“All autobiographies are lies – deliberate lies,” pronounced Bernard Shaw with his characteristic touch of exaggeration. While it would be unfair to dismiss all autobiographies as lies, it is reasonable not to expect the whole truth and nothing but truth in them. Fantasy and magic realism lend alluring charm to a work of art as evident in the work of Rushdie. Even a socially-conscious writer like Dickens veers into presenting the supernatural in one of his rare works. The artistic excellence of a writer like R K Narayan lies in his admirable political neutrality and objectivity. The struggles of women to assert their minimal freedom, find a room of their own and seek their identity continue to engage the attention of the writers and consequently of literary critics. In the context of increasing importance of communication skills for professionals, it is useful to adopt techniques like cooperative learning and stress the need for more expressive use of kinesics.

In the first paper, “The Interplay of Reality and Memory in R K Narayan’s Memoir My Days”, the author, Prerna Vanjani, examines the interplay of fantasy and memory in R K Narayan’s Memoir, My Days, bringing out the essentially uncomplicated reality of the writer’s life.

P V L Sailaja, N Ramakrishna and C R S Sarma, in their paper, “Portraying the Fantastic in Literary Fiction: Divakaruni’s The Conch Bearer Trilogy”, examine the role of magic and occult in The Conch Bearer trilogy of Chitra Divakaruni Banerjee, in which a conch possesses immense powers to guide and control a secret brotherhood and a herb confers long life.

P Indira Reddy, in her paper, “Magic Realism in Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall on Your Knees”, studies the blend of historical reality and personal fantasy, which contribute to the artistic excellence of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children and Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall on Your Knees. While Rushdie’s work narrates the personal and national history of Salim Sinai and India through magical imagination, the work of Ann-Marie MacDonald traces the life history and national history of Mehamood and Cape Breton.

Priyanka Tripathi and Anupma Singh, in their paper, “Supernatural Proximity: Fantasy and Fiction in Charles Dickens’s The Bagman’s Story”, study Dickens’ The Bagman’s Story, which is narrated with a touch of the supernatural when an old chair turns into an old grumpy man. In Dickens, there are no ghosts but merely products of one’s inebriated condition. Even so, the presence of the element of supernatural proximity in the short story is unusual for an avowed social realist like Dickens and the story relates to fantasy genre in fiction.

S Rukmini, in her paper, “Bhakti Through Literature: A Study of Poonthanam and Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri’s Literary Works”, traces the rise and sway of Bhakti Movement down South, especially Kerala, and the contribution of two stalwarts in Malayalam literature—Poonthanam and Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri. While the former is uneducated in the dominant Sanskrit lore and an inspired devotee of Lord of Gurvayur, the latter is an erudite scholar and composed durable songs in praise of Lord Narayana. But the Lord accepts the offerings of both with equal grace.

Ram Narayan Panda, in his paper, “Tennessee William’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Summer and Smoke: A Study in Sexual Differences”, brings out the posture of Tennessee Williams in relation to gender-related exploitation in the plays, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Summer and Smoke. While he does not go with D H Lawrence, who deifies the purity of sexual life, he considers it as a momentary relief rather than salvation. Williams portrays the binary opposition of barrenness and fertility through the characters of Maggie, who is barren, and of Big Ma and Mae, who are fertile. The author examines the use of body/soul dichotomy in the plays.

V Neethi Alexander, in her paper, “The Female Quester in Paul Auster’s In the Country of Last Things”, looks at the treatment of the role of women in society against the backdrop of the Holocaust of Jews in Paul Auster’s novel In the Country of Last Things. The female protagonist, Anna Blume, comes off as an alternative to the adventurous male through her display of remarkable poise and courage in her quest for the disappeared journalist colleague of hers in an alien city. The author denounces the archetypal American hero created by male writers like Arthur Miller, Bernard Malamud and Saul Bellow.

Deepali Prakash, in her paper, “Emerging Image of Women in Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse”, studies the changing attitude of women in Virginia Woolf’s novel, Mrs Dalloway, in the characters of Clarissa Dalloway, who wishes to seek her identity through realization of the innate strength of womanhood, and Elizabeth Dalloway, who would pursue a radical path by choosing to be a farmer or a doctor. In the other novel, To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf depicts the supremacy of mother’s love in the Ramsay family.

Among the few Telugu writers who invested literature with an intellectual/philosophical dimension, G V Krishna Rao is outstanding. GRK Murty, in his incisive study of the short stories of GVK in his paper, “G V Krishnarao’s Stories: An Analysis of Their Complex Range of Concerns”, brings out the keen social consciousness and ideological commitment of the writer in his presentation of the existential predicament of common folk in stories like “Chesukunna Karma”.

In their paper, “The Effectiveness of Cooperative Learning in Enhancing Life Skills Through Language”, the authors, C V Padmaja and B Sai Lakshmi, argue that cooperative learning will be effective in helping a learner improve his/her self-esteem, self-efficacy and self-confidence. As this technique involves group activity, it prepares the learner for future professional need for teamwork.
Communication is not entirely dependent on verbal expression. Dipika S Patel, in her paper, “Body Language: An Effective Tool”, shows that body language, comprising features like gestures, facial expression, eye contact, constitutes what is known as ‘kinesics.’

-- S S Prabhakar Rao
Consulting Editor