Books: Sealy colours his new book Red

Red

Irwin Allan Sealy

Publisher: Picador

Price: Rs 465/-

Allan Sealy is a name to reckon with by any standard, when it comes to Indian writing. And Red, his latest book is a brilliant explosion of colour. Love, life and art take center stage in the book. It’s pleasantly surprising to read something that’s so out-of-the-world and yet so real.

The story’s an abecedary (an abecedary, I ask you!!) with the main characters A (Aline), N (the narrator) and Z (Zaccheus). And not to forget the smudge gang and G (Gilgitan), who plays quite the pivotal role, as well as his “pig girl”.

It is about Matisse, the author’s obvious fascination for the man and his paintings pours into his characters and a love affair that lasts the entire book. Even if you lack an aesthetic sense like me, it’s hard not to be impressed.

After reading it in black and white, you’ll find it nearly impossible, not to search the Net for some of these famous paintings. Sealy for that matter, recommends the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg and it is easily accessible through your friendly neighborhood search engine.

The book is dexterously written and lucid. It deals with all kinds of matters, great and small. And there’s more than a little bit of the author in here. "Certainly there’s something of me in N," says Sealy, but clarifies that he went out of his way to fictionalise it. So there’s no finger pointing about the daughter abroad, the foreign wife.

N loves gardening (just like Sealy), Dehra Dun (or Dariya Dun in the book), and also recently discovered the Internet, like the author.

And on a deeper level, N is tries to find a balance-a creative space where he is free to do his work within the family home just like Sealy, who says it is very tricky and saw the same thing happening with Matisse as well.

Z, on the other hand, is "another aspect of me," says Sealy. He is like a "younger self" and as it says in the book, like "N on the side." Z is a young friend of N’s, who falls in love with the redhead, A…all over a painting! and "The rest you’ll just have to sift out for yourself," Sealy says.

I like the lesson N tries to teach him…"don’t forget to live." "It would be a mistake to utterly inhabit your work," the author adds. Truly.

So go out there, grab life by the collar, or at the very least a copy of this book…it’s creative and inspiring and hearteningly original.

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