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The Trilogy: The Village, Across the Black Waters, The Sword and the Sickle [Hardcover] [Jan 01, 2016]
. . . the finest of his works.' — S. Menon Marath in Life and Letters.The Trilogy is a story of the transformation of a man and a nation on an epic scale. The three novels comprising this trilogy — namely The Village, Across the Black Waters and The Sword and the Sickle — unfold a saga of changing India, from one characterised by oppressive, stagnant life to one where one can dream dreams.Lal Singh, nicknamed Lalu, is a Sikh peasant youth who feels stifled by the endless petty tyrannies of Indian village life, mired in poverty, debt and social rigidity. Rebellious and free-spirited, Lalu flees from an unjust imminent arrest, finding refuge by enlisting in the army in the midst of World War 1.Hastily trained, Lalu's regiment is pitchforked from rustic Punjab into the soul-grinding trench warfare in France. But France also provides Lalu a new window to the life and world of a free people. Upon returning home, Lalu is demob
950 pages, Hardcover
Published July 10, 2016
17 people want to read
About the author
Mulk Raj Anand
175 books238 followersMulk Raj Anand was an Indian writer in English, notable for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, together with R.K. Narayan, Ahmed Ali and Raja Rao, was one of the first India-based writers in English to gain an international readership. Anand is admired for his novels and short stories, which have acquired the status of being classic works of modern Indian English literature, noted for their perceptive insight into the lives of the oppressed and their analyses of impoverishment, exploitation and misfortune. He is also notable for being among the first writers to incorporate Punjabi and Hindustani idioms into English.
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July 27, 2022
The Lal Singh Trilogy, a collection of three novels —‘The Village’, ‘Across the Black Waters’, and ‘The Sword and the Sickle’ essentially deals with the boyhood, formative years and early adulthood of Lal Singh.
(a) The Village: The novel deals with the boyhood of Lal Singh, a boy like Munoo and Bakha, but belonging to a somewhat superior social rank. His father Nihal Singh is a farmer, cultivating his own land and living in his own house in a village of Punjab. The life of Lal Singh is one of tranquil contentment, lived in the midst of nature. He is a young man of progressive views and this soon brings him into difficulty. He is shamed because he has his hair cut and because he eats in a Muslim shop. Afterward, he is charged with molesting a girl on the event of the marriage of his elder brother. His face is blackened and he is made to ride a donkey. Powerless to bear this ignominy, he flees his home and joins the army. His brother slays his wife and her lover and is hanged for the felony. The family is ruined, and old Nihal Singh dies grief-stricken. As the First World War breaks out, Lal Singh sails with his regiment across the black waters.
(b) Across the Black Waters: The second of the three novels deals with the experiences of Lal Singh in France during the war. Lalu has his comrades — Dhanoo, Lachman, Uncle Kirpu; and he has foes as well. Anand manages in his tale to make Lalu the centre of the action, although he is but one of several millions caught in the maelstrom of the combat. The early period of orientation and adaptation: the first tentative commitments: the oasis of the French farm, where Lalu befriends Andre and his sister Marie: the slaughter of his friends piecemeal (fatality by water, casualty on the battlefield, bereavement through suicide): the disappointment of Lalu’s enemies to frustrate and wreck him: the petering out of the attack and his own capture by a lion-moustached German all is narrated in natural succession, and what the war means to Lalu, what it means to average humankind, is sketched with persuasive element.
The primary storyline, with its burden of incident, pleasantry and catastrophe, moves with a certain precipitation, and the reader can inhale in these pages the environment of battle-ravaged France in 1914-18. The wide-ranging disposition of the Indian sepoys is one of enthrallment and confusion; why should the Europeans, who are perceptibly such higher people, go about killing each other, making a hefty wasteland of a reasonable country like France. While the conflict is still rampant and Lalu is liberated, he writes to his mother, outlining his potential plans. He will return and buy back the mortgaged family possessions.
(c) The Sword and the Sickle: This novel deals with the concluding chapter in Lal Singh’s career. Back in India Lal Singh takes vigorous part in India’s fight for freedom. He is stunned and irritated by the strains and disagreements, ravenousness and egotism, which typify Indian society even during the so-called celebrated Gandhian decade. This is a part of Lal Singh’s education through which he achieves mellowness and self-knowledge.
Unquestionably this is the greatest of Anand’s works. A timeless saga.
(a) The Village: The novel deals with the boyhood of Lal Singh, a boy like Munoo and Bakha, but belonging to a somewhat superior social rank. His father Nihal Singh is a farmer, cultivating his own land and living in his own house in a village of Punjab. The life of Lal Singh is one of tranquil contentment, lived in the midst of nature. He is a young man of progressive views and this soon brings him into difficulty. He is shamed because he has his hair cut and because he eats in a Muslim shop. Afterward, he is charged with molesting a girl on the event of the marriage of his elder brother. His face is blackened and he is made to ride a donkey. Powerless to bear this ignominy, he flees his home and joins the army. His brother slays his wife and her lover and is hanged for the felony. The family is ruined, and old Nihal Singh dies grief-stricken. As the First World War breaks out, Lal Singh sails with his regiment across the black waters.
(b) Across the Black Waters: The second of the three novels deals with the experiences of Lal Singh in France during the war. Lalu has his comrades — Dhanoo, Lachman, Uncle Kirpu; and he has foes as well. Anand manages in his tale to make Lalu the centre of the action, although he is but one of several millions caught in the maelstrom of the combat. The early period of orientation and adaptation: the first tentative commitments: the oasis of the French farm, where Lalu befriends Andre and his sister Marie: the slaughter of his friends piecemeal (fatality by water, casualty on the battlefield, bereavement through suicide): the disappointment of Lalu’s enemies to frustrate and wreck him: the petering out of the attack and his own capture by a lion-moustached German all is narrated in natural succession, and what the war means to Lalu, what it means to average humankind, is sketched with persuasive element.
The primary storyline, with its burden of incident, pleasantry and catastrophe, moves with a certain precipitation, and the reader can inhale in these pages the environment of battle-ravaged France in 1914-18. The wide-ranging disposition of the Indian sepoys is one of enthrallment and confusion; why should the Europeans, who are perceptibly such higher people, go about killing each other, making a hefty wasteland of a reasonable country like France. While the conflict is still rampant and Lalu is liberated, he writes to his mother, outlining his potential plans. He will return and buy back the mortgaged family possessions.
(c) The Sword and the Sickle: This novel deals with the concluding chapter in Lal Singh’s career. Back in India Lal Singh takes vigorous part in India’s fight for freedom. He is stunned and irritated by the strains and disagreements, ravenousness and egotism, which typify Indian society even during the so-called celebrated Gandhian decade. This is a part of Lal Singh’s education through which he achieves mellowness and self-knowledge.
Unquestionably this is the greatest of Anand’s works. A timeless saga.
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