ability to help one prepare notes for an
exam. I do feel that for some of us, ereading will become the best choice. Reading devices are
heralding a new future for the reading public. We will not have bookshelves
at home and save lots of space. But then how shall we impress people with our
book collections?
A
postcolonial critique Our contemporary
criticism seems silent about and kind of alienated with specifically more
recent creative works. In the early years, critics used to pick up a single
or a cluster of authors and their works and critiqued them in detail.
Mohammad Hasan Askari, Shams-ur-Rehman Farooqi, Waris Alvi, Shamim Hanfi and
others displayed an enviable command on such writings and had their
individual diction as well. The theoretical insights
they had were never applied as formulae and could not be identified on
surface. Dr Wazir Agha was perhaps the only exception whose emphasis remained
primarily on theory while he refrained from writing applied criticism and
giving value judgement. We now witness a sort of
paradigm shift in Urdu criticism where theory has dominated. Consequently,
the analytical studies have replaced the traditional narrative that so
effectively captured the reader in the past. Nasir Abbas Nayyar is a
promising young critic of substance who derives his critical wisdom from
theory. His academic works have focused on modernism, post-modernism,
structuralism and allied areas of knowledge. Recently, he has come out with
yet another extremely valuable book on theory — ‘Ma’baad
Nau-Aabaadiyaat — Urdu Kay Tanazar Mein’ (Postcolonialism in the
perspective of Urdu) published by OUP. Postcolonialism is not a
new phenomenon; Edward Said is considered to be a pioneer in the subject. But
it has been largely unknown to the Urdu readers. This book is the first of
its kind and is therefore of great relevance. As Nayyar himself observes, it
isn’t a book of criticism as such but is rather a knowledge-based
publication that covers various aspects of post-colonialism with a focus on
Urdu literature and language. Each chapter is documented with references
making it a valid research work. In the colonial era, power
is considered central to all human interactions and relations and due to this
organised onslaught, the two cultures clash, counter and mingle with each
other. Through these discourses and narratives, the literature changes and so
does the language. On the socio-political front, this occupation breeds anger
and resistance that shapes up in different forms. The famous quote of Francis
Bacon “knowledge is power” becomes a strong rhetoric of exploitation and
morbid interpretations in a colonial era. Knowledge is a cultural
weapon that cultivates thoughts and trends in the native culture and
literature to sustain a prolonged and meaningful occupation of the colonised.
Hence, post-colonialism bases itself on the study of these intricate
relationships that support and contradict each other. The inherent supremacy
of the coloniser looks for groups and intellectuals who work for its ultimate
goals. Nayyar competently deals
with these issues in a readable and interesting manner and keeps his focus on
Urdu as a language and its consequent impact is absorbed in the colonial
times. Nayyar describes the
narrative as the DNA of a society and considers Iqbal as the first and the
only poet who evolved a strong local narrative to compete and question the
validity of the grand European narrative; thus partially protecting the
cultural identity of the subcontinent. The author criticises the popular
interpretation of the linguistic concepts of Mohammad Husain Azad and
revisits him in a post-colonial perspective. A separate chapter deals
with the “Society for the diffusion of useful knowledge” established by
the British with an objective to influence the Indian mind in favour of the
coloniser. The society also laid the foundation of the Punjab University
Lahore in the 19th century and also coined the term “modern poetry”,
voicing the dichotomy of form and content in a poetic piece. Author infers
that such an attachment with the very basic concepts of eastern poetry could
only be possible in a colonial era. Through various forms of
visible and masked forms of exploitation, intrigue and indirect control, we
continue to be subordinated by the powerful nations even after independence
in 1947. The colonial rulers left out a residual class of locals that
continues to dominate and dictate the natives. It wouldn’t be incorrect to
state that postcolonialism as a method of cultural study retains its
relevance even today. We could say we are breathing in neo-colonial times. The book provides a solid
knowledge and relevant information, which makes it possible for an intent
reader to understand and interpret what postcolonialism actually means
especially in the perspective of the sociopolitical, cultural and literary
history of the colonised subcontinent. With this book, Nasir Abbas
Nayyer has made his contribution as a well-prepared and learned literati; He
may move further ahead and surprise us with future advances in the fields of
theoretical and applied criticism. Title: Ma ba’ad
Nau-Aabadiyaat Urdu Key Tanazar Mein Author: Nasir Abbas Nayyar Publisher: Oxford
University Press, 2013 Price: PKR575 Pages: 196
Zia
Mohyeddin column One of the notable
features of the twentieth century is that a lot of English literature was
produced by writers who lived in India, Africa, Australia, Japan and even
Persia. The two non-English writers who have made a tremendous impact on
English fiction and drama are both from Eastern Europe; Joseph Conrad from
Poland, and Tom Stoppard from Czechoslovakia. Conrad about whom it is
said that in his writings he ‘plumbs the depth of human soul’ died in
1924. He is generally considered to be one of the first modernists, a writer
whose style has influenced many writers including D.H. Lawrence and William
Faulkner. My first introduction to
Conrad was through a film, ‘Outcast of the Island’; based on his novel.
