untouchable
by mulk raj anand
★★☆☆☆
dates read: 3/4/23 - 3/7/23
"Bakha is a proud and attractive young man, yet none the less he is an Untouchable - an outcast in India's caste system. It is a system that is even now only slowly changing and was then as cruel and debilitating as that of apartheid. Into this vivid re-creation of one day in the life of Bakha, sweeper and toilet-cleaner, Anand pours a vitality, fire and richness of detail that earn his place as one of the twentieth century's most important Indian writers. 'One of the most eloquent and imaginative works to deal with this difficult and emotive subject'" (taken from goodreads)
this is a book i don't think i would have read had it not been mandatory for school.
i read untouchable for my world literature class and it details a young indian man's experience in india under british colonial rule, focusing on the extremely oppressive caste system.
anand emphasizes the dehumanization of people at the bottom of the caste system, the "untouchables," and their desperate yearning to achieve any form of status, especially in accordance with euro-centric standards. it was a difficult read to get through.
this book gets very repetitive, very fast, in its attempt to establish its themes. as a student who had to read this book within two days, i didn't need to be hit over the head multiple times with bakha's internalized racism or his obsession with possessing a european wardrobe or how much he wanted to be a "sahib." don't get me wrong, i think that the point anand was circling was important and prevalent to the context of the story. untouchable is one of many books that exemplifies the aftermath of british colonialism. however, i easily started to tire of hearing the same thing over and over again. there is little creativity in implementing these concepts within the story and they often appeared throughout the text in the same fashion with the same language.
the ending of untouchable was relatively anti-climactic, aside from bakha witnessing gandhi's speech, when he is faced with three solutions to the caste system. but it did provoke an interesting discourse on which solution would ilicit the best results in class. anand does not present the reader with one clear answer, with each option having radically different effects, and instead leaves such contemplations up to the reader.
in all honesty, untouchable is a dry read and i found it tedious to get through at many points in the novel. despite already being a relatively short book, i think it was a bit too long. the sentences are concise with little imagination involved in crafting diction, making it feel like a book i had to read for class.
