Spivak's book review of Godaan

7/29/2019 Spivak's book review of Godaan

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VERSIONS OF A COLOSSUS: A REVIEW OF GORDON C. ROADARMEL'S TRANSLATION OFPREMCHAND'S "GODAAN"Author(s): Gayatri C. SpivakSource: Mahfil, Vol. 6, No. 2/3 (1970), pp. 31-37Published by: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40874316 .

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Gayatri C. Spivak

VERSIONS OF A COLOSSUS: A REVIEW OF GORDONC.ROADARMEL'S TRANSLATIONOF PREMCHAND'S GODAAN

The episode within the epic, the scriptural anecdote > songs of love and war, andmystical allegories are the origins of the Hindi narrative tradition, as indeedof most Indo-European narrative traditions. From these so-called beginnings,however, Hindi moved directly to a variation of social realism in the early twen-tieth century, the nineteenth having spent its energies in the establishment ofstandard or "Khariboli" prose itself. In this, Hindi departs from the patternsof generic development recognized by readers of European literatures o It is asif a narrative tradition should move directly from Chaucer to Arnold Bennett.One looks in vain for the sprawl of the picaresque, the sentimental novel, thenovel of manners, the abandon of social caricature, the massiveness of gnosticmoralism, the pale fires of decadence.I have little faith in literary historiography. Yet it seems true that, in timesof such quick shifts, great yet flawed works of genius appear. Such works re-quire a greater imaginative sympathy from the reader than the well-made workcompetently written within an assured literary tradition. Goethe lamented re-peatedly that Germany had had no Renaissance, and was therefore obliged to makethe quick cultural shift from the Dark Ages to modernity. I believe it wasbecause he recognized that his Faust and Meister 3 those flawed masterpieces, re-quired the imaginative sympathy I speak of above And a similar case may bemade for the situation in Russian fiction in the middle of the last century,Dostoyevsky rather than Tolstoi our specific example.In his historical situation, his artistic ambitions, and his flaws, Dhanpat RaiSrivastava "Premchand" (1880-1936) is analogous to these men Godaan (1935) isthe last of his many novels 0

IA collection of examples in one of his talks on the novel gives his situationaway:

Dickens is a very celebrated English novelist. Pickuiiek Papers is hisimmortal comic creation c The name "Pickwick" fell on Dicken' s ear amidstthe conversation in a stagecoach 0 Character, appearance, dress - allwas created to suit that name. Silas Marner is also a celebrated Englishnovel. George Eliot, its authoress, wrote that she once saw in childhoodan itinerant weaver with bolts of cloth on his back. The picture wasengraved on her heart and in time showed itself in the form of her novel.The Soarlet Letter is a most beautiful and moving work of Hawthorne's* Hefound its seed in the files of a court case. The lives of Indian novelistshave not yet been written, and therefore I find it difficult to giveexamples from Indian fiction. I found the germ of Rangabhumi [one of hisown novels ] . . 6

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- 32 -The sense of working n unworked ield, of finding in himself the analogue forthe great writers of the West, is always with him. The self-distrust of a path-finder is part of the scene:

If we read the reports of international writers1 conferences, we see judg-mentsexchangedon all matters of morality, society, history, and psychology.Weturn our eyes to the limits of our ownknowledge,and are ashamedof ourignorance. Wehave decided that a quick wit and a strong pen are enoughfor a writer. But this decision is the cause of our literary decline. Wemust raise the standards of our literature.^The freedom o define is also part of the scene: "I take a novel to be a merepicture of human ature. .. ."^ Not only in his literary criticism but also inhis novels the presence of ambitious undertakingsis felt.But if we allow ourselves to judge Premchand1art according to the breadth ofhis ambitions, we shall do himan injustice. For this is the great writer bornat a time of quick generic transition. His critical vantage is panoramic, buthis creative idiom lacks the inherited richness of paced generations. As in thecase of Goethe, critics have over-praised Premchand, ot understandingthe natureof his greatness. It is also a misunderstanding o underpraise him, as Mr.Roadarmel eems to do in his Introduction to this newtranslation of Godaan.What s the just approach to Premchand?The critics1 house mustbe set in order.Literature does not progress from ne mode to another. It is merelythat, whenwe encounter a mode anterior to our own,we must, to save ourselves from he dan-ger of "historical appreciation,11 create in ourselves, throughthe receptiveimagination, a readership contemporaneous o that anterior mode. The tension andplay betweenthis imaginatively created frameof mind and the more relaxed onethat we take to the literature of our own time is our reward. Weusually do nothave enoughof this imaginative sympathyor the great writer who s in the van-guard of a sudden transition. We behave as if he belongs fully to the mode ntowhichhe leaps and not at all to the one fromwhichhe makes his leap. His owncritical enthusiasmsallow us to do this. Wemustseparate these enthusiasmsfromhis often un-self-consious place in the literary tradition. Weshall findthat he belongs moreto the earlier mode than he himself suspects. Weshall beginto flex our imaginations, to create in ourselves that "readership contemporaneousto the anterior mode.11Thingswhich had seemed weaknesses will appear to bestrengths. Walpurgisnachtwill seema lapidary folk-masquerather than an embarr-assmentthat it is a critical convention to praise.The just approach to Premchandmust see that he belongs as much o the so-calledbeginnings of the Hindi narrative tradition as to the "idealistic realism" (hisownwords) that he fashioned for himself.^

