• 1 A linguistic chameleon, Vikram Seth adapts to the environment he explores with such ease that it be (...)

1Born in Calcutta in 1952, Vikram Seth occupies a highly original place on the postcolonial literary scene, owing to the dazzling variety of his work: “[f]or him, writing is partly a matter of creating genres, as if it’s not enough to create an oeuvre, but a whole tradition in miniature…” (Chaudhuri 508). Seth’s career has been one of restless reinvention: skipping from economist to poet, to travel writer, to novelist-in-verse, to librettist, to translator and to children’s writer, Vikram Seth even tried his hand at biography in Two Lives. His writing thus displays a staggering versatility: every new book by Seth creates a fresh departure in genre and theme and moves seamlessly from one geographical and cultural location to another, revealing a distinct cosmopolitan sensibility that makes Seth’s affiliations and cultural moorings all but impossible to fathom.1 The few critics who have delved into Seth’s impressive repertoire of writing have struggled in vain to pigeonhole it: Seth’s protean body of work proves miraculously immune to any definitive categorization.

• 2 In Transparent Minds, Dorrit Cohn explores the complex technique of free indirect speech, which she (...)

2The striking generic heterogeneity of Seth’s work masks a hidden unity which lies in a deliberate use of literary reprise, as A Suitable Boy exemplifies. In this novel, Vikram Seth treats Western canonical genres as raw material in an ostensibly unfashionable attempt to go back to an earlier model of literary tradition defined by the line from Jane Austen to George Eliot. In The Great Tradition, a highly influential and contentious book, F. R. Leavis traces an essential continuity from Jane Austen to George Eliot, Henry James and Joseph Conrad. Leavis’s normative definition of the English canon has been decisive in shaping modern views of English fiction, and establishing English literature as a central discipline in the humanities. His passionate celebration of the vitality of the English language rests on a conception of literature as the life force of the nation and as a nationalizing force – which makes his position so problematical. A rewriting of the distinguished tradition delineated by Leavis, and more specifically of the novels by Austen and Eliot, A Suitable Boy centers on a young woman’s search for a suitable husband: Lata, the young Hindu heroine, considers the claims of three rival suitors before making her choice in the closing pages. While the title of the novel refers to the Indian market of arranged marriages, this theme is treated in the Austen vein. Seth’s reappropriation of the realist mode characteristic of the novels by George Eliot displays a rare confidence in the possibility of representational transparency: A Suitable Boy is characterized by a third-person omniscient narrator, strikingly linear chronology and psychologically consistent characters whose thoughts are rendered through the ubiquitous use of free indirect speech.2 The novel’s immense scope is contained within a seemingly transparent prose: although Seth uses a few words in Hindi, Urdu and Bengali, the dominant mode is a feather-light example of idiomatic, standard English that betrays a desire for clarity and accessibility. This subtle, unobtrusive style reveals a clear-window aspiration that stands in stark contrast to Salman Rushdie’s pyrotechnic prose which often subverts the very morphology of the English language.

• 3 Seth’s embrace of the classical realist form has been seen by some critics as a throwback to the pa (...)
• 4 A notable exception is Two Lives, a text that blends two distinct genres: biography and autobiograp (...)
• 5 Seth follows the nineteenth-century novelistic convention of prefacing the narrative with family tr (...)
• 6 “l’espace réaliste est un espace emboîté (cf. les croquis préparatoires de Zola pour ses romans) ou (...)

4Often described as “anachronistic” and downright “Eurocentric,”3 A Suitable Boy does not fit current expectations of the postcolonial: in the heyday of magic realism – an essentially hybrid genre which brings together realistic and imaginary elements, familiarity and strangeness, forcing one to constantly question one’s vision of reality – “[Vikram Seth] writes as if Salman Rushdie had never authored Midnight’s Children or The Satanic Verses, firmly turning his back upon the unconfined imagination and dangerous fantasy^” (Desai). Although Seth’s opus as a whole proves impervious to any definitive categorization, it must be noted that each individual work complies strictly with the distinct constraints and conventions of a specific literary genre.4 Amidst the prevailing postmodern skepticism towards realism, A Suitable Boy adheres to the salient features of mimetic realism Philippe Hamon analyzed in “Un discours constraint,” namely exhaustivity, consistency and readability. The exceptional length of A Suitable Boy reflects an essentially realist desire for exhaustivity: through Brahmpur – an imaginary chronotope representative of north India – this “large loose baggy monster” (James 4) provides an impressively detailed and documented reconstruction of India in the years immediately following Independence. Vikram Seth skillfully represents a society in transition in its multiple political, religious, cultural and communal ramifications: woven into the main plot is the story of the troubled times of the early 1950s, the rise of the Indian middle class, the internal workings of the Congress Party, the abolition of feudal land-holdings, religious strife, communal hatred and sectarianism, shoe-making, bureaucracy and academia, and a myriad of further issues of importance to the large gallery of characters. Focusing on the sprawling kinship networks of four Indian families (three Hindu, one Muslim), the author interweaves countless subplots into patterns of great intricacy. The recurrent use of the conjunction “while,” which entwines seemingly disparate plot lines into a consistent whole, highlights the tight structure of the novel. Thus, section 4.1, in which the reader first encounters Haresh – the rather uncouth but intelligent, self-made shoemaker Lata eventually settles for – begins with the following statement: “While Lata was falling in love with Kabir, a quite different set of events was taking place in Old Brahmpur, which, however, were to prove not irrelevant to her story” (205). The understatement “not irrelevant” stresses the striking internal coherence of the novel, which leaves no room whatsoever for chance. In compliance with Bersani’s analysis, A Suitable Boy is governed by an overarching structure of significance: “The tour de force of realistic novelists from Jane Austen to the later Henry James is to combine a superficially loose, even sprawling narrative form with an extraordinary tightness of meaning” (52). Apparently isolated and trifling details are coerced into integrating a continuously meaningful chain of events: thus, the novel is strewn with foreshadowing devices (dreams, hints, prophecies, etc.) and repetitions, ensuring the utmost transparency of the message. Paradoxically, the realist novel negates the vicissitudes of reality: Seth’s transparent hermeneutics departs from reality, where nothing makes such consistent sense. The universe of ordered significance that governs A Suitable Boy is best epitomized by the figure of the family tree,5 a reassuring space of coherent identity that confers meaning upon the subject by defining his/her position in a symbolic structure enfolding and transcending the individual. The stabilizing, reifying verticality of the family tree is an apt metaphor for the realist text: “the realist space is concatenated (see Zola’s preparatory sketches for his novels) or arborescent (the family tree)” (Hamon 147, my translation).6 Through the character of Amit who, as the writer of monstrously garrulous historical novels, functions as the author’s surrogate, Vikram

• 7 The reference to Middlemarch is not fortuitous: just as George Eliot examined the great political a (...)
• 8 “stretching her long, tawny neck like a relaxed cat…” (10); “The long-necked Meenakshi” (69); “Meen (...)
• 9 “En rendant perceptible le maquillage lui-même, le signataire ne dépouille point celui dont il expl (...)
• 10 In The Singularity of Literature, Derek Attridge underlines the correspondence between literary rep (...)

7In fact, the very title of Seth’s novel is an unveiled reference to the leitmotif of Jane Austen’s fiction – finding a suitable match or a “proper object” (Emma 32). In A Suitable Boy, reality effects are constantly subverted within the text by overt metafictional allusions to canonical English novels. A strand of self-references revolves around the character of Amit, the Bengali novelist and poet who stands for the author’s intradiegetic double: “Jane Austen is the only woman in his life” (415), Amit’s sister declares. Moreover, when summoned by a reader to justify the meandering structure of his novels – “as if he were personally responsible for the nervous exhaustion of some future dissertationist” (1370) – Amit states: “I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they’re bad, they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they’re good, I turn into a social moron for days […]. I still bear the scars of Middlemarch” (1370-1).7 These somewhat wry gestures of filial tribute display a mix of intimacy and irony, exposing Seth’s novel as a rewriting of the Great English novel. Transparency is achieved here, not through referentiality but through the ostentatious superimposition of one text over another. In fact, there are many mirror-effects in A Suitable Boy. Mrs Rupa Mehra’s lament – “I have to do everything in this house, and no one cares for me. […] I have slaved for you all my life, and you don’t care if I live or die” (405) – echoes Mrs Bennet’s endless wailing in Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: “nobody is on my side, nobody takes part with me, I am cruelly used, nobody feels for my poor nerves” (76). Likewise, the glamorous Meenakshi is an Oriental version of Rosamond in Middlemarch: both women are characterized by their superb arrogance and breath-taking beauty; both marry a man from another caste or another class against their parents’ advice and end up indulging in adultery. In Middlemarch, the narrator’s descriptions of Rosamond are strewn with references to her gracious neck, a symbol of her vanity; therefore, it is not surprising that the depictions of Meenakshi in A Suitable Boy should stress her beautiful neck.8 Seth puts forth an elaborate system of intertextual connections, establishing complicity with the reader who is able to spot these playful reflections: “By revealing the makeup itself, the signer does not defraud the author whose work he exploits. Far from fooling the reader, he appeals to his complicity” (Jeandillou 119, my translation).9 In fact, the novel is dotted with subtle, strategically placed Austenian moments. Thus, the passage in which Haresh looks at a photograph of Lata as he writes to her in section 18.18 mirrors a scene in the last part of Pride and Prejudice. As Elizabeth tours the estate of Pemberley with the Gardiners, she comes across a portrait of Darcy and realizes that her deep antipathy toward the young man has turned into more tender feelings: “There was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth’s mind, a more gentle sensation towards the original” (191). Seth reproduces this formula almost verbatim to describe Haresh and Lata’s incipient love: “I have your framed photograph on my desk before me, and it brings to me tender thoughts of the original” (1411). The term “original” is crucial. Though on a first level, the substantive clearly refers to Lata, it also has a deeper import: through the notion of “original,” this passage openly posits itself as a translation of Jane Austen’s novels.10

• 11 “En période contemporaine, l’angoisse prend la forme de cette tête de méduse pétrifiante qu’est le (...)
• 12 In Postcolonial Con-texts, John Thieme underlines the simplism involved in seeing the relationship (...)

8Translation is an illuminating paradigm in A Suitable Boy: by transplanting the Great Tradition of the English novel to the Indian postcolonial context, Vikram Seth establishes difference at the heart of similarity. In the third part of the book, the description of the Barsaat Mahal operates at a metafictional level, revealing A Suitable Boy to be a distorting mirror: “its reflection in the water almost perfect, almost unrippled” (180). The adverb “almost,” which is repeated twice and further highlighted by the binary rhythm, echoes Homi Bhabha’s definition of “mimicry”: “almost the same, but not quite” (122). It is precisely in the light of this crucial concept that A Suitable Boy should be construed. Through mimicry, which “is at once resemblance and menace” (Bhabha 123), the novel exorcizes the inherent authority of the Great English novel as F. R. Leavis circumscribed it. This tradition was intrinsically bound up with the growth of Empire, serving as “a template for the denial of the value of the ‘peripheral,’ the ‘marginal,’ the ‘uncanonized’” (Ashcroft 3). The alienating power of the English classic is an acute concern for the postcolonial author who needs to define his origins and assert his originality in a tongue and a space/time in which the boundaries between same and other are problematic. In Figures du double: Du personnage au texte (2008), Nathalie Martinière assesses the value and purport of literary reprise in the postcolonial context. Drawing on Harold Bloom’s work but disputing his vision of literature as an autonomous, autotelic universe cut off from historical contingencies, she underlines the petrifying power of the classic for the postcolonial writer: “Today, anxiety takes the form of the already written text/novel, a petrifying Medusa,” and further on: “It is the relation to previous texts that reveals itself as alienating” (11 and 12 respectively, my translation).11 The most potent way for Seth to exorcize this “anxiety of influence” (to take up the title of Bloom’s famous book) is to hover endlessly between repetition and disparity. Though most critics have used binary paradigms (such as subjection/resistance, rejection/adhesion, etc.) to analyze A Suitable Boy, the novel’s relation to the Great Tradition cannot be seen as altogether complicitous or simply adversarial.12 The complex dialectic operating in A Suitable Boy stresses that it is by no means a “transparent” – i.e., identical, undistorted – reflection of the novels by Jane Austen and George Eliot. Although Seth’s text is seemingly disconnected from the postcolonial impulse, close examination of his prose reveals that this is in fact not the case.