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Dark Star
'A PROFOUND, LYRICAL NOVEL ABOUT DISPLACEMENT AND HOMECOMING' — SIDDHARTHA DEB
An old woman lies in bed in Punjab, dreaming of an India before Partition. One day she will walk again, and when she does, she tells herself, she will walk all the way to Delhi, she will tell the men who rule India what she really thinks.
‘In Dark Star Ranbir Sidhu not only contemplates the life of a shuttered, oppressed but wildly imaginative woman, he becomes her, and thus the reader does, too. A beautiful novel of transformation and heart-rending compassion.’ — Helen Benedict, author of Wolf Season.
‘A tour de force. In Ranbir Sidhu’s Dark Star an elderly woman in India journeys alone toward death. Her hypnotic soliloquy is a devastating indictment of the horrors of misogyny and the nightmare of nationalism; it’s also a meditation on time, memory, and the cosmos.’ — R.L. Marshall, author of A Separate Reality
About the Author
Ranbir Sidhu is the author of two previous works of fiction, Good Indian Girls (shortlisted for a Tata Literature Live! Prize) and Deep Singh Blue. He lives in Athens.
An old woman lies in bed in Punjab, dreaming of an India before Partition. One day she will walk again, and when she does, she tells herself, she will walk all the way to Delhi, she will tell the men who rule India what she really thinks.
‘In Dark Star Ranbir Sidhu not only contemplates the life of a shuttered, oppressed but wildly imaginative woman, he becomes her, and thus the reader does, too. A beautiful novel of transformation and heart-rending compassion.’ — Helen Benedict, author of Wolf Season.
‘A tour de force. In Ranbir Sidhu’s Dark Star an elderly woman in India journeys alone toward death. Her hypnotic soliloquy is a devastating indictment of the horrors of misogyny and the nightmare of nationalism; it’s also a meditation on time, memory, and the cosmos.’ — R.L. Marshall, author of A Separate Reality
About the Author
Ranbir Sidhu is the author of two previous works of fiction, Good Indian Girls (shortlisted for a Tata Literature Live! Prize) and Deep Singh Blue. He lives in Athens.
108 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 1, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 12, 2023
Dark Star is an excellent 'death-bed' novel. Through long sentences that expertly thread in recurring motifs, the novel seems to expand and contract its scope. Form and content pour into each other.
It is a personal story here, concerned with patriarchy-mandated migrations, mother-son relations, and ageing; a partition-mandated migration-and-more story there, with new pacts made w.r.t. the business of remembering and forgetting; and a scathing state-of-the-nation take elsewhere.
I found it to be most invested in baring the link between patriarchy and nationalism, at least insofar as both can be seen as men's 'endowments' to women.
Reading it, my mind went to Tomb Of Sand a couple of times. Imagine if Maa there didn't have a 'magical' cane, imagine if she didn't get up, didn't gain strength, didn't cross the border. What might her interior monologue be like? Well, maybe like the woman in Dark Star.
Tomb of Sand asked us to redefine a border as a connection, a bridge. Dark Star asks us to see a border as a mirror, a mirror that men create when they are bored. Like in Tomb of Sand, crows play an important part here, too. But only distressed women see them. Their 'caw caw' is the psychic residue that rushes in when women's lives gradually develop 'holes'
There are a couple of places where the text, like the old woman's consciousness, goes missing. In the final two pages, punctuations vanish. These 'tricks' work perfectly for me, and Sidhu's knowing restraint with them is to be credited.
Dark Star is direct in its j'accuse gestures. It sees a progression: from a nation whose father was killed to one that saw Mother India emerge to one that is now seeing Father Bharat emerge... killers turning into gods periodically.
It is a personal story here, concerned with patriarchy-mandated migrations, mother-son relations, and ageing; a partition-mandated migration-and-more story there, with new pacts made w.r.t. the business of remembering and forgetting; and a scathing state-of-the-nation take elsewhere.
I found it to be most invested in baring the link between patriarchy and nationalism, at least insofar as both can be seen as men's 'endowments' to women.
Reading it, my mind went to Tomb Of Sand a couple of times. Imagine if Maa there didn't have a 'magical' cane, imagine if she didn't get up, didn't gain strength, didn't cross the border. What might her interior monologue be like? Well, maybe like the woman in Dark Star.
Tomb of Sand asked us to redefine a border as a connection, a bridge. Dark Star asks us to see a border as a mirror, a mirror that men create when they are bored. Like in Tomb of Sand, crows play an important part here, too. But only distressed women see them. Their 'caw caw' is the psychic residue that rushes in when women's lives gradually develop 'holes'
There are a couple of places where the text, like the old woman's consciousness, goes missing. In the final two pages, punctuations vanish. These 'tricks' work perfectly for me, and Sidhu's knowing restraint with them is to be credited.
