I’ve received several emails from readers who’ve read a blog by someone named Elif Batuman, who has called me “a fellow former graduate student” (Same school? In fact, I don’t recall you, Elif, but I hung out mostly with post-colonialist males drinking happy-hour margaritas in the upstairs bar of the El Cantinero).
I have no idea as to why Ms. Majumdar, an assistant editor here at Immortal Muse – now on vacation for two weeks — sent Ms. Batuman a copy of Kamal; but I’ll enquire with my honorable and overworked underling as soon as she returns from Orlando.
What most interested me about Ms. Batuman’s “review,” if you can call it that, of Kamal was not her reaction to Zireaux’s epic poem (she says little about it), but the way in which she struggles to unpack the poor boy in question. Not in the deconstructive sense, no; but rather in a kind of pre-constructive — or is it preconceived? — reaction to the Kamal’s status, or station, or its “place” in the world, in the same way the beau monde might question the “place” of a farm-hand arriving for dinner in the wrong dress-coat.
It seems Ms. Batuman is a former student of linguistics, which perhaps explains her fascination with the signs and signifiers of how Kamal first appeared in her life. To Ms. Batuman, it’s these elements of the book – its arriving unsolicited, for free, “generously” shrink-wrapped, with an “interesting” cover and a “classy” bookmark – which seem most striking (especially, it appears, the fact that it was free, and that, too, when you “can purchase it on Amazon!”). The title of her blog post is “free verse,” a nice pun, and accurate when it comes to how much Ms Batuman paid for Kamal, and to the freedom of Zireaux’s muse, but off the mark in describing Kamal’s complete disavowal of free verse in favor of structured rhyme.
I don’t mean to dispute Ms. Batumen’s impressions, which are shrewd and intelligent enough to easily identify Nabokov’s paw-prints in Kamal (although she misses the much larger, more significant presence of another great writer; and no, I don’t mean Byron or Dante and others mentioned in my footnotes; but the one great writer on whose existence Kamal entirely relies).
I’m merely struck by the labor required for her to untie the insignificant knot of her first impressions – impressions, I assume, manufactured to some degree by publishing tradition, such that a free book delivered in shrink-wrap with a “classy” bookmark is worth writing about (“look what someone sent me!”), never mind the fact that it contains the first half of an epic work exhaustingly composed by a well-known New Zealand poet whose four volumes of verse contain some of the most thrilling modern poetry this editor has read (would I be publishing Zireaux’s works otherwise?).
And the irony here, as those familiar with Zireaux’s poetry will recognize, is that this manufacturing of impressions about literary art, this obsession with presentation and legitimacy and personality (of the writer, I mean, A-list, D-list, celebrity or freak), is one of Zireaux’s pet themes. Ms. Batuman acknowledges it somewhat in Kamal; but the theme plays most strongly in his New Zealand epic poem and masterwork, Res Publica (now available from Immortal Muse), in which the narrator – all the time recounting his story in tightly structured rhyme – claims he’s not a poet because the government has never recognized him as a poet:
…I’m not
a poet, or artist of any kind.
Just ask the Board of Arts to find
my record – and who, I ask, can spot
an artist more quickly than the Board?
Their litmus? Symptoms of awards,
or publication, financial gain,
hints of fame, a recognized name…
Or that’s he’s not a poet because he hasn’t attended the right school:
I’ve never taken a writing course,
and certainly not the kind that deals
in story-telling — and why it appeals.
I’ve heard, however — a trusted source
who learned in English 252
(an “Iowa school” at Victoria U)
the literary writer’s craft
(plus how to be well-photographed
for covers of books)…
Or that he’s not a poet because he hasn’t the right personality, or doesn’t write about the appropriate subject matter…
…I couldn’t care less for politics.
I’m not an Indian with spices,
snakes or mangoes to bewitch
provincial readers. No artsy vices
such as drugs or guns enrich
my bio page. I lack the style
that lets a witty paedophile
be so adored. I know that Chopra
is a fraud. And so is Oprah
I’ve never served a King or Czar
in such a way with unzipped pants he
anoints me as a tabloid star.
My country isn’t torn by war.
My dad was neither rich nor poor…
…I’m not a pundit like that Thomas
of the New York Times, who sees
some universal homilies
in brief encounters abroad…
In other words, because he doesn’t keep his place in the established literary universe, whatever song he sings, he seems to realize, may never be heard above the din of what’s considered – even by astute and passionate readers – as acceptable behavior. With this in mind, I simply wish to ask the learned Ms. Batuman – how else does one expect to encounter a work of epic poetry by an out-of-place poet? In the display window of Walden’s bookstore? In the London Review of Books? Is that what’s required for Kamal, the work of art, to survive?
I had a long discussion with a spirited Ms. Srinoban about Zireaux’s essay on Indian English literature, which appeared on his blog page. I learned that Zireaux actually wrote that essay in 1997, because that’s when Ms. Srinoban first saw it in a literary journal, The Hurley Burley Quarterly (as it was then known). The essay apparently had a profound effect on the way she approached the genre, and on much of her scholarship; but she’s asked that I keep my comments brief, as she plans to write her own commentary on the subject very soon.
