"I read Glenarvon too, by Caro Lamb
/ Goddamn!" In 1816, when the Lady Caroline Lamb published her infamous roman à clef, Glenarvon, Lord Byron's response summed up his dismay at discovering the history of their tempestuous romance preserved for posterity. Glenarvon, now barely read, went into multiple editions at the time; Caro Lamb was ostracized and condemned; Byron continued his devastating career despite the scandal.
The reviews were stern and moralistic (the
British Critic lamented the sorry influence of the excesses of the wicked, depraved Continent-oh, those Italians!-upon staid, upright English society), and the sales were spectacular: in other words, Glenarvon surpassed the hopes that any publisher of a roman à clef may harbour.
Good fiction and good gossip have a lot in common-so does bad fiction. James Wood once dismissed John Updike's suburban-America stories as so much "gossip in gilt". The pleasure of the roman à clef lies in the drawing-room thrill of the guessing game, as has happened with
Hindutva, Sex and Adventure (Roli Books), by 'John MacLithon'.
Hindutva, Sex and Adventure is a silly season book. At 166 pages, it fictionalizes the life, amours and journalistic biases of one of India's best known adopted foreign journalists, Mark Tully, badly disguised as Andrew Lyut. It's slight, but has enough insider dope to do well at the Foreign Correspondents Club, and bets on the author's identity have been placed in the very best Delhi salons. (The smart money's on Francois Gautier, despite his denials-Gautier hints that Tully himself wrote the novel, and Bernard Imhasly is the third favourite in the Identify MacLithon stakes.) How does it stack up against roman à clefs of the past?
Bengal Nights, Mircea Eliade: This lyrical, and I use the word with prejudice, lush and overblown 1933 novel romanticizes the relationship between Alain (Eliade himself) and Maitreyee Debi, poet, protégée of Tagore, and daughter of a renowned Bengal philosopher. Though Eliade refers in passing to the social world of 1930s Calcutta, most of his focus is on the ineffable, mystical aspects of his affair, where Maitreyee Debi stands in for the mysterious East. Decades later, she responded in kind with the equally sonorous
It Does Not Die (Na Hanyate), making this a rare instance where the novel does duty as syrupy love letter.
Beethoven Among The Cows, Rukun Advani: Though this isn't a classic roman à clef, this early novel by a highly respected publisher included an unforgettable portrait of the scholar Gayatri Spivak. "Professor [Lavatri] Alltheorie's
Collected Marxist Phonecalls had outsold
Gone With The Wind
Her Collected
Feminist Faxes was
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