Things We Found During the Autopsy

by Kuzhali Manickavel

Things We Found During the Autopsy is South Indian writer Kuzhali Manickavel's second collection of short fiction, in which she presents a dizzying array of apocalyptic visions and fractured childhood memories. These stories contain the a dragon; angels; Indian culture; one Christmas story for children; no Indian culture whatsoever; men; poor people; voluntarily homeless youths; women; drugs; sex; Indian dads in cold foreign countries; vomit; boys; girl's hostels; girls; future tense; the Tropicool Icy-Land Urban Indian Slum; ash, and the people who eat ash; authentic village life written from a privileged English-speaking perspective; homosexuals; white people; references to Rajinikanth; non-italicized Tamil words; whores; brain aneurysms; Western dance in South Indian women's colleges; Pazhani; floods; shapeshifters; men named Kathir; minty-fresh non-cola cola; and wannabe Naxalites.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Anthologies, Science Fiction, India, Collections

226 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2014

About the author

Kuzhali Manickavel (Tamil: குழலி மாணிக்கவேல்) is an Indian writer who writes in English. She was born in Winnipeg, Canada and moved to India when she was thirteen. She currently lives in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu. Her first book - Insects Are Just Like You And Me Except Some Of Them Have Wings was published by Blaft Publications in 2008. Her short stories have also appeared in print magazines like Shimmer Magazine, Versal literary journal, AGNI, PANK, FRiGG and Tehelka.

Reviews

[Resh (The Book Satchel) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very different from my usual reads. Kuzhali breaks the rules of grammar and punctuation in some stories; others have exceptionally long titles; some stories are sharp and realistic; others have traces of magical realism. You will encounter dragons, angels in bottles, vomit, fluorescent shit, bicycle stealing penguins, feminists, and so on and on.

This book is not everyone's cup of tea. If you like eccentric books with quirky characters, you might enjoy the read. Read more of my thoughts about the book here -http://www.thebooksatchel.com/things-...

Disclaimer : Much thanks to Blaft publications for a copy of the book. All opinions are my own.

[Steven Deobald · Rating 5 out of 5]

"What's India like?" they'll ask as myriad images flip through your head, searching for themes or images or adjectives that might satisfy a question which demands a please-less-than-one-short-paragraph answer despite standing as inquiry to a three thousand year old civilization spanning three million square kilometres crammed full, at present, with over one point three billion humans.

I have so repeatedly failed to describe India in any meaningful way to friends overseas that I've largely stopped trying. Until now, I couldn't even point to a book that might help them get an idea. But this is the book. This book is India.

This book is also Canada. It's nostalgic in strange ways that I'm not sure were intentional... images mirror Shel Silverstein books of my childhood and phrases like "lint-covered cinnamon hearts" simply mirror my childhood directly.

I am very curious which of these paradoxical images will strike you as you read the book. Strike with that feeling in your chest that repeatedly made me say out loud "This! I can't believe she thought to write THIS down!" Lint-covered cinnamon hearts, indeed. <3

[Khitkhite Buri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally finished the book I began in another city. I would have liked to finish it there since it was the end of the year and I was holidaying in a place I couldn't stay. It would mean something because there it felt wonderful to realise that a book could be written in a manner of such absolute, incoherent tomfoolery and angst. But I finished it here and I loved it a little less, which of course is confusing, because I still don't know anything about why I needed to finish this book in the city where I couldn't stay.

[Len Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Goodreads had headlines for their reviews, mine would be "Lydia Davis meets David Foster Wallace."

I would have given this book 6 stars if Goodreads had let me.

Maybe my headline is misleading, but I was hoping it would get readers’ attention and they would check out the review and then want to read the book.

Actually Kuzhali Manickavel has a totally unique voice that really can’t be compared to anyone else. I struggle with how to describe it. It is as if she has some very refined Asperger’s syndrome where everything that pops into her head flows through to her pen (or whatever she writes with) and comes out in funny, snarky, crude, wtf way that somehow in a weird Kuzhalian way makes perfect sense.

Perhaps an example would help.

Here is a somewhat random selection from her story, “a basic guide to instigating violence among gentoo penguins in the tropicool icy-land urban indian slum”

…Hot, angry pieces of penguin will block out the sun and rain upon the urban Indian slum in fat, lazy drops of ferocious blood and cartilage. Beaks and flippers will clog the gutters, causing sewage to overflow into the street and pipefish and leafy sea dragons to die in such numbers that an albino killer whale will start hurling itself into the sky screaming, ‘Genocide Genocide Mother of God Oh the Humanity Oh the horror horror!’ thus signaling the beginning of great violence.

I don’t think I can add anything to that. It’s a great collection.

[Subashini · Rating 3 out of 5]

The weirdness wore thin after awhile, which really took me by surprise, because I expected to unconditionally love a new KM book and unfortunately this was not the case. Poverty, racism, dead migrants and sex workers, Indian class elitism and casteism--after a while it feels like the weirdness justified the number of middle-class characters here who are conflicted and angry and guilty but apathetic, unable to act, and thus retreat into surrealist solipsism. The "it's all crap and meaningless but we can get a good image out of it" form of writing is perhaps something I should stay away from, currently, so I don't know if this is the Kuzhali I've always loved or the Kuzhali I've always loved is now revealed to me as a bit of a problem.