Set in the Malaysian archipelago it was the story of a degenerate,
middle-aged European who is besotted by a sultry Malaysian girl, a kind of
romantic exotica about the ‘magic’ of the East produced by the Rider
Haggards of the day. There was nothing remarkable about the film except the
stunningly beautiful girl who played the part of Aissa. The redoubtable Ralph
Richardson played the eccentric European, but it was not one of his memorable
performances. It was through Edward
Said’s writings that I was initiated into Conrad. What struck me the most
was his prose; his sentences going up and down as waves. Here is how he opens
the first chapter of ‘Lord Jim,’ a story of human frailty, conscience and
the expiation of guilt: “He was an inch, perhaps
two, under six, feet powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a
slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare
which made you think of a charging bull”. ‘Heart of Darkness’
written in the year that began the twentieth century, has been included in
the list of ‘One Hundred greatest English novels’. The plot is not
complicated. On a yawl on the Thames estuary, the protagonist, Marlow, tells
his fellow sailors about the events that led to his appointment as a captain
of a river steamship for an ivory trading company. He crosses “a mighty
river that you could see on the map resembling an immense snake uncoiled with
its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country and
its tail lost in the depths of the land.” On reaching shore, he
leaves with a caravan to travel on foot some two hundred miles where the
steamship that he is to captain is based. He is shocked to learn that his
ship was wrecked two days before his arrival. The manager of the company
explains that they needed to take the steamboat up-river because of rumours
that one of the company’s important stations is in jeopardy and that its
chief, Mr Kurtz, is ill. Marlow finds the company men at the station to be
lazy, back-biting “pilgrims” fraught with envy and jealousy, all trying
to seek a higher status within the company. After fishing his boat out of the
river, Marlow is frustrated by the months spent on repairs. During this time
he learns that Mr. Kurtz is not much liked and is, in fact, resented. Kurtz,
they all feel, is undeserving of his position because he only received the
appointment by his European connection. Marlow eventually meets the
company’s chief accountant Kurtz, who has forced the natives to worship him
as a God. He is surprised to see that near the station house is a row of
posts topped with the decapitated heads of natives. The International Society
for ‘Suppression of Savage Customs’ has commissioned Kurtz to write a
report on the subject. Kurtz’s exhaustive report ends with a footnote.
“Exterminate all the brutes.” Kurtz entreats Marlow to take good care of
his report. His health worsens Marlow himself becomes increasingly ill. On
his deathbed Kurtz gives Marlow a packet of papers with a photograph to be
given to his fiancé whom he calls ‘my intended.’ Just before Kurtz dies. “He cursed at some image
— he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath — the horror
— the horror.” Kurtz’s last two words
could well be the emblem of “Heart of Darkness.” Upon his return to Europe
Marlow gives the paper entitled ‘Suppression of Savage Customs’ to an
official, but with the postscript “Exterminate all the brutes” torn off.
He visits Kurtz’s fiancé and gives her the packet of papers and the
photograph. The woman, still in mourning, although it is a year since
Kurtz’s death, presses Marlow for information asking him to repeat
Kurtz’s final words. Uncomfortable, Marlow lies and tells her that
Kurtz’s final word was her name. The story is an exploration
of the ‘savage versus civilization’ relationship and of the colonialism
and the racism that made imperialism possible. The critic Edward Said, who
has written penetratingly about Conrad, suggests that the themes developed in
the novel include the colonialists’ abuse of the native and man’s
potential for duplicity. The symbolism in the book expands on these as
struggle between good and evil, light and darkness not so much between people
as in every character’s soul. In the view of some
critics, Kurtz was based on Stanley of “Dr Livingstone, I presume” fame,
as he was the principal explorer of the heart of Africa and was supposedly
infamous for his violence against his African porters. Be that as it may, the
character of Kurtz has haunted generations of televisions and movie directors
and there have been scores of radio and screen versions of the novel. The most famous adaptation
of Kurtz is Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” which moved the
story from Congo to Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam War. In
Coppola’s film, an America captain is charged with terminating the command
of a colonel called, Walter E. Kurtz Marlon Brando who was now fatter than a
Sumo wrestler, played Kurtz. (The film was made in 1979
when star actors didn’t draw today’s astronomical salaries. The most
talked about aspect of the film was that Brando was the first actor to demand
a million dollars for his appearance. His demand was met. He appeared for no
more than ten minutes. Did his performance merit a fee of a hundred thousand
dollars for every minute the he appeared on the screen? The consensus was
that it didn’t.) Conrad’s prose is
sophisticated and haunting: “A moment, a winkling of
an eye and nothing remains — but a clod of mud, of cold mud and cast into
black space, rolling around an extinguished sun. Nothing.” to be continued caption Joseph Conrad.
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