Making the real seem unreal
13 October 2013, 18:02 PM
UPDATED
14 October 2013, 18:50 PM
While reading Syed Manzoorul Islam's short stories, the first thing that strikes one is the role played by the self-conscious narrator, who is sometimes a part of the story, makes sarcastic remarks about other characters, and remains somewhat unaffected by the major changes and shifts in the plot. More interestingly, Islam's narrator assumes both first and third person points of view. At times his narrator, one is apt to notice, is highly critical of assuming any knowledge of a character's unspoken thoughts.
However, in Shukhdukher Galpo, readers will find him at the height of his post-modern experimentation with his craftsmanship in both narratorial modes reaching an apotheosis.
Islam in his stories is continuously talking to readers, coalescing the playful with the serious, the inevitable outcome of which is the ludicrous effect that leaves one laughing yet pondering uneasily over the queer ending. Islam's endings are complicated, sometimes inconclusive. When readers envisage a sad ending, then he comes up with fantasies that apparently depart from the inevitable consequences of some bleak events in any given context as one will find in stories such as Passport, Ek Shandhya, Kannar Etihash and Gachher Bichhana.
Kannar Etihash and Gachher Bichhana begin with a gradually disintegrating conjugal life of a couple, preparing readers to foresee their divorce. But both the stories end in two different kinds of catastrophe whereby the couple realise that true love lies under the surface distrusts and misunderstandings.
When readers expect something happy in the end, Islam will strike the most unexpected event, full of grotesque happenings, as in stories such as Ghungiyajuri'r Math and Nolok. Both are stories of love.
Apart from narratorial techniques, Islam's mastery in importing magical events adds quite a new dimension to the stories. Think of the stories Kathalkanya and Telephone which again give away two harrowing tales of female repression.
With his unique narratorial interventions in the form of occasional comments and so on, Islam intends to arouse in readers a deep-rooted empathy toward the suppressed, especially women, and resentment toward the perpetrators as well as the system that shelters and nurtures them.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments