Already I'm wondering if a whole year of picaresque is such a good idea. A stylistic element that I was not out to encounter keeps popping up: the stupendously aggrandized ego of the author/protagonist. It is too soon in the year to pity these writers. We read to find the universal, the piece of ourselves in the adventures of the main character or the lives of the biographers. However, it seems as though writing about one's life under the guise of a picaresque story by itself permits the author to not just exaggerate and satirize, but to extol his urges as beyond the pale.
Related to this disheartening characteristic of self-promotion is the diminution of other people, as mere foils for the main character's exploitations.
The Revised Kama Sutra was written by Richard Crasta, who calls himself Avatar Prabhu for this novel. (Coincidentally, Avatar is raking in billions of dollars for director Cameron as I read the book.) Avatar is an appropriate pseudonym for Crasta, someone who is uncomfortable in his own heritage and skin, demeaning the European colonialists who imprinted themselves on India, but nevertheless, completely enamored by America of the 1960s. So much of the story line aligns with Crasta's life: his being a Managlorean Catholic; his father being a WWII prisoner of war; his education by nuns and Jesuits. (I switched to this book about an Indian rogue when I was baffled by the language and cultural and geographic reference in Kipling's Kim; I will head back to India shortly.)
Put up against my ten elements, I have to conclude that TRKS is picaresque. In fact, it is too formulaic. What I find lacking is the turn of phrase that begs to be underlined. I was almost 400 pages into the book before I marked anything off: "When one arrives at the point where the rate of memory loss plus the rate of confusion exceeds the rate of absorption of new knowledge, it is time to give up one's quest for understanding ... it was difficult not to come to the conclusion that all quests, including this one, are by definition quixotic, and even insane."
The author/protagonist does end up with some kind of personal growth at the end, despite his dalliance with his publisher. "Fight, fight, and enjoy the fight, but don't take it too personally. Because the Other is also you, and your separateness is an illusion."
Things I liked: his insights and painful disclosures about how prejudiced Americans were to his dark skin when he came to study here; his "whimsical" and "compassionate" glossaries which I should have read when the foot note numbers popped up instead of waiting until the end. It would have helped with the references to exotic food and ethnic slurs. And the six degrees of separation reference to Fowler's English Usage, the best throw away line after reading that absolutely tedious biography of Fowler and his dictionaries.
What I didn't like: the contrived letters to Jackie Kennedy and the editorial comments of his female publisher.
If I hadn't plowed onward and started another novel last night, one that after only 60 pages, I decided was eminently "under-line-able," I would have rethought me 2010 list ... perhaps switching over to 50+ books about food.
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