Khasak - 14018 Words

Monday, 26 October 2009 Preface This dissertation titled ART AS A RENDEZVOUS OF MYTH AND MIND: A PSYCHOANALYTIC AND MYTHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF O V VIJAYAN’S THE LEGENDS OF KHASAK explores how the judicious selection and use of literary theory can account for the universal appeal of The Legends of Khasak, a belated self translated rendering of a famous regional work in Malayalam, Khasakkinte Ithihasam authored by the eminent writer O V Vijayan, and thus assert its artistic value. Divided into four chapters, the dissertation blends the kin theories of Psychoanalytic and Mythological criticism and applies it to the novel. The Introduction sets the ground for the analysis by exploring the scope of the novel in the comparative study of†¦show more content†¦His economy of words, intensive brooding, and blooming imagination made his characters break the boundaries of region and religion. His strokes were bold and subtle, traditional and modern. He lifted himself to the rarified realm of literary icons with h is iconoclasm as well as irony. Sex, satire and deep sorrow marks much of writing. Vijayan has remained a thoroughly Indian writer by sustaining a certain continuity of the tradition established by Vaikom Muhammed Basheer. He achieves this by delving deeper into the subcultures and the subtle dialectical variations of Malayalam. He was an inclusive writer, his mind and the little world around him were his oyster. Vijayan was chronicling a period wrecked by violent upheavals and made absurd by farcical political gains. He reflected the incomprehensibility and futility with an outward silence and an inward alertness all through. He created a magical Malabar in his works. â€Å"I have always felt that there are two kinds of writers: those who reflect the real world with its space and life and those who create a parallel world with its own space and life. Vijayan belonged to the second genre†, observed poet and once a Vijayan clone, K. Sachidanandan, secretary of the Kendriya Sah itya Akademi in New Delhi. He said the Legend of Khazak was perhaps the most widely read Malayalam fiction, after Changapuzha Krishna Pillai’s poetic opus Ramanan. (The Tribune) The Legends of Khasak, O V Vijayan’s debut novel and master piece, truly