All three novellas take place at the rubbed-raw point of contact between modern and rural communities. Desai has a sharply tuned ear for the condescension of well-educated Indians, whom she skewers and finally pities in her restrained, formal voice.
The first piece, “The Museum of Final Journeys,” is narrated by a bitter young administrator appointed to a post in the “benighted hinterland.” A frustrated writer who imagines that his civil service career is doomed, he spends his days listening to the tedious disputes of local citizens. “While others dreamt dreams and lived lives of imagination and adventure,” he whines, “my role was only to take care of the mess left by them.”
But one day, an old man invites him to come see the private museum that his employer has left behind. At this point, the story slides into the fantastical as imperceptibly as twilight fades to darkness. The abandoned museum turns out to be an overwhelming display of riches, but is it also an indication of some deep-seated anger — or even madness? When does the act of curating pass into mere hoarding? Fans of Steven Millhauser will recognize that familiar sense of vertigo in this Escher-like mansion of cascading rooms full of exotic treasures.
“I felt sated,” the narrator writes with increasing panic, “hardly able to take in any more wonders, any more miracles, but detected a certain ruthlessness to my guide’s opening of door after door, ushering me on and on, much further than I wished to go.” Balanced between anxiety and melancholy, “The Museum of Final Journeys” is a little toothache of a story that you’ll have trouble putting out of your mind.
The next novella is more complicated and modern, though it opens with a similarly embittered writer as the central character. A discouraged college teacher named Prema Joshi runs into an old high school idol who now owns a feminist publishing house. Prema can’t believe this important woman remembers her at all, but during a brief conversation, the publisher asks her to submit a proposal to translate the works of an obscure indigenous writer. That assignment, casually offered by a busy professional, nevertheless transforms Prema’s drab life. She quickly moves from writing a dutiful translation to fantasizing about her vastly expanded role: “I saw that what was needed was for me to be inventive,” she says, “take things into my own hands and create a style for the book. So, instead of a literal translation, I decided to take liberties with the text.”
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