Everything the Light Touches
Janice Pariat
HarperVia: 2022
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In the paintings of the seventeenth-century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, character, setting and narrative almost appear incidental. What’s crucial is the light. It’s light that is often no more than a suggestion, a mellow afterglow of everyday life rendered mystical in the presence of a gently dabbed aura. It’s this light that orchestrates scenes in works that have endured over the centuries: ‘A Maid Asleep’, ‘Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window’, ‘The Milkmaid’ and many others.

I’m reminded of the same light while reading novelist Janice Pariat’s latest book, Everything the Light Touches. But while Vermeer’s light existed in the depiction of mostly indoor spaces and unremarkable domestic episodes, Pariat chooses to manifest hers across a ricocheting canvas that crisscrosses eras, characters in history, decisive philosophies in botany and momentous voyages.

 

• Tags: India, Issue 32, Janice Pariat, Siddharth Dasgupta