Dark Star is direct in its j'accuse gestures. It sees a progression: from a nation whose father was killed to one that saw Mother India emerge to one that is now seeing Father Bharat emerge... killers turning into gods periodically.
January 24, 2023
There are many books that tell the story of the partition of India, and each of them is heart wrenching. This story is told from the perspective of a woman who went through it as a young woman and all through the present time, Ranbir comments on the society as the woman journeys through time. As you read through the woman’s musings about the past, present and the future, and about family and life, there are passages that would resonate with you irrespective of your age or beliefs. The narration that Ranbir has used is interesting, and while I was initially a bit dazed with the format, the storytelling grows on you and once you’ve figured out the tone, the visualization is quite deep and you are transported into the world the old woman is painting. You start feeling the pain, and listening to the sounds and the sounds that the husband is making. Right from the horrors of the partition to the current political scenario, the old woman’s perspective is refreshing and eye opening. The book relies heavily on the audio-visual impact it creates, and there are passages that need you to read between the lines.
February 28, 2023
Book: Dark Star
Author: Ranbir Sidhu
Genre: Contemporary Fiction/ Women's Fiction
Publisher: Context
Pages: 152
Dark Star by Ranbir Sidhu is not just a tale of partition through the thoughts and musings of an old woman, who is longing and dreaming of an India before Partition, who wants to tell the ruler of India her thoughts, views, and opinions but a book covering a lot of issues in between, throughout its journey.
Divided into three parts, the character of the old woman ages with the story, you could see how her thoughts get affected as time passes, and how her experience starts taking new shape with time, giving new perspectives, new dimensions, new possibilities, and at the same time the convergence of it as well!
The writing style of the author is quite different, giving the story a very unique shape and flow, neither being character nor plot oriented in the beginning, finding another way to present the story, through the chain of thoughts, emotions, and musings, to being a little character focused towards the end.
There are extreme political opinions in the book at instances, which can easily ignite rage in the readers. The comments of the Old Women on news channels, on politicians, on violence, on migration, on marriages, on love, on longing, and on dreams diversify the story. The book is not just another book on the partition, it's one of a kind!
The subtle change that the author brings in the writing is the key point of the book. You won't remember how you have gone from one context to another, one thought to another, one analogy to another, one event to another, and how magnificently some of them take comes to an end from the point they started, making a full circle.
The writing of the author is very rich and will need time to absorb, to take away what is written, and to unfold what is hidden and what is conveyed. It feels like even if you don't know what the story is about if you open a page randomly and start reading it, you'll get something thought-provoking from it. And that's the beauty of the writing. The analogies that the author gives here in the story are very distinctive and out of the box, giving a completely new point of view and perspective about the topics it talks about, making a unique connection with the readers at the same time.
The ending of the book made me a little restless and unsatisfactory, making me crave more from it, although being presented the same as I thought and predicted it would be. It could be taken as a master stroke from the author, to make the reader go through the same emotion which the character was going through or as a shortcoming at the same time, completely depending on the reader, how they perceive it, and I'll leave it to you, to know how you feel about it after reading the book.
Thank you to the publisher for the book in exchange for an honest review!
Author: Ranbir Sidhu
Genre: Contemporary Fiction/ Women's Fiction
Publisher: Context
Pages: 152
Dark Star by Ranbir Sidhu is not just a tale of partition through the thoughts and musings of an old woman, who is longing and dreaming of an India before Partition, who wants to tell the ruler of India her thoughts, views, and opinions but a book covering a lot of issues in between, throughout its journey.
Divided into three parts, the character of the old woman ages with the story, you could see how her thoughts get affected as time passes, and how her experience starts taking new shape with time, giving new perspectives, new dimensions, new possibilities, and at the same time the convergence of it as well!
The writing style of the author is quite different, giving the story a very unique shape and flow, neither being character nor plot oriented in the beginning, finding another way to present the story, through the chain of thoughts, emotions, and musings, to being a little character focused towards the end.
There are extreme political opinions in the book at instances, which can easily ignite rage in the readers. The comments of the Old Women on news channels, on politicians, on violence, on migration, on marriages, on love, on longing, and on dreams diversify the story. The book is not just another book on the partition, it's one of a kind!
The subtle change that the author brings in the writing is the key point of the book. You won't remember how you have gone from one context to another, one thought to another, one analogy to another, one event to another, and how magnificently some of them take comes to an end from the point they started, making a full circle.
The writing of the author is very rich and will need time to absorb, to take away what is written, and to unfold what is hidden and what is conveyed. It feels like even if you don't know what the story is about if you open a page randomly and start reading it, you'll get something thought-provoking from it. And that's the beauty of the writing. The analogies that the author gives here in the story are very distinctive and out of the box, giving a completely new point of view and perspective about the topics it talks about, making a unique connection with the readers at the same time.
