What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell; Penguin Books; Price: Rs.599; 410 pp
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One of the many usps (unique selling propositions) of the United States of America which attracts the world’s best thinkers, researchers, students and intellectuals to this melting pot nation, is the diversity of its liberal media and academic institutions which offer a vast number of debating forums and platforms. Among America’s most respected discussion forums is the New York-based The New Yorker (TNY, estb.1925), which over the past 85 years has earned a global reputation as one of the most admirable and perceptive literary (monthly) magazines.
Uncompromisingly liberal inasmuch as its editors are ready, willing and able to permit the discussion of any subject or issue which may be of interest to its estimated 1 million readers around the world, over the decades, TNY has encouraged and nurtured some of the most accomplished writers of the 20th century. Among them: John Updike, V.S. Naipaul, Ved Mehta, and latterly Malcolm Gladwell who has been a star staff writer with this mind-expanding magazine since 1996.
A particularly notable and distinguishing characteristic of TNY is that even in this new age of strictly regulated word counts and tight editing, this monthly allows writers and contributors all the space they require to advance and argue their propositions, observations, insights and conclusions. Little wonder that within this conducive work environment during the past almost two decades, Gladwell (47), an alum of University of Toronto who formerly worked with The Washington Post, has emerged as one of the contemporary world’s most celebrated philosopher-writers penning several bestselling books including The Tipping Point (2000) and Outliers (2008) — both of which have been reviewed on these pages. What the Dog Saw (2009) is a collection of his best (self-selected) essays written for TNY in the new millennium years. And they offer a mountain of evidence why this young writer is described as a “global phenomenon” (Observer); “genius” (The Times) and “the world’s most influential thinker” (GQ).
The purpose of this eclectic collection of essays, says Gladwell in the preface, is to try and make sense of and perhaps reconstruct events such as the Challenger spaceship disaster of 1986 in which seven astronauts perished; the airplane crash in 1999 which ended the life of John F. Kennedy Jr, as also to decipher complex cultural phenomena such as societal acceptance of women unapologetically colouring their hair. The title of the book is derived from a story which explains the modus operandi of Cesar Millan, arguably the most famous dog psychologist in the US and the world. Currently Millan hosts the National Geographic television channel’s hit show Dog Whisperer wherein “in every episode he arrives amid canine chaos and leaves behind peace”.
Although ex facie the tny essays included in this compendium seem to be randomly chosen, there’s purpose and design in their selection, says Gladwell. The anthology is divided into three almost equal parts. In the first section, the seven essays focus on the interior lives and compulsions of “obsessives” or “minor geniuses” — not iconic figures who shape national or world history — but individuals who invented and popularised revolutionary kitchen aids, hair colour, the (birth control) pill and dog whisperer Cesar Millan.
In the second section Gladwell examines theories or “ways of organising experience” such as homelessness, the Enron financial scandal, plagiarism and the explosion of the spaceship Challenger. And in the third part of this absorbing collection the author muses about the art of judging people (“how do we know whether someone is bad, or smart or capable of doing something really well”). At some point during the past decade, the subject matter of each one of these essays loomed large in the American, if not quite the Indian, consciousness. Yet the charm of What the Dog Saw is that most of the subjects the author writes about are universal, which at the very least interest, if not engage, the great majority of sentient people the world over.
Given this collection contains 22 essays on subjects which are fleetingly reflected upon but seldom examined in depth, there’s something in this compendium for everyone. Yet for this reviewer the finest pieces which are testimony to Gladwell’s instinct for zeroing in upon subjects of human interest are stories such as ‘The Pitchman’ which recounts the passion and purpose with which several members of one family invented and superbly promoted (‘pitched’) a plethora of kitchen aids and gadgets which have almost eliminated the culinary drudgery of the American housewife; and ‘Blowing Up’ which narrates how the celebrated investment banker Nassim Talib (author of the transnational bestseller The Black Swan) transformed his pessimism into investment strategy.
The second section of this collection also offers a clutch of brilliantly crafted essays on “theories, predictions and diagnoses”. Among them one of the best reads is ‘Open Secrets’ which examines the mercurial rise and fall of Enron Corp, the energy and power behemoth which was ranked among the world’s most respected and well-managed business enterprises in the first quinquennium of the 21st century, until it collapsed into sudden bankruptcy in 2006. Unusually in this essay, Gladwell muses upon the irony of McKinsey & Co — the globally famous consultancy firm — which endorsed and advised Enron to the hilt, emerging lilywhite and continuing business as usual after Enron collapsed like a house of cards.
