The Company of Women by Khushwant Singh (India)
warning: does contain spoilers about the ending
I started my Asian leg by picking a book from my home country because I thought it was a safe way to walk into an unknown territory of literary musings, but I was so wrong. So so wrong. I despised this book with all my heart and more. I read ‘The Company of Women’ by the illustrious writer Khushwant Singh- well known for his book ‘Train to Pakistan’ which talks about the partition and how it affected real citizens through fictitious verse.
My first mistake obviously was picking an author who is well-known for a book based on a rather traumatic set of events in the country’s history while knowing that I couldn’t process the said tragedy with my depressed state of mind. Which led me to my second mistake- picking from his backlist because ‘oh how could an author who has won numerous prestigious awards ever not write well’. How? So despite the majority of the terrible reviews visible on this book’s landing page on Goodreads, I went ahead with my choice.
My terrible mistakes culminated with the actual disaster of me reading the book- completely. I should’ve run at the first sign of the protagonist mentioning his ‘massive genitalia’ but I did not.
Everything apart, let’s discuss the book. It was pitched as the story of a man undergoing a divorce and looking to reinvent his life around the motto ‘lust is the true foundation of love ’. So he sets out on an unhinged journey of meeting women (who are not sex workers, FYI except like one) and sleeping with them for a few months and calling it companionship. The book was supposed to be ‘an uninhibited, erotic and endlessly entertaining celebration of love, sex, and passion’. This is me paraphrasing from the Goodreads page, not my words. And it was a disaster.
What it turned out to be would be an old man’s sexual fantasies about sleeping around and the author himself confessed about the true nature of this piece in the author’s note, placed at the very end of the book. WHY WAS THIS VERY IMPORTANT NOTE AT THE END OF THE BOOK? Why? (And as a person who always skips to the end to read the acknowledgments written by the author before reading half the book, I don’t know what changed because I didn't do it when it was the most crucial.)
Let’s get this straight, this is not me slandering the author because I have nothing against him. I’ve read one book and my opinions don’t count. Maybe I did pick the worst one for my reading taste, so please do not come after me with pitch-forks. This is also not me kink-shaming the author, everyone has the right to explore their deepest, darkest desires through fiction or other consensual means. Though I am picking a fight with the editor who thought that this book did not need revisions and decided that the placement of the author’s note was appropriate.
Did I start this book with the expectation that the protagonist would meet remarkable women who would leave him with lessons about love and passion after sexy times? Yes. Did I delude myself into thinking that it would eventually get better despite the way the protagonist insisted on talking about the mother of his children? Yes.
This was the story of an arrogant man obsessed with coitus and his priapic appendage who had no other personality traits except for a Princeton degree and his ability to sleep around. The protagonist, better known as Mohan Kumar gets a divorce because he believes his wife is absolutely unbearable but it’s only later that you find out that they have problems communicating and the only reason he married her was because he wanted to explore sexual endeavors with a “virgin”. The second section in the perspective of the man himself indulges in the praise of the said appendage more often than not as he reminisces in his past flings only in terms of their aesthetic features and the highlights of his sexual encounters with them.
The author takes it upon himself to put forth a commentary on the very taboo topic of sex without marital legalities and women’s desires but all the women in the book were two-dimensional caricatures of stereotypical archetypes. It was obviously the author fantasizing about sleeping with the types of women he liked so it fell flat when he talked about how Indian society perceives sex without the intention of reproduction as morally unlawful.
The book was imbued with diversity as it covered women of different countries (American, Sri Lankan, Indian, and Pakistani), races, and cultures who each experienced ecstasy when sleeping with Mohan Kumar as far as he was concerned. As unrealistic as fantasies often are, what put me off was the unnecessary philosophy about sexual liberation and how encumbered the society was towards his sexual needs, and how the majority of women he met had been abused as children which were passed off as being their ‘first sexual experience’ or ‘becoming a woman’. The main character doesn’t invoke sympathy or consolation as he eventually meets his demise.