[Jukaschar]

I won't rate this book. Reading Manickavel's stories/kind-of-poems is a bit like how I imagine that I would experience cultural shock if I were to visit India. It permeates all my senses until I'm overwhelmed.
I read ca. 1/4 of it before I had to stop because the book is just too much for me. Please be aware of the many potential triggers that you will come across kind of casually (mention of rape and abuse, homicide, animal death, drug abuse are just those I know from the top of my head).
If you have no problems with aforementioned triggers I do think reading this book is a unique experience and I do think the author is superb at what she does.

[Yuvi Panda · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a mindfuck

Amazing prose. Magical and beautiful, with so many things that are beautiful callbacks to a culture I left behind. Helps me see that narratives don't have to make sense because the things they are narrating often do not.

"Underground Bird Sanctuary" is s beautiful expression of co-dependent toxic relationships. So was "throwing rocks at dogs" although in a different way. "Anarch" made the fear of having super conservative parents very real. "The old man" is a terrifying tale about growing old.

I'm going to read more South Asian authors.

[Christoff Youngman · Rating 2 out of 5]

When we decided to review this book, our friend Ayesha told us we should be kind as it was very difficult to get published and that she should know, she had published 120 books about whores. We later decided she had lied about both these things. Ayesha was such an amazing person. She committed suicide by deliberately catching smallpox.

There was an object or creature. It was very old and may have had magical properties. Later it disappeared.

We went to a place. The place was full of strange people. We drank a coke and thought about trees.

The End.

[Manisha Meena · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no single plot to the stories. It seemed more like autopsy of Indian society. It is a collection of various fiction stories with no start and no end .
This was very different than I usually read and writer has a very weird yet creative way to writing down the stuff. Sometimes the stories didn't make any sense yet I liked it.

[Sorin Hadârcă · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delirious if not delusional. I am not a huge fan of either metaphors or slum poetry, but okay: someone has to chart down the territory, invent a language of sorts...

[Rahul Vishnoi · Rating 5 out of 5]

-Little Packets of Razor-Sharp Eccentricities-
Review of 'Things We Found During the Autopsy' by Kuzhali Manickavel

Quote Alert
"𝐊𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫'𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐩 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬. 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐤𝐧𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐩 𝐬𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐲, 𝐢𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡. 𝐈𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐬, 𝐈 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩.
𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐰𝐢𝐜𝐞," 𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐦𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞."


Ranging from eccentric to satirical to abusrd to heartbreaking, this collection of short stories by Kuzhali Manickavel is part memory part apocalypse on pages. It tries to defend humanity here and there but between the lines, it knows the humans are doomed. The stories glow brightly, almost feverishly when they don't care about humanity and what happens to them.


The writing flickers like a flame, words burning themselves upon my reader's palate while I try and not let my wings singe like a common moth.
These short stories, little microcosm of memory and apocalypse that they are, keep jumping from one theme to another, sometimes satirical, sometimes morbid. It's like a delightful platter at a restaurant. You can have dozens of dishes, enjoying savoury with sweet, textures melting into your mouth. You can have many many protagonists to love, many to loathe, many to care for and some to forget and move on. That's also the biggest plus point of a short story collection. If you don't like a story, maybe move on to another one.

In the whore raft, the author writes: "On the way to the railway station someone stole our Flood Relief purse, replaced every single coin with buttons, and put the purse back into Clubfoot's pocket without either of us noticing."

One of the best is 'How to wear an Indian village', a guide for rich and privileged to show that they care.
Have a look: "Promise the children that you will send copies of every photograph that was taken. Write their addresses down in English. Make them promise to wait for your letter everyday. Make them say "Yes, we promise" in
unison. Do not stay more than twenty-two minutes. As the car pulls away, wave once and quickly roll up the window."

These are the stories of people who live their life in flashes. For a reader, that is me, the protagonists of a short story are living either their best or their worst lives. Contrary to a novel where characters get at least 80,000 words to create the ebbs and flows of their lives. But a short story is a rollercoaster of a ride. Here either you are happy or sad or plain disappointed. The author makes sure you aren't lattermost.

[Juan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is just like any other book, except it's totally different. It's a collection of short stories, and poems, but as a matter of fact the characters in some of the short stories have the same name and live in the same place, and there are some elements that appear over and over again, like Gentoo penguins that steal bikes, or angels that lose their wings, or, well, whores. And floods.
The first story is about a flood and a raft made of whores. This sets the whimsical tone for the rest of the book. There are twins that are immortal creatures, there are shape shifters, and there are people with rather inexplicable behavior and other people that clearly do something that they shouldn't.
And there's a lot of violence, implicit or explicit, between castes, races, and directed at themselves.
At the end, it feels a bit like a tamil Joyce or an episode or Rick and Morty, but much less colorful and with people going hungry for many different reasons. It's a poignant, intense, surreal, and sometimes, to be hones, boring flow-of-conscience that's difficult to pin down. All in all, an interesting read, if not something I'd like to keep reading for many more pages.