With terrorists of all persuasions striking at will across this country, the substantial essay on reform of the intelligence services provides several valuable insights, which the clueless mandarins of our own Union home ministry would do well to mull upon.
For readers outside the US, perhaps the most absorbing essays of this compilation which offer universally relevant insights and perspectives, are clustered in part three. They address issues such as how to spot and evaluate the usually hidden competencies and aptitudes of people. How do we identify late bloomers? Is precocity synonymous with genius? How to single out potentially successful individuals and employees? In sharp contrast to India where these subjects are ignored at great cost to industry and the economy, they are deeply researched in America.
Undoubtedly an intellectually stimulating and mind-bending assortment of essays on matters which repose in the subconscious mind, and upon which most people only fleetingly reflect. Yet your reviewer speed read this unique anthology with a mixture of exasperation and regret. Why doesn’t Indian society support an intellectually stimulating, discussant periodical such as The New Yorker? Or produce seminal philosophers such as Malcolm Gladwell? Surely, the answer to this anguished question is connected with the pathetic condition of this country’s crumbling education system.
Dilip Thakore
Impressive debut
Past Continuous by Neel Mukherjee; Picador India; Price: Rs.446; 467pp
“The past is a cruel country; it never renounces its claim on you.”
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Some books choose to explore circumstances beyond human measure and others desire to investigate the depth and complexities of varied human emotions. Although, most of the pages of Past Continuous force the reader to dwell on the past rather than the present, it nevertheless leaves a lasting impression on the mind. Flitting back and forth between India of the 1970-80s, UK of the 1990s and British India of the early 20th century on the eve of Lord Curzon’s infamous partition of Bengal in 1905, Neel Mukherjee’s debut novel tells a tale of disarticulation and estrangement, about tenuous and unconscious intersections of lives and histories, and about the consolations of storytelling.
The novel’s recently orphaned protagonist Ritwik Ghosh (22) has a chance to start his life all over again when he arrives in Oxford to study. But to do that, he must not only experience his entire past again but also try to understand it, naming things, making connections, unraveling the threads of a narrative he can now bring himself to read. Above all, he must make sense of his troubled relationship with his mother which defines his experience with people around him and most importantly, with himself.
But Oxford offers no escape as Ritwik loses himself thoroughly in London, and takes up residence with the 75-year-old Anne Cameron. Soon he loses his official student status and enters the dark, shadowy alleys of illegal migrants living in Britain. He chooses to alienate himself from any positive influence and defies all advice. Meanwhile, to ward off loneliness and despair, he starts penning a novel about a Miss Gilby who teaches English, music and Western manners to Bimala, wife of an educated zamindar, Nikhilesh, in pre-partition Bengal at the turn of the 20th century.
Subtly, almost imperceptibly, his history with Anne begins to match with that of Miss Gilby, even as Anne’s South London garden starts being visited by rare tropical birds. And then, one night, in the badlands of King’s Cross, London, Ritwik runs into Zafar bin Hashm, suave, impossibly rich, unfathomable, and perhaps an international arms dealer. Whether his experiences are real or imaginary is left to the reader’s perception, and forms the crux and engrossing subject matter of the novel. The character of Ritwik is hard and gritty, much like the plot of the story which revolves around a self-chosen path to destruction of the central character. Within the first 70 pages the author has graphically described — perhaps too graphically — a homosexual encounter Ritwik has with a Brit who dyes his moustache with shoe wax.
Quite obviously Mukheerjee’s debut novel is not for the faint- hearted, or for those who prefer light and easy reading. His writing is stoically factual and often bludgeons the reader. But it also investigates the widening emotional distance that separates immigrant aliens from the countries they have left behind. Ritwik appears in the first chapter as a hazy character with ghostly bearing, performing the rites for a dead parent in a dreamlike succession of predictable rituals. As he conducts the last rites of his mother, his emotions are weighed down with the deposit of a private history which has brought him to a crematorium in Calcutta, to repeat for his mother, the Hindu cremation rituals performed 11 days earlier for his father.
Past Continuous is an unsparing debut novel which unsettles the reader’s confidence in the concept of permanence of life. Even though the story is an example of penning human emotions to every tear drop and half-smile, the author knows how to arouse the reader’s unconscious emotions and buried memories.
The strength of this transcontinental novel is the fluidity with which it captures the essence of Ritwik’s journey through indistin-ctive senses of sound, smell and touch. It stirs the reader’s memory with past echoes and right words which in turn, burst open the dam of emotions, thoughts and prayers.
Neha Ghosh