Arresting God in Kathmandu

by Samrat Upadhyay

From the first Nepali author writing in English to be published in the West, Arresting God in Kathmandu brilliantly explores the nature of desire and spirituality in a changing society. With the assurance and unsentimental wisdom of a long-established writer, Upadhyay records the echoes of modernization throughout love and family. Here are husbands and wives bound together by arranged marriages but sometimes driven elsewhere by an intense desire for connection and transcendence. In a city where gods are omnipresent, where privacy is elusive and family defines identity, these men and women find themselves at the mercy of their desires but at the will of their society. Psychologically rich and astonishingly acute, Arresting God in Kathmandu introduces a potent new voice in contemporary fiction.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Asia, Travel, Contemporary, World Literature, Asian Literature

204 pages, Paperback

First published August 2, 2001

About the author

SAMRAT UPADHYAY is the author of Arresting God in Kathmandu, which earned him a Whiting Award, and The Guru of Love, which was a New York Times Notable Book, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year, a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize, and a Book Sense 76 pick. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, and teaches creative writing and literature at Indiana University. His eight-year-old daughter Shahzadi, is a published poet.

Reviews

[Daren · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short collection of nine fiction stories by a Nepalese author who lives in the USA.

While there is one which crosses from the USA to Nepal, the stories are are primarily all set in Nepal (but not all Kathmandu). They offer an often intimate view of the Nepalese characters, but how accurately they portray Nepalese people is questionable. Certainly written such that most of the characters are flawed, making most unlikeable - or at least the reader struggles to find sympathy with many of them) the book does, as the blurb suggests explore 'the nature of desire and spirituality in a changing society'.

The stories are interesting, and are written from various perspectives, about Nepalese people from different social strata - from the wealthy elite a house servant, male and female characters. Somehow with every story there is a lack of resolution that I am not thrilled by. In a collection like this I don't mind one story with an ambiguous ending, but these felt largely unsatisfying. The struggle or issue that the protagonist dealt with throughout the story didn't really resolve itself by the end.

Published in 2001 I don't think it has dated badly, but then I sometimes struggle with the concept that the early 2000s are over twenty years ago!

Interesting how the reviews of this book are such a mixed bag, many at 5 who loved it; many at 1 who detested it, with a majority at 3 stars, to which I add. I wasn't polarised either way, but would have liked less ambiguity and more resolution of outcomes, as it was obvious after the first few stories that we were getting neither!

3 stars

[Samir · Rating 1 out of 5]

Being from Nepal, I wanted to like this book, I really did. However, the more of it I read the more it reeked of fakeness - of a cheap stage show put on to take advantage of a wide-eyed Western audience. It's implied attempt at authenticity came across as nothing but a manufactured sensibility designed to push the right buttons among a Western readership with limited knowledge of Nepal but a vague notion of it being an "exotic", interesting place. The author seems determined to dispel the naivete about Nepal that's prevalent in many older books, but ends up with simply another brand of phony. I find no fault with the quality of the prose iself - it's actually quite good - but if you want to get a real glimpse of Nepal and the lives of Nepalis, do your self a favor and look elsewhere.

[Sulata Dhakal · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a smart name Upadhyay has found, but sadly he couldn't justify the title through his stories. I didn't enjoy any story from this book. It contain like 8 short stories but each storyline seems same, and it doesn't provide any exact perspective of life of Nepal. I'm not saying that kind of stories aren't from Nepal but there was no variation and it provides limited perception of Nepal and Nepalese.
Samrat's way of writing is simple and clear but at the end the story loses its shine and it falls back as plain and boring.

I wouldn't recommend this book. If you wish to read some good short stories collection try City of Dreams by Pranaya Rana.

[Hallie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was NOT it for me. Very unlikeable characters in almost all the stories, and there was an odd way of ending them that at the same time denied readers resolution and also turned matters for the worse. I'm not sure now why I bothered to finish, as I think this one was ticking off challenge tasks that weren't that difficult anyway. I guess at least if anyone who doesn't like the first story or two happens to read this, they'll know the stories in the collection are all like that.