This book was not meant for me. None of the characters are redeemable or likeable. The author does a poor job at portraying unbridled passion for all the claims of how ‘lustful and erotic’ this book was supposed to be. My only takeaway is that ‘do not read a book without reading the author’s note’.
My first mistake obviously was picking an author who is well-known for a book based on a rather traumatic set of events in the country’s history while knowing that I couldn’t process the said tragedy with my depressed state of mind. Which led me to my second mistake- picking from his backlist because ‘oh how could an author who has won numerous prestigious awards ever not write well’. How? So despite the majority of the terrible reviews visible on this book’s landing page on Goodreads, I went ahead with my choice.
My terrible mistakes culminated with the actual disaster of me reading the book- completely. I should’ve run at the first sign of the protagonist mentioning his ‘massive genitalia’ but I did not.
Everything apart, let’s discuss the book. It was pitched as the story of a man undergoing a divorce and looking to reinvent his life around the motto ‘lust is the true foundation of love ’. So he sets out on an unhinged journey of meeting women (who are not sex workers, FYI except like one) and sleeping with them for a few months and calling it companionship. The book was supposed to be ‘an uninhibited, erotic and endlessly entertaining celebration of love, sex, and passion’. This is me paraphrasing from the Goodreads page, not my words. And it was a disaster.
What it turned out to be would be an old man’s sexual fantasies about sleeping around and the author himself confessed about the true nature of this piece in the author’s note, placed at the very end of the book. WHY WAS THIS VERY IMPORTANT NOTE AT THE END OF THE BOOK? Why? (And as a person who always skips to the end to read the acknowledgments written by the author before reading half the book, I don’t know what changed because I didn't do it when it was the most crucial.)
Let’s get this straight, this is not me slandering the author because I have nothing against him. I’ve read one book and my opinions don’t count. Maybe I did pick the worst one for my reading taste, so please do not come after me with pitch-forks. This is also not me kink-shaming the author, everyone has the right to explore their deepest, darkest desires through fiction or other consensual means. Though I am picking a fight with the editor who thought that this book did not need revisions and decided that the placement of the author’s note was appropriate.
Did I start this book with the expectation that the protagonist would meet remarkable women who would leave him with lessons about love and passion after sexy times? Yes. Did I delude myself into thinking that it would eventually get better despite the way the protagonist insisted on talking about the mother of his children? Yes.
This was the story of an arrogant man obsessed with coitus and his priapic appendage who had no other personality traits except for a Princeton degree and his ability to sleep around. The protagonist, better known as Mohan Kumar gets a divorce because he believes his wife is absolutely unbearable but it’s only later that you find out that they have problems communicating and the only reason he married her was because he wanted to explore sexual endeavors with a “virgin”. The second section in the perspective of the man himself indulges in the praise of the said appendage more often than not as he reminisces in his past flings only in terms of their aesthetic features and the highlights of his sexual encounters with them.
The author takes it upon himself to put forth a commentary on the very taboo topic of sex without marital legalities and women’s desires but all the women in the book were two-dimensional caricatures of stereotypical archetypes. It was obviously the author fantasizing about sleeping with the types of women he liked so it fell flat when he talked about how Indian society perceives sex without the intention of reproduction as morally unlawful.
The book was imbued with diversity as it covered women of different countries (American, Sri Lankan, Indian, and Pakistani), races, and cultures who each experienced ecstasy when sleeping with Mohan Kumar as far as he was concerned. As unrealistic as fantasies often are, what put me off was the unnecessary philosophy about sexual liberation and how encumbered the society was towards his sexual needs, and how the majority of women he met had been abused as children which were passed off as being their ‘first sexual experience’ or ‘becoming a woman’. The main character doesn’t invoke sympathy or consolation as he eventually meets his demise.
This book was not meant for me. None of the characters are redeemable or likeable. The author does a poor job at portraying unbridled passion for all the claims of how ‘lustful and erotic’ this book was supposed to be. My only takeaway is that ‘do not read a book without reading the author’s note’.
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