All About H. Hatterr

by G.V. Desani, Anthony Burgess (Introduction)

All About H. Hatterr (1948) is a classic novel by G. V. Desani chronicling the adventures of an Anglo-Malay man in search of wisdom and enlightenment. "As far back as in 1951," Desani later wrote, "I said H. Hatterr was a portrait of a man, the common vulgar species, found everywhere, both in the East and in the West". Salman Rushdie comments[1]: “ The writer I have placed alongside Narayan, G.V. Desani, has fallen so far from favour that the extraordinary All About H. Hatterr is presently out of print everywhere, even in India. Milan Kundera once said that all modern literature descends from either Richardson's Clarissa or Sterne's Tristram Shandy, and if Narayan is India's Richardson then Desani is his Shandean other. Hatterr's dazzling, puzzling, leaping prose is the first genuine effort to go beyond the Englishness of the English language. His central figure, 'fifty-fifty of the species,' the half-breed as unabashed anti-hero, leaps and capers behind many of the texts in this book. Hard to imagine I. Allan Sealy's Trotter-Nama without Desani. My own writing, too, learned a trick or two from him.

Genres: Fiction, India, Indian Literature, Classics, Humor, Literature, Novels

316 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1948

About the author

Govindas Vishnoodas Desani or G. V. Desani, (1909–2000) was a Kenyan-born, British-educated Indian writer and Buddhist philosopher. The son of a merchant, he began his career as a journalist, and achieved fame with the cult novel All About H. Hatterr (1948), considered one of the finest examples of literature in English and a novel that compares favourably with Joyce's Ulysses. He was for a time a university professor in America, and spent many years engaged in meditation at various monasteries. A second volume, Hali and Collected Stories, was published in 1991.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short review - This is bona-fide Shandian Spawn, full of wonderful textual fun and games, an early entry in the Indian post-colonial literary movement, and a bloody riot of words.

It is subtitled:

Being also a mosaic-organon of life, viz., a medico-philosophical grammar as to this contrast, this human horseplay, this design for diamond-cut-diamond...H.Hatterr by H.Hatterr

And, for your delectation and enjoyment, here is a lengthy quote from the start of the text which I found online. If you are anything like me, this will be enough to get you reading this post haste.

" The name is H. Hatterr, and I am continuing…

Biologically, I am fifty-fifty of the species.

One of my parents was a European,

Christian-by-faith merchant merman (seaman). From which part of the Continent? Wish I could tell you. The other was an Oriental, a Malay Peninsula-resident lady, a steady non-voyaging, non-Christian human (no mermaid). From which part of the Peninsula? Couldn’t tell you either.

Barely a year after my baptism (in white, pure and holy), I was taken from Penang (Malay P.) to India (East). It was there that my old man kicked the bucket in a hurry. The via media? Chronic malaria and pneumonia-plus.

Whereupon, a local litigation for my possession ensued.

The odds were all in favour of the India-resident Dundee-born Scot, who was trading in jute.

He believed himself a good European, and a pious Kirk o’ Scotland parishioner, whose right-divine Scotch blud mission it was to rescue the baptised mite me from any illiterate non-pi heathen influence. She didn’t have a chance, my poor old ma, and the court gave him the possession award.

I don’t know what happened to her. Maybe, she lives. Who cares?

Rejoicing at the just conclusion of the dictate of his conscience, and armed with the legal interpretation of the testament left by my post-mortem seaman parent, willing I be brought up Christian, and the court custody award, the jute factor had me adopted by an English Missionary Society, as one of their many Oriental and mixed-Oriental orphan-wards. And, thus it was that I became a sahib by adoption, the Christian lingo (English) being my second vernacular from the orphan-adoption age onwards.

The E.M. Society looked after me till the age of fourteen or thereabouts.

It was then that I found the constant childhood preoccupation with the whereabouts of my mother unbearable, the religious routine unsuited to my temperament, the evangelical stuff beyond my ken, and Rev. the Head (of the Society’s school), M.A., D.Litt., D.D., also C.B.E., ex-Eton and Cantab. (Moths, Grates, and Home Civ), Protor par excellence, Feller of the Royal Geographical, Astronomical and Asiastic Societies (and a writer!), too much of a stimulus for my particular orphan constitution. (The sort of loco parentis who’d shower on you a penny, and warn you not to squander it on woman, and wine, and
song!)

“Help others! Help others!” he used to say. Knowing that the most deserving party needing help was self, I decided to chuck the school, get out into the open spaces of India, seek my lebansraum, and win my bread and curry all on my own.

And one warm Indian autumn night, I bolted as planned, having pinched, for voluntary study, an English dictionary, the Rev. the Head’s own-authored 'Latin Self-Taught' and 'French Self-Taught', the Missionary Society’s school stereoscope complete with slides (my second love after my mother) and sufficient Missionary funds lifted from the Head’s pocket to see me through life.

From that day onwards, my education became free and my own business. I fought off the hard-clinging feelings of my motherlessness. I studied the daily press, picked up tips from the stray Indian street-dog as well as the finest Preceptor-Sage available in the land. I assumed the style-name H. Hatterr (‘H’ for the nom de plume ‘Hindustaaniwalla’, and ‘Hatterr’, the nom de guerre inspired by Rev. the Head’s too-large-for-him-hat), and, by and by (autobiographical I, which see), I went completely Indian to an extent few pure non-Indian blood sahib fellers have done.

I have learnt from the school of Life; all the lessons, the sweet, the bitter, and the middling messy. I am debtor both to the Greeks and the Barbarians. And, pardon, figuratively speaking, I have had higher education too. I have been the personal disciple of the illustrious grey-beards, the Sages of Calcutta, Rangoon (now resident in India), Madras, Bombay, and the right Honourable the Sage of Delhi, the wholly Worshipful of Mogalsarai-Varanasi, and his naked Holiness Number One, the Sage of All India himself!’ (pg. 31-33).


