I consider Narayan to be one of the best English-language novelists of our time. Some of his works are reminiscent of Chekhov: the same great sense of humor, the same sadness.

Graham Greene

Until recently, in the ancient Indian city of Mysore and its suburbs on the banks of the sacred river Kaveri, you could meet a friendly little man with a high forehead, glasses on the hump of his nose,and intelligent brown eyes behind them. An open smile, a laughing look immediately endeared her to him. It was the famous Indian writer R. K. Narayan.

He was born on October 10, 1906 in Madras, the son of a Brahmin teacher. Narayan's ancestors lived in the village of Razipuram near Madras - hence the first letter of his initials stands for Razipuram. The middle name is Krishnaswami-from the name of his father, Krishnaswami Ayyar. This gave rise to the full name Razipuram Krishnaswami Narayan.

Outwardly, the writer was no different from other Indians: dark skin, white dhoti, sandals on bare feet, very natural and simple. But Narayan's increased asceticism in the way of life aroused a special interest among Mysoreans. In the minds of some, he was a wise mentor, and they always treated him with reverence, like a holy guru. Others thought that he was a spiritualist or a mystic: there was something demonically mysterious about him, like a medium communicating with the inhabitants of the other world. Still others held to the most common version: R. K. Narayan is a modest man, a religious Indian, there is nothing divine or demonic about him.

WINNER OF THE LITERARY ACADEMY OF INDIA AWARD

The writer preferred long walks to all entertainment. With them, he began the working day. They gave him inspiration, sometimes suggested a plot. He especially liked to be among people: in crowded squares or a noisy bazaar. There, his sharp eye always noticed something interesting, while the average passerby saw nothing but the mundane and ordinary.

With new experiences, Narayan plunged into the silence of his office. When he wrote, he preferred to be alone with his thoughts, avoided meetings with friends and acquaintances, did not open letters, did not read books and newspapers: nothing should distract him from work.

The creative process always brought Narayan a sense of joy, so the writer never called his favorite activity work in the usual sense of the word. For Narayan, life without the ability to express an artistic credo was simply meaningless. The need to write became a major necessity for him.

When the list of writers awarded the Indian Academy of Literature Award was announced on the radio in 1961, R. K. Narayan was among them. He did not hear the program himself, but soon received a telegram from a friend: "Congratulations on the award"¹. For the writer, this news was so unexpected that he decided that it was probably a mistake, or a practical joke. But his friend had not misheard him. Razipuram Krishnaswamy Narayan became the first English-speaking Indian writer to be awarded the Literary Academy of India Award.

Narayan loved music and played the veena-Indian guitar himself. Sometimes, on a quiet, calm evening, he would pick up the instrument, run his thin fingers along the strings, and the tart air of the south would come out.-

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the noise of the night filled with melodious sounds.

The writer's mother, a devout Hindu, all her life piously honored the rites of Hinduism, followed the rules prescribed by the religion. In the spirit of honoring religious customs, she also brought up children: morning ablutions, prayers, vegetarianism. The family did not eat meat, did not drink alcoholic beverages. "I can't even tell wine from beer," Narayan said. "All alcoholic beverages seem like poison to me. But I am well versed in the coffee "vineyards" of South India, I can learn the variety of coffee from one sip " ².

GRAHAM GREENE AS NARAYAN'S GODFATHER

It happens like this in real life: people correspond with each other, but they don't know each other personally. The correspondence lasts for a year, two, five, or ten years. A sincere attachment arises between the addressees. It was this correspondence friendship that connected R. K. Narayan with the outstanding English writer Graham Greene. This correspondence began in the 1930s, when a young Indian who had graduated from Mysore University decided to devote his life to artistic creation. His literary first child, which was published, was the story "Swami and his friends". But the appearance of the story was preceded by painful twists and turns. The work turned out to be highly social, and the authorities banned its publication.

