A Closely Examined World

Thursday, February 2, 2006 at 05:58PM
Michael Chacko Daniels

 

Anything Out of Place Is Dirt

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Another time and place

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An Introduction by Naomi Rose

In reading Michael Chacko Daniels’ early novel, Anything Out of Place Is Dirt, recently published in a revised second edition, I found myself entranced by the evocative, poetic, often soaring beauty of the writing.

The narrator, an Indian atypically named Barthalomew, is young and intensely self-conscious; but I soon found endearing his painful, sincere efforts to connect with other people and the factionalized society around him.

I found myself willing to enter his closely examined world, expanding to include every one of his paradoxical qualities—as when he looks up at an office clock on the wall, remembers that he is already wearing a wristwatch, and then, as if others were purposely watching him, aware of his awkward mistake, covers his traces by turning the knob of his watch as if to set it.

This intense self-consciousness, and the sincerity of heart confined beneath it, is tremendously touching. It is youth’s way to question existence while knowing so little of its reality; and Bartholomew’s search for love, meaning, and societal healing is also youth’s quest.

Yet the book has such detailed nuance that this is no polemic but an internal experience through another time and place, yet also timeless. Written when the author was in his twenties, Anything Out of Place Is Dirt still has great value and is worth a careful reading.

Even after the covers are closed, its yearning and song will linger.

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Naomi Rose is a writer and Book Developer whose work has appeared in Shaman's Drum, Intuition Journal, The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Writer's Connection, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, The New Holistic Health Handbook, Writing, and many other publications. She is currently writing a book on writing a book. She can be reached at naomierose@yahoo.com.

 

Click here to view entire book at Google Print. 

A Writers Workshop Greenbird Book

Writers Workshop books are published by P. Lal from

162/92 Lake Gardens, Calcutta 700045, India.

Layout and lettering by P. Lal.

Printed by Abhijit Nath in a Lake Gardens Press.

Gold-embossed, hand-stitched, hand-pasted, and hand-bound by Tulamiah Mohiuddin with handloom sari cloth woven and designed in India, to provide visual beauty and what the publisher describes as “the intimate texture of book-feel.” The publisher, who glories in that “each WW publication is a hand-crafted artifact,” refuses to hide WW bindings “concealed behind ephemeral glossy jackets.”

ISBN 81-8157-270-X (Hardback Limited Edition)

ISBN 81-8157-271-8 (Flexiback Limited Edition)

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Article originally appeared on New River Free Press International: Visions of Survival & Improvement by People Remaking Our Small Planet (https://indiawritingstation.com/).