And here, with her kind permission, is a short bit from my wife's PHD thesis which dealt with an interesting section of this book. I have put it in spoiler as it deals with events about halfway through the story:


"By parodying Ramakrishna in the form of Ananda Giri-Giri, Desani seems to be censuring alternative sexualities. Giri-Giri’s homoerotic exploits are depicted as somewhat ridiculous, but fundamentally predatory, as Hatter resists them like “a man resisting a mad dog” (178). However, a closer reading of this chapter suggests that Desani is not critiquing sexual dissidence per se, but rather, the hypocrisy of the spiritual men who encourage homosocial attachment, yet panic when that homosociality shifts into the erotic. Indeed, during the course of the Giri-Giri’s “trance,” Hatterr emphasizes that the saint is not to blame; he is only “mixing up mysticism” with his biological impulses (181). Instead, Hatterr maintains that it is the “popeholy” (self-righteous) Bhata Govinda and the disciples outside of the tent who “deserve[d] an actual bust-up […] who deserve[d] hell” for punishing both the swami and Hatterr (181-182). Though they ascribe to Giri-Giri’s misogyny and engage in amorous discourse, the disciples only sanction the saint’s love if it is “contra-virile and contra-male” (188). If his “’holy love’” manifests as sexual, it is subsequently re-classified as an “’evil visitation[s],’” which must be driven off to make way for “the saintly ones’” (174; 180-181).
But while Govinda and the disciples chastise Giri-Giri and Hatterr for their sexual exploits, they are simultaneously complicit in said acts. They are aware that Hatterr is “the night’s chosen image of the Supreme,” and that “the venerable one, and the honourable Lolly” are susceptible to “evil visitations” (read: queerness) by virtue of being mystics, yet the devotees still lodge them alone together in the hut (175; 180). Indeed, the punishment of Giri-Giri and Hatterr by fire is itself, like the saint’s “trance,” highly performative: the two men are beaten, tied up with ropes, and carried to the awaiting fire, where they are held over the flames until they declare that the spirit of Heropal has departed from their bodies (185). It is a farcical scene that recalls Orientalist portrayals of tribal ceremonies or the burning of witches at the stake, and one that Desani suggests has been re-enacted time and time again by the disciples. Thus, the devotees of Ananda Giri-Giri are doubly hypocritical: they demand an asexual, or celibate, mode of mystical worship, while engaging in homosocial behavior themselves, and facilitate the erotic exploits of others, while denouncing sexual alterity.
By condemning Giri-Giri’s disciples, rather than Giri-Giri himself, Desani depicts mysticism as a tolerant, if not suitable, sphere for sexual dissidence. The fluid boundary between homosocial attachment and mystico-eroticism allows homoerotically-inclined men to pursue their sexual proclivities under the guise of religious fervor. Moreover, by casting queerness as the “musikos,” or secret, of mysticism, Desani posits sexual alterity as simultaneously inside and outside of the nation-state. While mysticism is sanctified by the Indian nation-state (through legislature protecting religion), and, indeed, has been integral in forming the nation (as evidenced by Ramakrishna), it also consists of a relationship between man and the divine, which is outside the jurisdiction and control of the nation-state. Mysticism thus occupies a third space; it is simultaneously a public and private realm/affiliation. This allows queer individuals both a sense of belonging and a freedom to transgress (national/religious/sexual) borders. Much like Menen’s rooted cosmopolitans, sexual dissidents can therefore either freely adopt or eschew (national) identities.
However, like Menen’s utopic homosocial communities, Desani’s mystico-erotic cults are problematic. In addition to the exclusion of women, which belies an open coalition of belonging, Desani’s defense of homoerotic mysticism simultaneously undermines queerness. By portraying mysticism as a guise for alternative sexualities, rather than analyzing how homoeroticism has functioned as an integral facet of mystical worship, Desani implies that sexual dissidence requires the validation of mysticism. Moreover, by depicting mysticism as the only legitimate and legitimized space for sexual alterity in All About H. Hatterr, Desani limits queer men to expressing their desires though a religious discourse. While that discourse may be affected, it still requires adherence to a strict code of conduct and etiquette. Thus, Desani’s mysticism, like Menen’s philoxenia, functions as a minoritizing discourse of alternative sexualities."

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

DAMME, READ THIS. READ THIS NEXT. READ THIS NOW. READ THIS TODAY.


_____________
WARNING!

'Melodramatic gestures against public security are a common form of self-expression in the East. For instance, an Indian peasant, whose house has been burgled, will lay a tree across a railway line, hoping to derail a goods train, just to show his opinion of life. And the Magistrates are far more understanding...' --Anglo-Indian writer

Indian middle-man (to Author) : Sir, if you do not identify your composition a novel, how then do we itemise it? Sir, the rank and file is entitled to know.
Author (to Indian middle-man) : Sir, I identify it a gesture. Sir, the rank and file is entitled to know.
Indian middle-man (to Author) : Sir, there is no immediate demand for gestures. There is immediate demand for novels. Sir, we are literary agents not free agents.
Author (to Indian middle-man) : Sir, I identify it a novel. Sir, itemise it accordingly.


.....clearseeing indicator that we swim among the Shandian Spawn. And further evidence that the langwich of a post-coi(t)loneal world is Wakese.

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am through reading this book. Now I will go back to its first page. I will start searching and copying by hand, with my pen and my Kama Sutra journal where I keep similar treasures.

I have seen several novels already with a lot of word plays. Some engage in word plays with apparent uncaring whimsicality; others deliberately seek obscurity to confound the readers and be talked about. This one does neither. The author Govindas Vishnoodas Desani(1909 - 2000)--haha, couldn't resist putting his years, read the book and you'll know what this chuckle means--plays, he laughs, you laugh with him, and the words and sentences he created jump up and down happily with you.

I am therefore going back, in search of these words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs which brought me joy, my eyes popping out every single time in wonderment, aghast with surprise and merriment that these things can be done with letters (the capitalizations!), words and sounds.

Everything seems to be here: malapropisms, hilarious dialogues, comic hyperbole, literary allusions (Shakespeare! Blake!), irony, syntactical games, absurdity, metatextuality and even deliberate misspellings.

An unbelievable, unforgettable, comic and linguistic tour-de-force!

[Anirban Nanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is matter of utter despair that a book like this, of such caliber and quality, is long forgotten. This is the first major attempt to break the pure English and mix it with oriental colloquial. Desani did something for Indian literature as Joyce did for Irish literature. Though Desani never wrote another novel, and though he published few short stories and a poem (Hali) apart from this, he was immediately recognized by the likes of T.S. Eliot and Saul Bellow.

This novel is essentially a polyglot one, but it goes on to break the general assumption that anything polyglot is bound to be difficult (the major reason of this, obviously, none other than Finnegans Wake). I have never read a funnier book than this. Desani’s innovative play with words makes you read a page again and again and chuckle each time.

The reviewer at the Los Angeles Times rightly says,

“"I write rigmarole English," Desani taunts, "staining your goodly, godly tongue." Bless him, he does mash it up, bending orthography, stretching syntax, mixing in shards of Hindi, Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German and a goodly dose of balderdash, whilst tossing in references to Whitman, Shakespeare, Socrates, Freud and appeals to Kama and Laxmi as well as to Allah and Christ. Only a quasi-outsider (an Irishman, say) could have such an irreverent ear for the Anglo-Saxon tongue. But "Hatterr" is more readable by miles than "Finnegans Wake," and a lot more fun."