Having given up hope of publishing the story in his homeland, Narayan sent it to his childhood friend Purna in London, who gave it directly to Graham Greene. It was to him that the honor of R. K. Narayan's "discovery" belonged. It was he who extended his hand to the aspiring Indian writer. Many years later, Green recalled the episode: "An Indian friend of mine sent me a very 'blind' manuscript before the war and asked me to read it... The manuscript sat on the desk for several weeks. But then...I decided to read it and was completely fascinated by it. This is the story of an Indian child, called "Swami and his Friends". I persuaded the publisher to publish the book"³. In his turn, Narayan wrote in 1953 with gratitude:: "The attention of Graham Greene has become an incentive for the development of my work. He inspired me for twenty years, even though we never met. I consider Graham not only an outstanding writer, but also the most wonderful and best friend that a person can have on earth. " ⁴

The story "Swami and his friends" was published in London in 1935 with a foreword by the English master and was a great success.

Since then, Narayan has always presented every novel and book to his "godfather", who blessed him to sail on the literary ocean. Every time he received a precious package from Mysore, Green enjoyed immersing himself in the provincial life of the town of Malgudi, lost somewhere in southern India. Each hero and heroine is overwhelmed by the flow of life, they are among people on the streets, among neighbors, at a noisy train station, in the complex life of school and college, among the great and small sorrows and joys of people-everywhere. Graham Greene emphasizes the veracity and vitality of Narayan's images: "When you close a book, its characters disappear from the pages to become part of the life around you." ⁵

THE ONE AND ONLY

R. K. Narayan's literary debut took place late, and at first his career was strewn with thorns. Recalling the difficult time for himself, the writer in an interview with the Indian Express newspaper in 1961 told about himself: "It was 1934 - the year of my marriage. I started writing for magazines and newspapers, but was rejected everywhere. It was a period of terrible poverty and wasted creative hopes. I don't think I could go through that again."⁶

An "unearthly" love helped him overcome everyday difficulties when Narayan accidentally met a girl at the water pump in the spring. The beauty of the stranger immediately won the future writer: tall and slender, she had a figure of classical proportions, and her face rivaled sculpture in sharpness and perfection. The girl's name was Rajam. She was barely eighteen, and he was twenty-eight. Narayan fell in love for the first time, and, as in novels, fell in love at first sight and ...for life. Instead of telling his parents everything and persuading them to meet the Rajam's parents, as required by Hindu etiquette, Narayan himself ventured to tell the Rajam's father, Nagaswar Ayyar.

By doing this, Narayan almost ruined the whole business: he only incurred the wrath of the Rajam's relatives, who did not consider Narayan's writing a profession. However, the groom was not going to change his profession. Everything went against Narayan, even the astrologer's prediction that Rajam's parents had turned to for advice: the marriage would be unhappy.

However, after much hesitation, the Rajam relatives finally conceded. The wedding took place, and the writer remembered for the rest of his life the bride's red sari, the sacred fire, the noisy guests and hundreds of clay lamps along the veranda.

On the day of Nagaswara's wedding, Ayyar gave Narayan a large sapphire ring. He had also received it from his father-in-law on his wedding day. The presentation of the family heirloom, which had been preserved in the family for more than a hundred years, proved the final recognition of Narayan as a son-in-law. The happiness of the young people knew no bounds, especially when they had a charming daughter, Hema.

The responsibility for his family prompted Narayan to step up his literary activities. The first book was followed by the novels Bachelor of Arts (1937) and The Dark Room (1938). The year 1939 came, the worst year of Narayan's life.

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In May 1939, Rajam's father, a rich man, decided to give his daughter a gift: buy her a house. He knew that it would be much easier for the Rajas to live separately with their husband and daughter than in a crowded family. After looking at several houses, the choice was made. Narayan remembered that day down to the smallest detail and described in detail the event that led to the tragic denouement: "While my father-in-law and I were discussing how suitable the land is for us, Rajam went to see the bathroom, which is located in a separate extension in the courtyard. She didn't come back for quite a while. Concerned about her absence, I hurried to the annex, and not in vain. Rajam knocked on the door, unable to open it. Two blows were enough to knock the door down. Rajam fell almost senseless into my arms. She was shaking with sobs, and her face was burning. From her rambling story, it turned out that the tub was the dirtiest place, polluted by passers-by, and that a buzzing fly had bitten her on the lip...

I brought Rajam home. She didn't want to eat anything, but she went to wash a few times. By evening, she had a fever. For twenty days she tossed and turned in the heat, sick with typhus...Rajam is dead. " ⁷

The astrologer's prediction came true.

