Friday, December 4, 2009
A Village Divided
Remember the never-ending number of characters in Rahi Masoom Reza’s “A Village Divided”? I had forgotten about them until I was reviewing the book, and it made me wonder, what was the author’s purpose in including such an outrageous amount of characters in the book? It was obviously a choice by the author to overwhelm the reader with characters, and none of the characters even become “main” characters in the book. Many of them are briefly introduced and then dropped forever. I think it has something to do with the individual not being important, because the group is of higher regard. Any other ideas?
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I know!!! I got a little lost reading it, but it clears up in the end when you get used to the recurring characters. I think Reza appears twice throughout the novel and in the introductions. You're right, there is no main character in this novel. It is said in the introduction that "we meet so many characters in this [second] chapter of the book because the boy Masoom takes us to Gangauli, and we experience wit him his return to his extended family. This is most clearly autobiographical part of the novel" (Gillian Wright xvii). I think of Twilight in Delhi when reading wright's introduction, A village divided might also be another recording of events and characters. Some drop off and never get mentioned again, but they are there as artifacts of the author's memories. May be I'm not very convincing with my explanation...
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