Bloggasm

Hurree Babu borrowed his pseudonym from Kipling’s Kim, where the Babu features as a rotund Bengali given to verbosity who enjoys playing the Great Game. S/he runs Kitabkhana–this would roughly translate as “library,” or more poetically as “the house of books,” a semi-literary, semi-literate blog about authors, books and reading, with a focus on India.

Simon Owens: Do you think lit blogs are changing the shape of literary criticism in any ways? Does it create a much more open dialogue about a particular book?

Hurree Babu: Before lit blogging took off, literary criticism was a lot like a formal debate–occasionally, a formal duel if the author and reviewer disagreed strongly! The review connected the critic and the author; the reader was almost always a passive, silent presence. Lit blogs allow far more flexibility. Readers can jump in with their comments; it’s not uncommon to have the author respond to a particular comment or opinion, and the conversation flows in many directions at the same time. It also changes what a critic or reviewer can do–instead of being tied down by word count and by the demands of a formal review/ essay, you’re free to post a brief comment, or write a more personal piece, or to link to several other opinions in the course of one post. At its best, litblogging can enable something like a coffeehouse conversation.

In Bengal, we grew up with the idea of the “adda” versus the podium: the “adda” was an informal, but often intense and lengthy discussion that could take place anyway–at the university, on the open lawns of the Maidan, at the local tea shop, a friend’s house. The podium was where the official speeches and the formal arguments were made; the adda was often the place where multiple opinions came into play, where you could go back and forth and discuss several aspects of a book or its author, where there was constant feedback, and constant challenge. That’s what litblogging reminds me of–an adda, where everyone’s free to join, and where the openness doesn’t necessarily imply a lack of intellectual rigour.

I think the openness isn’t limited to particular books–it goes a long way beyond. It is possible, of course, to discuss a book on your blog over a period of months–something that just wouldn’t happen in conventional media. But what I love about litblogging is that you can do anything. Post a series of quotes from out-of-print histories of Delhi. Link to the old, classical form of a verse known as a ghazal and link to the new versions that contemporary Asian poets are producing. Discuss the publishing industry, or post a review, or ask your readers what they’ve been reading lately. It’s a 360 degree way to look at books and reading.

Simon Owens: Several of your readers noted that your blog had been banned in India. Why is this so?

Hurree Babu: I wish I could say it was my revolutionary prose and incendiary ideas that called a ban down on Kitabkhana’s head, but the truth is far more mundane. Some months ago, a particular Indian government department decided that a few websites needed to be blocked. One or two were religious rightwing sites that were known for their abusive speech against other religious communities, a couple were the usual harmless cranks, and one–we were puzzled by this–was a Dutch site with a suggestive name that had, however, almost no pornographic content. I have no idea why the government decided these sites were a threat to the state, but they decided to shut them down–and they did this by blocking blogspot.com, wordpress.com and other domains in toto! The “ban” was lifted after several bloggers and other Net users got together and protested, and hasn’t been imposed again. What did worry us was not the ban itself–which was clumsy and badly implemented–but the fact that cyberlaw in India, at present, allows the state to shut down pretty much any site it wants to, without telling its citizens what sites have been banned, and for what reasons. Kitabkhana and other sites on Blogger were affected for just a few days, but for those few days, we received a small sense of what it might be like to live in a country where the rules and rights of democracy didn’t apply. It wasn’t pleasant.

Simon Owens: I’ve noticed in my interviews that lots of book bloggers have been commissioned to do book reviews in mainstream media publications. Does owning a book blog open the doors to other writing venues?

Hurree Babu: In my case, it’s made only a small difference, since I’ve been writing a literary column and doing book reviews for mainstream media for years before Kitabkhana started up. But I do know of several other people who were “discovered” as potential writers by the mainstream media through their blogs, and when asked by colleagues at newspapers for new writers and reviewers, I tend to mention bloggers fairly often. Most of the work I’ve done for magazines and newspapers outside India has come through Kitabkhana, though, and–this is the best part–having the blog has also introduced me to many readers and writers I would never have met otherwise.

Simon Owens: Do you have a favorite particular genre you like to read?

Hurree Babu: Hmmm. The old epics–you can’t beat the Iliad for blood, gore and violence, Beowulf is a great dysfunctional family story, the Mahabharata and the Odyssey are classic travel literature, and the Norse sagas rock. Food memoirs–I’m a very amateur cook, so it’s nice to get the professional’s perspective; graphic novels, which were hard to find in India until very recently; and travel books, especially the ones written by monomaniacs. You know the type: the ones who won’t rest until they find the perfect arm-chewing team of huskies or the last samurai sword used in battle or who will cross three continents in search of an ancient manuscript they happen to love.

Simon Owens: What upcoming book publications are you looking forward to the most?

Hurree Babu: Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, because I loved his debut novel, Moth Smoke, so much; William Dalrymple’s history of The Last Mughal, Bahadur Shah Zafar, which is also in part a history of my city, Delhi; a new anthology of 60 Indian poets in English that poet Jeet Thayil is editing for Penguin; Alice Munro’s collection of short stories, The View From Castle Rock, among other books.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs you’d recommend to supplement the reading of your own?

Hurree Babu: From India, Jai Arjun Singh’s Jabberwock (books, film, sports, inspired lunacy); Prufrock’s Page which is a good lit filterblog; Amardeep Singh, whose criticism I respect. Elsewhere there’s so many, from the Bookslut to Bookninja, GalleyCat, The Elegant Variation, The Old Hag, that it’s hard to choose–but pressed, I’d pick Maud Newton and Moorish Girl.

(Related posts: Interview with Bella Stander from Reading Under the Covers, Interview with POD-dy Mouth, Interview with Chandrahas Choudhury from The Middle Stage)