Sunday book pick: ‘Farewell Song’, Rabindranath Tagore’s metafiction novel meant to silent critics

In the Introduction to her translation of Rabindranath Tagore’s iconic novel Farewell Song (Sesher Kobita), Radha Chakravarty gives a detailed account of why Tagore wrote the novel, and why he wove poetry into prose. Written at a time when the Nobel laureate was having second thoughts about his work and readers were beginning to move on, and even criticise him, Farewell Song seems to be a response to a new school of Bengali writers and critics.

Romance and literature

Centreing his novel around a young couple, Amit Raye and Labanyalata, Tagore uses a romantic relationship to comment on conjugal love, social expectations and literary criticism. Amit is back from Oxford University, young man, a common specimen during Tagore’s time – wealthy men who did little and spoke too much. Meanwhile, Labanya has grown up in the care of her widowed “korta ma” Yogamaya. She is well-educated, quite refined, and devoted to “Robi Thakur’s” poetry. Through her, Tagore lavishes himself with praise as Labanya tries to convince Amit that the poet is worthy of all the adulation he gets. Amit, who prides himself as a man of the world, is disenchanted by Robi Thakur – in fact, he claims to have never liked him at all. His list of complaints includes...

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