Narayan was left a widower before he had lived with his wife for five years. A sense of guilt and despair seized the writer, and if not for the daughter of Hema, who looked exactly like Rajam, he would have ascended to the funeral pyre of his deceased wife. The shock of it unsettled Narayan for a long time. His consciousness seemed to be transported to the realm of the dead, and the world of the living became otherworldly for him.

Over time, under the influence of the tragic death of a loved one, Narayan created the novel "The Teacher of English Literature "(1945, and in the USA this novel by R. K. Narayan was published in 1953 under the title "Grateful for Life and Death"), which he dedicated to the memory of his wife. Hence the "automatic" writing and all the mystical layers that are so noticeable in this work. The writer wanted to bring to life in the pages of the book Rajam, the heroine of his dreams, and prolong the existence of an indelible image, because Rajam turned out to be one and only for him.

The death of his wife slowed down the passage of time for Narayan. He often sat for a long time looking at the gold ring on his finger. Before passing away, Rajam removed the ring from her hand and gave it to her husband as a keepsake. After that, Narayan wore two rings on his left hand: one with a sapphire, received from his father - in - law on the first day of marriage with Rajam, and the other - gold-from Rajam on the last day of her life. He never parted from them, probably wanting to confirm the philosophical wisdom that man is a temporary guest on earth, that life and death are always close, always inseparable. Narayan turned out to be a monogamous man, remained forever true to the feeling of love for the Rajas and never married again.

NATIONAL FLAVOR OF MALGUDI TOWN

The spread of English in India has played a huge role in the development of the country's culture. In the article" A Writer in India", R. K. Narayan touched on this topic: "The English language not only contributed to the creation of a new type of literature in India (Indian literature in English - E. K.), but thanks to translations, it helped to get acquainted with the artistic masterpieces of all countries. Indian writers learned new literary genres-novel, short story, which expanded their creative horizons and contributed to the growth of the social significance of Indian literature"⁸. In R. K. Narayan's prose, these genres occupy a dominant position. And, what is remarkable, most of the heroes of his works live in Malgudi.

This is a small town in the south of India, but even very knowledgeable geographers would not be able to find it on a map. But Malgudi on the Sarayu River is well known to fans of Indian literature. It is created by the creative imagination of R. K. Narayan. The image of provincial Malgudi, which has incorporated typical features of many modern cities in South India, is one of Narayan's artistic techniques.

This technique is already known. It was used by many Russian writers. It is enough to recall the town of Glupov," spread wide on both sides of the Bolshoy Glupovitsa River", by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, or the" Motley Town " of Okurov on the Putanitsa River by M. Gorky.

All of the writer's novels and most of his short stories are set in this imaginary Malgudi. The author describes the town on the Sarayu River, Kabir Lane and Abu Lane, Market Square and Lawley Street, Mission Albert College and Nalappa Mango Grove, and the crematorium on the riverbank in such detail and convincingly that the reader can navigate in this town as freely as its inhabitants. But to make the reader feel quite confident, Narayan took another clever step. The novel Waiting for the Mahatma was published with an unexpected supplement: at the end of the book, like in a history or geography textbook, there was a map of the town of Malgudi. This funny idea is a kind of evidence of the writer's humor.

Malgudi is a backwater town that preserves the traditions of the Tamil people and their provincial life, which flowed and flows according to the ancient routine. Ancestral customs still determine the way of life: to push away a glass of milk with the back of your hand means to insult the goddess Lakshmi (the goddess of the hearth); you can not arrange a wedding if the horoscopes of the bride and groom are not favorable for marriage; to get rich, you need to find a red sacred lotus and mix its petals with butter cows, indulge in prayer for forty days. Malgudi is old and conservative, but it is precisely his specifics that make even prominent writers pay attention to him.

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pay attention to it. "Few writers since Dickens," writes John Updike, " have been able to impress with the richness of color that Narayan's fictional town of Malgudi conveys."

