Maitreyi Devi
Paperback | Pages: 264 pages Rating: 3.91 | 1990 Users | 92 Reviews
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| Title | : | It Does Not Die |
| Author | : | Maitreyi Devi |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 264 pages |
| Published | : | April 1st 1995 by University of Chicago Press (first published 1974) |
| Categories | : | Romance. Cultural. India. Autobiography. Memoir. Biography |
Ilustration Concering Books It Does Not Die
Precocious, a poet, a philosopher's daughter, Maitreyi Devi was sixteen years old in 1930 when Mircea Eliade came to Calcutta to study with her father. More than forty years passed before Devi read Bengal Nights, the novel Eliade had fashioned out of their encounter, only to find small details and phrases, even her given name, bringing back episodes and feelings she had spent decades trying to forget. It Does Not Die is Devi's response. In part a counter to Eliade's fantasies, the book is also a moving account of a first love fraught with cultural tensions, of false starts and lasting regrets. Proud of her intelligence, Maitreyi Devi's father had provided her with a fine and, for that time, remarkably liberal education — and encouraged his brilliant foreign student, Eliade, to study with her. "We were two good exhibits in his museum," Devi writes. They were also, as it turned out, deeply taken with each other. When their secret romance was discovered, Devi's father banished the young Eliade from their home. Against a rich backdrop of life in an upper-caste Hindu household, Devi powerfully recreates the confusion of an over-educated child simultaneously confronting sex and the differences, not only between European and Indian cultures, but also between her mother's and father's view of what was right. Amid a tangle of misunderstandings, between a European man and an Indian girl, between student and teacher, husband and wife, father and daughter, she describes a romance unfolding in the face of cultural differences but finally succumbing to cultural constraints. On its own, It Does Not Die is a fascinating story of cultural conflict and thwarted love. Read together with Eliade's Bengal Nights, Devi's "romance" is a powerful study of what happens when the oppositions between innocence and experience, enchantment and disillusion, and cultural difference and colonial arrogance collide. "In two novels written forty years apart, a man and a woman tell stories of their love. . . . Taken together they provide an unusually touching story of young love unable to prevail against an opposition whose strength was tragically buttressed by the uncertainties of a cultural divide."—Isabel Colegate, New York Times Book Review "Recreates, with extraordinary vividness, the 16-year-old in love that she had been. . . . Maitreyi is entirely, disarmingly open about her emotions. . . . An impassioned plea for truth."—Anita Desai, New Republic "Something between a reunion and a duel. Together they detonate the classic bipolarities: East-West, life-art, woman-man."—Richard Eder, New York Newsday "One good confession deserves another. . . . Both books gracefully trace the authors' doomed love affair and its emotional aftermath."—Nina Mehta, Chicago TribuneDetails Books In Pursuance Of It Does Not Die
| Original Title: | Na Hanyate |
| ISBN: | 0226143651 (ISBN13: 9780226143651) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Rating Epithetical Books It Does Not Die
Ratings: 3.91 From 1990 Users | 92 ReviewsJudge Epithetical Books It Does Not Die
far more better than the first book. and I hate Mirca Eliyod, dunno why.This book and Bengal Nights must be read together. They are an interesting story about a colonial "love story". Mircea Eliade the "colonizer" published Bengal nights which was an account of his romantic experiences with Maitreyi Devi. Forty years later Devi read Eliade's work and published her own account of what happened.
Somewhat difficult to read because of the absence of editing, but a thoughtful and at times poetic must-read response to Bengal Nights.
Notwithstanding that it is a translation and there are many spelling and grammar typos in the book, I found it riveting and heartfelt. The book gives a good peek into the lives of India's intellectual elite way back in the 1930s, which was curiously liberal and yet conservative: clearly a society still trying to adjust to Western influences while being unable to completely let go of their core conservatism. It would be easy to blame Maitreyi Devi's parents for being narrow minded about her
Real love story....
I would have normally rated this book to a 4 star value instead of 5, but I think it deserves greater recognition and respect if only for setting the story straight. The book is written as a response to Mircea Eliade's 'Maitreyi' novel, which is douchey to say the least. As revealed in this novel with her side of things (and which is indeed much more plausible than his, for reasons too many to count), he made public a fictional account of their otherwise platonic connection, describing a
It does not die, by Maitreyi Devi.. Life-changing book, for sure. Anyone who's in love should read it. It changes your views on life, intimacy and.. Everything, really. It truly is a breathtaking book and it will leave you speechless.
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