I got Sunil Gangopadhyay’s ‘Days and Nights in the Forest‘ many years back when it first came out in English translation. I loved the description of the book on the back cover and that is why I got it. I finally got around to reading it.
Four friends board a train and get down at a small station in the middle of nowhere. There is forest all around. These four friends are all from the big city. They want to stay in the forest for a while and enjoy the quiet and the solitude. But things don’t go according to plan. What happens during their stay in the forest is told in the rest of the story.
There is good news and bad news. The good news first. The story sounds quite realistic. The characters in the story feel real. There is no attempt to make the tribal folks, the santals, look exotic. They look like real people. Also Sunil Gangopadhyay’s prose is simple and spare and moves the story at a good pace. The pages just flew by!
More good news. There is a beautiful introduction by the translator at the beginning of the book. It is very interesting to read. And the final piece of good news. The description of the book on the back cover. It is exceptional. If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you. Here is how it reads.
“Set in the turbulent 1960s, ‘Days and Nights in the Forest’ (‘Aranyer Dinratri’) was the second novel that a young Sunil Gangopadhyay wrote. Largely autobiographical, it is the story of a whimsical, impromptu journey that four city youths – Ashim, Sanjoy, Shekhar and Robi – take into the forests of Palamau.
The four friends blithely imagine that their escapade into the wilderness will distance them from ‘civilization’ and take them closer to pristine nature. In reality, the solitude and austere majesty of the forest force them to look deeply into themselves and confront their all-too-human follies and ‘civilized’ foibles in new, unexpected and frightening ways. As they hear the ominous sound of one tree after another being felled, encounter mercenary traders bent on milking the forest for all it is worth, and see the simmering unrest flickering in the eyes of the tribal inhabitants, they are compelled to look well beyond their own time to a plundered and violated world where the forest can never be a pastoral utopia – a world that is, inexorably and inescapably, our own. They return to Calcutta ineffably changed – sadder, older, more introspective.
‘Days and Nights in the Forest’ was made into a celebrated film by Satyajit Ray very soon after its publication. Now translated for the first time from the original Bengali into English, this prescient and sophisticated novel remains as sharply relevant more than forty years after it was first written.”
It is good, isn’t it?
Now, the bad news. I didn’t see all these coming out in the book. The story in the way it is told, is not satisfying, there is no conflict between the tribals and civilization (it seems to be a product of the blurb-writer’s imagination), I don’t remember any scene where trees were felled in the forest or any mercenary traders milking the forest for all it is worth (again seems to be a product of the blurb-writer’s imagination). The blurb seems to imply that this story is about the clash between civilization and the pure, pristine, primitive way of living, and it is about how our modern civilization has destroyed the environment. That is a beautiful plot, and I love that plot, and that is the reason I got this book. But this book doesn’t have that plot. How there is such a big gap between what the story is and how the blurb writer understood it – I don’t know. I remember Amy Tan once telling this story. She said that sometimes she wrote in one of her stories that a character wore a blue shirt. When she later went and read the Cliff Notes of her novel, the Cliff Notes said that this character wore a blue shirt, and that indicates that the character is feeling ‘blue’, that is she is depressed. Amy Tan said that this was not what she meant at all. She just meant that her character wore a blue shirt. There is no interpretation there, there is no subtext there. It is just a simple case of WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get). The same problem seems to be there in Sunil Gangopadhyay’s book. It is a simple story of four young men going to the forest and doing questionable things, but this has been interpreted as a case of the clash of civilizations and environmental devastation. Even if I stretch my imagination, I’m not able to make that leap.
This book was made into a movie by Satyajit Ray. Maybe the movie is better. Maybe all the subtext is there in the movie. Maybe people saw the movie and enjoyed it and projected that interpretation into the text. Who knows. But I’m hoping to watch the movie sometime. It is a Satyajit Ray movie after all. It will be good.
Reading ‘Days and Nights in the Forest’ was an underwhelming experience for me. Probably because I came with high expectations. I know now that we can’t trust the blurb anymore. And if we can’t trust the blurb, the only thing we can do is jump blindly into a book, and hope that the risk pays off. It is like jumping into the river and hoping that we’ll learn swimming on the way. But reading is less risky. And there are worse ways of spending your time. And you have an opportunity of writing a review like this. So all things considered, it is not that bad.
Have you read ‘Days and Nights in the Forest’? What do you think about it?
Aaha! Certainly a great writeup as always! Well, I had the opportunity to read this book in Bengali and I liked it, if not loved it. But I completely understand your point. Well, let me tell you a story about Sunil. You might or might not know, Sunil was a poet in 50s and 60s Bengal and he completely detested prose. In that era, there were young poets like Shakti Chattopadhyay, Ananda Bacchi etc founded a poetry magazine named ‘Krittibas’ (Later, an era of Bengali poets surfaced named Krritibasi poets) and they passionately experimented with new age poetry. They were so well read and aware with contemporary world poetry that many of them got an Iowa state scholarship from US. (Sunil also went for a few years but he returned because he had missed Kolkata and Bengali poetry and wanted to write poem all his life.) Anyway, these guys were kind of young rebels, stupid, irresponsible, open to all kind of drugs and liquor but immensely talented. They kept going on foolish adventure trips. Even queer poet Alan Ginsberg became their close friend and they keep exploring Kolkata and Bengal like vagabonds. But no matter how good their poetry was, they did not make a penny out of it. With time, the financial responsibility grew and they all struggled to get daily bread and butter(read fish and rice). They were one of poorest creatures in Kolkata, as per the ‘quote’. Then someone asks them to write prose and novels to get them published in a few magazines and earn something. Novels were getting popular. Sunil got this offer but he did not have the slightest idea what to write. Then one of his american poet friend said that writing novel is easy. Just remember a day of your life and start writing from that day’s events and go on. Don’t think. Its just for money. So he started writing the books. The books got popular. But Sunil hated them. Later, when he became successful as a poet and novelist, he had actually concentrated on writing good prose and published ‘Those days/Sei Somoy’, ‘Purbo Poschim’, ‘Prothom Alo’ etc. These were really good work. But Sunil hated his early work as novelist. More than that, he hated the translation and the imaginary precis publishers put on the books to sell the book by using his brand name. The same problem with this book. This is not a book about tribal society and fading connection and conflict with urban lifestyle. This was a foolish random travelogue cum auto fiction without much depth, best read in originally language because of the fluidity of the language and honesty of the writer. Don’t know why publishers just write anything without knowing the context of the book.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Your comment was very informative and insightful and it made me think a lot. Maybe I should read Sei Somoy and Prothom Alo one of these days. Very fascinating to know about Sunil Gangopadhyay and his life. Thanks for sharing.