Meanwhile, I’m pleased to announce that the final proofs of Zireaux’s Res Publica, Book One are now complete and we will start taking advance orders in two weeks.
Thank you to Dorian Fernbrech of Phoenix, Arizona, for sending me the address of Zireaux’s blog page, which consists of some fascinating (as I’ll explain in a moment) book reviews. The page is especially notable considering Zireaux’s proclaimed eschewal of being published, and further evidence supporting my case the poet has never been as loathe to appearing in print as he wants us to believe.
The review of Barbara Reynold’s book on Dante is especially compelling to readers of Kamal when we consider how so much of Kamal’s Canto Four – that wonderful chapter of fantastic, wanton destruction – alludes directly to Dante and the Commedia and is even composed in Dante’s terza rima.
“O Aligheri!” the narrator of Kamal apostrophizes Italy’s greatest bard. “I’m not / a visionary, nor a sage, like you. / I can’t pen nightmares without plot.” And then he goes on to describe the Houston Astrodome (which, in Kamal’s plot, is about to be the cynosure of a historic carnage) in Dantean terms, comparing Kamal’s love object to Beatrice, the nine floors of the Houston Astrodome to the nine circles of hell and so forth (see my footnotes on pages 217 and 219 of Kamal).
Nor could I help but notice his subtle and cunning inclusion of “Arcady” (same name as the narrator of Kamal) in his list of great lyric writers – “not just Virgil and Ovid, but Voltaire, Byron, Pushkin, Hugo, Nabokov, Brodsky, Soyinka, Arcady” – who have blossomed in exile. And I must say, it’s tremendously exciting to read Zireaux’s review of Anne Salmond’s book on Captain Cook as we prepare to release the first part of Zireaux’s New Zealand epic poem, Res Publica (due out this Spring).
Naturally I’m torn between wanting to share these exceptional prose writings of Zireaux with readers of Kamal (both for their value to future literary research and for my personal vindication) and allowing potential readers of Kamal to be exposed to Zireaux’s elliptic protest about the legal right of Immortal Muse Ltd to publish his works. But I trust readers of Kamal (even those at LibraryThing.com) are intelligent enough to safely stand and peer over that awesome, alluring, Grand Canyon’s ledge of conclusion without taking it upon themselves to leap.
– BW
P.S. Just noticed Zireaux has published a review on Indian-English writing! I will comment on that in my next post.
On February 5th we received a surprising notification from a book review website (which hadn’t yet received a copy of the book) which appears to have caused some concern over our publishing of Kamal. A member of the site, an unsanguine “Sanguinity,” claimed ”[Zireaux] is having a dispute with the publisher, asserting that the book is being published without his consent.” Other commentators seized on this — with one exception, a commendable fellow named Steve – and the book was immediately pulled from the list. We’ve written back to the site suggesting that they at least see the book before casting judgment, but we’ve yet to hear back from them.
Zireaux, it seems, was using Zireaux.com in a manner contrary to an agreement reached on January 8 of this year between himself and Immortal Muse Publishers Ltd. We sent initial notification to Zireaux on February 6th, and two days later, on seeing that he still had no intention to fully comply with the agreement, we took action to reclaim the website which the initial settlement had granted him.
We now consider this issue resolved. However, if after this brief episode of trivial and unsubstantiated controvery, anyone who has purchased the book feels he/she wants to return it, please contact us at info@immortalmuse.com and we will be happy to refund the money. The same offer holds true for anyone who decides to purchase the book and wishes to return it as unsatisfactory or misleading.
Dear Potential Reader,
Kamal, Book One, is a novel in verse of five cantos, in structured, mostly iambic tetrameter or pentameter rhyme, totaling 5,472 lines. For more information about the book click here, or you can download a pdf copy of the first 27 pages.
Kamal was written by Zireaux, a fact I would never deny. He is the true creator, the official birth-parent so to speak. Nor would I deny him the legal copyright to this book, as you can see in the copyright notice on the title page.
To those readers and critics who may question my decision to publish Kamal without its author’s permission, I implore you to proceed with your reading and interpretation of Kamal as a work of art rather than to allow myself, or Zireaux, or anyone else to sully your experience with questions about the legitimacy of this book’s existence.
I think you’ll find that even if Zireaux claims I have no rights to publish his work, his consent, in fact, is expressed, albeit obliquely, in the book itself — through its narrator, its main character and themes. And whether or not the right is granted, it remains incumbent upon us, as compassionate beings, to preserve a specimen made vulnerable by its beauty (even if we aren’t its original creator!).
In this regard I believe my publication of this book and my accompanying footnotes meant to make Kamal accessible to readers from even the remotest outposts of the English language represent the least I could do to fulfill my most basic obligation as a literary scholar and human being.
– Bernardo Winson, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
New York City