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Wednesday, January 17, 1996 - North Shore News — 43

STORIES

~ PASSAGES FROM I

I REMEMBER how sur-
prised I was to discover that
curry powder was not a single
spice, derived from some rare
Eastern shrub or plant, but a
melange of many equally
exotic spices, a mixture capa-
ble of variety as infinite as the
cultures of a vast subconti-
nent.

By John Moore
Contributing Writer

Curry powder is an early “conve-
nience tood™ marketed by the British
for British cooks; Indian cooks
would buy their spices fresh and
have them ground to their regional
and personal recipe by a professional

: spice-grinder.
_ Since “convenience ideas” are as
appealing to lazy minds as conve-
tence foods are ¢o lazy cooks, many
of us cling to the notion of india as a
single entity. Like curry powder.
As long as we think of India as a
European-style nation state, it will
scem incomprehensible and dysfunc-
tional. The emergence of powerful
_ immigrant writers onto the world
“stage in recent years is changing our
‘perceptions more radically and
“rapidly than any dry history ever
could. :

Thanks to the fatwa, the death
‘threat of Moslem extremists enraged
_ by his novel, The Satanic Verses.

Salman Rushdie is the best known of
these writers.

in mis latest novel, The Moor’s
‘Last Sigh (Knopf Canada. $32.00),
"Rushdie employs the “spice”

"metaphor directly as he chronicles
the decline and fall of Moraes
Zogoiby, heir to the once great spice
empire of the‘'da Gama-Zogoiby
. dynasty, Riven by. internal factions,

_ driven by it's “spicy” passions, the
‘family even divides up the great
mansion with barricades of spice-
sacks.

* Central character Moraes — the
last of a long line of eccentrics in:
‘whom Jewish, Portuguese and

~ “indian”! cultures are mixed — is

himself a metaphor for India; he is

“afflicted with a strange medical con-

North Van > “Behind Cap Mall

Indian writers
changing our
perception of |
their country

dition that causes him to grow rapid-
ly to adult form while remaining a
child inside.

Half-a-decade in secret protective
custody has wrecked Rushdie’s mar-
riage and. for practical purposes, his
life, but if anything it seems to have
empowered his imagination all the
more.

The Moor's Last Sigh is a richly
textured aad brilliantly written work.
fronically, the franian imams may
have helped to create one of the truly
great writers of the late 20th century.

Canada’s Rohinton Mistry takes
the opposite approach in his recent
massive novel, A Fine Balance,
(McCleltand & Stewart, $35.00).

It could be seen as a “‘mock-
epic.” in the sense that it is both very
long and frequently heroic, but the
element of satire, of treating a trivial
subject in a nighly inflated style, is
deliberately missing. The stubborn
heroism of India’s millions of poor
people, the extraordinary courage
they must display every day simply
to survive and strive, drives this
complex tale.

Briefly, it is the story of the
unlikely friendship between a poor
widow, the son of her old school
chum (a student who should be des-
tined for better things.) and two tai-
lors, Ishvar and his nephew
Omprakash, whose attempt to cross

- caste boundaries has brought terrible

violence on their families.

In the tumultuous period of the
1970s” “Emergency”, the group
struggles to overcome their preju-
dices against each other and make
common Cause against a society that
resembles something dreamed up by
Franz Kafka and Hieronymous
Bosch. -

There are also a couple of good -
novels just out that lash several gen-
erations of westemers who, with
minds muddled by the writings of

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AS LONG as we continue to regard India as a European-style nation state, writes John Moore, it
will seem incomprehensible and dysfunctionai. Four novelists, including Salman Rushdie,
exptore the culture and sociology of their emerging homoiand in their latest releases. .

Hermann Hesse and brains addled
by the incensed atmosphere of occult
bookstores, have become spiritual
tourists seeking “the wisdom of the
East.”

Anita Desai‘'s Journey of Ithaca
(Knopf, $32.00) starts a bit slowly,
but this story of an European couple
who go from one corrupt ashram to
another and find wind up at the feet
of an enigmatic female guru called
“The Mother” gets better when the
tensions between the couple reach
the breaking point.

When Sophie. the young woman,
abandons her husband Matteo to his
besotted adoration and begins to
track down the true history of The
Mother, the ironic shocks start regis-
tering on the Richter Scale.

Set in the tiny Portuguese colony
of Goa, which has become a refuge
for the terminally hip, The Ganja
Coast (Fawcett Books, $31.50)
brings back Mann's character.
George Sansi, an Indian tawyer who
finds himself enmeshed in a net of
intrigues, municipal and criminal

corruption. drug smuggling and.
murder when the daughter of ageing
hippies is found strangled on the
beach.

be sensationalizing his revelations
about the downside of Paradise, so 1
vetted the book by loaning it to a.
Goanese friend, Eddy Mascarenhas:
He confirmed that Mann reaily. — .:-
knows his stuff, even the bit about °
the cobra. Now you'll have to read .
the bock to find out what that’s all .
about... -

UNCLE RANDY PRODUCTIONS —
Presents —

THE HIT MUSICAL —

Music and Lyrics by STEPHEN SONDHEIM — Book by wi JAMES LAPINE ©
Originally Directed on Broadway by James Lapine

Special Preview Thursday February 1 at § pm
February 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, and 10 at 8pm
Matinee February 4 at 2-pm
. Box Office 984-4484 — Groups Call 980-7950
Centennial Theatre, 2300 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver

Wi aes nee Rages bet Cat raee

HARDWARE

@

Langtry. 2 alll ZMacnae £ Se C/S Auto Group

into The Woods is presented through special arrangement with and all authorized performance materials are supplied by
Musie Theatre International, 545 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY, 10018

Initially, 1 suspected Mann might - oe