Fable and fantasy. Review on Everest Hotel, The, Allan Sealy

Poetry they say is the sublime and surreal expression of the fancy thoughts and imaginations of the artist. The flow of words and the magic of the locution, conveyances the reader to a land of dreams, a land of the writer?s imaginations.

No wonder lovers of the fine arts have held the poets in such high esteem. They have been hailed as the greatest gifts to mankind because like sorcerers they can mould their ideas to take different shapes and present them in hues both flashy and yet sober at the same time.

Poetic scenery and poesy rhythm is indeed like wine to be savored, something which intoxicates and leaves a spell on the reader, slow yet sure.

Poem is ethereal while prose has often been bandied for its dull wryness, a bias that most artists who practice it have had to live by. Some of them have complained of it, while some have learned to live by the hard truth, only some have dared to raise the level of prose to that of the poem, and when they have failed in that they have taken recourse to the use of poetic lyricism in their writing style, smart people indeed they are.

In the Indian context one name that comes to mind for someone who has used poetic imagery so brilliantly in his prose is the incomparable mahakavi Kalidas. It seems that the writer of my review also seemed to have taken a cue from the great man?s book and set forth on a poetic journey through the by lanes of prose.

Winner of the Crossword Book of the year award, the Allahabad born, Delhi University graduate, ladies and gentlemen presenting before you the author of The Everest Hotel, Mr.Alan Sealy. Sealy dabbled with writing with works like Trotter-Nama, Hero and a travelogue From Yukon to Yucatan before finally writing the Everest Hotel. Sealy comes across as a honest writer who doesn?t sugar coat his plot to hide the grim realities of life. He conjures up a plot full of emotion and heart, a novel, which encompasses so much in it, that it is a connoisseur?s delight to state the obvious.

The Everest Hotel is the center stage of the novel. Everest hotel used to be an impressive hotel once upon a time, which due to the vagaries of time and pressures of money and mind had been reduced to being home to a curious band of eccentrics, geriatrics and orphans. In the small town of Drummondganj in Himachal Pradesh this is their only claim to fame apart from the natural beauty and scenic wealth, which Mother Nature has spread all around in abundance.

The plot revolves around life at the Everest Hotel and how into this small and extraordinary community comes Ritu, a young nun entrusted with the task of nursing the Everest's ninety-year-old owner, sometime mountaineer and flower-hunter Jed. Ritu strikes up a secret, guilty friendship with Brij, bodybuilder and frequent visitor. Then another newcomer, Inge, a young neo-Nazi, upsets the precarious equilibrium of life at the Everest. Well so much so for the story, in fact this time around I have disclosed more then what?s my wont generally.

The Everest Hotel is a continuation of the brilliant Indian tradition which was started by the great Kalidas in his epic Ritusamhara(garland of seasons). The brilliant use of providing a backdrop of seasons for a love story is the highlight of this book and is a real gem of a work. In a uniquely lyrical and poetic blend Sealy explores life at Everest and how the inhabitants strike equilibrium both within the place and without, each of it to be broken with the coming of new comers in their lives. The portrayal of their changing lives with the seasons and the eccentricities of each of them are indeed wonderfully done. The lyrical prose transforms the daily life into a sensual pleasurable experience. The book is sheer delight for the use of imagery and seasonal vibrancy to talk about the lives and daily activities of the dramatis personae.

Sealy uses the colors of nature and the changing seasons to depict the changes in the lives of his protagonists and he blends poetry with prose so very subtly that what comes out is a true masterpiece. Everest Hotel comes across as one in the tradition of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Heat and Dust, and Rumer Godden's Black Narcissus. It comes across as a comédie humaine of nationalities, ages and temperaments, the inhabitants of Everest are derived from both the building?s incarnations, and represent a multi-vocal celebration of character on the part of the author. Consider this ?January is an emerald dove in the silk cotton tree. Tiny fruit on the mulberry [?]? (171). Sanskrit dhvani-rasa aesthetics as Sealy points out, in the after word of his novel, that in the beamish poetic form, ?the lamenting voice is usually that of a woman. The beauty of this book lies in the use of words to speak different languages with the changing seasons, and to the least it is most enthralling.

Parallelism is drawn brilliantly as the bordering cemetery, which is known by the same name (Ever-rest), the overwritten histories of the subcontinent gather as a multifarious, irrepressible challenge to the communal tenor of India?s political present. The hotel is portrayed as the confluence where people from various hues of life come along; they being different in their beliefs, ideas and geographies are yet linked together by a common bond. As the cemetery knows no differences once a man leaves for the heavenly abode so the same with the hotel, which doesn?t distinguish on the various barriers, that man has created to divide amongst himself. The book comes across as a tour de force with its bold theme and subtle presentation style.

when and whom this book would come as a wonderful pastime for someone not looking to dabble into the realm of ideas and philosophy. It would also be a good companion if you are looking at impressing the lady on the next seat and should work as a wonderful subject to strike up a conversation. It should also be a good book for both the youthful teenagers and the not too youthful elders, comes across as an unputdownable book. All in all a book which you can read any time of the day as long as you are not in a depressed insomniac mood.

P.S. People who have read the book please share your views on the ideas and strands that Sealy talks about in the book, how do you relate to the subtle parallelism he talks about and the wonderful usage of seasonal cycles to highlight the effect of the plot?