Isn't it significant that Salman Rushdie, a well-known Indian writer now living in the United States, quotes a passage about the town of Malgudi on the Sarayu River from Narayan's novel Waiting for the Mahatma in his novel The Last Breath of the Moor (1995)?⁹. It was there, on the bank of Sarayu, that Rushdie brought one of the actors, Kamoinsha, who wanted to attend a rally of Mahatma Gandhi. The appeal of the exquisitely demanding and unconventional Rushdie to the symbolic Malgudi is a nod of deep reverence to the creative imagination of Narayan, who has repeatedly put the name of his favorite town in the title of his books: "The Ogre in Malgudi", "The Printer in Malgudi", "The Tiger for Malgudi", "Days of Malgudi and other stories", etc.

CHRONICLER OF INDIA OF THE XX CENTURY

Flipping through the artistic chronicle of the town of Malgudi, the reader can make sure that it is imbued in every part with the idea of a person, a deeply sympathetic attitude to him. This is not surprising, if we recall that the artistic principle of the author of the chronicle of Malgudi is to " start everything with a person." The Narayan psychologist is inseparable from the humanist. This can be seen if you recall his unforgettable colorful characters of the great Gandhi ("Waiting for the Mahatma"), the moneylender Margaya ("Financial Expert"), the guide Raju and the dancer Rosie ("Guide"), the printer Shastri ("Ogre in Malgudi"), the salesman Jagan ("Candy Seller"), the screenwriter Sampath ("Mr. Sampath"), the artist Raman ("Poster Artist"), the grotesque journalist Rana from "Talkative Man", etc.

Just as Balzac was called the "secretary of the human society of France", Narayan can be called the secretary of the Indian town of Malgudi, and since it is a symbol, the secretary of the human society of South India.

Feeling and thinking in the same way as the whole nation, the writer had the ability to get used to the images he created. Narayan drew psychological portraits of his characters with great skill, his characters are deeply folk, as he presented them as phenomena that have developed historically. Accordingly, the psychology of the writer's characters was generated by a certain historical situation and in its national concreteness.

Throughout Narayan's work, the national environment and the national psyche are interconnected in his works. All characters come from certain social classes. Their connection with the social environment of a given historical period is felt in everything, and it is decisive in the formation of character. Hence the authenticity and vitality of their portrayal, which makes it possible to classify Narayan as a writer who, like actors, has the gift of reincarnating in artistic images of their characters.

Before us is a whole series of national characters. Narayan is not limited to the life of the intelligentsia, which occupied a large place in the works of the early period of his work. Having created images of intellectuals Chandran, Krishnan, Viraswamy, he moved on to depict other strata of the population and populated his fictional city of Malgudi with ordinary people of different professions, social strata, faiths and castes.

The ethnic range of Narayan's characters is very wide: from the lowest representatives of the "bottom" of society-beggars, thieves (stories "Blind Dog", "On the Trail of a Green Jacket") - to professors, teachers, intellectuals, Indian freedom fighters and even Mahatma Gandhi ("Bachelor of Arts", "English Literature Teacher", "Waiting for the Mahatma").

The rules of Indian society, of course, not only influenced the life of Narayan himself, but were also reflected in the pages of his works.

Loyalty to the truth led Narayan to create national characters-images of heroes drawn to a new life. They are spiritually rich, illuminated by inner light, for whom the life perspective and goals of the struggle are clear: Bharati, who devoted her life to the struggle for the liberation of the motherland from English domination ("Waiting for the Mahatma"), Srinivas, whose thoughts are aimed at protecting the interests of the people ("Mr. Sampath").

Like other representatives of the Indian intelligentsia, Narayan did not stay away from one of the most popular ideological trends - Gandhism. Naturally, the inr also applies-

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some of the writer's characters were carriers of this ideology, which was based on the theory of Ahimsa-nonviolent resistance. Gandhism, a native Indian phenomenon, also gave rise to fatalism, submission, and nonviolence characteristic of Indian reality. These traits unwittingly affected the characters that were being formed at that time, and Narayan's characters are a living illustration of this. Take, for example, Chandran ("Bachelor of Arts"), Krishnan ("English Literature Teacher"), Savitri ("Dark Room"). All of them are passive and eventually come to terms with reality, believing in the fatal inevitability of what is to come. The most vivid expressions of Gandhism in Narayan's works were the characters of the novel" Mahatma's Expectations "- Bharati, Sriram, Gandhi himself and the image of the teacher in the allegorical novel "Tiger for Malgudi".