[Gorab · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

A collection of 9 short stories.
After the initial 3-4 stories, felt a more apt title could have been Unleashing Lust in Kathmandu!

The stories revolved around characters having immoral sex without any strings attached. With a dash of Nepal's famous locations references in the background. Out of all the stories, loved the last one the most - "A Great Man's House".

Picked this with an eye to learn more about Nepal from a cultural point of view. Wouldn't say it was disappointing, but not up to the mark either.

[Andrea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short stories where the characters are not allowed to have sophisticated thoughts and tend to go around having (mostly) guilty, joyless sex. I managed to finish it - the pagecount was low - but I’ll be wary of reading any more Upadhyay in future.

[Elsa Rajan Pradhananga · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of 9 short stories with Nepalese protagonists. Some of the stories were beautiful. Some, outright vulgar. I was taken aback by the lack of self control of many characters. But these are stories of people from a diverse social strata. There's a lonely housemaid from a village, a drunkard teen tricked into marriage to a handicapped woman who probably thought she had to earn her keep, a migrant student who lost her sense of belonging but eventually returns to freedom, a mother who dreamt big for her daughter but reluctantly gave in to circumstances... I loved the pop references in the story 'Deepak Misra's Secretary'. But my favorite story in the collection has to be 'The World'

[Manashwi Karki · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book made me confused. In all honesty, just confused. Yes, there were some characters I could relate to, and even put a face on some, but the actions they took, and the consequences of the actions had me questioning the whole thing. The endings were, in some stories, abrupt; in some, incomplete and in rest, questionable. Perhaps this book is intended for mature readers, or maybe I am not much familiar with the world, I know not. Kept me glued till the whole thing was over, but yet, left me confused. :/ :)

[Jesus Flores · Rating 4 out of 5]

Coleccion de Cuentos ambientados en Nepal, principalmente Kathmandu

Los que mas me gustaron
The cooking Poet: Sobre un gran poeta y como responde a cuando le toca tener como aprendiz a un joven con mucho talento.
Deepak Misra Secretary: Hay algo magico en el personaje de Bandana-Ji
The Room next door: Aunt Shakuntala y esa obsesion con mantener las apariencias
The man with long hair: Interesante lo que causa en Aditya

El promedio ha de andar alrededor de 3.5

[Kripa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read glowing reviews of the book and of Mr. Upadhyay as an author; being from Nepal, I hoped it would live up to the expectations imposed on one of a handful of Nepali authors to "emerge" on the world stage. To be brutally honest, I absolutely did not like this book; the tried and tested tales of small alleys, smell of spices wafting from kitchens..it's the same story line that so many writers from the subcontinent stick with..albeit with good reason - it helps sell the books much faster to an audience that may not be able to relate to the changing climes in India and Nepal; thus better to play up the stereotypes and overly romanticized vision of India and Nepal if it helps the bottom line!

[Aashruti K.C · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be honest , quite disappointed from this book. I just felt some stories to finish fast so that i could start another story, i also felt the writer using excessive use of sexuality feelings in his each story.
I enjoyed "The great man's house " story the most .
Maybe the story is impeccable from western point of view but i hardly believe the story to catch a strong hold from Nepalese point of view.
However glad to see such an improvement of the writer from Arresting god in kathmandu to Mad country. 😊

[Nicole Bergen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely short story collection that rounds out my literary tour of Asia. Seems fitting that I’ve finished reading a book from every country in Asia on Human Rights Day since books can connect us to a variety of people around the world and make it harder for politicians to dupe us into relying on stereotypes after we’ve seen the humanity in even people who are incredibly different from us.

[Maven]

These short stories captured my attention in a way short stories usually do not. Each one was very different but similar enough that I felt like they were windows into a life that were all happening concurrently on the page.