Its my pleasure Vishy. Sunil is one of the authors in a Bengali who made me fall in love with books. (And to life, in general) The man lead a life so astonishing and full of ‘life’ that I look upon him and think, “How can someone do so many things in life and still have so much fun?” He was so prolific as a writer and poet. He has written hundreds of books, poetry, young adult literature, travelogue, memoirs, travelled all over the world, attended poetry festivals in the distant parts of the continents, adventured in a brave and foolish way, fell in love with a French girl and wrote about her all his life, worked for Bengali poetry and encouraged regional poets across India when he was working for Sahitya Academy, read voraciously all his life, appreciated art, architecture, literature and music like a mad man. And a dear friend to everyone. From Ginsberg to Srijato, from 8 years old to 80 years old, to juniors and Super seniors…He could make everyone feel good in a moment. Everyone adored him. And obviously his writings. He also wrote a lot of trash in the later life when he actually did not want to write but everyone keep requesting him. But to judge his entire body of work, what a fascinating literary figure he was. Most of his books are amazing, his poems about Nira (His imaginary girlfriend) His alter ego Nilu (A vagabond who goes to Nischindipur, the unknown land whenever he is pressured by the society) The adventures of Kakababu and other characters (my childhood favourite) and his famous trilogy (East West, Those days, First light translated into English)… I have never found the same fluidity and honesty in most of the authors. Hope you discover some of his good work. Happy reading.
How extraordinary! I read the first part of your review and the blurb and I thought, oh yes, this is a book for me.
And then I read the rest of the review.
And then I read Sudeep’s very interesting comment!
You know, this happens sometimes in western publishing. An author writes a really beaut book which wins prizes and gets great reviews from the cultural media, and the publisher decides to capitalise on this fame and asks for another novel, quick smart while everybody’s interested. Well, of course, the author doesn’t have one that can be got into print within a year, so they dredge up the first novel which was rejected by publishers for very good reasons and they publish that. They also do this after a famous author has died.
And of course it sells, because readers think, oh, good, another one by that author that I love…
Some readers, the discerning sort *wink*, aren’t impressed and they say so at Goodreads or wherever but they get howled down by the fans of the famous author, some of whom haven’t even read the first one never mind the second one, but just think they should have because of wanting to keep up with the zeitgeist so they pretend to have read it, when really, all they’ve read is the blurb.
You know, if I were a teacher, I would set this novel as an assignment. That way I could catch out all the students who’ve only read the blurb or watched the movie!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Lisa. Loved your comment! Your comment about how publishers dredge out the first novel of a writer which had been rejected earlier got very good reasons, it made me laugh 😄 I used to read those newly discovered first novels, and they were uniformly disappointing 😄 I was hoping to like this book, because the description on the back cover was beautiful, but unfortunately, it was not to be. I feel sad.
Wow, I love the above from Sudeep! Can you please thank him for me?! That was so interesting to learn. Anyway, have a good day Vishy, and I will look forward to learning what you have been reading!
Thank you for your kind words, Jenny 😊 That comment by Sudeep is very beautiful and informative isn’t it? I learnt a lot from that comment. Hope you are having a beautiful Sunday! I’m thinking of starting a new book now, while waiting for lunch to arrive 😊
I really enjoyed reading this review because you made the reader (me!) think and question a number of things about the author, the story, the translation, and the blurb on the back cover of the book.
I do know that feeling of choosing a book, and then it ends up on the bottom of the pile, or the back shelf, not due to lack of regard for the book. That is just the way with books if one has many. So, in my experience we think we know what the book is about, and imagine it, and look forward to reading a book, thinking that we know what to expect.
I am especially suspect about the back covers of books these days. Some vague and lofty comments, and a number of vapid quotes about how great the book is, which are supposedly written by people in the know. Writing one or a few books is a far cry from being an expert on literature!
What the review did bring to mind was a beautiful description that you wrote (at least as I remember it) about a car trip that you took with some friends – driving through the night. Now, whatever happened to that – I went through all of my emails hoping to find this favorite description and never did! There was also a description that you wrote about the cold temperatures when you lived in Shanghai. It was a bit of genius. When I think of cold yours is often a story that comes to mind. So, getting back to your night travels – our own experiences and what we bring to a story or a book shape it too. That is how the experience becomes unique for each reader.
Thank you for this outstanding review!
Heidi
Glad you liked the review, Heidi 😊 Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Reading your comment made me think a lot. I’m glad I read this book, but I feel sad that I didn’t like it as much as I’d hoped to, mostly because of the expectations I had after reading the description on the back cover, and the way the book actually turned out to be.
Thanks for sharing that description I wrote to you. I’m not able to recall the night drive, but I remember the one about the cold temperatures in Shanghai 😊 Thank you for your kind words 😊