ENDURING AFFAIRS 1991
PUBLISHED: VIKING PENGUIN, India
Enduring Affairs is the story of two young men- Dexter Franklin Prescott III, an American, and Chellapthimalai Venugopalan Jagan, known for convenience’s sake
as Charlie V. an Indian. Both were born on the same day, both come from aristocratic backgrounds, are handsome and athletically built, and they become fast friends when they room together as undergraduate students in a college town in the U.S.
They experience post-adolescent pleasures and pains together, except Dex, rooted in his culture, is able to find girls easily enough, while Charlie V goes through an agonising period, trying to find a girl with whom he can experience what at that point seems the necessary and ultimate triumph of young manhood. In the event, a slightly older woman takes him by the hand and initiates him into the rites of passage. At some point, without giving any explanation, Charlie V abruptly returns to India. Why is not revealed until towards the end.
A tense novel on the betrayed friendship of two young men who meet years later by chance.
When the novel opens – it is now many years later- we see Charlie V as the Home Minister and the number two man in the cabinet of the Tamil Nadu government. Mr Murari tells his story very well indeed, and has the reader following him breathlessly. By putting his heroes in the U.S. during the Kennedy era, he effortlessly captures the idealism of the young during that period, by involving them in the constructive turmoil of the times – for instance the drive for the registration of black voters.
Dex and Charlie V go through some hair-raising experiences of the kind one knows historically happened to many Americans. He is equally facile when he lets Charlie V grow 25 years older and throws him into the vortex of Indian politics. It would be easy to get peeved with Mr Murari for the brutally honest fashion he describes the politics of the country, and the hoodlums who manipulate affairs but one would have to accept that it is faithful, if unpleasant picture that he paints.
His style ranges easily from the racy to the sombre. His mastery over his material is complete and his characters leap to life from the pages. It does seem that Mr Murari is writing essentially for an American audience rather than for an Indian one. His use of American scatology is liable to leave an Indian reader rather bewildered. Actually, it does not particularly matter, since no Indian novel in English seems to be looked at except from the point of view of its Indianness and Murari can shake things up. THE HINDU.
-The strength of the book lies in the complicated plot, impeccable language and interesting style of the narrative. Echoes of brilliant passages linger on in the reader’s mind as enduring images which qualifies ‘Enduring Affairs’ as an entertaining novel of high readability. –THE CHRONICLE.
-‘the novel further sustains his reputation as a writer of substance’. SUNDAY MAIL.