Word: hatterr
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...glory of the book is its language. H. Hatterr, the hero and narrator, is the son of a European merchant and a Malayan lady. Orphaned in India, he ran away from his mission orphanage, taking with him the mission funds and three books-an English dictionary, a Latin primer, and a French primer. With this start he educated himself, taught himself English, but an English far superior to any he could have learned in school, a wild soaring English free of the dullness of grammatical conventions and "standard" usage. His is an English precise and exact, but exuberantly alive...
...plot of the book, H. Hatterr's adventures in his search among the Sages of India for the Truth about Life, is a sturdy and effective vehicle for the mad exalting joy of the language of the book. The book is a verbal equivalent of a Cellini chalice...
...RIOT of words is given meaning and support by the careful structure of the book. Each section opens with a visit to one of the six Sages that Hatterr consults. Testing the teaching of each Sage, attempting to find an order to life, he is driven into some ludicrous situations-in one segment, for example, he winds up as a human serving dish for the meals of a circus tiger. After each adventure, though, he returns to his friend Banerrji, a staid and stable clerk, who provides Hatterr with an anchor in reality...
...Truth that Hatterr finally discovers is one of Contrasts-everything will, sooner or later, become its opposite...
...Desani, the author of All About H. Hatterr, has led a life nearly as interesting as the one he created for his protagonist. He lived for nearly two decades in monastaries throughout the Orient; he was for a time a journalist in India, and he recently served as Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas. If he hadn't stopped writing, he might have given us some masterful examples of a difficult genre, the comic novel. Whether or not he ever writes again, though, All About H. Hatterr will guarantee him a loyal group of readers...