Anuradha Roy

I first ran across Anuradha Roy when I saw one of her books (her first novel, An Atlas of Impossible Longing) at the library. I thought it was a new book by Arundhati Roy, whom I have loved since I first read The God of Small Things. When I picked the book up and saw that it wasn't Arundhati, I was disappointed, of course, but since I already had it in my hands, I started reading the first page of An Atlas. It was pretty interesting right from the get-go, so I ended up checking the book out and spending some time with it. And then something happened. I don't remember what, but knowing me it was probably either I diddled around too long and had to return it unfinished or I ended up getting distracted by other stuff. Both of those things happen quite frequently. I know that I wasn't displeased with the book, and have thought about going back to it a number of times over the years, but never got around to it.

But a few days ago I had an image in my mind of a sunken city, and since that conjured up a memory of An Atlas, I thought I'd go poking around for it. I found that the Louisville Free Public Library had ten items listed under Anuradha Roy's name: 

Four novels in book form--3 of them also available on CD, one also available in Large Print, and one available on Playaway. And then there was this other thing: Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World. Well. They had me at Stories. So I decided to start with that one, figuring that it would be a smaller commitment that I might actually be able to handle as I juggle the other 9 books I'm currently reading every day. (It's all about manageable goals, isn't it?) And it arrived promptly, I picked it up forthwith, and read Anuradha's story yesterday.

It was entitled "Drowning in Reverse," and it was superb. It's a piece of non-fiction writing, but it has all the beauty of well-written fiction, and like all good writing, it was about a lot more than it was about. The focal point of this piece was a city which had been flooded out of existence in order to build a dam. Interesting bit of synchronicity there, that I started with the image of a drowned city from An Atlas, decided to go look for the author of that piece, and ended up reading a different piece which centers on...the image of a drowned city. This essay also goes into the political corruption that makes it possible to destroy an inhabited city in the name of Progress, which is summed up quite nicely here: 

"In a country run by politicians who are almost all thugs of different shades, the poor know that governments are of the rich, for the rich, by the rich."

And gee...even though Anuradha is writing about India, this sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?

Anuradha also tells us that the government had plans to make a tourist attraction by making it possible for visitors to go down in submarines to have a look at the drowned city. That pretty much sums it all up, doesn't it? 

Also like all good fiction, this essay reaches beyond itself and introduces me to poet Anthony Hecht, quoting these lines from one of his poems:

Emerging from a sudden crater of water

That closes itself like a healed wound

To plate-glass polish as the diver slides

Upwards....

She didn't identify the specific poem these lines were taken from, but a bit of Googling narrowed it down to something from Collected Earlier Poems: The Complete Texts of The Hard Hours, Millions of Strange Shadows, The Venetian Vespers by Anthony Hecht, which my library had a copy of, which I put on reserve, which I will soon be reading...and then I'll know the title of the poem. (I'm overjoyed that the LFPL has this book, looking forward to getting it into my hands...and sad to tell you that they had only one copy, and that it was stored in Remote Shelving, so clearly this isn't a High Demand item. Poets deserve much better.)

This, by the way, is yet another example of how I end up reading as many as a dozen books at one time. For me, reading is always a process resembling fission.

ANYway...Anuradha Roy is a superb writer, and I am going to have another go at An Atlas of Impossible Longing posthaste...and I wouldn't be at all surprised if I went on to read her other three novels venisoon after. You come too?

Oh, and as long as I'm here, I will add that I took a look at a couple of other pieces in Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World (edited by John Freeman), and both of them were quite good as well: "The Funniest Shit You've Ever Heard" by Lina Mounzer (how could I resist that title? Unfortunately, there was nothing funny about this essay, but it was compelling reading) and "On the Organic Diversity of Literature: Notes From My Little Astrophysical Observatory" by Sjón, translated by Philip Roughton (again...Ø resist...title). Both of these were so good, in fact, that I may even read a few more things from this anthology. There are pieces by Margaret Atwood, Lauren Groff, and lots of other no doubt fine writers...from all around the world, by the way. If your library doesn't have a copy, you can get it on Kindle for a mere $13.99 or as a book book from Amazon for a mere $10.39 (Anuradha Roy's piece alone is worth that).

And hey...it's Jet approved:

P.S. I finally got Anthony Hecht's Collected Earlier Poems, and after it sat on my end table (actually an old wooden crate) for a suitable amount of time, I went to look for the poem Anuradha Roy had quoted from. First I looked at the titles. Nothing seemed likely. Then I went through every page, doing a glance at three or four strategic points on each page. Nothing. I went back to Google Books and was able to locate a clue: there was a II on the page following the page that had these lines. And...finally...I found the poem. It is called "The Venetian Vespers," and it is 25 pages long. So I'm going to have a cup of coffee, watch a football game or two, ride the stationary bike, and then get to it. News as it happens.