The Blue Bedspread
by Raj Kamal Jha
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Description
Laying bare the lives at the heart of an Indian city, The Blue Bedspread opens as an old man is asked to collect his sister's baby from the hospital in Calcutta where her sister has just died.Tags
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Member Reviews
It is common knowledge that there are four types of books. There are simple stories told simply and complex stories told complexly—the first type is a walk in the park and the second is a trek up a mountain. There are complex stories told simply, and these are hard to write because the author needs to fight their desire to explain and adorn. And then there are the books that fall into that loathsome fourth category, simple stories told complexly, of which The Blue Bedspread is one.
This book has a fairly basic plot and premise once you puzzle it out, but the style makes it deliberately difficult to ever know what is going on. No character (except the maid) has a name, so they're always referred to by pronouns. There is constant show more switching of narration: present and past tense, first and second and third person. The result of this is chapters where you don't know who is speaking or who they're speaking to or even what they're speaking about, since it's all so maddeningly abstract and obscured.
And to what end? The story isn't particularly good. This confusing narrative style doesn't make thematic sense. And then the end of the book comes and we find out that half of it is untrue—and why? Again, why use such a punishingly abstract style to obscure the truth of the matter when the narrator is so upfront about other prurient experiences?
I can't come up with any better explanation than: To sound smart.
I've only given this two stars instead of one because Jha is a decent writer on the sentence level. I especially enjoyed this passage:
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Global Challenge: India show less
This book has a fairly basic plot and premise once you puzzle it out, but the style makes it deliberately difficult to ever know what is going on. No character (except the maid) has a name, so they're always referred to by pronouns. There is constant show more switching of narration: present and past tense, first and second and third person. The result of this is chapters where you don't know who is speaking or who they're speaking to or even what they're speaking about, since it's all so maddeningly abstract and obscured.
And to what end? The story isn't particularly good. This confusing narrative style doesn't make thematic sense. And then the end of the book comes and we find out that half of it is untrue—and why? Again, why use such a punishingly abstract style to obscure the truth of the matter when the narrator is so upfront about other prurient experiences?
I can't come up with any better explanation than: To sound smart.
I've only given this two stars instead of one because Jha is a decent writer on the sentence level. I especially enjoyed this passage:
This city likes lonely people, the city likes this man.
There's no one to walk by his side, to wait for him at a street crossing, so the city moves in to help, it slows down the traffic, parts the crowds. There's no one to talk to him, so the city speaks through its banners, its billboards. At night, he has nothing to do, so he listens to the streets tell stories and watches the streetlights trap insects until both lull him to sleep.
No wonder he is so grateful to his city and returns the favor whenever he gets a chance. For example, when buildings, more than a hundred years old, streaked with moss and rain, not worth a second look, tug at his sleeves, he stops in his tracks to watch and admire. Once, twice, even thrice.
On days when the streets are deserted, trade unions have called a strike, he stays up extra hours, gives the city company, listens to its stories like a loyal child.
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Global Challenge: India show less
I'm not entirely sure what to make of 'The Blue Bedspread' by Raj Kamal Jha. When first I'd finished it, my instinct was to chuck it out.
Despite that visceral response, it has a lot to recommend it: well-written and atmospheric, told in non-linear style, effectively creating its Calcutta. It features our narrator who is spending a night caring for his sister's orphaned baby before it is adopted, and he relates his own and his sister's stories in bursts of memory.
It's a strange book in some ways and at times the subject matter is disturbing. You become immersed in the world of the book, but the water sure is murky.
Despite that visceral response, it has a lot to recommend it: well-written and atmospheric, told in non-linear style, effectively creating its Calcutta. It features our narrator who is spending a night caring for his sister's orphaned baby before it is adopted, and he relates his own and his sister's stories in bursts of memory.
It's a strange book in some ways and at times the subject matter is disturbing. You become immersed in the world of the book, but the water sure is murky.
a starkly revealing yet poetic novel of middle class family, of its unfulfilled wishes and oppressive atmosphere, the story is written in spurts as waves of memories come. Mingled with episodes of fantasy of how life could have lived, while imagining how his sister's or his house maid's lives were spent ,it becoame a bit tedious to filter what really happened from what was intended to be a fabrication of the mind. Nevertheless a bold and fresh attempt at showing a slice of life about people who really go through such unfortunate state of affairs.i couldnt keep it down until i finished it.
I didn't like this book. It was too dis-jointed, with lots of descriptions when there should have been more plot movement.
This book was simply not entertaining. The run-on sentences made it diffiicult to read, and the storyline (dealing with incest, abuse, violence, etc.), was told in a manner that was disturbing rather than engaging. It was awful, and I was glad to be done with the book. I particularly disliked the portions dealing with incest that were told in rather graphic detail. Certainly not what I was expecting after reading the back cover.
Yeah this was weird and i don’t really understand what happened but Bought this cus the alternate cover is a pretty shade of blue lol
Ich habe das Buch angefangen und ungefähr nach der Hälfte abgebrochen. Es hat mich überhaupt nicht angesprochen, möglicherweise war ich auch nicht in der richtigen Stimmung für das Buch.
Dec 27, 2013German
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Author Information
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Raj Kamal Jha was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley in 2003.
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Blue Bedspread
- Original title
- The Blue Bedspread
- Important places
- India
- First words*
- I could begin with my name but forget it, why waste time, it doesn't matter in this city of twelve million names.
- Last words*
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Through the corner of his eye, over the heads of the ninety-five thousand people, he can see the railway tracks coming in from the darkness, glinting in the light of the giant halogen lamps they have put up at the station to prevent thieves from ransacking the store or even ripping off the fish-plates, and selling them as scrap at the Howrah foundry market, it's time now for the last two words, sister's and child, there, it's done, the eight words have been spoken, they have flown, each word across the city, like eight pigeons in flight, in the night, white against black, he doesn't have to lie anymore, twist facts to flesh out his fiction, he coughs once to clear his throat, coughs twice, and then he looks down to see the belt in his trousers firm and stiff, he breathes in hard, the tummy doesn't droop, he adjusts his shirt, walks down the steps that lead off the stage, they are all standing now, some clapping but he doesn't hear because he has to be home in time for his daughter to wake up, to open her eyes.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- Members
- 302
- Popularity
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- Reviews
- 7
- Rating
- (3.05)
- Languages
- 8 — Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 19
- ASINs
- 3
