Episode 14 - Amit Chaudhuri Part 2

The second part of my chat with Amit Chaudhuri began with a discussion of his literary inheritance - that combined Philip Larkin with Tagore.

From there we headed towards Bengali culture and onwards to:

Ideas of 'ownership' of culture - Bengali and English
English conceptions of India and 'Asia'
class in India and England
finding your voice as a writer
discovering that your subject is 'the rhythms of the everyday'
'What you see on the street, from a window, a balcony...Maybe even the toilet and the bath as private spaces where you achieve certain kind of movements...'
the influence of Ulysses - for and against
a Portrait of Chaudhuri of a Young (Tolstory and Joyce) Reader
'I suddenly realised that Tolstoy's way was not going to be my way'
reading, writing and daydreaming
looking, place and translation - Dublin and Calcutta
falling love with DH Lawrence - 'the everyday was always being transformed'
the problems of plot
memoir v autobiographical fiction
'I am not in any conventional way interested in autobiography'
stories and repetition
further thoughts on Joyce and the 'joy in the provisional'
writing as an act of memorialisation
'For me, more alive means all the inconsequential, random things that make up our lives'
Homer - Odysseus meets his son
was writing Odysseus Abroad cathartic in any way
Chaudhuri as musician

And with that, pretty much, Chaudhuri's taxi arrived. For James Wood's review in The New Yorker, click here.

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