Maitreyi Devi
Paperback | Pages: 264 pages Rating: 3.91 | 1990 Users | 92 Reviews
Mention Based On Books It Does Not Die
| Title | : | It Does Not Die |
| Author | : | Maitreyi Devi |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 264 pages |
| Published | : | April 1st 1995 by University of Chicago Press (first published 1974) |
| Categories | : | Romance. Cultural. India. Autobiography. Memoir. Biography |
Relation Concering Books It Does Not Die
Precocious, a poet, a philosopher's daughter, Maitreyi Devi was sixteen years old in 1930 when Mircea Eliade came to Calcutta to study with her father. More than forty years passed before Devi read Bengal Nights, the novel Eliade had fashioned out of their encounter, only to find small details and phrases, even her given name, bringing back episodes and feelings she had spent decades trying to forget. It Does Not Die is Devi's response. In part a counter to Eliade's fantasies, the book is also a moving account of a first love fraught with cultural tensions, of false starts and lasting regrets. Proud of her intelligence, Maitreyi Devi's father had provided her with a fine and, for that time, remarkably liberal education — and encouraged his brilliant foreign student, Eliade, to study with her. "We were two good exhibits in his museum," Devi writes. They were also, as it turned out, deeply taken with each other. When their secret romance was discovered, Devi's father banished the young Eliade from their home. Against a rich backdrop of life in an upper-caste Hindu household, Devi powerfully recreates the confusion of an over-educated child simultaneously confronting sex and the differences, not only between European and Indian cultures, but also between her mother's and father's view of what was right. Amid a tangle of misunderstandings, between a European man and an Indian girl, between student and teacher, husband and wife, father and daughter, she describes a romance unfolding in the face of cultural differences but finally succumbing to cultural constraints. On its own, It Does Not Die is a fascinating story of cultural conflict and thwarted love. Read together with Eliade's Bengal Nights, Devi's "romance" is a powerful study of what happens when the oppositions between innocence and experience, enchantment and disillusion, and cultural difference and colonial arrogance collide. "In two novels written forty years apart, a man and a woman tell stories of their love. . . . Taken together they provide an unusually touching story of young love unable to prevail against an opposition whose strength was tragically buttressed by the uncertainties of a cultural divide."—Isabel Colegate, New York Times Book Review "Recreates, with extraordinary vividness, the 16-year-old in love that she had been. . . . Maitreyi is entirely, disarmingly open about her emotions. . . . An impassioned plea for truth."—Anita Desai, New Republic "Something between a reunion and a duel. Together they detonate the classic bipolarities: East-West, life-art, woman-man."—Richard Eder, New York Newsday "One good confession deserves another. . . . Both books gracefully trace the authors' doomed love affair and its emotional aftermath."—Nina Mehta, Chicago TribuneList Books Conducive To It Does Not Die
| Original Title: | Na Hanyate |
| ISBN: | 0226143651 (ISBN13: 9780226143651) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating Based On Books It Does Not Die
Ratings: 3.91 From 1990 Users | 92 ReviewsJudgment Based On Books It Does Not Die
For me the book was an intense philosophic, emotional and self-reflection retreat.I highly appreciated all the insides of India and indian culture given by Maitreyi with widely open mind and heart. Also I admire her for the strength to carry, to understand and to process everything she has been through and the way she succeeded to express in writing. This book has opened my eyes like a personal developement book.I didn't know love stories could make me tear anymore. Didn't know I still had it in me. It was a tough read given all the sanskrit, but I received the emotions alright.
For a book that is often considered a "response" to Mircea Eliade's Bengal Nights, and an attempt for Maitreyi to tell her own story of their adolescent romance, the most wonderful thing I got from this book is that it does a much better job of humanizing Mircea and making him sympathetic than his own book did. In my review of Mircea's book I came away from it thinking he suffered from more than the usual young man's vanity and lack of self-awareness, and wondering why people seemed to think it
Mircea Eliade, a respected Romanian expert on science and religion, went to India at a young age to study. There, he fell in love with the daughter of his teacher/master. What followed was scandal and a life-long separation. Mircea wrote a very transparent novel called "Bengal Nights". 40 years later, the girl finally read it, and wrote a book in answer to his. Gorgeous story.
A great novel. Handles all the human emotions so deftly.
Somewhat difficult to read because of the absence of editing, but a thoughtful and at times poetic must-read response to Bengal Nights.
I have read this novel in it's regional language and the way Maitreyi Devi has written it, the way she has poured down her heart into words is brilliant and truly an unforgettable story. I have not laid my eyes on it's English translation to comment about it but as reviews goes I can be affirmative that the regional version is better in expressing the writer's words.
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