Originally written in Malayalam in 1999, V.J. James’s The Book of Exodus begins with the story of a firebird who abandons its home amongst the clouds and descends to earth, only to be met with a terrible fate at the hands of vultures. This story serves as a cautionary tale to readers that nothing is permanent in “Potta Thurthu” or the “Isle of Reeds”, where James’s novel is set.
James’s first novel, The Book of Exodus, originally titled Purappadinte Pusthakam in Malayalam, was a project twelve years in the making. Although initially intended for serialised publication in the Malayalam weekly, Mathrubhumi, it was eventually published by D.C. Books as the winner of their silver jubilee celebrations, placing James on the literary map as one of Kerala’s most promising emerging authors.
Purappadinte Pusthakam received several accolades, like the Malayattoor Prize and the Rotary Literary Award. James is an award-winning author, having received the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award and the Vayalar Award for his work Nireeshwaran (2014). Ministhy S, the translator of Exodus, also translated Anti-clock (2021), a novel which was shortlisted for the J.C.B. Prize for Literature.
A narrative experiment with lyrical prose
The Book of Exodus, V.J. James, Penguin Random House India, 2024.
The Book of Exodus can be categorised as a magic realist novel with elements of the epic. In Magic(al) Realism, Maggie Bowers notes that the term “magical realist” is used to describe narratives that incorporate “magical happenings in a realist, matter-of-fact narrative.” Serving as precursors to contemporary magic realism, the oldest epics and folktales like the Jataka Tales (from 400 A.D) and One Thousand and One Nights (from the 9th century) have long incorporated supernatural and mythical elements, often through non-linear narrative structures.
As a literary genre, the term “magical realist” is associated with the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred of Solitude (1967), Günter Grass’s Tin Drum (1959) and, in the Indian subcontinent, with Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981). However, one of the pitfalls of literary canon formation is that it is not always inclusive and usually adheres to a Eurocentric logic of literary merit, as evidenced in the omission of the literary genius of O.V. Vijayan from this corpus.
In 1969, the publication of O.V. Vijayan’s Khasakinte Ithihasam marked, according to Malayalam littérateur K. Satchidanandan, a “revolutionary” moment in Malayalam literature (as well as in the canon of magical realism) for its experimentation with “lyrical prose”, usage of myth and critique of Marxism. Set in the fictional town of Khasak in Palakkad, the novel recounts the story of Ravi and his encounters with the various characters that inhabit the village. The book was twelve years in the making when it was finally published two years after Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967). However, Divya Dwivedi notes that despite being translated into several languages (including English and French), Vijayan continues to be “punished by the remoteness of his own language” and has not been given his due in international literary discourse. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the literary genre of magic realism in Kerala owes its legacy to Vijayan. It is in this tradition that James and The Book of Exodus innovatively inserts themselves.
Lives and deaths in Island Apologies
Potta Thuruthu, where The Book of Exodus is set, is no ordinary island. Secluded and largely untouched by modernity, the island, characterised by salt-leaden winds, coconuts and a rotting gooseberry tree — remains in a relatively pristine form, although not for long. Through the midst of the isle runs an unnamed river, filled with reeds, mangroves and screw pines, with “brackish” waters that flow into the Arabian Sea. Backwaters, rivers, and oceans which are central to Kerala’s topology, make the island a microcosm of the region and its histories.
According to French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, islands are often viewed as isolated and excluded geographical landscapes with transformative and regenerative capabilities, like the islands featured in Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), Danie Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Sara Joseph’s Aathi (2018). However, caught between the ocean and the land, islands are also indicative of spatial instability, a phenomenon that has only been exacerbated by climate change. In fact, several islands that border the city of Kochi (like Pothuvype island), although rich in ecological resources and biodiversity, are slowly falling prey to the throes of unregulated development policies. The fictional island of Potta Thuruthu reflects this dark reality. Drinking water is scarce and diseases are rampant. James’s use of the island landscape signifies how its relative seclusion from the city does not immunise it to the dangers of globalisation.
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Like islands, the backwaters too are significant waterscapes; they signify a part of the river where the flow has stemmed, thereby, indicating a stagnation. Yet, when seen as part of a more extensive interconnected system with the river and the sea, the backwater takes on new layers of meaning. Literary theorists such as Steve Mentz and John R. Gillis emphasise how water bodies should be understood as “fluid sites of narrativity” that shape human-nature relationships.
It’s no surprise that magical creatures, ancient spirits, and deities inhabit the backwaters of Potta Thuruthu. For example, Chira Mallan, the God residing in the river dykes, bestows upon you a bounty of fish if appeased with catfish, toddy, kallappam, coconut and other delicacies. Then, there is the hairless, monstrous human head of “Kayal Pottan”, who silently prowls the waters at night, sinking unsuspecting boats.
