His Beautiful Marbled Palace

The story ‘His beautiful marbled Palace’ borrows its roles from the tradition of magic realism. Which amounts to saying that it is an art that stoops to artifice, yet fails to take in even a most gullible enthusiast of literary novelty. Doubtless, here and there, one finds a spark of true artistic felicity (e.g. ‘Her mirror never lies, so she stopped asking. Ever so often she checks if it has learnt to be wiser’ Or ‘.. a pain rises impulsively but quickly changes its mind and disappears’) but too many descriptive expressions that pretend to be imaginative ingenuity fall a cropper. They smack of craft-too much craft.

The geological tremors of the protagonist meant to convey his shivering create no stir in the reader. Besides the writer attempts to give his story (a very typical American fad) a Judo- historical slant: ‘Forty years of circling round’, ‘exile’, ‘a whole nation condemned’, ‘ manna’. But it gives the reader no dig. While it may draw somebody with holocaust sympathies on the side of the writer, such an insertion does not inhave meaningfully at all in the total design of the story.

The writer’s penchant for ugliness as well as for vivid description (e.g. the first ten lines contain over twenty adjectives and adverb) cripple its narrative force and undermine its literary ‘Freshness’. Truly, judging from the inscrutable aptness of the title (His beautiful Marbled Palace), this story belongs to the genre one art critic described as ‘anything the artist spits is art’.

Congratulations, Wasiq. This is the best short story I`ve read on Chowk. You should definitely submit it to national literary magazines and journals for more widespread publication.

I second the motion to have Wasiq listed on Chowk`s front page as a featured writer.

Watch out, Shandana. Here`s some real competition for you!

Wasiq--

I had to read this a couple of times to get a `real` sense of what was going on. You do have a facility with words. A number/data cruncher who can write, too? A right brain to match the left (I`m assuming you`re good at your techie work, too)--a real gift.

--AS

Re: temporal

Thanks for travelling along. I imagine an eye, sitting far away, and seeing footprints being etched on pristine snow. I imagine it follwing the paths taken by invisible travellers, some paths more circuitous than others, some paths leading nowhere and some paths coming abruptly to an end. How many paths end in the comfort and company of others, and how many end in isolation?

Re: afrasiyab

Thanks for the kind words and the encouragement. I loved your current article on Chowk.

Re: SR

Thank you for the wonderful compliments, I try to stay on the learning curve. I was not here to witness the welfare budget cuts of the eighties, whose effects are still visible. However, the disparity of wealth and standard of living that I see here is truly amazing.

Re: Anita

Thanks for the kind words. Isn`t it ironic that doctors, whose very reason for existence (in a manner of speaking) is to provide a cushion of comfort to people are basing their decisions on entirely economical reasons?

Re: bg

Thanks for liking the story and for the kind words.

Re: Saad

Thanks a lot for your generous compliments. I try and sometimes it works. Science ka dhanda uss din choron ga jabb koi lambi chori kahani likhon ga, kaheen yeh na ho keh ``chala hans ki chaal aur apni chaal bhi bhool gaya``.

Re: Ras

Thanks for liking the story and for your encouragement.

Re: Rishi

Thanks for the kind words.

Re: Wasiq

Especially liked the following lines.

--Her mirror never lies, so she stopped asking.

--Then life took her out to dinner.

--But the walls are not listening, they are already getting up and walking past him. So are the tables, chairs, lamps, mirrors, and faces, lots of unfamiliar gawking faces.

--Somewhere a pain rises impulsively but quickly changes its mind and disappears.

It was a pleasure reading you

Rishi

Takes a while to read this. One gets so engrossed in the beauty of the writing that the content of the story gets subdued.
Wonderfully descriptive.
As already suggested, the pursuit of a publisher is warranted. There is genuine talent here.

Ras

Surreal in all directions.

Wasiq, you walk on water. This is writing of genuine class and talent. I`m not a literary critic or anything, but your piece evoked imagery and emotion in me with such force that I physically felt the blow. Like my other friends who have responded here, I can but marvel at the depth and diversity of your gifts. Meri maano to yeh science ka dhanda choro aur Penguin ya Knopf say deal veal sign kar lo.

In awe and admiration,
Saad

wasiq, this was extremely well-written. the imagery is truly excellent.

Wasiq,

A masterpiece!

Grey, yes, its all grey - from our eyes, and from theirs - but not from the eyes of the Federal and State governments. Most mentally-ill remain uninsured. About half of the homeless are mentally ill, forcibly deinstitutionalized individuals. State subsidies are being cut further.

The medical establishment has been reduced to proving that it is `cost-effective` to provide shelters for the homeless, since it would decrease the number that end up coming to the Emergency Rooms for a place to spend the night. That`s the argument we are giving - a cost-saving argument, because in today`s world, nothing else cuts it.

Anita

Your writings keep outdoing previous ones. Wasiq, the no nonsense, two-plus-two-equals-four, scientist goes off into the realm of the surreal. The physicist peers through the foggy blur of a homeless cuckoo`s jumbled up mind and paints an impressionist gem.

Apart from the stylistic beauty, there is also a sociological statement. The welfare budget cuts of the Eighties took a brutal toll of the lowest of the down trodden. You`ve drawn a very personalized and sobering portrait of this not much talked about underbelly of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Bravo !!!

...SR

As usual, a great writer with some great work.

Chowk should allot you a special place like Shandana and others. Anybody to second this!

Amazing Wasiq:

As I read on, I collected selected phrases and sentences in my not easily bio-degradable heavy duty liquor store plastic bag. This bag soon became heavy, not with your phrases/sentences but with their connotations and meanings. I got tired lugging around this bag round and round the block. This bag, now pregnant, now kicking, about to burst open that I could not throw away. How could one throw away a lifetime`s hits and near misses. Tired and not willing to part with anything I move incessantly around the block with your protoganist. My last blurry vision of the world is from an insect`s angle. Everything is tall and disproportionate.

Thanks for taking me along on this sojourn. You are next on my list of invitees for a Toronto powow.

regards,