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Anton Chekhov is revered as a boldly innovative playwright and
short story writer - but he wrote more than just plays and stories.
In "Alive in the Writing" - an intriguing hybrid of writing guide,
biography, and literary analysis - anthropologist and novelist
Kirin Narayan introduces readers to some other sides of Chekhov:
his pithy, witty observations on the writing process; his life as a
writer through accounts by his friends, family, and lovers; and his
venture into nonfiction through his book "Sakhalin Island". By
closely attending to the people who lived under the appalling
conditions of the Russian penal colony on Sakhalin, Chekhov showed
how empirical details combined with a literary flair can bring
readers face to face with distant, different lives, enlarging a
sense of human responsibility. Highlighting this balance of the
empirical and the literary, Narayan uses Chekhov to bring new
energy to the writing of ethnography and creative nonfiction alike.
Weaving together selections from writing by and about him with
examples from other talented ethnographers and memoirists, she
offers practical exercises and advice on topics such as story,
theory, place, person, voice, and self. A new and lively
exploration of ethnography, "Alive in the Writing" shows how the
genre's attentive, sustained connection with the lives of others
can become a powerful tool for any writer.
Kirin Narayan's imagination was captured the very first time, as a
girl visiting the region, that she heard Kangra women join their
voices together in song. Returning as an anthropologist, she became
fascinated by how they spoke of singing as a form of enrichment,
bringing feelings of accomplishment, companionship, happiness, and
even good health all benefits of the "everyday creativity" she
explores in this book. Part ethnography, part musical discovery,
part poetry, part memoir, and part unforgettable portraits of
creative individuals, this unique work draws on an association
across forty years, and brings the Himalayan foothill region of
Kangra in North India alive in sight and sound while celebrating
the incredible powers of music in our lives. With rare and
captivating eloquence, Narayan portrays Kangra songs about
difficulties on the lives of goddesses and female saints as a path
to well-being. Like the intricate geometries of mandalu patterns
drawn in courtyards or the subtle balance of flavors in a meal,
well-crafted songs offer a variety of deeply meaningful benefits:
as a way of making something of value, as a means of establishing a
community of shared pleasure and skill, as a path through hardships
and limitations, and as an arena of renewed possibility. Everyday
Creativity makes big the small world of Kangra song and opens up
new ways of thinking about what creativity is to us and why we are
so compelled to engage it.
In 1969, young Kirin Narayan's older brother, Rahoul, announced
that he was quitting school and leaving home to seek enlightenment
with a guru. From boyhood, his restless creativity had continually
surprised his family, but his departure shook up everyone--
especially Kirin, who adored her high-spirited, charismatic
brother.
A touching, funny, and always affectionate memoir, "My Family and
Other Saints" traces the reverberations of Rahoul's spiritual
journey through the entire family. As their beachside Bombay home
becomes a crossroads for Westerners seeking Eastern enlightenment,
Kirin's sari-wearing American mother wholeheartedly embraces
ashrams and gurus, adopting her son's spiritual quest as her own.
Her Indian father, however, coins the term "urug"--guru spelled
backward--to mock these seekers, while young Kirin, surrounded by
radiant holy men, parents drifting apart, and a motley of young,
often eccentric Westerners, is left to find her own answers. Deftly
recreating the turbulent emotional world of her bicultural
adolescence, but overlaying it with the hard-won understanding of
adulthood, Narayan presents a large, rambunctious cast of quirky
characters. Throughout, she brings to life not just a family but
also a time when just about everyone, it seemed, was consumed by
some sort of spiritual quest.
"A lovely book about the author's youth in Bombay, India. . . . The
family home becomes a magnet for truth-seekers, and Narayan is
there to affectionately document all of it."--"Body + Soul"""
"Gods, gurus and eccentric relatives compete for primacy in Kirin
Narayan's enchanting memoir of her childhood in Bombay."--William
Grimes, "New York Times"
Creativity and play erupt in the most solemn of everyday worlds as
individuals reshape traditional forms in the light of changing
historical circumstances. In this lively volume, fourteen
distinguished anthropologists explore the life of creativity in
social life across the globe and within the study of ethnography
itself. Contributors include Barbara A. Babcock, Edward M. Bruner,
James W. Fernandez, Don Handelman, Smadar Lavie, Jose E. Limon,
Barbara Myerhoff, Kirin Narayan, Renato Rosaldo, Richard Schechner,
Edward L. Schieffelin, Marjorie Shostak, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, and
Edith Turner.
Swamiji, a Hindu holy man, is the central character of
Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels. He reclines in a deck chair
in his modern apartment in western India, telling subtle and
entertaining folk narratives to his assorted gatherings. Among the
listeners is Kirin Narayan, who knew Swamiji when she was a child
in India and who has returned from America as an anthropologist. In
her book Narayan builds on Swamiji's tales and his audiences'
interpretations to ask why religious teachings the world over are
so often couched in stories. For centuries, religious teachers from
many traditions have used stories to instruct their followers. When
Swamiji tells a story, the local barber rocks in helpless laughter,
and a sari-wearing French nurse looks on enrapt. Farmers make
decisions based on the tales, and American psychotherapists take
notes that link the storytelling to their own practices. Narayan
herself is a key character in this ethnography. As both a local
woman and a foreign academic, she is somewhere between participant
and observer, reacting to the nuances of fieldwork with a
sensitivity that only such a position can bring. Each story s
reproduced in its evocative performance setting. Narayan
supplements eight folk narratives with discussions of audience
participation and response as well as relevant Hindu themes. All
these stories focus on the complex figure of the Hindu ascetic and
so sharpen our understanding of renunciation and gurus in South
Asia. While Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels raises provocative
theoretical issues, it is also a moving human document. Swamiji,
with his droll characterizations, inventive mind, and generous
spirit, is a memorable character. The book contributes to a growing
interdisciplinary literature on narrative. It will be particularly
valuable to students and scholars of anthropology, folklore,
performance studies, religions, and South Asian studies.