To introduce to the style of this novel, let me quote H. Hatterr (Desani) himself in chapter III, page 120.

(…Wherefore, pious brethren, by confessing I lie, yoiks! I tell the truth, sort of topholy trumpeting-it, by the Pharisee G.V. Desani: see the feller’s tract All About …, publisher, the same publishing company): a language deliberately designed to mystify the majority, tempt ‘em to start guessing, and interpreting our real drift, and allegory, what the hell we mean: pursue our meaning on their sthula (gross), the sukshana (subtle) and para (supreme) planes, and levels, and still miss the issue and dash their heads against the crazy-paved rock of confusion.

We are getting the drift. Though the book seems pointless rambling (allusion to one of the characters in the book Y. Rambeli .. Why rambling?) of a person who loses in every adventure he goes to, the book is intricately structured. To quote from the paper: Chaudhury, Sarbani. “All About H. Hatterr – Desani’s ‘Novel Gesture’.” Glocal Colloquies 1.1 (2015): 38-53 .

The subterranean method in madness, mentioned earlier, becomes more pronounced as we encounter the making of fiction. Despite his numerous disclaimers, Desani’s novel-gesture (as I shall persist in calling it) has a rigorous structure: the two epigraphs labelled “Warning!”, and the production account followed by a “Mutual Introduction” of the inscribed author (Hatterr), serve as a kind of combined prologue for the seven chapters recounting Hatterr’s encounter with the seven sages. The rear is brought up by an epilogue labelled “An Afterthought” supposedly penned by another fictional character in the work, a lawyer who, as mentioned previously, prefixes the pompous title of “504 SrimanVairagi, Paribrajaka, Vanaprasthi, Acharya” to his more simple but nevertheless comic name “YatiRambeli” (giganticbelly) to suit the lofty task of providing a worthy defence for the hapless Hatterr. Apart from undermining the very defence it intends to uphold, the ‘naming ceremony’ is a dig at the aristocrats’ and god-men’s tendency to legitimise and iterate their political/ religious status by claiming a long line of descent from royal/ holy forbears.

Seven chapters form themainstay of the book where Hatterr, seeking lucre, lust and illumination, encounters seven sages across India who take on increasingly presumptuous names as the work progresses – sages of Calcutta, Rangoon (now resident in India), Madras, Bombay, “right Honourable sage of Delhi,” “wholly worshipful of Mogalsarai-Varanasi” and “naked Holiness number One, the Sage of All India himself!” – matching the ludicrousness of the ‘life experience’ encountered and the lesson learned thereof. Save for one, where Hatterr gains a princely sum of Rs 1000/- (Chapter IV), all the escapades conclude in inevitable disaster with Hatterr, very much the modern prototype of the ‘gull’ in classical drama, barely escaping by the skin of his teeth.

Each of the seven chapters is given an intriguing and often half-finished title – Chapter I. “The Sage, He Spake...,” Chapter II. “...Versus the Impressario,” Chapter III. “Archbishop Walrus versus Neophyte the Bitter-One,” Chapter IV.“Apropos Supernatural Agent...,” Chapter V. “Assault below the Belt,” Chapter VI. “...Salute the ‘Kismet’” and, Chapter VII. “Punchum and Another, with Contempt” – that literalise the ensuing content. For instance, Chapter V. “Assault below the Belt,” is literally an assault on Hatterr’s loincloth by a demented Naga sanyasi to relieve Hatter of his hidden stash of money so as to release him from the clutches of “Evil-Triumphant” green monster (223)!

To show you some example of ultra-creativity of Desani, few small excerpts are presented below.

Excerpt 1:

" The name is H. Hatterr, and I am continuing… 

Biologically, I am fifty-fifty of the species. 

One of my parents was a European,

Christian-by-faith merchant merman (seaman). From which part of the Continent? Wish I could tell you. The other was an Oriental, a Malay Peninsula-resident lady, a steady non-voyaging, non-Christian human (no mermaid). From which part of the Peninsula? Couldn’t tell you either.

Barely a year after my baptism (in white, pure and holy), I was taken from Penang (Malay P.) to India (East). It was there that my old man kicked the bucket in a hurry. The via media? Chronic malaria and pneumonia-plus.

Whereupon, a local litigation for my possession ensued.

The odds were all in favour of the India-resident Dundee-born Scot, who was trading in jute.

He believed himself a good European, and a pious Kirk o’ Scotland parishioner, whose right-divine Scotch blud mission it was to rescue the baptised mite me from any illiterate non-pi heathen influence. She didn’t have a chance, my poor old ma, and the court gave him the possession award.

I don’t know what happened to her. Maybe, she lives. Who cares?

Rejoicing at the just conclusion of the dictate of his conscience, and armed with the legal interpretation of the testament left by my post-mortem seaman parent, willing I be brought up Christian, and the court custody award, the jute factor had me adopted by an English Missionary Society, as one of their many Oriental and mixed-Oriental orphan-wards. And, thus it was that I became a sahib by adoption, the Christian lingo (English) being my second vernacular from the orphan-adoption age onwards.

The E.M. Society looked after me till the age of fourteen or thereabouts.

It was then that I found the constant childhood preoccupation with the whereabouts of my mother unbearable, the religious routine unsuited to my temperament, the evangelical stuff beyond my ken, and Rev. the Head (of the Society’s school), M.A., D.Litt., D.D., also C.B.E., ex-Eton and Cantab. (Moths, Grates, and Home Civ), Protor par excellence, Feller of the Royal Geographical, Astronomical and Asiastic Societies (and a writer!), too much of a stimulus for my particular orphan constitution. (The sort of loco parentis who’d shower on you a penny, and warn you not to squander it on woman, and wine, and
song!)

“Help others! Help others!” he used to say. Knowing that the most deserving party needing help was self, I decided to chuck the school, get out into the open spaces of India, seek my lebansraum, and win my bread and curry all on my own.

And one warm Indian autumn night, I bolted as planned, having pinched, for voluntary study, an English dictionary, the Rev. the Head’s own-authored 'Latin Self-Taught' and 'French Self-Taught', the Missionary Society’s school stereoscope complete with slides (my second love after my mother) and sufficient Missionary funds lifted from the Head’s pocket to see me through life.

From that day onwards, my education became free and my own business. I fought off the hard-clinging feelings of my motherlessness. I studied the daily press, picked up tips from the stray Indian street-dog as well as the finest Preceptor-Sage available in the land. I assumed the style-name H. Hatterr (‘H’ for the nom de plume ‘Hindustaaniwalla’, and ‘Hatterr’, the nom de guerre inspired by Rev. the Head’s too-large-for-him-hat), and, by and by (autobiographical I, which see), I went completely Indian to an extent few pure non-Indian blood sahib fellers have done.

