Describe 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 |
Maitreyi Devi
Paperback | Pages: 264 pages Rating: 3.91 | 1990 Users | 92 Reviews
Interpretation Toward 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 TribuneItemize Books Supposing 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 ReviewsCriticism Based On Books It Does Not Die
I would have normally rated this book to a 4 star value instead of 5, but I think it deserves greater recognition and respect if only for setting the story straight. The book is written as a response to Mircea Eliade's 'Maitreyi' novel, which is douchey to say the least. As revealed in this novel with her side of things (and which is indeed much more plausible than his, for reasons too many to count), he made public a fictional account of their otherwise platonic connection, describing athat "love never dies"...a cried a lot...
Revenge on an old lover (Mircea Eliade) by writing a far superior book. You go, girl!
A great novel. Handles all the human emotions so deftly.
The Bengali version ("Na Hanyate") that I had read, is palpable and a very honest account of intense young love. In her account, Maitreyi Devi was intrepid and set an example as a confident author doing justice to not just literature but to herself by catharsis. It's remarkable that it had left such strong imprints on the protagonists in real life (Mircea Eliade and Maitreyi Devi) that they penned it down independently in profuse detail after decades of detachment. Thus it qualifies for a
This is Amitreyi's touching answer to a book written about her by a Romanian student who lived in her father's house, in India, during her teenage years and who, in his book - Bengali Nights - claimed to have had an intense and intimate relationship with her during that time. Maitreyi finds out about the book and her alleged relationship with the Romanian student after many years, when she is a grown, educated woman. She decides to tell her own story.The Romanian student who, at 21 had received
Somewhat difficult to read because of the absence of editing, but a thoughtful and at times poetic must-read response to Bengal Nights.
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