Incantations and other stories

by Anjana Appachana

Paperback, 1992

Status

Available

Genres

General Fiction

Fiction

Publication

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 1992.

Description

This first collection of fiction by Anjana Appachana provides stories that are beautifully written, the characters in them carefully and respectfully drawn. All the stories are set in India, but the people in them seem somehow displaced within their own society--a society in transition but a transition that does not come fast enough to help them. Appachana manages to capture the pervasive humor, poignancy, and self-delusion of the lives of the people she observes, but she does so without seeming to pass judgments on them. She focuses on unexpected moments, as if catching her characters off guard, lovingly exposing the fragile surfaces of respectability and convention that are so much a part of every society, but particularly strong in India, with its caste system, gender privileges, and omnipresent bureaucracies. All life seems to be prescribed; these characters bravely or cautiously confront the rules and regulations or finally give in to them resignedly--any small triumphs they achieve are never clear-cut. One of the most unusual aspects of many of the stories is the way in which they are informed by but never ruled by the author's feminism. She never lectures her readers but lets us see for ourselves: a bride caught in a hopeless marriage where she has given up all rights to any life of her own, a hapless college student who is confined to campus for minor infractions just at the time when she had an appointment for an abortion, a young girl who keeps the dark secret of her sister's rape, a woman executive and a digruntled male clerk both trapped in the intricate bureaucracy of their business firm and the roles they must play to survive there. By turns warm, gullible, arrogant and bigoted, all of these characters live their lives amid contradictions and double standards, superstitions and impossible dreams. Appachana's vision is unique, her writing superb. Readers will thank her for allowing them to enter territory that is at once distant and exotic but also familiar and recognizable.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Gypsy_Boy

Appachana was born and raised in India and came to the U.S. for postgraduate study; she has lived and taught in the U.S. ever since This collection of stories all take place in India in the 1980s and (with two exceptions) focus on women, each in very different circumstances, who are damaged or

destroyed by the patriarchal system then so prevalent and powerful. Appachana has a great talent for creating exceptionally believable characters and placing them in impossible circumstances, each story highlighting a different way in which women were powerless and, worse, victimized by a system that could not be altered. Among the most powerful stories were "Bahu," the recounting of the life of a woman whose identity has been reduced to “daughter-in-law” as her in-laws and even her husband make painfully clear that she has no other purpose in life than to serve. The compelling title story tells about a woman raped by her brother-in-law on the eve of her wedding and then regularly after that. What makes the story so enormously powerful is that it is told through the eyes of her 12-year-old sister…and its effect on her. Finally, in “Her Mother,” a daughter goes abroad to study. Most of the story takes for form of her mother’s internal dialogue as she struggles to write her daughter, simultaneously setting out her hopes and dreams even as she gives largely unwanted advice. What makes the story so poignant is that the advice is not only well-intentioned but precisely right while the reader knows that it will fall on deaf ears. It is a heart-breaking tale because both the daughter’s and the mother’s views are set out sympathetically and with enormous understanding.

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