I have learnt from the school of Life; all the lessons, the sweet, the bitter, and the middling messy. I am debtor both to the Greeks and the Barbarians. And, pardon, figuratively speaking, I have had higher education too. I have been the personal disciple of the illustrious grey-beards, the Sages of Calcutta, Rangoon (now resident in India), Madras, Bombay, and the right Honourable the Sage of Delhi, the wholly Worshipful of Mogalsarai-Varanasi, and his naked Holiness Number One, the Sage of All India himself!’ (pg. 31-33).

 

Excetpt 2:

PRESUMPTION: ‘Kismet’, i.e., fate — if at all anything, and as potent as suspected for centuries — is a dam’ baffling thing!
It defies a feller’s rational: his entire conception as to his soma, pneuma, and psyche!
Why did a feller like me commit matrimony with a femme fatale like Mrs H. Hatterr (née Rialto), the waxed Kiss-curl?
A personal query, but I don’t mind answering…
If only I could!
All I know is that I wanted to raise a family: add to the world’s vital statistics and legitimate: have a niche in the community, for my own kid, to hand out the wager till the end. And since you can’t achieve this without a wife — the neighbours wouldn’t let you! the police wouldn’t let you! — I equipped myself with the blarney-phrases, convinced this female that she was real jam, had me led to the middle aisle and gave the ready ‘I do’ to the amenwallah her brother had hired for the occasion.
This I did, knowing, hell, that between us was all the temperamental difference in the world!
Till death us do part! this museum-piece and I! And that promise — what a stingo! — after a conflict dating back to the donkey’s Sundays!
The female — contrast? — was poles apart: though, between the cur Jenkins, me and the Duke Humphrey, it did seem once that she was going to win my regards for good, by delivering me an heir-presumptive — my own piccolo le fils — to survive me (and be added to the looney-bin). But despite days and days of biological observation and anticipation — the wasted reference to the obstetric table and pre-occupation with the signs of labour — it didn’t come off. (Backed the wrong filly, or, maybe, something the matter with me as create-or!).

 

After writing this novel, Desani got deeply involved with spirituality and Buddhism and didn’t publish another book. He nonetheless inspired Rushdie to take the lead and expound upon the newly invented babu-vernacular and write another Indian masterpiece, Midnight’s Children (Rushdie’s essay "Damme, This Is the Oriental Scene for You!" is based upon this very novel).

I wanted to type and present few more wonderful excerpts but what can I do? Every single page of this book is shouting brilliance and I can't choose! Desani was so sure about the importance and genius of this work that he had the following conversation with Khushwant Singh:

“Can you recommend me for the Nobel Prize?”

Khushwant was dumb struck: “But you've only written that one book!”

“So?” countered Desani softly, “Eliot's written very little also!”

“Only Nobel winners can recommend others,” Khushwant protested weakly, taken aback by Desani’s total lack of modesty.

“No, even the Government can”, insisted Desani steadfastly.

Worn down by his persistence and ingenuous self-belief, Khushwant meekly signed the forms. Nothing came of it of course. The Nobel Committee checked with Dr.Radhakrishnan, Ambassador to Sweden and a nominee for the Nobel at the time. Totally unamused, he ticked Khushwant off roundly and Desani continued to live with his inconvenient loo across the courtyard until he took off for the Orient.

(source: http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/user/319051.html)

I’ll end my discussion about the book with the praises about it by the greats:

Anthony Burgess: “…it is the language that makes the book. . . . It is not pure English; it is like Shakespeare, Joyce, and Kipling, gloriously impure.”

T.S. Eliot: "... Certainly a remarkable book. In all my experience, I have not met anything quite like it. It is amazing that anyone should be able to sustain a piece of work in this style and tempo at such length.”

C.E.M. Joad : "... an original and remarkable book. It starts well and continues at the same level ... to my surprise ... the gusto, tempo and style all being maintained until the end."

Edmund Blunden : "... Something remarkable here by this most curious and resourceful among writers. I can't think anybody who pays attention will miss that."

Saul Bellow : "I didn't read many books while writing Augie. One I did read and love was All About H. Hatterr.... So, what about All About? I hate to be siding with T.S. Eliot... but what can you do?”

Salman Rushdie: "This is the 'babu English,' the semi-literate, half-learned English of the bazaars, transmuted by erudition, highbrow monkeying around, and the impish magic of Desani's unique phrasing and rhythm into an entirely new kind of literary voice."

[Aravindakshan Narasimhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a revelation for me! Nothing short of a greatest find!

It is going to be big and I hope by the end, you may be slightly interested, if not fully to pick up the book!

If you are an Indian with some interest in literature: Don't read anything, go buy the book!



I shall start by sharing Rushdie's take on Desani and his work:

The writer I have placed alongside Narayan, G.V. Desani, has fallen so far from favour that the extraordinary All About H. Hatterr is presently out of print everywhere, even in India. Milan Kundera once said that all modern literature descends from either Richardson's Clarissa or Sterne's Tristram Shandy, and if Narayan is India's Richardson then Desani is his Shandean other. Hatterr's dazzling, puzzling, leaping prose is the first genuine effort to go beyond the Englishness of the English language. His central figure, 'fifty-fity of the species,' the half-breed as unabashed anti-hero, leaps and capers behind many of the texts in this book. Hard to imagine I. Allan Sealy's Trotter-Nama without Desani. My own writing, too, learned a trick or two from him.

The following are different attempts at praising the writer I undertook over a period of 2 weeks, please bear with certain repetitions:

No 1:

Amidst linguistic jugglery, whimsical encounters, comical escapades, jugalbandi of Oriental and occidental tongues rollicking, alapaning in high falutined pitch, reminiscent of Joyce, O’ Brien, and (no Indian counterpart, sorry) he can write, he can write lyrically! Lyrical, beauteous prose that seems to come from some other place of some other voice! And one gets to hear that much later, much later, and only for a brief moment, as if that’s just a footnote note of an abhaswara in a symphony of wondrous chaos!

Take a bow, sir! A rare, and a sole star of the foreign tongue from our land, a land which still grapples with that received knowledge!

No 2:

“It’s time to dust off your dictionary, sir!” Chimed my pet inner self for the umpteenth time, to my distressed mind.
“Yes, s” I conceded, with hurt and regret.
But before - what a lovely turn of phrases, cadence, tonality, rhetorical tecnics, ah hum damme damme, (opening my internet dict), post educated me - ha ha, the archaic white man’s comic flippancy, the sahib’s vain upmanship, native bardolatry, the Indian, French, Latin, American, German, Hungarian, Hindi, Hindustani, English tongues bastardising, rolling and somersaulting while booting up my local inferior mind and raising it up with a shovel and throwing up in a rainbow filled with jazz, country, Classical (west, east), Hindustani, soul, blues, and my head heady with all these cocktail presented by nymphs of a mixture of black, blue, orange, and white, I duly raised my bald hat to H.H and its creator G.V, and the beloved Bannerjji

P.S: Planning to write minimum 100 posts on this criminally neglected novel from an Indian, (Indian, sink that in, a modernist (or post) masterpiece that is compared to Joyce’s Ulysses, or O’Brien’s, or Sterne’s), thereby greatly damaging a possible literary tradition from the country. This is not even a prelude to my seething rage on the injustice meted out!
I shalt come again to venge!

No 3:

Earnest plea to the defunct education committee:

I duly sign my sole protestation in this country of billions through my singular effort of drafting this letter to the most honourable (no dis) education committee, not heeding to the wise words of my alter ego “this would bring upon a great stain to the last vestiges of our family name” : that they have made a blunderous act by omitting their most venerable son of the soil a place in their school curriculum, in the section of white men writing in their pink tongue; in the section of dark men writing in their favourite foreign tongue; in the section of dark men writing in their cocktaily tongue, the consequences of which, the generations of our brethens ran behind Twain, Dickens, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and all non-indian masters of English literature, and returned to India in search for - in vain - the same style in same lingo, from some such such learned writer to touch the shadows of those firangis!
Damme! I j’accuse Prof Radhakrishnan, (peace be upon him) one of our most respected presidents. He ought to have considered Kushwant Singh’s application recommending Desani for the nobel prize. Costly mistake. Which has deprived us of tasting the English tea served by our own masters; to claim “here you go, our very own Joyce, O’Brien, Sterne, and can stand equal to any English master writers you can scrap from your memory”. Rather we have come to such abhorrent layers to claim (I am afraid I can’t name any of the venerated writers of Indian English of the present day)

If reading this you come to an impression or conclusion that I am belittling the classic English writers from our soil, you are miles away from my stop!
I Ain’t saying that there wasn’t any Tea that was served by Our own hands, no, not dismissing Tagore, Narayan, and other classical writers, but of a particular fragrance of tea, of a modernist bent (of which there is only only one, as far as I know) - we ought to have included to that simple end - at least a small footnote of the work of Desani!

It is a crime that has been committed and I am no Holmes or even a billionth-hand investigator or common sense instinct-holder, or a historian, and certainly not even an opinioner sipping chai, hence I have to be discharged of finding the causes for such a great let down by our fathers! I leave with a fact and an observation alone: His work was published in the mid 1980s in India, whereas it was originally published in 1948! If there is anyone who might come close to the tradition of Joyce’s Ulysses, O’Brien, Sterne’s style in Indian English literature ( (this is not my observation alone, but of Anthony Burgess, Eliot, Rushdie, Bellow, Forster and many well read minds), it is (was) Desani and his work “All about H. Hatter”

I have some personal grudge against the land due to this mistake, whose repercussions are there for all to see, which I am not venting out, since it is a historical act by our forefathers, and it would be unjust to hold your (our) collar for the crimes of. This was done solely to bring to your attention through which you can justly and officially do a small redemptive act of including the said gentleman’s work into your school curriculum in any manner as you see fit!

Yours truly,
A

Response: Having read your scathing criticism, nay mudslinging at our ancestors, the committee has come to unanimous decision to revoke your literary status as a “reader” and be trained in the arts of true Indian English writing, and top of this, it has asked you to submit the copy of the half bread (50-50 in his own submission) to the committee and expects to hear from your own words about your social standing, which has been deducted to be wanting badly, if we haven’t overdone our deduction game that is!

Me: Gotchme, you smarties, at a crucial point which is the most sensitive for a person of my stead! Hence, I abort my selfless act - which was solely done for the nation’s future literary status and poor kids, in the hope that no one should feel alienated by having a taste in literature in this nation, that they would have a conducive atmosphere to grow their being, but since I am the most abiding citizen of this mother land, and that I respect the institutions like my own personal privy parts I abort such a holy mission, and as ordered I insert the smuggled copy of the contentional book in question (a link has been attached for you all to savour it), and I assure I will stop calling myself a reader, but excuse me to protest for my own sanity sake - to absolve me from tortuous self masochistic exercises called reading “True Indian English writing”, and request you to extend a warm signage on my identity as: Persona non grata!
Now, you know my social standing!

P.S: Having gone through the above motions as a chapter in a book or a brief scene in a film, and seen the trouble in such a selfless act, I have decided not to begin it!

It is not only for the students of BA, MA, Phd in English literature to read Desani’s work. It is for every Indian who happens to have some interest in English literature, or considers themselves a reader.

Parody of the Master by his disciple Sadvingo Sadoon Shiv in Sade

Digest:

Can a disciple choose 2 masters? Can life be only a subject of happenstance and not an equation of maths? Is classical music inferior for tragic scenes in real life? Does Ma Saraswathi peek out only after Lakshmi and Durga’s bellies are satiated?

Instruction:

Master: ListenO Slave! Let your puny pea-sized brain let my eternal knowledge, so, you degenerate and your future degenerates be rid of sin and live happily!

Slave: O my soul saver, bring me wisdom! I am your eternal humble servant!

M: Shut, you swine! I rescued you from rotting in hell. Be grateful. Now, if you will allow me to continue my teaching, your inferior soul might see the ways of pure bread!

O fool, make sure you tighten your cockles so tight that no female sight may fill it with Cupid breath! (Terror be upon him, the rat!)

S: O the ever knowing sage of Madras! I humbly submit myself to your teachings of the bread so my bread can get its butter! I obey thou - I am buying a rope so I can tight my innards, master.

M: Yo wretched fool, your ilk be fried in the infested vessel for eternity. Learn to appreciate poetic speeches and don’t take my words on the surface! O gawd, with this lumpen mootaal it is getting tough!
Away, go away you fool, don’t let your shadow touch mine. My Upanishadic teachings are over. I am deserting you!

S: O guru, my natha, my manu, my man, don’t flee me. Don’t make me a suttee, a damme, a slutty, a female, the better half, the ever knowing sri, the evil witch, the janani, Mary, maari! O no! I am thy humble servant forever. Here I come!

Then they both ran for 400 metres. And finally the slave won the running game.

Since, the dress code isn't so jarringly opposite between a learned monk and a poor destitute disciple - except a few trivial things here and there - no such theatre obligations were needed to be attended!

