Tokyo Cancelled (edition 2005)

Having loved Rana Dashgupta’s second novel, Solo, I was keen to read this, his first, which seems to have attracted a host of glowing reviews which is puzzling because I was sorely disappointed. Tokyo Cancelled isn’t really a novel at all, just a collection of dreary short stories with nothing to link them and nothing at all to recommend them, either.

The hook the author hangs it all on is that a plane has been cancelled – the passengers, stranded in a closed and darkened airport, tell each other stories to pass the time with shades of the Canterbury Tales , except that most of the stories told are not 'contemparary' to the teller's lives, more like a series of pointless fairy tales that aren't linked in any way; each stands alone with no accompanying passages to tell us about the person telling the tale or why they’re telling it. It all comes across as pretentious and contrived, the stories are just boring and the voices – when we hear them - unconvincing; real people don’t talk like this.

Tedious in the extreme. ( )

As this book starts, a snowstorm has blanketed Tokyo, leaving a planeload of passengers stranded in a small airport. Gradually, hotel rooms are found for all but 13 of them. In order to while away the night, they decide that each of them will tell a story.

I thought this was a great premise - although it was disappointing then that the stories were all so similar in tone and theme. These are fables for a globalised world - and that's not a lazy cliche in this case, for the subject matter of the stories is, in many ways, globalisation itself - the increased ease and speed with which people, information and commodities can travel across borders, and the vast gaps of income and opportunity which result. Into this environment are dropped the traditional characters of myth - the third son, the mysterious prophecy, the encounter between a wealthy man and a shopkeeper.

The stories are tremendously imaginative, and there are some images which will stay with the reader - I liked the cyber-map which visualised all the routes which are travelled by people, commodities and information. But I wish the author had applied the same level of imagination to the way that people might actually behave in some of these circumstances. Also, blending a naturalistic modern environment with fabulous events turns out to be quite tricky - I am quite a fan of fantasy and magical realism, but they still have to make sense on their own terms, and for me that wasn't happening here. So, I can accept that one character is a mute woman who can make people hear her thoughts. I can't really accept that a wealthy man would send his new wife to work cleaning in a hotel, especially not a hotel which is connected to the sinister source of his wealth. The final problem for me was that many of the stories didn't really seem to go anywhere. It was as if the author had the idea but felt it was enough just to put it down on paper.

I think the stories are similar enough that you would know, after a couple, whether or not this is a book that you would enjoy.

Sample sentence: The moon was so bright that the streets seemed to be bathed in an eerie kind of underexposed daylight that was even more pellucid for the absolute quiet. Insomniac houses and Range Rovers blinked at each other with red security eyes.

Recommended for: I would recommend this for fans of thought-provoking sci-fi - it's got the interesting ideas, but also some of the downsides that sci-fi sometimes has (clunky writing and plausibility gaps). ( )

Incomplete Reading -

I thought the idea (at least my idea) behind Tokyo, Cancelled very clever. A modern take on Boccaccio’s Decameron where, instead of waiting out the Black Plague in a country villa, Rana Dasgupta’s storytellers’ are stranded in an airport by a snowstorm. Passengers unable to find hotels spend the night telling each other tales to pass the time. Tokyo, Cancelled is a short story collection bound within a frame narrative. The stories have a fantastical edge to them and the book has the potential of being a wonderful blend of old and new. Unfortunately, the three stories I read didn’t fulfill that potential.

The strongest, The Memory Editor, has a plot that is solid, uncluttered and interesting. The world is slowly succumbing to amnesia and preparations are being made for the time when everyone’s memories will have disappeared. A mysterious company has begun recording individual memories, editing out the unpleasant bits and plans (for a fee) to return them to their owners. The hero is a young man who leaves home and takes the job of editor. It is a beautiful, modern fable.

The remaining two stories were strangely uneven in comparison. The Tailor is a lukewarm retelling of an old cliché: a poor tailor commissioned to make magnificent set of robes for a prince. The plot is flat and the ending slapped on. Too little happens for too long and just finishing it became a struggle.

In The Billionaire’s Sleep the author has taken what could have easily become 3 separate stories and smashed them into the space of one. And while I found it a little schizophrenic – this was the story that intrigued me most. A rich, infertile insomniac uses genetic cloning to create a child. He is surprised by twins, a beautiful girl & a monstrous boy. The boy is sent away. The girl is kept, but when she sleeps organic matter around her begins to grow at an amplified rate. Flowers sprout from her headboard. Her family house is destroyed by a tree which grows to the size of a skyscraper overnight. Meanwhile, the boy has a talent for storytelling and becomes a famous actor. The plot continues on from there, becoming more convoluted and disjointed before reaching its bizarre conclusion. You can’t help but feel that had Dasgupta focused the narrative this could have been a lovely story.

Of course, these impressions are based on 100 pages of reading.

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скучновато читать. ощущение незавершенности в кажд​ ( )

Dasgupta has the most vivid imagination and the dark tales he spins in this book are unique modern day myths that will haunt the reader with their fantastical qualities. All of the stories have a bizarre element to them and are unrestrainedly fanciful and out of the ordinary. I'll definitely be looking out for more by Dasgupta. ( )