Who is Newton Francis Xavier? Get a copy of The Book Of Chocolate Saints

If there is one thing that writer Jeet Thayils new novel The Book Of Chocolate Saints Aleph Book Company will do it will make you very very curious Rarely do you come across a literary novel where you go back to searching for clues within the multilinear narrative We were pondering over just one niggling question Is Thayils protagonist Newton Francis Xavier someone we knowThe protagonist in The Book Of Chocolate Saints is modelled on writer Dom Moraes who is pictured here with partner writer Sarayu SrivatsaXavier as we are told is a blocked poet serial seducer of women philosopher recluse allround wild man and Indias greatest living poet Rings a bell Not quiet yet As the novel progresses we also learn that Newton was expelled from his school in Goa for creating a woman in a hat and a sundress through which you could see her naked figure on the wall of the boys toilet That to art aficionados would bring to mind the famed FN Souza 1924 ndash 2002 who history has long exonerated for drawing graffiti in the toilet at St Xaviers College in then Bombay As the character is fleshed out the flamboyance of his lifestyle his earned arrogance and the brutality of his pathbreaking paintings recreated during his peripatetic life between Bombay London New York and New Delhi we get a semblance of something more realBut heres the catch Thayils Xavier is also a poet who studied at Oxford and was published by Nissim Ezekiel And thats where Thayil 58 has us in More than Souza it is Dom Moraes that the arc of Newton Francis Xaviers life is modelled on the Bengalurubased writer says in an email interview Doms life was made for television or the movies He knew that on some level because he wrote two autobiographies and was a devoted chronicler of his milieu he addsJeet Thayil PicAkanksha SharmaBut how does one explain the uncanny likeness of his protagonist with Souza whose full name was Francis Newton Souza the shared place of birth the style of paintings and obsession for nudes in particular redhaired giantess with red nipples and red eyes and a black phallusshape in her belly as described in the novel I thought about it a good deal The name Francis Newton Xavier echoes St Xavier St Francis FN Souza and Dominic Francis Moraes Dom named his son Francis and his fathers name was Frank just like in the novel Also I liked the graphic and tonal qualities of the letter x It occurred to me that Xavier could be the name of a saint and a sinner Goa was a natural connection A part of the book is set there because Xavier is a native of Forgottem a place name you have to love says the Man Booker finalist and Sahitya Akademi Awardwinning writer As far as the painting goes Thayil explains that the drawing on the books cover for instance is by Manu Parekh whose work had seen a Souzainspired period Manu was part of a very small group who remained friends with the painter throughout his life he saysThere are moments too many in the book where history fact fiction come together And Thayil doesnt hold back from admitting to having woven his journalistic years of enquiry into putting this novel together One interesting fictional story in the book has the mention of Prime Minister Gandhi who invites Xavier to her residence to draw her portrait He had made her a blob of black against a background of newspaper headlines about the Emergency It was a special kind of black Really it was the absence of all colour And all you saw in the elongated humanoid blackness were a pair of eyes and the famous streak of white in the hair Xaviers daughter Gill Temple tells of the painting in the novelThat incident the meeting between Xavier and Mrs Gandhi occurred to me as a possibility while reading Doms account of his interview with the prime minister I was particularly struck by his description of her frightening eyes and the way she answered all his questions with monosyllables This novel uses some of the techniques of journalism and it explores the area of overlap between fiction and nonfiction I think the distinction is mostly irrelevant in any case its all writing says Thayil The novel he says which takes us to Bombay of the 60s and 70s London and New York has been in the making for ten years The Bombay sections did not require much research I knew Bombay in the late seventies eighties and nineties For someone of my generation it isnt old Bombay Its the city we used to know and love I was living in New York during 911 but for some reason that sequence required a lot of research as did the scenes set in London says ThayilAs large as this novel is it spills into 500 pages the book is easy to devour with Thayil experimenting with various narrative styles One gets to see an interesting mix of verse and storytelling as relayed through multiple voices I try not to bore the reader or myself though of course Im not always successful he says of why he enjoys experimenting with the idea of the novel I think pleasure is a reason to write a novel and to read it and one of the ways of doing this is to break the form