‘The Enclave’: Heavy-handed execution mars the intriguing intent of Rohit Manchanda’s new novel

There is a line somewhere towards the end of Rohit Manchanda’s The Enclave which describes how different sections of time can exist together – that the future doesn’t replace the present, and the present doesn’t replace the past. Instead, they develop like a layer over the existing, a thin patina at first, eventually accumulating their own selves and stories and identities without erasing what came before them. This was a surprisingly profound line that spoke to me because unfortunately much of the book plays out the same way – the later, slightly better portions developed over an indifferent first three-quarters of the book, which unfortunately do not erase it.

The book, chronicling the regular everyday life of a divorced woman in her early forties, Maya, seems to be too self-aware to feel organic. It is supposed to be set in the 2000s, starting off somewhere in 2007. Yet, it is acutely conscious that it is being written much later, and the retrospective lens of narration takes away any authenticity that could have given the book some weight. Technology is written about with the awareness of having progressed in the later years, the recession is viewed as a blip, the very essence of being a...

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