The Origins of Dislike

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY MAY 7, 2018

Literature professor and novelist Chaudhuri (Friend of My Youth) surveys a rich variety of artists, media, and ideas in this intriguing but uneven collection of previously published essays and lectures. Highly academic diction will dissuade most casual readers, which is a shame, because while Chaudhuri doesn't succeed in tying the different entries together very strongly, his wide-ranging examinations prove worthy of the work they ask of the reader. Many of the pieces explore celebrated Indian artists, including photographer Raghubir Singh, filmmakers Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, and, in a number of essays, multidisciplinary Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Chaudhuri also touches on the novels of British author Henry Green, and on such general themes as the search for identity among Indian artists and the encroachment of market capitalism on the world of letters. Even as readers become accustomed to the complex and often discursive style, they will still find doorstop sentences like, "At this time, laughter emanates from Bakhtin too, with a specific political significance, a significance that immediately adheres to the ludic." The author's erudition cannot be doubted, but too often it obscures more than it explains.