G.D. Barche. Interpreting Literature: A Myth and a Reality. (Bareilly:
Prakash Book Depot, 2008). Pages 197, Price Rs. 175/-. ISBN
978-81-7977-269-0

Interpreting a text is a knotty affair, from impressionistic,
didactic, moralistic, humanistic or spiritualistic to mythic,
modernist, structuralist, postmodernist, diasporic, pragmatic, etc.
G.D. Barche is aware of the pitfalls of various critical approaches
and theories, as he tries to locate the meaning of various literary
texts. He recognizes the significance of the writer's language in
context.

Stylistics, with its armoury of analytical weapons, gives importance
to form and exposes how something is expressed. One cannot do a
stylistic analysis of a poem or fiction without some basic knowledge
of linguistics, structuralism and poststructuralism; grammatical
categories such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs etc, and noun
phrases,
Verb phrases, clauses, collocations etc; syntax, diction, and
vocabulary; metaphor, sound and prosody features etc (in poetry); and
point-of-view and speech and thought presentation, understanding of
the function of speech and dialogue (in fictional narratives); textual
and rhetorical aspects - formal description, meditative reflection and
metonymic dimension of style.

While the text's intrinsic linguistic meaning or formal properties are
basic to Barche's understanding, he applies certain extrinsic
contextual factors that are taken to affect the meaning of language in
discourse. He effectively demonstrates how pragmatic meaning, for
example, can complement semantic meaning, as he draws on ideas and
experiences outside the text to formulate his interpretation. The
process of his interpretation rests on cues in the text which have a
different significance, or are significant to a different extent.

Barche's book does not deal with stylistics as a discipline, rather it
provides stylistic analyses of about 35 poems, 20 novels, and two
plays. The focus of his analysis is not so much on analysis of the
text itself but on analysis of the factors determining the meaning of
a text in its social and spiritual context. His discourse-analytical
approach to style in literary works is positioned against Patanjali's
Yoga Sutras, the Upanishads, the Bhagwad Gita, concepts such as klesa
and citta-vrittis; layers of consciousness and ideals of detachment,
freedom, love and self; myths of sin, fall, and suffering; symbols of
Shikhandi, Sisyphus, Phoenix and Icarus, Adam and Eve, Purnima and
Amavasya etc; and ironies, ambiguities and existential dilemmas that
control the text or relate it to different contexts.

Throughout the 26 essays, composed to demonstrate how the written
words relate to what is really meant, there is an intuitive presence
of Patanjali's citta-vrittis and the various Upanishads that are the
contexts of Barche's interpretations. He also regards the reader's
autonomy vis-à-vis the text, and begins with an example of the reading
and interpretation of Arun Kolatkar's 'Makarand', drawing our
attention to what is known as the 'schema' theory. However, he quotes
H.G. Widdowson to caution that given the unspecific and ambiguous
poetic meanings, "there is no such thing as a definitive
interpretation."

In his detailed analysis of a couple of poems by Kamala Das, Barche
notes that the poet effectively gives vent to her "implicit or
explicit anger" caused by klesas and nourished by viparyaya vritti. He
also compares some of her poems with those of Sylvia Plath, who is
equally experientially deep and psychologically complex but a victim
of the viparyaya vritti which accounts for her deep-seated anger, pain
and sufferings.

In another essay, Barche examines the 'Sun motif' in about twenty post-
independent poets who show a secular rather than religious interest in
the Sun. He also deals with Sunita Jain's poetry to reflect on the
'coupling' complex, i.e. convergence of physical, mental, emotional,
and positional elements in man-woman relationship. In yet another
essay he demonstrates the rejuvenating ('Phoenix') aspects as against
the depleting ('Icarus') aspects of sex a la the Chandogya Upanisad's
'Vamdevya Chant' (Udgitha-Pratihara-Nidhana) in R.K.Singh's erotic
poetry.

Among the words of fiction, Barche explores the built-in Nature-
Culture forces in the protagonists of Arun Joshi's The Strange Case of
Billy Biswas and Nguigi Wa Thiongo's The River Between. He creates the
stylistic context for acquiring the tyaga vritti for 'nitya' (as
against 'anitya') for everlasting blissful state.

His study of Anita Deasi's Bye Bye Black Bird and Arun Joshi's The
Strange Case of Billy Biswas shows the process of alienation and
rehabilitation via a 3-tier operation, viz. construction,
deconstruction and reconstruction. If the characters in the two novels
fail to experience rest and joy, it is because do not accept the
Upanishadic truth that a man's destiny is to keep journeying non-stop.

Barche's approach enables him to deconstruct the deconstruction in
Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things to help grasp the 'why and
how' of things that happen in "ever puzzling and peculiar ways in this
world." He also examines facets of feminism in Indian English fiction,
concentrating on Shashi Deshpande's Roots and Shadows, Anita Desai's
Cry, the Peacock, and Jai Nimbkar's Temporary Answers and highlights
the paradoxical position of Indian women.

He studies Manohar Malgonkar's The Men Who Killed Gandhi to reflect on
existential ironies; Bapsi Sidhwa's An American Brat and Ruth Praver
Jhabwala's Heat and Dust to highlight the psychological processes and
underlying causes that bring about transformation in one's life;
Shobha De's Second Thoughts to understand the feeings of emptiness of
a woman amidst plenty, recreating the myth of Fall; R.K. Narayan's The
Guide to follow the moral import of the character of Marco as woven in
the themes and caught in the tragic human situations without excluding
ironies, ambiguities and moral dilemmas of the freedom to choose; and
Graham Greene's A Burnt-out Case to map the character of Querry in
terms of our layers of consciousness, viz. kali, dvapar, treita and
krutam. He also looks at the suggestive and symbolic instances in The
God of Small Things ; the Shikhandi symbol as reworked in Shashi
Tharoor's Riot, and the expression of Patanjali's avidya in Taslima
Nasrin's Lajja/Shame.

The last two essays of the book concern the study of Shakespeare's
Othello with a vritti approach and the study of Girish Karnad's
Tughlaq with an abhinivesa approach. The former explores the cause of
Othello's fall and suffering in terms of Patanjali's five citta
vrittis, viz. Pramana (right knowledge), Viparyaya (false knowledge),
vikalpa (imagination), nidra (sleep) and smruti (memory), and the
associated painful (klista) as well as painless (aklista) vrittis. He
views Othello's citta (consciousness) invariably occupied in varying
degrees by one vritti or the other but chiefly by pramana vritti,
which results in desolation and death.

The latter essay applies Patanjali's psychology to explore the failure
and consequent sorrow of Tughlaq, a historical character as conceived
by Karnad. Barche, instead of blaming Tughlaq for his impatience,
impulsiveness, lunacy, or overconfidence, locates
A very different factor-abhinivesa-a klesa, a deep-seated passion,
which makes the Sultan act in one direction and is instrumental for
dragging him down from an efflorescent state to a miserable one in
life.

Barche's Interpreting Literature: A Myth and a Reality, nicely printed
and attractively gotup, with its enlightening articles on contemporary
poetry (09), fiction (15) and drama (02), all stylistically linked to
Patanjali's psychology for various interpretations, is a major
contribution to Indian English Literary criticism. He is original in
the sense he adds God-dimension to the triad of writer, reader and
text and is keen-sighted. His interpretations may not be the same as
the original authors' or other readers' but he is convincing.


--R.K.SINGH