Pinteresque Elements in Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English, August: An Indian Story

Abstract

Abstract

The postmodern Indian English novelist, Upamanyu Chatterjee appeared on the literary front in 1988 with his debut novel English, August: An Indian Story. The novel is fraught with a sense of boredom, ennui, absurdity of life, vagueness, obscurity, existential crisis, black humour, etc. Apart from these, Chatterjee also presents his protagonist, Agastya, as running away from a terrifyingly absurd and incomprehensible outside world and taking shelter in a ?room? where he feels safe and cloistered. Because of the predominance of these elements, Chatterjee strikes a comparison with the Post 1950s British absurdist dramatist, Harold Pinter. The novel abounds many of the characteristic features of Pinter’s plays (not structurally). Hence this paper attempts to highlight the ?Pintereseque? elements in English, August. Key Words: similarity, comparison, Pinterseque, influence, connection