Book Review
Title: Less
Author: Andrew Sean Greer
Publisher: Hachette
Pages: 261
Price in India: Rs 499
Failure is as
multi-faceted as success. You can fail in more ways than you may succeed. “Full
many a flower” of Thomas Gray blushed unseen in the desert air, thanks to this universal
tendency of failure. A lot of excellent writers end up as bloggers while more
mediocre ones become best sellers, also thanks to this same principle. The same
can be said of any profession.
Andrew Sean Greer’s novel,
Less, which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize is about a failed writer
called Arthur Less. The blurb asks the question “Who says you can’t run away
from your problems?” implying that Less failed because he did not face his
problems. He did not, true. Can not-being-able-to-face your problems be one
of the many facets of failure?
Take a look at the
successes around you. Are they all geniuses? How many mediocre people have
risen high, too high, and shone brilliantly there too uttering sheer nonsense
that had charming colours, colours of nationalism or something like that?
Arthur Less is not a
genius anyway. He is plain mediocre. He is gay too. At least, he should be a
good gay in order to succeed as a writer. Or to succeed as anything. Who
determines your success? A group of people, right? So, obviously, you should be
in the good books of a group. A political party, a religious community, a
scholar’s agglomeration, or a local club at least. These are what can declare you
a success. Who else?
Arthur Less is not even a
good gay. The novel begins with Less’s nine year-lover, Freddy, inviting Less
to his wedding with another man. In order to avoid attending the wedding, Less
begins to accept all other invitations which he had discarded earlier: to teach
in a university as a visiting lecturer, to attend an award ceremony, and so on,
all of which turn out to be farces organised by people with motives as ulterior
as getting Viagra cheaper. During that journey which takes Less to many
countries including India (land of rats and rat snakes and mongooses and
parsons and dogs and elephants and all sorts of animals). He is there in each
country for all wrong reasons.
Arthur Less is not even a
good gay. He could not only retain his handsome gay lover Freddy but also not
please any gay lover. Even his novels failed to do justice to the gays. “It is
our duty to show something beautiful from our world,” Less is told by a gay
reader who admires him. “The gay world. But in your books, you make the
characters suffer without reward. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were
Republican.” Less’s protagonist Kalipso “washes ashore on an island and has a
gay affair for years. But then he leaves to go find his wife!” That doesn’t
inspire the gays. “Inspire us, Arthur,” he is told. “Aim higher.”
Aim higher. Means, appease
some group or the other. This last conversation which happens in Paris leaves
Less feeling that he is not only a bad writer but also a bad lover, a bad
friend, a bad son, and “bad at being himself”.
Less did his best to get
himself listed in the best sellers under 30, then under 40, and now he is just
turning 50 only to realise there is no hope for him to reach that list anymore
because 50 is the age when you are too old to be fresh and too young to be rediscovered.
Time has run out for
Less. Life is not going to be kind to you once you run out of your time. Life
is tragi-comedy. Less seems to be the kind of a person for whom the first half
of life was comedy and the second half tragedy, according to one of the
characters. Having made that assessment, the character thinks again. “Not just
the first part,” he says. He thinks that Less’s whole life is comedy. “The
whole thing. You are the most absurd person I’ve ever met. You’ve bumbled
through every moment and been a fool; you’ve misunderstood and misspoken and
tripped over absolutely everything and everyone in your path, and you’ve won.
And you don’t even realize it.”
Well, did Less win? That’s
one question. The other is: Has his life been comic or tragic? It depends on
from where you look at him. The novel persuades you to look at him from both
sides. And it persuades powerfully too. Humorously too. Poignantly too. Green
is a good writer.
Green is not an easy
writer. You need patience to grasp the depth of this novel precisely because it
appears shallow all through when it actually has depths lying concealed all
over.
Comments
Post a Comment