As the narrative unfolds and its space undulates, Kunjooty (the protagonist) listens to his Valyammachi’s (grandmother) tale of exodus — a “dark exile” that she embarked on a fateful night after her house was set ablaze by an angry mob, trapping her husband inside. Leaving everything behind, Valyammachi rebuilds her life in “Potta Thuruthu” with her only son, Zavarias, Kunjootty’s father.
The story of this displacement is no doubt a nod to the biblical exodus undertaken by enslaved Israelites in Egypt to Canaan under the leadership of Moses, referenced in the original Book of Exodus of the Pentateuch. While there is no historical evidence of a similar exodus in Kerala, the region has experienced waves of migration since the second century B.C.E., including the arrival of the Chinese, Arabs, Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, enslaved Africans, and ultimately, colonial European powers. According to cultural anthropologists Filippo Osella and Caroline Osella, these migrations, driven by trade and the search for land, have profoundly shaped Kerala’s cultural and religious landscape.
In the present of Potta Thuruthu, twenty-one years after Valyammachi’s story, Kunjooty is gradually returning to his routine after a grave incident that left him in a deep coma. Through Kunjooty, the reader is introduced to several new characters, many of whom meet solitary and miserable deaths. One such character is Koppan (Zavarias’s helper), a renowned healer known for curing even the deadliest of snake bites, who ironically meets his end from leprosy caused by the bite of a highly venomous snake.
Koppan’s lonely death in the depths of the lagoon indicates the narrative power of death in advancing the novel’s plot. Some deaths underscore new beginnings or definitive ends, like the mysterious death of Susanna (Kunjooty’s lover), which acts as a catalyst for the rest of the events in the story. Koppan’s death, in particular, can be interpreted as an instance of retributive justice for brutally decapitating a snake, an animal that is considered sacred in Kerala and worshipped in protected ecological areas like the sacred groves or “Kaavus”.
Some deaths may appear to have no underlying meaning but, act as ellipses, or gaps within the narrative in order to underscore the arbitrariness of life and death. For instance, consider the sudden demise of the mute girl (who earns a living by performing tricks for onlookers) who falls violently into the sea and washes up battered on the shore. Or, Murali’s abrupt passing, leaving behind his fatally ill daughter, Nandini and his wife, Savitry. Then, there is Teressa, who, believing herself to be unlucky in marriage, takes her own life.
Within the novel, there are other characters who do not die but fade into complete oblivion, like Chathutty, the sole heir to the affluent Brahmin household of Karangady Mana and Koppan’s helper who is forced to flee Potta Thuruthu due to the unwanted sexual advances of his wife, Unnicheera. What purposes do these deaths and erasures serve, one might ask? Simply, to relieve these characters from a life of misery, abjectness, poverty and the unbearable weight of societal expectations that equate the worthiness of a successful life to one’s place within a patriarchal familial unit.
Polyphonic imaginary
Much like Vijayan’s Khasak, James effortlessly blends several dialects of Malayalam, along with English, Tamil and French, in order to showcase the complexity of the characters that constitute the novel. However, this rich heteroglossia is not as fully captured in the translation as in the original.
In most of his books, James cites extensively from various Hindu, Christian and Buddhist religious sources such as the Upanishads, the Mahabharata, the Bible and the Tathagata. The placement of such quotes within the text of Exodus is intended to encourage the reader to introspect on their sense of self and, according to James, identify that God resides within oneself.
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While James strives to achieve a democratic vision of God as the unifying force behind all life and religions, one wonders whether the usage of such sources without acknowledging their ideological context and their appropriation by Hindu groups like the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh, can be a fruitful exercise.
Nevertheless, James subtly critiques the continued existence of caste, class and gender inequalities within the small ecosystem of Potta Thuruthu. For instance, when Murali, a Dalit, marries Sarojini, a Brahmin, she is excommunicated from her family through the ritual of “Irikkapindam,” a rite typically reserved for the dead. Another character, David (previously Chiriyankan), left the island for France several years earlier due to caste-based discrimination. He returns years later with his half-French daughter, Anita, who would alas die a lonely and dreadful death on the island. As for the future of the island’s inhabitants, it appears bleak. After all, nothing is permanent in Potta Thuruthu — neither the people nor the river. In the end, all that will remain is Kunjooty’s Book of Exodus, a permanent archive of the lives and the people who once lived on that beautiful island.
Gopika Gurudas is a doctoral researcher at The University of Queensland – IIT Delhi Academy of Research. Her research interests include Dalit studies and Australian Literature, specifically focusing on contexts of caste discrimination, racialisation and indigeneity.