Narayan presents 21 stories learned and told orally by one woman, Urmila Devi, in Kangra, North India. Included are stories told for worship and stories told for entertainment. In the process of recounting the stories, Narayan brings to life her friendship with the storyteller, and also offers important arguments about oral traditions and performance, as well as about North Indian families and folklore.
In 1969, young Kirin Narayan's older brother, Rahoul, announced
that he was quitting school and leaving home to seek enlightenment
with a guru. From boyhood, his restless creativity had continually
surprised his family, but his departure shook up everyone--
especially Kirin, who adored her high-spirited, charismatic
brother.
A touching, funny, and always affectionate memoir, "My Family and
Other Saints" traces the reverberations of Rahoul's spiritual
journey through the entire family. As their beachside Bombay home
becomes a crossroads for Westerners seeking Eastern enlightenment,
Kirin's sari-wearing American mother wholeheartedly embraces
ashrams and gurus, adopting her son's spiritual quest as her own.
Her Indian father, however, coins the term "urug"--guru spelled
backward--to mock these seekers, while young Kirin, surrounded by
radiant holy men, parents drifting apart, and a motley of young,
often eccentric Westerners, is left to find her own answers. Deftly
recreating the turbulent emotional world of her bicultural
adolescence, but overlaying it with the hard-won understanding of
adulthood, Narayan presents a large, rambunctious cast of quirky
characters. Throughout, she brings to life not just a family but
also a time when just about everyone, it seemed, was consumed by
some sort of spiritual quest.
"A lovely book about the author's youth in Bombay, India. . . . The
family home becomes a magnet for truth-seekers, and Narayan is
there to affectionately document all of it."--"Body + Soul"""
"Gods, gurus and eccentric relatives compete for primacy in Kirin
Narayan's enchanting memoir of her childhood in Bombay."--William
Grimes, "New York Times"
A collection of folk tales from India's fairyland where rajas, ranis, rakshas, jackals, magicians, and cobras prevail.
Oral tales establish relationships between storytellers and their
listeners. Yet most printed collections of folktales contain only
stories, stripped of the human contexts in which they are told. If
storytellers are mentioned at all, they are rarely consulted about
what meanings they see in their tales. In this innovative book,
Indian-American anthropologist Kirin Narayan reproduces twenty-one
folktales narrated in a mountain dialect by a middle-aged Indian
village woman, Urmila Devi Sood, or "Urmilaji." The tales are set
within the larger story of Kirin Narayan's research in the
Himalayan foothill region of Kangra, and of her growing friendship
with Urmilaji Sood. In turn, Urmilaji Sood supplements her tales
with interpretations of the wisdom that she discerns in their
plots. At a moment when the mass-media is flooding through rural
India, Urmilaji Sood asserts the value of her tales which have been
told and retold across generations. As she says, "Television can't
teach you these things."
These tales serve as both moral instruction and as beguiling
entertainment. The first set of tales, focussing on women's
domestic rituals, lays out guidelines for female devotion and
virtue. Here are tales of a pious washerwoman who brings the dead
to life, a female weevil observing fasts for a better rebirth, a
barren woman who adopts a frog and lights ritual oil lamps, and a
queen who remains with her husband through twelve arduous years of
affliction. The women performing these rituals and listening to the
accompanying stories are thought to bring good fortune to their
marriages, and long life to their relatives. The second set of
tales, associated with passing the time around the fire through
long winter nights, are magical adventure tales. Urmilaji Sood
tells of a matchmaker who marries a princess off to a lion, God
splitting a boy claimed by two families into two selves, a prince's
journey to the land of the demons, and a girl transformed into a
bird by her stepmother.
In an increasingly interconnected world, anthropologists'
authority to depict and theorize about distant people's lives is
under fire. Kirin Narayan seeks solutions to this crisis in
anthropology by locating the exchange of knowledge in a respectful,
affectionate collaboration. Through the medium of oral narratives,
Urmilaji Sood describes her own life and lives around her, and
through the medium of ethnography Kirin Narayan shows how broader
conclusions emerge from specific, spirited interactions. Set
evocatively amid the changing seasons in a Himalayan foothill
village, this pathbreaking book draws a moving portrait of an
accomplished woman storyteller. Mondays on the Dark Night of the
Moon offers a window into the joys and sorrows of women's changing
lives in rural India, and reveals the significance of oral
storytelling in nurturing human ties.
Anton Chekhov is revered as a boldly innovative playwright and
short story writer - but he wrote more than just plays and stories.
In "Alive in the Writing" - an intriguing hybrid of writing guide,
biography, and literary analysis - anthropologist and novelist
Kirin Narayan introduces readers to some other sides of Chekhov:
his pithy, witty observations on the writing process; his life as a
writer through accounts by his friends, family, and lovers; and,
his venture into nonfiction through his book "Sakhalin Island". By
closely attending to the people who lived under the appalling
conditions of the Russian penal colony on "Sakhalin", Chekhov
showed how empirical details combined with a literary flair can
bring readers face to face with distant, different lives, enlarging
a sense of human responsibility. Highlighting this balance of the
empirical and the literary, Narayan uses Chekhov to bring new
energy to the writing of ethnography and creative nonfiction alike.
Weaving together selections from writing by and about him with
examples from other talented ethnographers and memoirists, she
offers practical exercises and advice on topics such as story,
theory, place, person, voice, and self. A new and lively
exploration of ethnography, Alive in the Writing shows how the
genre's attentive, sustained connection with the lives of others
can become a powerful tool for any writer.
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