Book Review: 'The Remains Of The Body' By Saikat Majumdar

Saikat Majumdar바카라�s latest novel 바카라�The Remains of the Body바카라� (Penguin 2024) underpins the interpersonal dynamics of intimacy in unravelling the physical and psycho-emotional angst in a hetero-normative social order. What 바카라�remains바카라� is the truth of humans as drifters in the pursuit of their loving selves. What 바카라�remains바카라� is the elusive truth of the body, the trigger of conscious and unconscious sensory perceptions. What 바카라�remains바카라� is the human behaviour that is astoundingly complex and at times too deep to be fathomed in seeking a unified experience. What 바카라�remains바카라� is the truth that the reality of homoerotic experience is a pulsating rhythm of memory in response to physiological events unveiling reams of associations.

The novel explores the 바카라�queer바카라� plight of Kaustav who struggles with the instability of his sexual desire to map out the existence of his sexual identity. The affective power of the novel resides in its visceral and psychological representation of torment that ails Kaustav as he feels saddled by the norms of heteronormative identities.

For Kaustav, his friend Avik is the reservoir of amorous love breeding disquiet and anguish. Without Avik, Kaustav is agonised by his fear of dependence and clinginess. His commitment phobia is a deterrent to his moral responsibility to define himself and determine his own values. From this existential point of view, Kaustav바카라�s obsessive male gaze on Avik바카라�s body impedes his 바카라�existence바카라� and is a foil to his 바카라�essence바카라�. Kaustav바카라�s existential anxiety is further confounded by his forbidden desire for Sunetra, Avik바카라�s wife. Kaustav바카라�s inability to shed his inner clutter keeps him imprisoned in his fantasies and he is doomed to live a cloistered existence.

Being drunk on romantic fantasies about Avik, Kaustav바카라�s sense of irrationality is bent on razing his moral world into ruins. Kaustav reels under a pervasive emptiness as he believes his happiness is the cornerstone of Avik바카라�s reciprocity to his sexual cravings and polymorphous pleasures. Paradoxically, his psychic life is sacrificed on the altar of his sexual partnership with Avik though Avik proves to be a rather less sexually apt partner as he seems to be oblivious to Kaustav바카라�s unspeakable desires. Kaustav바카라�s aspiration to create a sort of hermetic seal crumbles down as he is caught between Avik바카라�s body and Sunetra바카라�s body. This split of self into Avik and Sunetra is the chapter of narcissistic fantasy and self-possession, the tragic flaw in Kaustav바카라�s character, that Kaustav fails to read between the lines or reads with a flawed logic of all-encompassing control on Avik바카라�s body. Kaustav has no solutions to its body-as-riddle problem. He is entangled in the split of self that renders his existence enigmatic and irreducible.

The fractured life of Avik and Sunetra, who do not share a reciprocal matrimonial belonging, makes Kaustav fanaticize Sunetra with whom he has no qualms about sharing an intimate relationship behind Avik바카라�s back. The novel provokes questions about the implications of ethical living, married loving, dependent loving, and the lofty ideal of Kierkegaard바카라�s unconditional love.

The novel offers a compelling landscape of the secret and uncanny world of intimacy. It evokes the purely intimate and animalistic in the heart of sensual darkness that nurtures erotic longings lending to a strange mise-en-scène where uncharted libidinal senses are inflamed but partially consummated keeping the embers of desires with subdued intensity to burn aflame. The characters are tantalised by the unbridled permissive pleasures of intimacy. The seductiveness of bodily experience is manifested in multiple ways.

The water trope in the novel is a telling reminder of human-nature symbiosis, the organic relationship that calls for an unconditional renewal for libidinal fulfilment where fulfilment remains an enigma breeding an eternal feeling of emptiness. The water is also a trigger for desire, the unbounded and sporadic desire for physical proximity regardless of the sense of morality being violated.

The use of diction like 바카라�pool바카라�, 바카라�water바카라� at the beginning of the novel in the chapter 바카라�Invisible Skin바카라� recalls Mary Oliver바카라�s poem 바카라�Pink Moon 바카라� The Pond바카라� where she writes: 바카라�So you relax, you don바카라�t fight it anymore, /the darkness coming down called water,/called spring,/called the green leaf, called/a woman바카라�s body/as it turns into mud and leaves,/as it beats in its cage of water,바카라�. The water is a sexual stimulus creating an affective response pattern where the dominant emotion is love or call it the captivating intensity of an 바카라�unrequited바카라� union. The fluidity of the relationship is evoked through the symbolic intent of the motif of water. This fluidity poses questions about the nature of togetherness and intimacy.

It would not be out of place to recall R.S.Thomas바카라� poem 바카라�ApHuw바카라�s Testament바카라� where the bliss of companionship in married life is potently evident in the stanza :바카라�Nineteen years now/Under the same roof /Eating our bread,/Using the same air;/Sighing, if one sighs,/Meeting the other바카라�s/Words with a look/That thaws suspicion.바카라�

By contrast, the married life depicted in the novel is terrifyingly stifled by sneaking suspicion, fear, and betrayal. Who is the 바카라�real바카라� culprit? Is it Kaustav바카라�s narcissist바카라�s relationship with his self-serving needs? Is it his cold apathy to conscience and falling prey to dysthymic disorder? Is Kaustav a compulsive monogamist by his acute penchant for promiscuous desires or a compulsive libertine by his overdependence on Avik or a pervert who is given to sexual stalking where the love-sick Sunetra becomes his partner in the plenitude of wanton sexcapades? Doesn바카라�t Kaustav get a fictitious sense of control and a fillip to his erotic imagination by desiring Sunetra who walks along the self-blinded paths of the betrayal of conjugal relationship? Doesn바카라�t Kaustav바카라�s imaginative leap into Avik바카라�s sexual world allow him to experience moments of empathic epiphany and its consequent happiness? The discerning novelist seems to throw these loaded questions at readers.

Water recurs as an open-ended close to the narrative circle in the novel. The statement 바카라�Human beings were forms etched on water바카라� brings out the paradox of love and conjures up Sartre who contends that 바카라�바카라�the lover demands a pledge yet is irritated by the pledge. He wants to be loved by a freedom but demands that this freedom as freedom should no longer be free바카라�. The novel ends with an ironic recognition of love바카라�s elusiveness as Kaustav looks at his friend Avik: 바카라�Shapeless, slippery forms you were stupid enough to love.바카라�

The ending is a new beginning leaving readers with some probing questions: does this ironic recognition break the spell of self-deception? Isn바카라�t love a life-long quest for the unattainable or unknowable? Is this internal battle between acceptance and denial an inevitable part of human existence? The concluding statement of the novel 바카라�That바카라�s how you knew you were still alive.바카라� is epigrammatic in identifying the truths of this elusiveness that humans strive for. It is this pervasiveness of love, the aches and pains of homoerotic and beyond, that lends depths to the realms of sexual freedom and relationship, the understanding of mind/body binary, and the vagaries of human desire in affecting interpersonal relationships.

Saikat Majumdar바카라�s 바카라�The Remains of the Body바카라� seems to aim at harnessing the worldview of pan-sexuality that radiates the beauty of inclusion, empathy, and love; it is the worldview where the body never ceases to intrigue in unravelling the intimate texture of queer homoerotic sensibilities against the domineering hierarchy of heteronormativity.