What This Collection Is
This volume presents a series of dramatic monologues and narrative verses centered on the extremes of devotion and the heavy price of beauty. The poems are organized as a series of songs and 'stories' often told by figures like Lalla-ji the Priest or Valgovind. In pieces like 'Less than the Dust,' the speaker embraces self-destruction as a form of worship, while 'Story by Lalla-ji, the Priest' details a horticultural horror where a plant only blooms after a child is buried alive in its roots. Readers might start with the rhythmic 'In the Early, Pearly Morning' before moving to the grittier, tragic narrative of 'Story of Lilavanti.'
Figures & speakers
- Lalla-ji
A priest who recounts tales of sacrificial plants and romantic encounters in Udaipore. (in “Story by Lalla-ji, the Priest”)
- Lilavanti
A young woman who escapes a leper husband only to die in poverty. (in “Story of Lilavanti”)
- Zahir-u-din
The recipient of a final, fatal farewell from a devoted speaker. (in “Less than the Dust”)
- The Plant
A snakelike tree with spine-like fingers that hungrily guards its own roots. (in “Story by Lalla-ji, the Priest”)
What it's really about
- Total Submission
- Love framed as being 'less than dust' under a chariot wheel.
- Sacrificial Beauty
- Blooms that require blood or human suffering to emerge.
Why it's memorable
- A snake-like tree with spines that catch at anything molesting its succulent green leaves.
- Lilavanti sitting behind a window framed in light with white jasmine woven into her hair.
Where it lands
The collection leaves the reader among the fading charms of the market place and the acrid scent of burnt-out passion.
For your book club
- Is the sacrifice in the Priest's story a literal event or a metaphor for obsession?
- How does the setting of the drifting boat in Udaipore contrast with Lilavanti's urban reality?