[Benu B · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book cannot carry the weight of the hype its reviewers bestow upon it. Its prose is simple and clear. But the characters are not realistic, often too plain and incapable of generating any complex thought. Some stories - the good shopkeeper, for example - starts with a lot of promise. It's strange, isn't it, that someone should lose a job the way Pramod loses in the story - and as it happens in the story, it also gives a glimpse of the reality as might be in the place this chsracter is in. The way the story progresses loses all the promise it makes in the begining, however. The characters aren't in a very stable place and likewise are supposed to have more complicated thoughts. The book isn't something I would recommend.

[Bista Nirooj · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the story “The Cooking Poet” among them. I loved the characters in the stories. There are echoes of modernization throughout love and family. Some stories are not as fascinating so I had to wish it to end soon while I was reading it. But others I enjoyed throughly. The main thing lacking in the book is a story for the title itself. Theres no such thing Arresting God not even a slight involvement of God or I didnt find any. But there sure was Kathmandu, as all the stories took place in the city. I think Samrat sir should have added a story which could come out as a title “Arresting god in Kathmandu” so that the fair would have been fairer.

[Pallavi Dhakal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it because I could relate to the background it draws its essence from. However, there are couple of stories that did not interest me much. All in all it is not a bad book written by a Nepali writer but I think those who are not Nepali might end up liking the book more than Nepalese themselves.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is an anthology of short stories that centers around Nepalese protagonists. It was a fresh read after series of monotonous romantic novels. One particular story, "The Limping Bride" left me in the state of dishevelment. Few stories felt like I was watching a regular Nepali soap and others felt relatable.

[Chandni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked up the book in Kathmandu, in an attempt to read something written by a Nepali rather than foreigners.

Overall, the stories were disappointing, somewhat abrupt. Two stood out - Deepak Mishra's Secretary and This World. In both stories, the author tackles uneasy feeling of being exposed to the possibilities of a wider world while remaining emotionally tethered to one's roots. And the dilemmas that arise from being 'neither here nor there'.

Upadhyay is particularly skilful at narrating the inner lives and thoughts of women, rarely done so well by a male author. He brings alive scheming wives, tattling neighbours, harried mothers and belligerent daughters brilliantly. However, the book was underwhelming on a whole and I wish the arcs of some of the stories had been completed.

[Laura Inkpen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grand disappointment and forbidden urges come out to play in this collection of short stories from the first Nepali author to be published in the west. Casting a critical (and noticeably male) eye over life in Kathmandu the series offers sparse prose in its foray into the internal life of these characters and gives us a fascinating insight into the lives of those who until now weren't allowed to have a voice.

[Sami · Rating 3 out of 5]

This short stories collection by Samrat Upadhyay portraits the ordinary lives of people living in Kathmandu and their internal monologues, struggles with relationship, intimacies, sexual tension, marriage and family burdens.
Each story is different, have characters of different age group, occupation, varied interests and burdens in life. Some stories seem familiar to what we have seen and heard in our society while few disgust you and make you cringe.
While they are mostly interesting to read, none of the stories or character quite inspire you or remain with you after you're done reading. What I couldn't grasp was the title of the book itself.

[Tessa Adzemovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was shocked to read some of the reviews. I thought this book was magnificent - reminded me of a Nepali "Sarajevo Marlboro" (short stories by Jergovic). I found each story to be unique, and the characters sympathetic and compelling. It was a race to the finish. Thank you Upadhyay for this gift of a book!

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was very nice to return to Kathmandu in these stories. They are well written and observe loads of societal issues. Sometimes they felt unfinished to me.

[Saujanya Timalsena · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read it a long time ago. I was trying to read Nepali literature in English. This is a nascent genre with a handful of published writers but a nice attempt to represent Nepal and its diverse and mystical landscape of both culture and topography in English.