Slave master: Kid, you had your samosas full, now let me have my fill! Let’s pray to the rays of egalite, for making the world just! Let the sun never set down in France!

Master slave: The games of the lord are mysterious. O maha mata. Ever glowing you, let me leave my breath now to be accepted by your softe hands, then hear this fella. Take away my atma now mata, I implore you, the ever kind, resplendent mother! I humble servant of thou, plis the offering.

Thereby, he cried a drop of his inner water reserve which mixed with the corpse’s ash and became a mound of a drop size - a deity!

Ma in microcosma: Kid, the person you have profaned is none other than Vyasa of previous birth. Don’t utter a word anymore and create an imbalance in your checks and balances of the Karma book! You may have been born in a saintly family, cute white chubby fella, all nice and all da. But leave away every bollocks notion you have been taught and know from your master the true way!

Meanwhile, the mastre is wearing a red suit, out of nowhere, with a vodka in hand.

Master: Shet, you swine! Shet it till I open it with my keys. I have to cover my body with torpor to keep it safe from your verbal diarrhoea! See?
I need to empty it in a safe nuclear disposal area and then fill it with the true knowledge - milk of pure quality! Milk of my ma - Matushka Rossiya. Now, let me teach you the ways of the proletariat! Learn some real world problemas and not your imagined metaphysical word plays, you idiot, born of pure bread!



Query: How do you prove your loyalty to your master writer and attain the sole apprenticeship?

Presumption: Overdo the beloved protagonist of the writer!

An interjection:

It is quite nice if it is a honeymooning chum, but what if you had enrolled to the school run by his holiness Mr. Shakespeare, and not by his holiness H H G V D?

Life encounter:

Anyway, thank god it’s 10 or 1000 steps lower in tragic metre, since I aspired to be - not a Bard’s subject - the H H fella!

Gist:

My buddy Garuda, my mechanical self, was having a sweet dream with a damsel, when I had my own worldly errand to attend to. Post waking him just before his crescendo and his refusal to take his limbs out of the damsel in dream has caused my right toe to bulge! A small baby of Egyptian eaglewoman tattooed on my big toe! Damme!

Shh, shh, pray it doesn’t turn dusk soon and make me brush my soul to smell, or worse enact the Shakespearean tragedy (though, I am a HHHH hero, which makes it 5 H, damme, the titles, I pity our fathers!) which I already fear I had witnessed through my French windows today!

Post life encounter rumination:

Ain’t gonna lie - I though an aspirant to the tunes of “Requiem” by the genius german, and want that to be played to the whole Madras when I wither away, I still am ripe plant! And moreover, I don’t wish my fellas to learn classical music through my descent, not this early! Time shall be reserved for the maestro later!

Shift in tone - A homage to the tradition I come from:

I deserve myself - more melancholia, and burtonise my existence for some more time and naturally melt down in a fine sunny day at my beloved pashmina-covered bed like a tolstoyan fella with a smile, a smile I had never had in my days - for my familia and rest of my species to feel relieved that I had not given them trouble anymore, and not cry, though humans would love a bit of a folkish extravaganza concerto to show their god-sent divine interventioned blessing affection for the late subject on that september occasion, but rather celebrate the annihilation of a bad streak/dna strand, an aberration best forgotten in the line of the illustrious family and of the larger species!


Conclusion to the query and presumption:

Damme, it seems I am in a flow only when life serves me a hot dish! Should I have these deathly encounters for the sake of my inner well being? Can my adoration to my master and jest his beloved to earn a refuge in his heart, make me blind to core and turn me a devil to desire my outer flesh suffer darkness and dissonance to light my interior soul fella who has been sleeping for 3 years with - harmonic exercises in the craft? Can one listen to B’s Pastorale symphony and shed pearls of tears while his other scrotum fried in the Dantesque vessel of 5th symphony’s 3rd and 4th movement transition phase looped to the recurring hell?
Costly affairs for sure. Though, I am afraid - the Shakespearean rhetoric has been thrown at my cloak finally, yet I shan’t commit to any sides, but choose tableaux vivant with a pose of a salaam to my pater noster G V Dasani!

End of the scene!

Sadvingo Sadoon Shiv in Sade!

Finally a quote from the book, randomly:

The next week, my wholesaler packed me off to Mysore
(State), to do a spot of wholesale sandal-wood oil purchases for him!
On my second day at Mysore-side, a feller came to see me.
'Ina samacharam, swami?' he inquired.
'Nala, samy,' I replied.
Query: 'What news, master!' Rejoinder: 'Good, Sam.'
I considered the immediate scat I gave him to be the end of our acquaintance.
But the feller insisted on giving me confidences. His family
is starving. Rice and lentils in short supply. The children have
holes in their garments, each as big as the open mouth of a canary-hunting python, and he dare not send the eldest to school lest the child be laughed at. The situation is desperate.
No business being done.
Would his excellency, therefore, help that needy family by
borrowing money from the head of that family? Advances
without security or reference and on an indecently low rate of
interest . .
A member of the shining-armoured fraternity - the eternal Three Bells, damme!
A money-lender, canvassing business!
I disliked the feller's oily appearance, and his persuasive manner. I had absolutely no need to borrow, thanks to the outstation allowance I was getting from my wholesaler, and I wanted to remain aloof. But he persists like hell! He addresses me as Sir H. Hatterr. I am no certified knight, but he does that. He absolutely insists on treating me
as a son of the Calcutta merchant-prince A. Yule, the affluent Scot. Perhaps, he does that, because I am representing a well- known sandal-wood oil wholesaler. I cannot say.
I decide to ward off the feller. I suggest to him the Indian honour-bond arrangement: a laughable proposition between total strangers!
I propose, and ask, Should I fail to pay back the loan made
to me within a stipulated period, would he consider the trans- action a wash-out, and no claim lies against me? Pay, if you
like, as a matter of honour, or not at all. To my giddy amazement, the feller claps his hands and
affirms it a deal!
He insists on offering me a drink on that, Down the alley,
Bung-ho, and Java! Java!
After we have skin off our noses - he had a modest beer, I nominated mine and had two cognacs, one angel-on-hog's back
(ginsling), and a double virgin's kiss, mix 'em ! - damme, I feel
I have no option but to borrow from the feller. He is being so dam' decent, paying for the drinks and so on!
I suggest a hundred rupees. He absolutely insists on five. The
deal closes at three hundred chips, about twenty quidlets (less than a hundred yanky bucks), and I fix my signature to the
feller's roznamcha, his daily-business-doings-book.
For fun - the play instinct! - I sign myself Sir H. Hatterr.
likewise, as he addressed me: adding, Bart., O.M., DD,
M.D., D.C.L.
Thanks to the feller - the nautch girl dancing and filling em
up with fine arak, serving luncheons and dejeuners of briani-pulao, and generally providing - I had a dam' good time in Mysore!
I did justice to the sum, yes indeed!
Back in the digs, I received a perfectly charming letter from
the feller, showing concern after my wife, the kith and kin, even my servants. And a month or two later, he sent me a
parcel of halva. Dam' fine home-made sweet that! Well, the khabar ast? What's news? sort of correspondence,
in the friendliest terms, went on for some months. Then, in the ocean of cordiality, a shark made his debut. One V. K.
Nighanteesrimahalingham Anoopamsrimaharathanam ChetyChety, B.A. and LL.M. (Madras Legum Magister).

