Kiran Desai’s ‘The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’ is personal, political, emergent

The family never disappoints Indian fiction. Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’, Rohinton Mistry’s ‘Family Matters’, Anita Desai’s ‘Clear Light of Day’, David Davidar’s ‘The House of Blue Mangoes’, Geetanjali Shree’s ‘Tomb of Sand’ and more recently, Abraham Verghese’s ‘The Covenant of Water’, to name a few, have sought to narrate political histories through personal histories and in the process, laid bare the workings and dysfunctionalities of the Great Indian Family. It is interesting to observe the generations being peeled back to reveal “how we got this way”.

At nearly 700 pages, Kiran Desai’s ‘The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’ continues this tradition, albeit with an interesting twist. It contains multitudes, going beyond characterisation. The novel trains a searching light on the idea of loneliness and how this very fundamental aspect of our lives shapes our personalities, creates our histories.

Desai is in no hurry to get to her story or to her protagonists as she goes around building their worlds. The saga of generational wealth that ossifies in old mansions is qualified by servants, clanking pipes and deferential assistants who help their masters cling on to illusions of grandeur and importance. The family of Sonia Shah lives in a house that is as grand as it is old and clunky. We learn later that the house has been taken on lease by the Shahs and that they are refusing to vacate it as the rent was ridiculously low.

There are glimpses of Miss Havisham’s manor in ‘Great Expectations’ as we meander through the halls and rooms. The curmudgeonly Shah couple, their preoccupation over kebabs, the fear of being shortchanged by their help, the relationships (for want of a better word) forged over time through parties, board games seem to belong to a different time dimension, while just beyond their walls, trucks — enduring symbols of a modern, busy world — hurtle by.

The story presents a number of protagonists before settling down with the titular characters. The interesting names Desai gives adds to the element of quirk that the novel carries with aplomb. Mina Foi, an aunt of Sonia’s, and Ilan de Toorjen Foss, Sonia’s boyfriend, are characters whose names make them as intriguing as their thoughts.

‘The Loneliness…’ is a novel that will initially seem like it is trying to do too much. But once you engage with the work, everything becomes possible, even a mysterious dog that seems to hound the couple or the spirit of a dead relative haunting the family.

Desai is not afraid to call attention to herself. There are self-reflexive references, Sonia is studying in a “flyspeck” of a college where as part of her curriculum, she is writing a story about a young boy who sits on a guava tree and refuses to come down. She struggles with the impulse to write India, but is constantly warned against it by Ilan, who asks her not to orientalise herself and to bend stereotypes. The novel sails boldly into discourses about what art is and the possibilities that artistic expression and freedom present.

Desai’s narration has come a long way since ‘Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard’ and ‘The Inheritance of Loss’. She is unafraid to take her time and engages upfront with the vagaries of life that modernity presents. It is no mean matter to be able to create vocalisation for a problem as endemic as loneliness.

Sonia and Sunny battle generational trauma, the imperious weight of predecessors, intense self-consciousness, imposter syndrome and have to constantly deal with the question of the need and necessity of their existence. Their calls for help — in the case of Sonia, literal calls — largely go unnoticed. And in the midst of all that despair, Desai introduces a wry line, a puzzling situation, some magic, some realism, and suddenly, we belong and live in the world she has created. A world where ugly men rate women on beauty and when Sonia’s mother points that out, her husband, one of the discussants, tries to run her over. The resentment is real. “Mama learned that despite his mess and muddle, his inebriation, he was clear on one thing: He did wish to kill his wife.”

‘The Loneliness…’ is a poignant and potent book that is like a work of violent abstract art in a serene corner of the gallery. The true import of the work and the underlying Pinteresque menace will become apparent much later, perhaps after you have left the gallery and are standing on the very precipice of life itself.

It is personal, political, emergent. Above all, you may spot yourself in the crowds that Desai plonks down before you.

The polyphonic nature of the novel also inspires Dickensian memories. At a crucial juncture, Sunny reads a letter his mother sent him informing him of the existence of Sonia and the attempt made by her grandfather to relieve her of her loneliness through an arranged marriage to him. The mother, Babita, who occupies a storyline of her own, writes regarding the letter: “It was delivered by the Allahabad padre, who was on his way to a faith convention. He also brought along some marvellous kebabs made by the Shahs’ cook, who originally came from Lucknow — filthy as can be, but they say it’s the dirt under the fingernails that imparts the flavour.”

Now how does a reader ever forget a passage like that?

— The reviewer teaches at All Saints’ College, Thiruvananthapuram