The last word
Author : Hanif Kureishi
Publisher : Faber & Faber, Rs 399
Hanif Kureishi has not produced a much significant body of work for a while now. Unfortunately, this novel makes it worse for him, observes ANANYA BORGOHAIN
For someone who is included in the Times list of 50 most influential writers since 1945, Hanif Kureishi has managed to thwart his inclusion in the list with supreme finesse and a long-lasting impact this time. His most recent and the seventh novel, The last Word, is the cure to insomnia and a classic example of how to not write.
The last Word chronicles the journey of Harry Johnson, who is hired as the biographer of post-colonial litterateur Mamoon Azam. After the death of his first wife, Azam lives in Somerset with his lavish, younger second wife, liana. The celebrated but bad-tempered Mamoon is, as many controversial reports had indicated, akin to VS Naipaul and the book is an informal roman-à-clef (a novel about real events under the garb of fiction) corresponding with Naipaul and his biographer Patrick French.
French’s biography of Naipaul, The World Is What it Is, was released in 2008 and was notable for its critical bluntness about the subject, Naipaul himself. It too had presented Naipaul as an adulterer and a snooty racist.
Ambitious Harry is an ardent admirer of Mamoon, intending to enrich his favoured Indian-turned-English novelist both literarily and economically. He is being consistently scrutinised by his publisher Rob who is more on a lookout for the “naked truth, a salacious tale of sex and scandal that will generate headlines.”
The book is a telling comment on the notion of an autobiography, of selective truth and brushing crucial facts under the proverbial carpet. The entire narrative is a reflection of how history (of a person in this case) is constructed, more so, a revisionist auto-ethnographic history for a writer who is fading into oblivion but seeks to reclaim his space in the mainstream.
Harry’s ordeal reaches the extent where it blurs the line of distinction between fact and fiction. Mamoon too practices dual identities; an erudite of yore and an irritable old man who deserves nothing but cuckoldry. Refreshingly though, in this tale of two men, it is the female character, the opinionated and aggressive liana, who serves as the channel that attaches sheen to this otherwise lacklustre story.
Harry travels back to Mamoon’s past and digs various versions of the celebrated writer through the people he interacts with in due course. Various facets of his character are folded and unfolded forcing Harry to a battle of will and the consequent clash for supremacy imbalances the threads of love, desire and loyalty.
Sex, more in the form of adultery, too is an overhyped obsession in the novel. It reaches a point, where all emotions are irretrievably detached from Harry’s consciousness and adultery/sex is treated like the optimal source of inspiration for litterateurs.
Women too in the process are objectified. As in Mamoon’s words, “In fact the body of the young woman is the world’s most significant object, admired and desired by homosexuals, of course, as well as by other women, babies, lesbians, children, fashion designers and men. No wonder Muslims hide women like a filthy picture, while their fundamentalists remind us that female sexuality is the biggest problem of all. For these people the woman is already a whore. They are right to be so concerned. The young female body is at the centre of the world, and usually at the centre of most elections — abortion, single mothers, maternity leave, prostitution, incest, abuse, the hijab… the woman is where we all come from, and where we all want to go. The woman’s body makes knowledge disappear.”
Kureishi has not had a remarkable work for quite some years now. Unfortunately, this novel too is dragging and the narrative is unadorned and tedious. The flow of the narrative is too slow paced, the characters are boring and not relatable and the plot is hardly captivating. Having said that, the tale does come back to life and emotions towards its conclusion; its ending is sentimental, or at least tries to be so. But by then, the damage is done and the readers have stopped bothering what Harry writes about Mamoon’s life!