[Bradley William Holder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even after having read the whole collection—and the epigraph too, which, perhaps tritely (think "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"), asserts that everything in life "is all a dream"—I still don't, at least not clearly, understand what similarity in argument, in mood or in tone, the title (i.e., the name of the book) might be extending to its constituent parts. In fact, is this not the problem that every short story writer (or poet or essayist) faces when, after years of selling their work piecemeal, it comes time to arrange their disjointed efforts into a coherent whole? Far from suggesting an absence of meaning, though that criticism (here as elsewhere) is not impossible—I know from experience that there's sometimes a laziness, a recklessness even, in unchecked ambiguity—this openness to interpretation is a defining characteristic, even in the stories themselves, of Arresting God in Kathmandu. I've encountered such subtety before, though never in the scant Nepali literature that I've read (e.g., Muna Madan, 3/4 of Karnali Blues). These stories, however, despite their subject matter being 98% Nepali, most remind me of, and this is likely not an accident, American postwar writers like Raymond Carver, whose collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love I distinctly recall not liking, mainly because everything felt so pedestrian and inconsequential. Never mind that that might have been the whole point. David Foster Wallace once remarked that his approach to composition is to stop writing after the story is 80% finished. Anyone who's read Infinite Jest has seen this theory in praxis—though 20% of Infinite Jest is 200% of Arresting God in Kathmandu. While DFW's prose is much more ornate than Upadhyay's—to say nothing of the vastness of his plots—Upadhyay's tendency to end a given story earlier than expected is, I'd argue, more akin to Wallace than it is to Hemingway, another writer world-famous both for his—for me—painfully simple syntax and—for him—all-enduring love of subtext.

Each of these stories, with the exception of one (i.e., "The Cooking Poet"), is essentially about sex. In "The Good Shopkeeper," a man loses his job and, instead of looking for a new one, begins an affair with a servant girl in a town far-enough away from his own to keep his unscrupulous amours under wraps. In "Deepak Misra's Secretary," a recent divorcé, whose ex-wife happens to be a white woman, starts sleeping with his physically unattractice secretary and in so doing attains something like true (sexual) satisfaction for the first time in his life. In "The Limping Bride," a concerned father marries off his alcoholic son to a disabled, though very pretty, young woman only to become infatuated with her himself. They do it. In "During the Festival," a recently married man suspects that his wife is cheating on him. It's left unresolved. In "The Room Next Door," an incorrigibly bitter woman frustrated by her husband's lack of ambition discovers that her daughter has become pregnant. To save face, the family marries the daughter off to a local man with a mental disability. One night, the mother hears them having sex. In "The Man with Long Hair," a sexually, and otherwise maritally, unsatisfied man becomes obssessed with a male, and rather effeminate, thespian traveling through his town. After a few brief, platonic encounters, the thespian, along with his acting troupe, move on. The local man's mojo returns. In "This World" (by far the strongest story in the collection and probably the sole reason I'm giving this book three stars instead of two), a Nepali girl living in the United States meets a wealthy Nepali man from a different caste also living in the US. They meet up again in Nepal sometime later. They have sex a bunch of times. She catches him cheating on her. Her parents try to marry her off. She returns to the US to get her PhD. In "A Great Man's House," an elderly servant grapples with, on the one hand, his overwhelming sense of duty to his recently unwell master, an elderly widower with a penchant for yoga who marries a signifcantly younger, headstrong woman only to have her cheat on him relentlessly, and, on the other hand, his own feelings of lust for that same woman.

