எக்சைல்(Exile) - சாரு நிவேதிதா(Charu Nivedita)

Charu Nivedita one of the most controversial writer in Tamil.I have been following his writings for last 3 years through his websites and articles in different magazines.So i did not had any expectations on reading this book.I just read to know what this book is all about.

Exile - as per the author and the publisher is a auto-fiction.I believe the fiction part has nothing to say, means there is nothing new in the story, an one liner- a married girl fall in love with a married man. Anjali's story is good but cinematic. The narration is good .Black humor in this book makes it interesting.The contradicting views of Anjali and Kokarakko runs through out the book and its enjoyable for the most part.There are lots of sub-stories for each characters.

First 40+ pages , the author defends himself from the different scandals/scams which he involved or forced to  involve.And another 10+ pages about Tamil Nadu's current state of living  and its people's role.I got so many questions to the author, he is not consistent with his views.He says Tamil people are not reading his so called "literary" works.With due respect to his essays on world cinema and other literature , after reading this book i realized that anything can be called "literary" work..I believe "Zero Degree" is better than this.

He mentioned in the book that Tamilians in Singapore don't know the book shop Books Kinokuniya ,im living in Singapore for the last 6 years, i knew most Tamilians don't know about Books Kinokuniya but Charu has to understand that there is no need for us to go there because one can find almost all the books in different libraries in Singapore. I hope if comes here next time he will visit different libraries, not just one.

So many unwanted things are there , which are not related to story , some are interesting some are just filling the spaces. But the author is having a good writing style. On the contrary he had done lots of research about many things for this book. His knowledge on French Literature is amazing.He introduces lots of French writers and books to readers like me.But Charu has to understand that its not necessary to know all these writers to read and talk literature and it does not make one less intellectual.

Before i read this book, i did some research on existentialism and understood somewhat. Is Charu existentialists? to the extend yes but, is he on par with those great existentialists?.Before i start this book  I read Willam S.Burrough's "Naked Lunch" which caused a literary storm  and was banned for sometime in US. This book is nowhere related to that book. May be i did not get the link.

I strongly believe this is not the best of Charu. As i mentioned earlier , he has brilliant style of writing and can write far better than this. When i told one of my relation that i was reading Charu's book he told "he is adult story writer". Without reading any of the books by the author , one should not criticize him.The thing i dont like about Charu Nivedita is that he always boast himself better than any other writer in Tamil and he is not writing proper review for those books which he read in Tamil. He mentioned in the TV show that he could not read more than 10+ pages of Poomani's "Anggadi" , i felt very sad. One should read fully and give his reviews.

Even though i was not impressed by the story but like the style of writing. He had mixed many things in this book : cooking , Alcohol, Meditation, Sex,Sithargal,French literature, etc and lots of anger on Tamil society.

A blog mentioned as the hero's guru :  http://siththarkal.blogspot.com  , now its a brand new website : Siththarkal

Some of the writers mentioned in this book:
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Nikos kazantzakis
Ferdinand de Saussure
Claude Levi-Strauss
Sophie Kinsella
Roberto Sosa
Helene Cixous
Julia Kristeva
R.D.Laing
Jean-Paul Sartre
Ray Bradbury  - The Pedestrian (Short Story)
Serge Doubrovsky 
Charles Bukowski
Georges Bataille
Jacques Derrida
Louis Althusser
Roland Barthes
Jacques Lacan
Georges Perec
Soren Kierkegaard
Julio Cortazar
Michael Houellebecq
Alejo Carpentier
Juan Rulfo
Alain Robbe-Grillet