IILet us consider those elements of Godaanwhichmightseemdefects in a novel ofsocial realism.Godaan s built of episodes illustrative of clearly implied characterologicalprinciples. Theysustain a slow plot whichdoes not develop but simplypresentsits many npredictabilities. The proliferation of episodes, created to illustrate



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simple points of character and dropped on the spot, sometimes seems excessive:Whyshould Dr. Mehta, a professor of philosophy, masquerade as a ferociousPathan merchant? To illustrate his eccentricity, his contempt for middle-classcowardice, and the Westernized cupidity of Miss Malti (the lady doctor).Whyshould a young woman appear out of the woods to tend Mehta and Malti in theirhour of fatigue? To illustrate Miss Malti' s Westernized smallmindedness andMehta1s disaffection; to raise a ripple indirectly three hundred pages later,when Malti looks after poor folk gratis.Whyshould a kabaddi game be organized among the unemployed proletariat? Toillustrate Mirza Khurshed's eccentric paternalism, and to bring out Malti' s realconcern for Mehta Whyshould a wife be manufactured for Onkarnath, the scurrilous editor of theLightning? To illustrate that even in scurrility there is room for pathos.Whyshould the life-story of the itinerant Dhyan Singh be introduced and conclu-ded within the space of a page, never to be referred to again? To illustratethe innate nobility of the hero's soul.Whyshould Mathura, Sona' s hitherto and henceforward unencountered husband, beovercome with lust at Silya's proximity? To illustrate that Silya, the sen-suous yet chaste untouchable woman, is more sinned against than sinning.Whyshould Minakshi, the Rai Sahib's hitherto and henceforward unencountereddaughter, take a whip to a debauched and aristocratic husband with whom we areequally little acquainted? To illustrate the advent of the New Indian Woman.The list might be longer, But I believe I have said enough to establish that theproliferation of simple exemplary episodes would annoy one in Godaan if the bookwere read as a novel of social realism.In fact, Premchand the creator seems to conceive of character very naively,though Premchand the critic is abundantly aware of the significance of psycholo-gical realismo In spite of all those illustrative episodes cited above, heseems to present incredible changes or developments in character with very littlepreparation. Jhuniya, changing from baddy (she seduces Gobar) to goody (she grate-fully accepts Gobar' s parents' kindness) to pseudo-baddy (she is instrumental inGobar' s alienation from his mother) to unemphatic goody (the finally appreciatedwronged-yet-loyal common-law wife) will bear me out. So will the rebellious sonGobar, whose voice, "thick with emotion," gives us on page 426 this totally unpre-pared-for statement, "It's not right to be on bad terms with one's parents'." Thecrucial metamorphoses of Khanna, Mehta, and Malti are equally unsatisfactory.Banal characterization in Godaan3 then, would also annoy one if the book were readas a novel of social realism. So would its extreme parallelisms in situation andplot, its sentimentality, and its sententiousness. I would suggest, of course,that the fault lies with that way of reading. Premchand' s work should be read asthe final expression of a tradition of the exemplum, out of the heroic epic bythe court tale. Then alone can we appreciate that it is also one of the first hal-ting and self-conscious expressions of social realism. We can then enjoy eachillustrative episode as a separate exemplum, existing for itself in a longer matrix



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- 34 -narrative whoseprolixity is a virtuoso gift to be relished. That sort of enjoy-ment s no longer natural to us0 To make t imaginally natural while we readthe work s our obligation to Premchand. Wemustplay the book's gameand recog-nize it as a miniature epic poem n prose. The parallelisms and painstakingwindupswill then show themselves to be stylized patterning on a vast design. Itis our lack of imaginative preparation if we expect that pattern to follow thegroundrules of verisimilitude and psychologically explicable motivation. Sur-prise and revelation of character are not relevant to this form. Codified in-struction within an accepted picture of the laws of character is relevant. Thejoy of the reader is in recognizing that picture in the chosen period of theearly twentiethcentury. The heroic, practically philosophic, masculinist maleideal and the sensuous female ideal apotheosized into motherhood, ndurance, andself-sacrifice are the themesuponwhichPremchandmakeshis variations.Such an imaginatively sympatheticreading will also deliver up to us the book1one genuine defect: the absence of "point of view." Within the anterior modeofwhichI have been writing, such a defect wouldnot have been felt. The bard's,storyteller* s, or moralist's voice is there secure. (Premchand' many hortstories, purer examples of the earlier mode,build on that security,) Theauthor has deliberately taken that voice awayfromhis nmodernMovel.Yet the very nature of the bookdemands clearly articulated value, an authorita-tive "point of view,11 f not an authorial voice. It is too emphatically aneffort to expose the highest and the lowest levels of North-Central Indian soci-ety before the Independence0 It is easy for the critic whoknows he story ofthe author's life to tell us wherehis sympathies ie.? The book, by itself,remainsamoral, although the reader senses that this is against its intent.In fact, the only seal of approval bestowedby the book falls upon something hatPremchands a Thirties-style Marxist did not personally approve of: peasant fata-lism That is the substance of the character of the book's hero Hori Ram. He isthe only passionately conceived and executed character in Godaan. He does belongto a "realistic narrative," and as such throwsthe stylized universe of the bookinterestingly out of balanceo But his place in the book is not central enoughto give the disorganized picture of the upper class urban society a moral coher-ence0A great book, a great writer, straddling twomodes. The critic must learn toimaginethe reality of botho Manyheadyvirtues, one grave flaw not quite reme-died by an unwittingexcellence 0Before I consider the merits of this particular translation, let mecommentnpassing on a commonudgment f Premchand, It is said that he knewrural societyverymuch etter than he knew he society of townspeople. The picture he paintsof the former re convincing, it is further alleged; those he paints of the latter,not so,There is somesuperficial truth in this judgment. But deep down,the objectiondoes not hold0 Premchand oes not seemto know oo much bout Oxfordcolleges,the nature of small talk, or the professional life of an academic philosopher.But these are minorerrors The adolescent verbosity, the moral irresponsibility,the sentimental yet ruthless relationship between the sexes, are documentarilytrue not only of the lugubrious haute bourgeoisie of the author's ownday, butapply to that class (as a class somewhat ess powerfulnowthan then) in NorthernIndia today



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- 35 -For the foreign reader there is a pleasant way of ascertaining this documentaryverity, Godaan was published eleven years after A Passage to India. A greatdifference of course exists between the two books1 technical exigencies, thetraditions, once again, to which they belong. The two authors do not describethe same segments of society. Yet the grasp of the correct ambience is sostrong in both novels that to pass from one to the other seems to be in the fit-ness of things

IIIThe present volume is a poor translation.^ In general, it is boringly literal.Some of its particular faults I give below.Mr, Roadarmel's lapses of syntax, grammar,and usage are frequent and unpar-donable. MSince whenhad he ever listened to her," Mspeck of mercy, Mdidnftused to,M "either a gain or a loss endangers your life,M MI!m amazed at the wayyou can write such fat books whereas with six months' rent overdue you're noteven aware of it,'1 Mat homeDhaniya would play with him sometimes and other timesRupa, Sona, Hori or Puniya,'1 "on the evening of the third, while being held inSilya's arms, the child breathed his last" -- are a very few examples of the per-vasive disorder0There are manyclumsy Indianisms on every page The translator is, I understand,a native American with some Indian schooling. Is the use of these Indianismswitting or unwitting? If the former, what was the unhappy purpose? I shallonce more content myself with citing a few examples out of an embarrassment ofriches: "any number of tricks to raise stacks of money," "people of this giftedclass of people," "begged for charity," "wenches," "dissolute loafer," "let outa roar of laughter," "made up poetry," "drink milk" (for "suckle") , "completed alarge book on philosophy," "smeared in the dust," "strain every nerve to drumupall possible credit," "a sizeable platform was constructed of branches," "I'm apure animal" (for "I'm nothing but an animal"), "in coat and pants," "donated theanimal," "big" or "big fat" for "great," "no telling" (invariably for "who knows"),and "what more" for "how muchmore" in sentences such as "even governments areafraid of them 0 0 what more a mere individual like myself."At the other end of the scale, Mr. Roadarmel uses manysuburban American slangand colloquial expressions which fit very ill with the tone and cast of charactersof the bookc "Figured" (for "thought"), "nut" (for "stupid," "eccentric," "un-reasonable"), "handout," "big deal," "burn me up," "play me for a sucker,""trouble hell I!" (from an Indian peasant's wife), "sat in on the meeting," "you'llfind such womendownevery alley and they leave me way behind," "tangle with,""bawl out," "light into," "fatso," "dumb" (for "foolish"), "smart" (for "clever"),"the deadline expired," "come off it," and the multitude of injudicious "though"-sat the ends of sentences will, I fear, give only an inadequate impression of thegeneral air of farce created by this argot. Howconvey the bathos, in context,of the sentence "the two lovelies smiled," especially since two paragraphs later,the "lovelies" are described as "womenwho ended up in the red-light district?"(Why,in the face of this characteristic, is the orthography British, to the extentof "amongst?")



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- 36 -Mr. Roadarmel oves nothingbetter than to makeup a periphrastic verb with "go"(less often "come") For examples "go live," "go take care," "go tend," "gosell," "comepay myrespects," "go find a puddle," "go play," "go drownhimself,""go settle," "go give," "go makeup with," "go poisoning other people's lives,""go have a bath," "go see the pandits," "go makingfun," "comehelp arrange,""go marry," "go quiet the baby," "go file a suit," "go report" will have to suf-fice Here again, the general massacre can only be felt in context.The dialogue is frequently distorted into teenage patter, there are occasionalmistranslations, the proof was indifferently read, and the Glossary is often nomore than vaguely correctoI shall not makemy atalogue exhaustive. For the real problemof this transla-tion is not only that its prose is too memorablen its minutiae, but that itlacks a sense of the original as a wholePremchandfsrose is classical, chaste, muted,supple. Its contact with Sanskritaesthetics can be sensede There is also a touch of Urduelegance It is neitherlyric nor descriptive 0 Yet the manipulation of levels of idiom in narrative pas-sages ; didactic passages, and dialogue is remarkable. Mr, Roadarmelcontravenesthis prose as the long book progresses, as Mr0P0C. Gupta, for example, does notin his naive translation, A Handful of Wheat nd Other Stories (NewDelhi, 1955).Premchandfsmbiguous iterary personality I have discussed earlier in this essay.On a moremundaneevel, for the American eader, there are ambiguities in thescene of rural India of the Thirties --at once so remoteand so easily typecaste.In other words, Godaan, in both manner nd matter, needed a sensitive translator.This it has not found n Mr GordonC. Roadarmel. In spite of that volume's sinsof omission, the reader is still better off with the 1956 translation, publishedin Bombay,madeby Messrs Jai Ratan and P. Lai.

Notes^"Upanysa,"hitya ka Udyeya,Allahabad, 1954, p. 59-60. All translations inthis section are mine.2Although here weremany nthusiasts and somelinguists of import n the epochimmediately receding Premchand1, BhratenduHarichandra (1850-1885), the onlywriter whoseworkmighthave given Premchand greater sense of direction, diedtoo young3"Shitya k Udyeya,"Sahitya k Udyeya p. oit.3 p. 16-17,4"Upanysa," ibid*3 p6 54,Widern,.,, 560^See especially "Shitya aur Manobijnn," ibid. 3 103-106.?For such an informed ritical-biographical introduction one mustturn to Mr,Triloki NarayanDikshit's PremchandKanpur, 1952).



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Premchand, The Gift of A Cow: A Translation of the Hindi Novell Godaany tr.GordonC. Roadarmel, Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1968.

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Spivak's book review of Godaan