[Gaurav Vartak · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Things We Found During the Autopsy' is a collection of short stories and flash fiction that deals with several morbid topics ranging from alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicides (other things) to rafts made of whores, gender discrimination, and alcoholic whales among other things.

Kuzhali lets her imagination run rampant all over the pages. Using a variety of style of narrations, she teleports us into the head of an eclectic array of characters. Using metaphors, abstract writings, or just plain in-your-face narration, she gives a glimpse into a variety of sordid issues. As is often the case with such books, there were stories that were quite an enjoyable read, there were some that required me to think a bit later on to grasp them completely, and there were some that plain escaped my comprehension (or maybe I was trying to find meaning in them where none existed).

Either way, this is one of the weirdest and most eclectic books I've read. I would only recommend this if you like reading stories that may at times make no sense to you (or may require some efforts to make sense of them).

[David H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I might've enjoyed this book if it had fewer stories. With 45 stories, many of them only a couple pages long, I felt a bit overwhelmed by all the different tales Manickavel told. (A friend told me that this was not a "read all at once" book, but he told me that after I read the first 65% in one sitting, so thanks for the late heads up.) Anyway, it's a wide mix of stories, with over half of them as literary-ish fiction, and the others some kind of mix between fantasy or science fiction or "magical realism." Most of them honestly didn't really work for me. When a short story doesn't really have a plot, it's often hard for me to mentally grasp onto prose alone or even just its "vibes."

That said, my favorite story was probably "Pazhani" partly because Manickavel was able to get that emotional feeling of going with a relative on a short journey. I just really liked it! "How Juniper Parsnip Saved Christmas Eve" was just silly fun, but "Boys Like That" was just really really well done. Some stories I liked but couldn't quite figure out why were "The Twins" and "Jugni."

[Anmol Narain · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book leaves one reeling with the strange aftertaste of question marks in response to most of the narrative. Some stories are strange metaphors for the absurdities of life in general, perhaps, and it is definitely quite interesting to see the author juxtapose poverty in South India with young adolescence in Canada- and how they come together in seemingly complex and colorful ways. A bit too absurd for me, yet interspersed with a few stories that make one smile and think about the romanticism of activities we forgot to appreciate in our daily lives. Like the simplicity of two lovers sleeping next to each other on a hot sweaty afternoon without a fan and not minding it at all, or chaotic Sunday walks, bus rides to temples, etc.

[Sree Lakshmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly have no idea how to describe this book. It's not one story, but many which are sometimes strange, abrupt or morbidly funny. Having never read a book like this, and just for the experience of going through this small strange book, I would give it a 4!
The titles are sometimes a word or otherwise like "put your hand in the hand of the man with his hand in the hand of the man with his hand in the windmills of your mind" (actual title). The stories have themes ranging from flooding to abandonment and of course bicycle stealing penguins!

[Robbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took a few stories for this to catch me, but I ultimately ended up enjoying this collection a lot. I really liked Manickavel's writing style and I liked the general absurdist approach to the storytelling, but there were a number of stories that just didn't reach me in any way. Those that did, though, were excellent and the worst of them really weren't that bad and since they were all so short, it didn't take long to move on to something that I did like.

[Alina Gufran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, lyrical writing. Dark, brooding, Manickavel's writing is fast-paced and races the reader feverishly to its conclusion or the lack of it. Drawing from myths and painting visual landscape of South India in the minds of the reader,

[Jobie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, stream of consciousness vignettes

Short, stream of consciousness vignettes

Sometimes they read like narrative poetry more likely to end in soft questions. Sometimes the subject matter is disturbing.

[Madelaine Dickie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dear Kuzhali,
This was a totally original, madcap, startling, funny and frightening book. I loved it. Please write and publish a novel. I would love to see the cynicism of these stories played out in the long form. Thank you 🙏🏽

[Afrah Shafiq · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hands down love anything Kuzhali has written, ever.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absurd and beautifully written. Very New Weird.

[Sowmya]

Insane. I’m trying to find other words to describe the book but that’s the only one that comes to mind. And Crazy!

It’s like someone with Tourette’s got stoned and started writing things that came to their mind.

I kept looking for metaphors and things to make sense and parts of the book do, but mostly what I’m left with are confusion and questions.

I don’t think I can give this book a rating. I simply don’t know how.

Kuzhali Manickavel has created her own genre.

[R · Rating 4 out of 5]

like Brief Interviews with Hideous Men but good

[Smit Zaveri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eccentric, poetic and wildly imaginative. The book is a treat for people who loved Aimee Bender's Willful Creatures or are just ready to experiment with short fiction. Kuzhali is a master of description.

[Poorvi Ammanagi · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a writer, I always take myself too seriously. I should not. Kuzhali reminds me of that. It's okay to just have characters lie and do their no shit without explaining themselves. I needed that reminder.

[Vishesh Unni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some irreverent, some serious and some plain incomprehensible- Kuzhali Manickavel has a way of saying things which leave an impression, strangely.