Dance by M Mukundan is a literary piece ,not a pop fiction.
This is what the one of the few book reviews online,(from Hindu) had to say about the book :- “Dance” is not merely about dance.
"..It is multi-layered. It is about the borderless world. It speaks about the colonisation of bodies. The changing face of art and its commercialisation also finds mention...", Multi -layered or not , I managed to fionish reading it in 2 hours flat.It helped that this was not novel ,just a novella.And you could say,whether I captured all the layers mentioned by Hindu.
The novella is translation of authors work in Malayalam,Nruttam,released in 2000.For years I was sckeptical of reading transaltion,mainly ,beliveing in adage "lost in transaltion".The first major transaltion work I read ,rather accidently" was O.N.V Kurup's master piece "The Legends of Kasak".Though I may may missed the significance of Magical realism and other literary devices in the novel(which I may put down to my lack of classical edcuation),I could totaaly recreate the visula imagery the thor wanted ,in my head.Over the next few years I got introduced to Haruki Marukami,who rapidly ended up being one of my most favorauite writers.
Coming back to the novel,here are my takeways from the books :
One of tha main reasons I am attracted to M.Mukundan's works are narrative novelties in his works.i got introduced to him through Kesavan's Lamentation ,which had the unique plot device of novel within a novel.In this novel ,Mukundan tries to carrry the narritive forward through a set of mail communications.which is quite impressive considering it was writteen in early 2000 ,when the internet was just starting to bloom in India.
Towards the end of the novella one of the main protagoinsts,a immigrant Indian dancer,says the following while comparing himself with other fellow immigrants
"...The only similarity between them and me was the colur of the body.They used their body like a polythene bag to fill food.I created magic with mine...".Though not direct,I found that a crique of the way I have been living my live over the past few years.Those dumbells gathering dust,the skipping rope lying idle on the shelves.Those unused running shoes.All these needs to change.Time for a mid year resolution.(That reminds me the last time I had this resolution was 5 years back when I saw Taxi Driver and heard Rob DeNiro utter those lines
"....I gotta get in shape now.
Too much sitting has ruined my body.
Too much abuse has gone on for too long.
From now on it'll be pushups each morning.
Fifty pull-ups.
There will be no more pills, no more bad food...
no more destroyers of my body.
From now on it'll be total organization. Every muscle must be fight.
Wow! Look at the size of that.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Oh, if looks so good.
It's getting harder and harder.
It's throbbing now.
The idea had been growing in my brain for some time.
True force. All the king's men...
cannot put if back together again..."
Novel again has a lonely male protagoinst.sort of Alone in a crowd guy.Just get a feeling that This partciular trait si something I am finding again and again in most of novels I have been redaing these days.And most of these guys are writers(though not in this case).Also English professor seems like a common occupation for your every day novel hero.
Couple of open questions I still have (Spoilers)
How did Agni contract AIDS?Was it through Rudolph or Teresa.What happend at the end to Teresa??