End of quote!

I hope I have blasted the limits of characters here. And hope not dissuaded you all in the process! Damme!

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

erudite indian man writes a tristram shandy like book about a hapless guy constantly getting into silly situations mostly involving charlatan gurus or mystics, and it's all written in freewheeling unconventional english that incorporates other languages, vernacular, etc, and he's constantly referencing indian philosophy most of which probably went over my head. some of the language blending and unconventional syntax reminds me a little bit of kojo laing although this isn't otherwise particularly similar. another way that you can tell the book is coo is that it ends with a critique of the book itself by the main character's previously only mentioned defence lawyer, where he complains that the book wasn't written in conventional enough english and tries to make himself look smart by quoting a bunch of famous proverbs and sayings.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 5 out of 5]

"To gain their heart's desire, man and beast make belligerent illusions to bewilder each other."

Damme! A dam' fine book, and if you're a fan of Flann O'Brien and his various incarnations, this will be the closest you will likely ever get to an author approaching his genius and confusing hyperbole.
Questionable hero H. Hatterr wends his way through life trying to digest the wisdom of sage's by behaving as practically as he can manage alongside their advice. Damme, but it never works out! Tricked out of his money and clothes time and again by wily con artists, usually wandering "holy" men in the bush of India, Hatterr seeks succor in beers at Ginger's and in conversation with his Gospel- and Shakespeare-quoting best friend Bannerrji. The questionable dog Jenkins is often present also. Hatterr's journey towards wisdom reaches no mean immoral and unsound bounds, but, damme! even his own impersonations of the wise and wisdom-dispensing never end well either. Philosophy is hooliganism, fools!

[keith koenigsberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tour de force, one of the great obscure books of all time. Desani wrote this wildly funny short novel in '48, a post-colonial Indian shaggy dog story. You will immediately recognize that you are reading something new here. The language is a paste-up, a farrago, a dog's dinner. Salman Rushdie says: "'babu English,' the semi-literate, half-learned English of the bazaars, transmuted by erudition, highbrow monkeying around, and the impish magic of Desani's unique phrasing and rhythm into an entirely new kind of literary voice."

The character travels the subcontinent, seeking enlightenment he consults 7 gurus and their teachings send him on seven adventures, each one ending in beating beaten, humiliated, imprisoned, or otherwise taking a comic fall. The book is hilarious. The language is outrageous. This is one of my favorite books of all time.

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

A layered and complex text that launches a scathing critique aimed at both colonial India and the British Empire via picaresque, pseudo-18th century philosophical treatises, mimicry, doomed spiritual journeys, and a magnificent hybrid language that often matches the heights of Joyce’s wordsmithery (and to which Salman Rushdie is admittedly indebted). A powerful postcolonial argument, it’s also, perhaps, the funniest book I have ever read thanks to H. Hatter’s series of (mis)adventures throughout which he wallows playfully and intensely in the absurdity of life, ultimately reminding us that, even when “innocent fellers get foxed,” and “regardless of the unanswerable what is truth?,” we really have no choice but to “carry on, boys, and continue like hell!”

[Razi · Rating 5 out of 5]

He is back, back in the print, back in literary discussions and back to his madcap adventures, H Hatterr is back. The Good Ol' Daddy of Indian novel in English, the one who added 'post' to the colonial, who took the micky out of everything in the ocean of humanity called India and moved on, crossed the ocean and found himself in "Blackpool, Lancs. The most unimaginable hell-hole I had ever unimagined." I read this book about 15 years ago when a friend lent me his precious but decomposing and dog-eared copy. I was so grateful that I decided to repay his kindness by getting him a new copy but managed to find a good condition second HB after several trips to Charing Cross Road. The book was classified as 'rare'. Now it is available on Amazon.

Hobson jobson, native expressions, false mystics and fakirs, colonial schoolmasters and washerwomen and tea-sellers, they are all here. Here is God's plenty because like Chaucer's pilgrims, Desani's characters show many different aspects of humanity in all its glory and shame.

[Tom Leland · Rating 2 out of 5]

I HATE not finishing a book; even if I'm bored with or confused by or even disliking a book, I'll finish it in honor of the author's great effort, and for the sporadic gems or at least occasional pleasing passages every book has. With this one I hung in there for 90 pages...just can't go on. I appreciate the irreverence, the novelty it must have been in the 40s...but the wordplays weary me and I need some sense of place and structure as a foundation for pouring even a tiny bit of myself into a book.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very witty, humorous, bizarre, original novel about H. Hatterr, the son of a Scottish merchant officer and a woman from Penang, brought up and educated in Calcutta missionary schools. He is seeking enlightenment and consults seven sages, each one an ‘expert’ in different aspects of living.

H. Hatterr is linguistically sophisticated but easily duped. There are some very funny scenes. For example, H. Hatterr being a lion trainer performer in a circus.

This book was first published in 1948.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books)]

Umm…. Yeah, no.

[KP · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s challenging writing a funny book. Even more difficult is to have a compelling narrative. This book manages to do just that. For that, the author deserves a 5 star.
Coming to the story, the protagonist is one Mr Hatterr. He is on a spiritual journey, searching for god knows what. Each chapter recounts his encounters with various sages he meets as part of his journey. This is where the similarities to Siddhartha ends!
What follows is an intriguing set of circumstances which has to followed with focus. Get distracted and you might end up not learning the valuable lessons our protagonist has to offer.
This is a book like no other and revealing any more details might spoil the reading experience. So grab a copy of this underrated book and start immersing yourself on a journey with Mr Hatterr and the various characters who crop up in delightful and unpredictable ways.

[Stephanie Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"This is the Twentieth Century! This is the Medical Man's Century. No sentiment, no dog-cat or Romeo-Juliet imaginative stuff, but realistic brutal true-to-life pictures! What dam' use is there in reading what the Stratford-on-Avon feller wrote so long ago, and is himself dead and gone? Besides, hell, they say Bacon did it! I tell you, the Bacon-Shakespeare pictures won't tally with Life today! I know Life. I have experience..."