Among the characters, the traditional image of a woman-mother (Sushila, Savitri, Chandran's mother, etc.), a woman-wife (Rosie, Savitri, Sushila) is especially common. They are humiliated, disenfranchised, insulted. The burden of family life and religious prejudices oppress them, and therefore their fate, determined by the structure of social relations in India, is mostly painful and tragic. Social injustice and stagnation of the patriarchal way of life are responsible for the fact that a woman is sometimes a victim of a marriage-deal (Rosie from the novel "Guide"), then a victim of the despotism of her husband (Savitri from the novel "Dark Room").

The national hero in Narayan's work is not something frozen, forever fixed. It responds like a barometer needle to changes in the environment, historical events in the country, and the cultural process. Narayan is able to embody the national character in its constant development, movement, even dialectical contradiction and improvement.

After reading the works of the writer, the reader will understand that there are no separate forty volumes, but there is a huge folio that contains the life of Indian society. Narayan has written a single book in his entire life, even though it consists of dozens of novels, hundreds of short stories, and thousands of comic strips. Its title: the Annals of twentieth-century India - this is his lifelong theme, as inexhaustible as the Indian people themselves. Yes, and the content of Narayan's work is approximately the same: real reality, perceived through a sharp temperament, an objective view of the world and subtle humor, which is a distinctive feature of his work.

IRONY, HUMOR, AND SATIRE

Most of Narayan's books are written in an ironic way. In India, Narayan is best known as the "funny writer". Irony is the circulatory system of Narayan's creativity. Its smallest capillaries permeate the very flesh of his works. The shades of Narayan's laughter are different. His laughter is sympathetic, changing its character if the object becomes a vicious, dishonorable, unworthy of a person phenomenon.

Depending on what the writer laughs at, you can understand his attitude to life. Disclosure of the vile, low suggests to the reader the norms of beauty - the human ideal.

The writer's sacramental gift - an inexhaustible sense of humor-helps him expose the weaknesses of the residents of Malgudi who are so fond of him.

It's hard to talk about this topic. Narayan's words from the essay "On Humor" immediately come to mind: "If you love humor, do not talk or write about it," the famous guru instructed his disciple, " nothing evaporates so quickly as humor at the moment when it begins to be wise or explained. Nothing kills it as quickly as analysis or study. " ¹⁰

The writer makes fun of the ignorance of health officials, the school system, and impostor "saints" who lead a parasitic lifestyle and profit from religious feelings. In the last pages of the Guide, which describes the scene of Raju's fast, Narayan's satirical scourge hits both American businesses and Indian authorities. The representative of American television does not understand the solemn mood of the crowd, its reverence for the "saint". The main thing for him is to make a movie. There will be a movie - there will be dollars, and the rest does not matter. This is one satirical target, but there is also a second one. To support the religious hype, the authorities spent a lot of money on advertising and building roads to the place where the "saint" is located, but did not allocate a single paisa to starving peasants.

Narayan always keeps the blade of satire sharpened, but, at the same time, he does not know what to do with it.-

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complain, often prefers irony. It is the key to understanding his works. His irony is ubiquitous and can manifest itself in individual strokes. For example, the name of the main character of the novel "Financial Expert" - Margaya-means "pointing the way". It would seem that it is intended to show the way to salvation for those who are experiencing financial difficulties. The circumstances are such that he is not only for others, but also for himself is not able to determine the right path in life.

The language of R. K. Narayan's works is generally very clear, light and at the same time metaphorical. Laconism and expressiveness are essential features of the writer's style.

In one phrase, or even in one word, a writer is able to vividly characterize an object, a person, a phenomenon. When, for example, Raju saw Rosie in a calico sari, without makeup, with her hair down and her eyes red from crying, he said: "You can go straight ahead and no one will say a word to you. Who would dream of decorating a rainbow? " ¹¹

One word - rainbow-combines a bouquet of compliments: beautiful, unusual, multi-colored, captivating.

Here's another example: "The bell rang. Gajapati was about to finish the sentence of the lecture, but two hundred young Othellos jumped up at the same time and, like a volley from a hundred rifles, drowned out the lecturer's voice." The expression "two hundred young Othellos" makes you feel at once how temperament, prowess, strength, and jealousy are bubbling in teenagers. Since Gajapati lectured on English literature, in particular on Shakespeare, the comparison with Shakespeare's hero is very successful here.

Narayan surprisingly manages to combine the sad with the cheerful, the mocking with the sympathetic in the same situation.

Of course, Narayan has his own, individual artistic style, the originality of which is manifested in the fact that he manages to recreate a special, unique artistic world in his works.

GLOBAL RECOGNITION

Almost all his life R. K. Narayan lived in the south of India, in Mysore, and only in 1956, at the age of 50, he first visited abroad - in the United States and England (here he and Graham Greene finally met in person), and the capital of the country-Delhi saw only in 1961, when he was born in Delhi. I was invited to receive the prize of the Literary Academy of India for the novel "The Guide". In 1964, R. K. Narayan visited the Soviet Union. He stayed in our country for only a few days, but managed to do a lot: he participated in the international seminar of writers from Eastern countries, toured the sights of the capital, visited the museums of A. Chekhov and F. Kropotkin. Dostoevsky, went to Yasnaya Polyana. In a conversation with Russian literary critics, he said:: "I want to feel the atmosphere of literary life in Moscow. You have a big, interesting literature and an interesting country. " ¹²

In the 1960s, Narayan gained worldwide recognition. His works have been translated into dozens of languages, including Russian: "Guide" ("Saint Raju"), "Ogre in Malgudi", "Candy Seller", "Poster Artist", "Talkative Man", "Tiger for Malgudi", autobiographical stories "Adventures of Swami", " Swami and his friends" and "My Days", as well as a lot of stories in the magazines "Foreign Literature", "Asia and Africa Today", "Literary Russia". The Progress publishing house has published a volume of selected works of Narayan in the Masters of Foreign Prose series.

Narayan lived a long life and died at the age of 94 on May 13, 2001. His books have been translated into 17 languages in different countries, and his work has ensured his immortality.

In India, R. K. Narayan has always been treated with great respect, and the popular literary magazine" The Literary Criterion", published in Mysore, contains articles dedicated to the blessed memory of the writer. Their authors are the editor-in-chief of this journal, K. D. Narasimhayi, Professor S. N. Srinath of Bangalore University, and renowned literary critic K. S. Bhelliappa.

Professor Srinath expressed his appreciation in the following lines: "Here lived a writer who worked in the literary field for about 70 years. It was he who initially promoted the recognition of Indian English-language literature in the West. A prolific writer, shy and unassuming despite his achievements and fame, Narayan was truly an extraordinary person. " ¹³

K. S. Bhelliappa also wrote in the magazine: "Narayan, who recently passed away, is without a doubt the most authentic voice of India among Indian writers who write in English... When you read his novels and short stories, you feel the characters, situations and events that are taken from our daily lives... It is deeply rooted in the Indian tradition. I believe that R. K. Narayan is the most widely read Indian English-language novelist. We all mourn that he has left us. " ¹⁴

¹ The Indian Express, 1961, March 28.

² The Times of India, 1961, March 23.

³ Cit. in: Narayan R. K. Sveti Raju, Moscow, 1962. Foreword by N. Demurova, collected works.

⁴ The Nation, 1953, October 3, p. 273.

⁵ Times Literary Supplement, 1958, May 9, p. 254.

⁵ The Indian Express...

⁷ The New Yorker, 1962, September 15, p. 58.

⁸ The Atlantic, 1953, October, p. 119.

^{Rushdie Salman.} 9 The Moor's Last Sigh, 1995, p. 55.

^{Narayan R.K.} 10 Next Sunday. Bombay, 1960, p. 51.

^{Narayan R. K.} 11 Saint Raju.., p. 79.

¹² Archival data of the journal "Foreign Literature" 1964 Conversation of a member of the Editorial Board A. N. Slovesny with the writer R. K. Narayan.

¹³ The Literary Criterion. Homage to R.K. Narayan, vol. XXXVI, 2001, N 3, p. 34.

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 34 - 36.

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