india author m 1- a-nan - University of Wollongong

widely used. Light humnour is almost nonexistent, but she makes good use of irony.
Markandaya never uses Indian proverbs and idioms. Occasionally her style becomes bookish
and mannered. Srivastava takes note of the changes in Markandaya's style from her first
novel, Nectar in a Sieve (1954), to her ninth The Golden Honeycomb (1977) which reveals
the maturity born of twenty years of writing. The Coffer Dams marks a major shift in her style
(PARAMESWARAN has also commented on this, (see item?)). Srivastava finds the style of
Two Virgins (1973) uninteresting, "sensationalism and sexual overtones do not add to the
credit of the author".
SINGH, R. S. "Soulful East and Ratiocinative West: Kamala Markandaya." Indian Novel in
English: A Critical Study (1977): 136-48.
Thematic study. Markandaya is above all concerned with the impact of the West.
Three novels, Nectar in a Sieve, Some Inner Fury, and Possession have women narrators and
circular plots. Singh discerns an autobiographical element in Possession and Some Inner Fury.
Markandaya is a novelist of "average emotion" who avoids the depiction of violence.
THUMBOO, EDWIN. "Kamala Markandaya's A Silence of Desire." JIWE 8, no.1/2
(1980): 108-36. Reprinted in Through Different Eves, edited by Kirpal Singh (Calcutta:
Writers Workshop, 1984): 151-91.
A Silence of Desire is built around issues relating to tradition and change, faith and a
scepticism attached to a modern, Western-derived attitude. The theme is introduced as a
domestic problem. The tension in A Silence of Desire is between the deeply held faith of
Sarojini, and the rational explanation and behaviour of her husband Dandekar. Markandaya is
too mature a novelist to offer a bald disquisition between "faith and reason". By the judicious
employment of description, summary and scene--almost all of which involve Dandekar--she
succeeds in translating the set of ideas into the action and consciousness of her characters.
The novelist does not depict the pressures on Sarojini, Thumboo assumes that their nondramatisation
accords with her image as a traditional wife.
VARMA, R. M. "The Bi-Cultural World of Kamala Markandaya's Novels." Some Aspects
of Indo-English Fiction (New Delhi: Jainsons Publishers, 1985): 32-66.
Two cultural worlds, belonging to two distinct races, are set in opposition to each
other. Varma describes various aspects (such as "overlordship and serfdom" "changing India",
"the Indian in England") of this love-hate relationship delineated in the nine novels of
Markandaya.
VENKATESWARAN, SHYAMALA. "The Language of Kamala Markandaya's Novels."
The Literary Criterion 9, no.3 (1970): 57-67.
Novelists like Raja Rao, Anand, and Bhattacharya translate the idiom of Indian
languages while depicting rural India. Markandaya makes no attempt to do so, probably
because her Indian village is not particularised, her peasants do not speak any specific Indian
language. The sophisticated English used by Rukmani, the village woman in Nectar in a Sieve,
or by the poor Ravi in A Handful of Rice, cannot reflect their sensibility. Her descriptions
betray Markandaya's ignorance of village India. She gets many details of village life wrong,
suggesting that she is reacting not to a specific village in India but to the Western audience's
image of an Indian village.
WALI, S.K. Kamala Markandaya: 'Nectar in a Sieve', A Stylistic Study Jaipur: Printwell
Publishers, 1987, x + 136 pp.