Some of the most gorgeously textured words to come out of modern literature. Desani has been rightful hailed as the grandfather of the "global novel" -- and thank heavens to all subsequent literature. T.S. Eliot (my hero) and Salman Rushdie have both uttered praise and garnered inspiration from Desani and Hatterr. This lusciously worded "gesture" may advocate for Life, but it also cements the importance of literary history, the study of literature while showcasing the modernist convention of fragmenting the traditional literary canon for an altogether new style of narrative.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astonishing piece of writing. Ignatius J.Reilly meets Good Soldier Svejk as written by Flann O'Brien and Dylan Thomas transported to post colonial India. H.Hatterr's crazy search for enlightenment and "contrast" in life is rendered in the most polyglot, multi-faith, literature-quoting verbiage, a stream of contrast with Shakespeare, Ancient Rome and mid-century India among those careering to the surface. Try sounding like a classically educated English gent, when you've not been within 3000 miles of Bond Street, you've slept in the dust and a dog is trying to bite your loincloth. Bizarre, exciting, wildly different and absurdly funny. Please let's have a campaign to allow this to be read in schools.

[Taleem · Rating 5 out of 5]

The greatest English language novel from an Indian writer. Yes, its even better than Rushdie's Midnight's Children. First heard of this jewel back in 2003. Have read it several times since then. Couldn't believe this is Desani's only novel!!!.....English language writers from India barring Rushdie and maybe Amitav Ghosh can polish Desani's shoes......check this website out www.believermag.com/issues/200806/?re...

[Jeffra Hays · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing no book that I know of is anything like this. English is crunched up and tossed out reformed -- into hilarity. When it is so obvious that the author is enjoying his verbal antics, the reader has to enjoy too. If you like your fiction 'spoon-fed' don't go near this. But if you love wacky with underlying true tongues in cheeks, cheers!

[Karn Kher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author toys with the language, adds Shakespeare, Hindi, Shelley, drops in Latin, Greek and binds them together in manner only he can. Not the most moving of plot but a funny read that will hook you for the sheer force of his writing. Also, since a lot of references and language tropes are Indian it is fun, kinnda insider nudge nudge wink wink for an Indian reader.

[Tonymess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.
I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed.

[Monty Milne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read through the author’s preface to this – which made no sense to me at all – so I scratched my head and read it again. I wasn’t any the wiser. So I heaved a sigh and started, expecting to find this an impenetrable thicket of unintelligibility.

Well…I was wrong. It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you tune in to the unique authorial tone, it is a lot of fun and – if you can catch most of the jokes and references – frequently very amusing and clever. Some of it is a bit hit and miss but there is an extraordinary melange of cod Shakespeare with a fusion of English and Indian satire. It reminded me of Sterne and of Wyndham Lewis – both difficult authors, but geniuses too. And I think Desani was in the same league. There is nothing I have read which is quite like it.

The Introduction to my edition was written by Anthony Burgess, who I thought took the whole thing a bit too seriously. My reaction to reading it has been to copy some of the epithets used by the disciple to the Master in this tale, and apply them – obviously tongue in cheek – to my father, whom I have been addressing as “Sobriety Personified”, “Master of Erudition”, “Colossus of Fathomless Intellect”, “Himalaya of Intellectuality”, etc. (None of these things are true of him – nor of me either – which of course is what makes it funny).

[Daniel Polansky]

A series of comic misadventures/religious commentary relayed by an Anglo-Malay neer-do-well in vivid and hysterical bazaar English. Even the bits that made no sense at all to me were fun to read.

[Jasraj Malik · Rating 5 out of 5]

A complete delight, i enjoyed every second of it. I feel this book is going to become one of my favourites

[Isabel]

Reading this book makes me feel like I don’t know English

[D. Stark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Damme! What a feat! This book is too much in the highest sense--sumptuous detail and parades of arcane absurdity so intriguing.

[Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another one of those less-often-read than it should be somewhat obscure classics. Almost everything that the subcontinental magic realists do (Rushdie, foremost among them) was pulled off in terms of sheer linguistic facility several decades before by the all-too-imitable G. V. Desani. The novel details the (mostly mis-) adventures of one H. Haterr. Most of these encounters ends with him naked or nearly so in some utterly compromising situation--perhaps the most entertaining of which involves a raw steak and a lion. Framed (lightly) as life lessons, these encounters are prefaced in each case by an exchange between an acolyte and an Eastern mystic. The ensuing tale from Haterr's life is meant to illustrate or comment on whatever question of moment has come up between the acolyte and the mystic. These seven tales involve various idiotic schemes for prosperity (in love or hard specie) that inevitably go awry. Some are prompted by Haterr's hilarious Shakespeare-quoting friend Bannerji, others are solved by Bannerji's timely intervention. In every case, the linguistic pyrotechnics are alone worth the price of admission. Desani puts his hero in one wickedly funny situation after another, so the story as well is richly rewarding. Ought to be far better known.

[Melanie]

"Imagine a schnockered Nabokov impersonating The Simpsons' Apu while reeling off tales of an Anglo-Indian Don Quixote, and you get some sense of Desani's wacko masterwork—a hilarious mix of slapstick misadventure and philosophic vaudeville, voiced in a manic Hindu-accented English so jagged and dense it makes you dizzy. A 1948 bestseller in England, sporadically reissued since then, and now in the NYRB home of the almost-forgotten, the author's only novel follows the idealistic naïf H. Hatterr on his wisdom-seeking quest, in which he encounters (among other nuts) the malaria-mad mystic Giri-Giri, a scheming sage who deals in used clothes, and Charlie, the steak-loving lion. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot's view: It's the goddamn weirdest book you'll ever read. ROBERT SHUSTER" -- Village Voice

[Rick Goff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightfully weird. It has a plot but it’s about language. The narrator uses a sort of pidgin English containing Indian ideas and words as well as European and American textual artifacts. It’s like nothing else I’ve read. A sophisticated reader in his 20’s didn’t like it but hey, he’s in his 20’s so I have more credibility, right?

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing play with language. Desani throws references to literary works from every culture into this, with puns, foreign languages, linguistic gymnastics and outlandish scenes. Lots of fun, but also a challenging read.

[Alec · Rating 5 out of 5]

Desani G. V. is a lofty lion of literature. The best work on cultural receptio that ever has been written by any feller Oriental or Occidental.

And any suggestion to the contrary will be reviewed by Y. Beliram, legum vir, and published as an appendix.