Perhaps the greatest strength of these stories—and what is also sure to make them feel more than a bit dissonant to the average reader—is their constant refusal to moralize. In other words, the reader is never really told how they ought to feel about what's happening. Especially by today's standards, this might seem like an endorsement on behalf of the writer of the often immoral events he's describing. Even in the US, there is much here that is taboo. For a conservative culture like Nepal—the most conservative adherents of which often lament the bad influence that Western culture, via TikTok and YouTube and, I don't know, me probably, is having on their children—these stories are bound to feel outright scandalous. All the same, this book was written for an American audience. While its being the first work of fiction written by a Nepali immigrant to be published in the United States is a novelty—and while, as aforementioned, its subject matter is Nepali but its style is quintessentially American—Upadhyay is nevertheless careful not to offend by exposing too much. Then again, and this is perhaps what makes his efforts so visceral and enduring, the author himself withholds judgment on the sometimes tragic, sometimes beautiful events that transpire. I don't care what anyone says, "Deepak Misra's Secretary" is, insofar as it speaks to sexual passion—love even—that transcends cultural standards of beauty, is nothing if not heartwarming. What's more, "The Man with Long Hair," even though it kinda tries not to be, is very likely a short story about repressed homosexuality. These are good things, let's say, to support—if not in the author's country of origin than at least in his country of residence. But Upadhyay never supports them outright. So, too, of the many instances of infidelity, mistrust, and pettiness that abound in Arresting God in Kathmandu. For slice-of-life stories of this kind—a genre of fiction, I'm learning, that traces itself back to the inception of the novel form—presenting mere events, especially as they pertain to ordinary people, and then refusing to comment on their significance, whether moral or otherwise, is something of a lost art in a culture of reading and living that is quick to divide our artists, politicians, and even family members into opposing camps of "good" and "bad," "wrong" and "right," "publishable" or "censorable." Some might argue, regardless of the fashions of the day, that it is not—nor ever has been—the job of the author to do more than simply offer up believable situations to the reader's own, and hopefully finely calibrated, value-assessing apparatus. If so, then Samrat Upadhyay has given all of us plenty to ponder for some time to come.

[Laura Faludi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crash course on Nepali literature no. 2

[Maya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really my cup of tea. I'm not a huge fan of short stories to begin with, though I have a soft spot for collections which have stories or characters that intersect with one another (I think it was Kate Atkinson who did this particularly well in one of her books). But both individually and collectively, I was a bit disappointed with these stories. None of them particularly grabbed me, and all of the endings fell flat for me. I also didn't particularly like the common theme of infidelity, or a lot of the strange power dynamics in the relationships Upadhyay depicted -- boss and secretary, man and house servant, older men and younger women galore. It wasn't so interesting after every sexual relationship featured the same kind of dynamic. But all of that aside, it was nice to get a little glimpse of Nepali culture and Kathmandu, both of which are unfamiliar to me.

[Xoe · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading the reviews i expected a lot from this book. However i have been utterly dismayed. The story line is the same, does not actually give a wide perspective of life in the Nepalese context. The book may appeal to the western readers, however, their perception and views of Nepal and the Nepalese will be limited to what has been shown in the book. The only story i liked was The Cooking Poet, and apart from that there was nothing substantial to read about, nothing that one wouldn't already guess. Very disappointed with the collection, especially after the accolades it received !!!

[Swagatam Deva Nath · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's not much "arresting" in the book as the catchy title says. It was an OK kind of read. I liked "The Cooking Poet", "This World" and "A Great Man's House" out of the paltry collection of the stories. A few more stories with one titled the same as the book would have helped. The conflict of holding on to tradition while the world is transiting into modernity is well portrayed. The prose in itself is well written. The book however fails to give us a wide perspective of Nepal although most of the stories took place in Nepal.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I generally do not like short story collections, but this book was excellent. All of the stories were interesting and could have been expanded, but did not seem to be incomplete as they are written. The author did a tremendous job of developing each character in a short period of time, to make each individual story worth reading. The stories focus more on human interaction than on cultural aspects specific to Nepal, although there is definitely a South Asian flavor to each of them.

[Joan Cochran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several people recommended this book to me while traveling in Nepal. I hoped it would provide me insight into the people and the country and it did to a small extent. Not to say it wasn't an interesting read. It's a collections of books about relationships ... especially about those who leave their home country and those who stay behind. It's mostly stories of unfulfilled love and lust and facing reality.