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Silverfish
A retired schoolteacher in present-day Calcutta is caught in the labyrinth of rusty bureaucracy and political crime under a communist government. Across a vast ocean of time, a widow leads a life of stark suffering in a wealthy feudal household in 19th century, British-ruled Bengal, at a time when widow-burning has gone out of practice but widow remarriage is far from coming into vogue.As their stories begin to connect, they weave a larger narrative of historical forgetting, of voices that have been pushed out of the nation's memory. And what we are left with is the intriguing tale of two the same geographical space separated by decades of experience and neglect.'This is a book to cherish for a very long time, for its descriptions and evocations as well as for what it tells us about the ebb and flow of human expectation' ---Amit Chaudhuri
- GenresFiction
320 pages, Paperback
First published December 30, 2007
About the author
Saikat Majumdar
23 books33 followersSaikat Majumdar is the author of four novels, two books of nonfiction, and the co-editor of a volume of essays. His most recent book is The Middle Finger, a campus novel that examines the intricacy of the teacher-student relation through the lens of ancient myths. Previous novels include The Scent of God (2019), a story of romantic love between two boys in a Hindu monastic boarding school, and The Firebird (2015), which narrates a young boy’s destructive relation with the art form of theatre through his mother’s life as an actress. The Scent of God was one of Times of India’s Most Talked About Books of 2019 and a finalist for the inaugural Mathrubhumi Book of the Year Award, and The Firebird was finalist at the Bangalore Literature Festival Fiction Prize and the Mumbai Film Festival Word-to-Screen Market. The Middle Finger was longlisted at the Atta Galata-Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize 2022. Saikat's other works include a work of general nonfiction, College: Pathways of Possibility (2018), of literary criticism, Prose of the World (2013), and a co-edited collection of essays, The Critic as Amateur (2019).
Saikat is Professor of English & Creative Writing at Ashoka University. He has taught previously at Stanford University, was a Newhouse Fellow at Wellesley College, and a Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study. He writes regularly on higher education and literature in different venues, including the Hindu, Hindustan Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Times Higher Education.
Saikat is Professor of English & Creative Writing at Ashoka University. He has taught previously at Stanford University, was a Newhouse Fellow at Wellesley College, and a Fellow at the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study. He writes regularly on higher education and literature in different venues, including the Hindu, Hindustan Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Times Higher Education.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 26, 2022
Silverfish is a novel that narrates two different stories across two timelines amid an intense and engaging storyline that revolves around the themes of the past and the contemporary. Although they merge towards the end but not without conjuring, arousing, and eliciting vivid images of the times when they were set in.
I felt intertwined and connected at a soul level with Saroj and Suhasini's endearing friendship as they grew and lived in a feudal household in 19th Century Bengal. As also with the trials and tribulations of Milan Sen's life as the retired government school teacher running from pillar to post for his long overdue pension, in 20th Century Communist Bengal.
In Silverfish, Saikat Majumdar has enthralled the incorrigible reader in me by evoking deeply intense emotions and empathy. Majumdar's evocative writing style is full of imagery and meaning. He juxtaposes wealth and poverty, beauty and ugliness, darkness and light, education and illiteracy in the two stories with such literary grace and elan, that I couldn't stop myself from going on an unplanned journey with the characters- with gentle turns, gradual ups and downs.
I started writing this review moments after I turned the last page of this breathtakingly beautiful novel. The moment when I felt sadness and bliss, both. While reading Silverfish I felt like there were things about the world of writing that I never knew existed. That a writer could evoke a myriad emotions in one novel was alien to me. But not anymore!
Majumdar has drawn at the story so intricately, yet so simply that I am in awe. The prose is soul stirring; the words magically transformed into people and places and voices and conflict.
While I was reading the novel I forgot that anything could ever exist outside the pages. The words caused me pain, grief, shock-and a million conflicting emotions! The pain and agony of the protagonists grew on me and pushed me towards deep melancholia. I have shed tears, shattered, pleased at times, imagined the novel from the first word until the last.
