Most Popular
-
The Demise of Hyphy
Thizzle, bling, and blunts may have helped bring down the overhyped hyphy movement. But KMEL pulled the trigger.
-
The USF Dons Have Gone from National Champs to National Chumps
-
Wikipedia Idiots: The Edit Wars of San Francisco
-
Gonzalez/Nader Hysteria
They're actually out to stop spoiler candidates.
-
SF Supervisor Aaron Peskin's Message to Newsom: Quit Attacking Me!
-
Wikipedia Idiots: The Edit Wars of San Francisco (83)
-
The Demise of Hyphy (53)
Thizzle, bling, and blunts may have helped bring down the overhyped hyphy movement. But KMEL pulled the trigger.
-
New College Out of Money: Teachers Unpaid, Not Teaching (14)
-
The USF Dons Have Gone from National Champs to National Chumps (4)
-
Gonzalez/Nader Hysteria (3)
They're actually out to stop spoiler candidates.
-
Danger Mouse Produces New Black Keys Album, Apparently Never Sleeps
02:06PM 03/07/08 -
Why? Has A Stalker Pt. 8: The Finale
01:01PM 03/07/08 -
ILWU Shutting Down West Coast Ports to Protest War
03:45PM 03/07/08 -
Worst Mix Tape Ever: The Torture Playlist
10:37AM 03/07/08 -
Bob's Pickle Pops: Made From Freshly Squeezed Pickles
09:00AM 03/07/08 -
Cosentino Watch: Raw Venison Liver Never Looked So Good
12:34PM 03/06/08
- AC/DC
- Andy Beta on Modeselektor
- A weekly listing of...
- Blade Runner
- Call of Duty 4
- December Boys
- documentaries on DVD
- Evan James on Fag Fridays
- Ford at Fox
- French movies
- Grindhouse
- Guitar Hero
- Interview
- Jim Ridley on...
- Jordan Harper on Crazy...
- Michael Alan Goldberg...
- New Restaurants
- Nosferatu
- Our critics weigh in...
- Robert Wilonsky on...
- Rock Band
- Saturday Night Live
- Superbad
- The Bourne Ultimatum
- The Girl Next Door
- The Wire
- Tony Ware on Matthew Dear
- Tony Ware on Superpitcher
- Undead or Alive
- Wii
Recent Articles By Mark Athitakis
-
The Fanboy Crusade
Why a San Francisco comic-shop owner is trying to sue the pants off of Spider-Man's owners -- to the tune of $18 million
-
How dangerous is Al Qaeda in America?
A public service message brought to you by the U.S. Justice Department, SF Weekly, and other patriots
-
Read It and Weep
In answer to the Chronicle, we submit our own list of things that make us cry
-
The Olden Gays
Historic home movies capture gay life in San Francisco from the 30's onward
-
The Endless Swimmer
When people learn that Pedro Ordenes, 55, has swum to or from Alcatraz 126 times, or that he crossed the Strait of Magellan in 39-degree water, they often joke about his sanity. That's before they hear about his idea to swim the Bering Strait.
National Features
-
Houston Press
"It Was Like an Armageddon Movie"
For days after Hurricane Rita, a Texas prison was hell on earth.
By Chris Vogel -
The Pitch
How Not To Be a Rap Star
First of all, lay off the Ecstasy.
By Nadia Pflaum -
Village Voice
Project Runaway
What becomes a gossip columnist most?
By Michael Musto
A Breath of Fresh Air
Amulya Malladi pulls off the difficult task of writing a love story centered on the deadly 1984 gas leak in Bhopal, India
By Mark Athitakis
Published: July 31, 2002By Amulya Malladi
Ballantine Books (2002), $23.95
Amulya Malladi's gemlike first novel has a provocative, almost absurd concept -- it's a love story framed by the horrifying Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, India, in 1984. In the midst of that disaster we meet Anjali, who barely escapes after being abandoned by her unfaithful husband, Prakash. Sixteen years later, when most of Fresh Air takes place, the Bhopal legacy persists; Anjali has divorced Prakash (an act that her class- and face-obsessed parents deeply resent), remarried, and had a son, whose lungs are deteriorating rapidly. When Anjali and Prakash spot each other one day at a market, a long thread of memories, fears, and old resentments begins unspooling. "Prakash had no idea what we had been through," Anjali says, "and how much he was to blame."
Melodramatic? You bet. Built on too-familiar notions about womanhood, fidelity, and family? That, too. But the quality of Malladi's writing elevates Fresh Air well above standard-issue book-club fodder, and her strong control over plot helps her avoid the overwritten narrative drift that plagues most first novels. The prose in A Breath of Fresh Air is economical, more Raymond Carver than Bharati Mukherjee; shifting between the voices of Anjali, her second husband, Sandeep, and Prakash, the first-person narrations offer no more description than is necessary and no more dialogue than we need. Benign conversations about sex, family, history, and death gain heft as the novel progresses, and the three main characters achieve a surprising amount of depth for all the book's simplicity. It's Anjali's story, but Prakash's anxiety over his failed marriage creates some of the novel's best-rendered moments (his fixation on his army uniform; his sputtering, passive-aggressive speech).
The end result of this dynamic is easy to figure out. (The sick child is a metaphor for the past; the book is about letting go of the past: Take a guess at what happens.) But Carver's dynamics were simple, too. The trip is what matters. Plainly told, Malladi's story is a fine study of the tenuous control we have over love and memory.