Manu Joseph, THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE

While our opinions were divided on Manu Joseph’s THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE, we were all stimulated and intrigued. We were sorry the book selector herself, Anjuli, couldn’t be there to discuss her selection and especially some questions raised about its Indian context. Some points – and, as always, please add anything I’ve missed or thoughts that occurred to you later in Comments:

• We were all impressed by the vécu quality of the physical and cultural setting. This was not exoticism for the export trade, it was an (artfully/apparently) unselfconscious immersion in a physical and cultural environment. I’m tempted to say Manu Joseph:Chennai equals Philip Roth:Newark.
• The swaths of philosophy struck us differently: some found them interesting to mull over, some thought they were snappily formulated but questionable; others found them old hat, typical dorm-room musings, and beside the point. They almost seemed like a red herring in the “detective story” of Unni’s death – but, if so, why did they take up so much of the book?
• Some of us were frustrated by the device of the absent character defined by others’ reactions to him. We learned that Unni was charismatic, but didn’t ourselves feel his charisma. This was especially marked in the context of the vividness of other principal characters. Deliberate? To what effect?
• One of the first topics to pop up in our discussion, and a point where we really missed Anjuli: how has India (or, let’s say, the slice of India shown in this book) changed since the early 1990s? Does Joseph show any kind of parti pris in his description?
• Sadly topical, the culture of sexual violence. One incident I couldn’t get a grip on: when Unni tells his mother about going to her home town in an attempt to confront her attacker (frustrated because the latter died, happy and respected, a few months earlier), he finishes his story, “Also, I squeezed his wife’s boobs” and he and his mother laugh. The irony of an avenger of sexual abuse participating unquestioningly in a system where abusing a woman is merely a way to send a message to her man – how does this fit into the book as a whole? Are mother and son laughing together or, horribly, separately?

I know I’ve skipped many fascinating points brought up in our discussion – please do help complete this summary.

-- Phoebe