Hotel London: How Victorian Commercial Hospitality Shaped a Nation and its Stories by Barbara Black (review)

Abstract

of adult politics” (130) and to subvert the dictates of “institutions” (135). His use of the ironic mode diverts his work from any “monologic culmination” (137). As well, Biswas underlines the carnivalesque function of Narayan’s settings: “the public square” (151) that “swarms with fools, clowns and rogues who” have no sense of “inhibition, shame and responsibility” (151). Malgudi is a “metamorphic” (152) place where the crowd has the power to mutate or regenerate itself and to alter the life course of ordinary individuals. Biswas shows the utility of the Bakhtinian approach to fictional texts and succeeds in showcasing Narayan’s novels as examples in which Bakhtin’s ideas are relevant. Often the critical response to Narayan’s works has tended to be unfavorable since they were misconstrued as lacking seriousness. However, Biswas’s insightful carnivalesque approach demonstrates that Narayan’s choice of the comic mode and its subversive function offers an alternative but serious outlook on society. Indeed, “the language of laughter. . . [the] much needed antidote to ideological abstraction” (158) redeems Narayan from these criticisms. The application of Bakhtin’s ideas also affirms the suitability of Narayan’s novels for shaking bourgeois ideas and giving voice to ideas that are privately shared, but not always publicly expressed.