Journeys Without Endings

This is a difficult book to review. It is like reading an unfinished manuscript, a cluster of interesting but stray thoughts. Several of the pieces are no longer than a sentence or a paragraph. Yet, Thapa grandiosely describes them as ‘stories’. She juxtaposes them alongside somewhat longer pieces and produces a hurriedly attempted anthology of scattered and disjointed thoughts without an end, an ending or a purpose. At worst, it is an act of irresponsible deception foisted on the reader. For those who have read Thapa’s earlier books, Tilled Earth leaves you exhausted, frustrated, confused and incomplete. I guess—cheated—just about sums it up aptly.

That’s at one level.

At another level, for those who are familiar with Nepal, the innumerable incidents described in the book evoke a sense of immense déjà vu. After all these years, nothing appears to have changed in that remarkable country.