Van de Graaf Days

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

This first novel by a talented Indo-Canadian author is clearly
autobiographical. Seven-year-old Harischandra moves with his mother from
South India to Canada to join his father, who is studying engineering in
Ottawa.

Begamudré is primarily a short-story writer (his collection Planet of
Eccentrics [1990] won the F.G. Bressani Literary Prize for prose). The
present narrative of the immigrant experience of a child is sincere and
moving. The difficulty with the novel is that it is more properly a
short story with a great deal of filler. Begamudré leaves young Hari in
India for more than half the book. We meet not only his mother but also
his uncles, aunt, and grandparents. We are introduced as well to Hindu
philosophy and religion. And politics. And social structures. Where
pages are spent, paragraphs would serve; where paragraphs are used,
sentences would have been better. It is not until page 157 that Hari and
his mother actually arrive in Canada. At that point the novel begins a
new tack, as the boy and his father, Krishna, resume a relationship
started years before in India. Begamudré’s best writing is reserved
for this final segment, though here, too, there could be less
description and more dialogue.

This is a good first novel. Once Begamudré develops the stamina that
the longer form requires, he will no doubt produce works that are well
worth reading.