Having read Majumdar's other novels like The Firebird, The Scent of God, and The Middle Finger, I can now say with conviction that every time I read one of his works, I am enthralled by his ability to make his characters come alive in the readers imagination. A craft which very few contemporary writers possess. The energy and enthusiasm that Majumdar brings to his writings is like a glue that makes a reader feel one with his words long after they have turned the last page.
I felt intertwined and connected at a soul level with Saroj and Suhasini's endearing friendship as they grew and lived in a feudal household in 19th Century Bengal. As also with the trials and tribulations of Milan Sen's life as the retired government school teacher running from pillar to post for his long overdue pension, in 20th Century Communist Bengal.
In Silverfish, Saikat Majumdar has enthralled the incorrigible reader in me by evoking deeply intense emotions and empathy. Majumdar's evocative writing style is full of imagery and meaning. He juxtaposes wealth and poverty, beauty and ugliness, darkness and light, education and illiteracy in the two stories with such literary grace and elan, that I couldn't stop myself from going on an unplanned journey with the characters- with gentle turns, gradual ups and downs.
I started writing this review moments after I turned the last page of this breathtakingly beautiful novel. The moment when I felt sadness and bliss, both. While reading Silverfish I felt like there were things about the world of writing that I never knew existed. That a writer could evoke a myriad emotions in one novel was alien to me. But not anymore!
Majumdar has drawn at the story so intricately, yet so simply that I am in awe. The prose is soul stirring; the words magically transformed into people and places and voices and conflict.
While I was reading the novel I forgot that anything could ever exist outside the pages. The words caused me pain, grief, shock-and a million conflicting emotions! The pain and agony of the protagonists grew on me and pushed me towards deep melancholia. I have shed tears, shattered, pleased at times, imagined the novel from the first word until the last.
Having read Majumdar's other novels like The Firebird, The Scent of God, and The Middle Finger, I can now say with conviction that every time I read one of his works, I am enthralled by his ability to make his characters come alive in the readers imagination. A craft which very few contemporary writers possess. The energy and enthusiasm that Majumdar brings to his writings is like a glue that makes a reader feel one with his words long after they have turned the last page.
June 19, 2025
There are two parallel stories, set in two vastly different times, in the same city of Calcutta. The story of a retired school-teacher trying hard to get his pension, navigating the maze of bureaucracy, set in the era when the state was ruled by the communist party, and the story of a child-bride, wedded to a man much older than her, set in the colonial era. The story dragged in the middle and I kind of yearned to get to the end. The language is lyrical at places, a reminder of the fact that the writer is a professor of English literature.
Recommended for those readers who love literary fiction.
Recommended for those readers who love literary fiction.
September 4, 2023
"In this city, in this season, spectres, roamed free and wide like birds in spring."
Beautiful book, that captures the tension of Pre Partition Calcutta in 19th century.
The characters are brilliant and outspoken. Even the things conventionally that are supposed to be shown in a good light are shadowed by its own darkness.
The two stories are intertwined and finally connect by the end.
The title in itself , something that feeds off on books and yet tends to it portrays the contrasts depicted through the book.
Lovely read.
Beautiful book, that captures the tension of Pre Partition Calcutta in 19th century.
The characters are brilliant and outspoken. Even the things conventionally that are supposed to be shown in a good light are shadowed by its own darkness.
The two stories are intertwined and finally connect by the end.
The title in itself , something that feeds off on books and yet tends to it portrays the contrasts depicted through the book.
Lovely read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 14, 2021
It could've been better, altho for a young reader like me it was pretty attractive and made me more curious towards reading and made me want to read more and search more beautiful stuff like this... But at last, it was job well done... Would've been a waste of time for a experienced reader but it is the perfect book to start off someone's reading journey...
August 30, 2008
A classic case of buying the book for its cover, this was disappointing. The stories had potential, but read like a Bengali author pining for his homeland. The themes might have been universal, but the people, places and inside jokes were not.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews