Surreal Chronicles of History in “The Light at the End of the World” https://ift.tt/E05GpbU
In a world where facts have indeed become stranger than fiction and boundaries between the absurd and the real crumble, Siddhartha Deb’s The Light at the End of the World grapples with themes of colonialism, climate change, pandemics, and the unrelenting political turmoil of fascism. Rather than sticking to a conventional social realist approach, Deb ambitiously melds science fiction with the mundane, spanning not just diverse locales within the country but also timelines. The novel’s patchwork structure underscores a vital message: for the Global South, apocalyptic events aren’t new; their history is riddled with many ends, and maybe trying to understand them will give one solace, though there probably isn’t any light that waits for us at the end of our present chaotic world.
Moving between different locales of India, the novel mixes the phantasmagoric with real incidents. The book moves forward as a sequence of events starts to unfold in the capital city of Delhi and then moves back in time, only to come back to the narrative present towards the end. The edges of this timeline are never clear-cut. The past, present, and future bleed into each other, conveyed through a succession of hallucinatory fever dreams. It feels like getting trapped inside an insidious Wonderland, one in which the borders between fantasy and reality are blurred. Hidden elements and other symbols point to the possibilities of perdition or salvation, often using irony and contrast.
In the initial section “City of Brume,” set in a near-future Delhi, we are introduced to Bibi, a former journalist. She is on a mission to locate her former colleague, Sanjeet, whose conspiracy theories have become a thorn in the side of her current employer, the shadowy mega-corporation Vimana. From here, the narrative delves into the past, exploring events from 1984, 1947, and 1859. These years aren’t selected without importance or consequence. While “The City of Brume” presents the narrative present, the years 1984, 1947, and 1859 hold relevance as the years marking the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, India’s independence, and the Sepoy Mutiny, India’s first but unsuccessful rebellion against British rule, respectively.
In “Claustopolis” set in the year 1984, on the precipice of the gas tragedy, the journey commences with a formidable enforcer acting on the directives of his political benefactor. He embarks on a mission to secure some compromising documents in the city, only to find himself entangled in whispers of secret labs, concealed projects, and esoteric knowledge.
From there, we move into the section titled “Paranoir.” As the dawn of Indian Independence nears in 1947, a budding vet in Calcutta feels compelled by an elusive group’s agenda to “bathe this damaged, crushed city in the universal harmony song of love.” His journey is enriched with knowledge gained from a clinic practicing Savage Freud psychotherapy. The readers rummage around these pages to experience the uncertainty that was attached to this nation-building experience.
Following this, the narrative shifts to the aftermath of the infamous Indian Sepoy Uprising with “The Line of Faith,” in which a British officer navigating the untamed landscapes of Cooch Behar is pulled into the phantasmal realm of a mysterious White Mughal. Deb’s portrayal of the past can be seen as almost playful in this. The distance that the character portrayal injects in the depiction of the White Mughal against the backdrop of a twisted, apocalyptic, post-1857 moment allows for a kind of complicit laughter that one cannot afford in the midst of the nightmare that is present.
Each of the four segments resonates with recurring themes — adventures, renegades, majoritarianism, fascism, fabricated conflicts, and government conspiracies. Yet, every part is defined by a distinct narrative voice, each with its own perspectives and objectives. The reader is reminded again and again that the past does not stay the past, and the present carries traces of socio-historical and political events.
Deb skillfully blends various forms and tropes in eccentric ways throughout the text. Mystery is introduced into the narrative as Bibi embarks on a quest to find her former colleague and missing reporter. Myth is intertwined with the introduction of the vimana, a flying ancient aircraft present in Hindu mythology, while a touch of the super-hero lurks within the Monkey Man’s figure that is reminiscent of the urban legend of the same name in various cities of the country. The novel incorporates sci-fi and fantasy elements, crafting walking automaton tigers with hidden horrors in the shadows they tread upon.
The author plays with sentence structure and word usage, using phrases like “step by stepstep” and employing lengthy sentences that span across pages to enhance the storytelling. Although some of these experiments may seem haphazard, the overarching goal of the novel remains consistent: the portrayal of socio-political catastrophes.
Deb’s dedication to recounting these episodes and weaving them into the storyline is nothing short of impressive. He carefully weaves intricate details and clever plot twists that align perfectly with the narrative, all while recording more tales of disaster. Take, for example, the story of the hitman in “Claustropolis” whose assignments lead him from Delhi to Bhopal, highlighting the tragic events of the Sikh massacre and the gas tragedy. Furthermore, sentences like, “as the waters rise, as the cities choke and the fish seller hangs himself, every woman is an island” shows Deb’s caliber as a writer who can take and transform classic idioms like this to portray a daughter’s withheld response to her mother’s loneliness. These concepts could be novel and promising if they were not so deliberately used as vessels for cataloguing institutional disasters in every aspect of the novel, including plot, characters, and language itself.
The novel’s insistence reduces the various events in some ways to mere cogs in the larger scheme of things. Deb’s narration, however, is confident and adaptable, seamlessly moving between the various timelines, giving the readers a window into the inner workings of intimate relationships at times and satirizing government excesses or media hysteria at others. The character portrayals by Deb juxtapose their marginality against massive historical, economic, and political forces. Deb achieves this layered depiction by boldly crafting intricate, sprawling sentences that encapsulate multiple universes.
The Light at the End of the World contains intriguing tangents that, while seeming peripheral, are integral to the book’s essence. These diversions add depth to this intricate narrative mosaic, culminating in a rewarding climax. Deb’s multifaceted work adeptly weaves scholarly theories into its storytelling fabric. For instance, it references genuine incidents like “The Monkey Man” and “The China Flu.” It even points towards disastrous decisions like demonetization along with critiquing the neo-colonial capitalist setup with his cursory remarks towards a setup like the Ombani labs and the monstrous things it creates. In blending myths and imaginations, The Light at the End of the World shines a light on the concealed tales beneath our everyday experiences, leaving readers both bewildered and exhilarated. From within these layered depictions comes Deb’s most seductively compelling proposition: What is reality but a thin veneer we drape around the world to make sense of it?
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