All about H. Hatterr: A Novel [B0651]

1986 french-flap PB reprint in nice condition. All About H. Hatterr (1948) is a classic novel by G. V. Desani chronicling the adventures of an Anglo-Malay man in search of wisdom and enlightenment. "As far back as in 1951," Desani later wrote, "I said H. Hatterr was a portrait of a man, the common vulgar species, found everywhere, both in the East and in the West". Salman Rushdie comments: "The writer I have placed alongside Narayan, G.V. Desani, has fallen so far from favour that the extraordinary All About H. Hatterr is presently out of print everywhere, even in India." Milan Kundera once said that all modern literature descends from either Richardson's Clarissa or Sterne's Tristram Shandy, and if Narayan is India's Richardson, then Desani is his Shandean other. Hatterr's dazzling, puzzling, leaping prose is the first genuine effort to go beyond the Englishness of the English language. His central figure, 'fifty-fifty of the species,' the half-breed as unabashed anti-hero, leaps and capers behind many of the texts in this book.

From mixed recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Reading this book makes me feel like I don't know English."; "Delightfully weird. It has a plot but it's about language. The narrator uses a sort of pidgin English containing Indian ideas and words as well as European and American textual artifacts. It's like nothing else I've read. A sophisticated reader in his 20's didn't like it but hey, he's in his 20's so I have more credibility, right?"; "Complete madness. All About H.Hatterr is a unique and baffling book that makes you question the roots of comedy in English."; "A complete delight, i enjoyed every second of it. I feel this book is going to become one of my favourites."; "This book is low key unintelligible at times, but the playing with language is so much fun that it's mostly worth the struggle of understanding the book. I think a lot of if isn't meant to be totally understood either,"; "A hidden gem. Hilariously funny and surprisingly original."