Book Review
The meaning
and purpose of life are themes that have enchanted thinkers from time
immemorial. Philosophers and psychologists have given us umpteen theories on
them. Novelists have entertained us with gripping stories about the same. Manu
Joseph’s novel, The Illicit Happiness of Other People, is another gripping
novel on the theme of life’s meaning and purpose.
The real
protagonist of the novel, 17 year-old Unni Chacko, is dead three years before
the novel begins. He jumped to his death from the terrace of his three storey
apartment. Why did he commit suicide when he was a brilliant student and exceptionally
gifted cartoonist? His father, Ousep Chacko, wants to find it out and the novel
is about that quest.
Ousep is an
alcoholic. Once upon a time he was a promising writer. Now he is a mediocre
journalist and a total failure as a husband and father to Mariamma and Thoma
respectively. Mariamma would love to see him dead and even thinks of killing
him. Ousep is intent on solving the mystery of his elder son’s death and he
does succeed in the end.
The plot is as
simple as that and yet quite complex as Ousep moves like a phantom among Unni’s
friends and acquaintances picking up every thread that he can use to complete
the warp and woof of the fabric he will weave in the end. Ousep’s quest makes
the novel a suspense thriller and a philosophical thesis at the same time.
There is plenty of humour too though it tends to hit us in the darkest chambers
of our subconscious mind. For example: “My wife died three months ago,” says a
character. “Have you heard this joke, Ousep? ‘My love, I feel terrible without
you. It is like being with you.’”
The novel
delves into the many ineluctable paradoxes of life and hurls at us certain
axiomatic statements like “Truth is a successful delusion” and “In this world,
it is very hard to escape happiness.”
Truth and
delusion are explored in detail since that was one of Unni’s favourite quests.
What is truth if the same reality is understood differently by different
people? “A delusion is many times more powerful than a lie,” says Dr C. Y.
Krishnamurthy Iyengar DM, FRCP (Glas), FRCP (Edin), FRCP (Lond), FAMS, FACP,
FICP FIMSA, FAAN, Neurosurgeon, Neuropsychiatrist and Chairman Emeritus of The
Schizophrenia Day Ward and Research Centre. “The distinction between a
successful delusion and a lie is very difference between a successful saint and
a fraud.” The doc goes on to declare that “All our gods, from the beginning of
time, have been men with psychiatric conditions.”
The novel can
shake orthodox religious beliefs when it shows how religious beliefs are
delusions and how delusions are contagious. Did a delusion steal the young
Unni’s life? Or was it an anguishing truth that did it? Wait till the end of
the novel to know that. And then you begin to wonder which of the two –
delusion and truth – is more desirable.
The novel
grips the reader right from the beginning with its rare mix of suspense,
philosophy and humour. The only problem is that towards the end it begins to
sound like a thesis which the author is trying to establish. That is not a
serious drawback, however. It is not easy to conclude an intricate and
philosophical plot whose chief characters are a dead cartoonist, an alcoholic
quester, and his “buffalo wife” and “idiot son”.
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