The ending of the book made me a little restless and unsatisfactory, making me crave more from it, although being presented the same as I thought and predicted it would be. It could be taken as a master stroke from the author, to make the reader go through the same emotion which the character was going through or as a shortcoming at the same time, completely depending on the reader, how they perceive it, and I'll leave it to you, to know how you feel about it after reading the book.
Thank you to the publisher for the book in exchange for an honest review!
March 11, 2023
I have had a different taste when it comes to Partition stories. Reading Manto and other stories while growing up there had to be something that sparked something inside me. The woman inside me.
.
So when I saw Dark Star at my local bookstore & read it's four line blurb, I knew I had to purchase it.
.
Dark Star is a story of a woman narrating the life she has lived before the partition happened and where the consequences of the partition took her.
.
You know that feeling where you have so much to say and you just don't know how to express or articulate your words. The pen in your hand just runs unfiltered.
.
Dark Star is that story where she, the woman has lived her entire life the way her family wanted to but wait! She has a lot to say. She lives in a far away land because that's what she had to as an obedient wife as a daughter in law and while there are men in power deciding what's the fate of her people and her country would be,she keeps on writing and while there isn't a voice around her to listen she keeps on telling us what's happening in her life.
.
She doesn't know which is the truth. She doesn't know if the snow is black or white. She is angry. She is frustrated. She has lots to say.
.
An unusual style of writing and a narrative that is not your traditional way is a story that will impact you as a person because of the silence that has stretched far too long and the question will remain after you close the book... WILL IT CONTINUE TO BE SO??
.
So when I saw Dark Star at my local bookstore & read it's four line blurb, I knew I had to purchase it.
.
Dark Star is a story of a woman narrating the life she has lived before the partition happened and where the consequences of the partition took her.
.
You know that feeling where you have so much to say and you just don't know how to express or articulate your words. The pen in your hand just runs unfiltered.
.
Dark Star is that story where she, the woman has lived her entire life the way her family wanted to but wait! She has a lot to say. She lives in a far away land because that's what she had to as an obedient wife as a daughter in law and while there are men in power deciding what's the fate of her people and her country would be,she keeps on writing and while there isn't a voice around her to listen she keeps on telling us what's happening in her life.
.
She doesn't know which is the truth. She doesn't know if the snow is black or white. She is angry. She is frustrated. She has lots to say.
.
An unusual style of writing and a narrative that is not your traditional way is a story that will impact you as a person because of the silence that has stretched far too long and the question will remain after you close the book... WILL IT CONTINUE TO BE SO??
January 30, 2023
Not to be missed. Highly recommended.
March 7, 2023
Loved it.
May 12, 2024
Brilliant, inventive. I don't think I've read anything quite like it.
January 25, 2024
Dark Star takes us to the decrepit and dusty room of an old woman living in Punjab. Our lady has lived a life where it has always been the men who decided her fate, dictated terms to her, taken ownership, and finally, as was quite the norm in those days, suffocated and oppressed her.
We see a woman who was born with exceptional talent; she was born as a girl who was much wanted in the entire village. She had the gift of psychic sight, which she eventually lost after stumbling upon the terrible horrors perpetrated during the partition of India.
But that was a long time ago; now she lies all alone, in her musty old bed, a woman who has lost all her power—not just her ability to walk and move but also her access to her own memories. And now she waits… waits to die, and while she waits, she also dreams.
Now, while the idea of the book itself is quite wonderful, what makes this book such a boring, insipid read is the fact that it’s very unstructured. Just like the thoughts of the old woman, the book too flows in every direction.
I can understand how important it is, especially as the story is narrated in the first person, but the novelty of this soon wears off, and on and on the main character drones about this and that. Repeating many things along the way and not taking the story forward in any way.
Read the detailed review - https://www.bookgeeks.in/dark-star-ra...
We see a woman who was born with exceptional talent; she was born as a girl who was much wanted in the entire village. She had the gift of psychic sight, which she eventually lost after stumbling upon the terrible horrors perpetrated during the partition of India.
But that was a long time ago; now she lies all alone, in her musty old bed, a woman who has lost all her power—not just her ability to walk and move but also her access to her own memories. And now she waits… waits to die, and while she waits, she also dreams.
Now, while the idea of the book itself is quite wonderful, what makes this book such a boring, insipid read is the fact that it’s very unstructured. Just like the thoughts of the old woman, the book too flows in every direction.
I can understand how important it is, especially as the story is narrated in the first person, but the novelty of this soon wears off, and on and on the main character drones about this and that. Repeating many things along the way and not taking the story forward in any way.
Read the detailed review - https://www.bookgeeks.in/dark-star-ra...
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews