Can’t: A Novel by Shinie Antony
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 5/5
One Line Review: A story about discovering what we can and cannot do and why.
“There are other journeys between men and women. Equally, if not more important.”
What happens when we put two completely contrasting personalities together? One, who cannot stop telling stories of her life, “Storyteller or mentally touched-or was that synonymous?” and another who has adopted silence as his mother tongue? “Silence is my first language, my mother tongue. I can’t trust words-words take sides.”
We get a novel as sublimely surreal and achingly enchanting as ‘Can’t’ by Shinie Antony.
In the peculiar town of ‘Can’t,’ the author introduces us to Nena, an eccentric old woman who is allergic to water and survives on “water capsules.” Nena embarks on a quest in her seventies to trace her late husband’s lovers. Accompanying her is the narrator, a 17-year-old boy whom she calls Tata, though it is not his real name. Their journey in ‘Can’t’ becomes a tale that illustrates the intricate web of human connections.
The thoughtful assessment of identity, sexuality, and the pursuit of self-discovery is what drew me into the narrative’s rich and immersive world.
The brilliance of ‘Can’t’ lies in its characters. Nena, with her inimitable storytelling and penchant for divulging intimate details, clashes immensely with Tata, the perpetual listener enveloped in silence. These two are stark, honest, and unforgettable, their contrasting yet complementary personalities breathing life into the narrative.
The characters’ struggles, emotions, and revelations mirror universal themes, making the novel a poignant exploration of the human condition. The prose is both lyrical and wise, offering reflections on life that resonate deeply. The novel contemplates the complexities of existence, from the poetic to the brutally honest.
Antony delicately navigates the subject of sexuality, infusing the narrative with authenticity and passion.
While Nena exemplifies eccentricity to the hilt, with her inappropriately loud mouth and flair for indulging strangers with the sordid details of her husband’s many escapades. Tata assumes the role of the perpetual listener, seldom offering opinions or advice, and creating for himself a niche in Nena’s life story, while simultaneously battling through the ravaged landscape of his own past as he wonders—“how much silence is too much listening?”
The thing that hit home for me was that everyone, irrespective of their years, has a story to tell. While Nena revels in the telling of her life’s stories with a zeal peculiar to those who know their time on earth is limited, Tata recuses himself from the stage of life, biding his time, as only the young can, waiting for a future he cannot see of even fathom.
“The thing about her. Unlike me, who waited for real life to begin tomorrow or day after, next month, next year, a time not now, maybe later or even never, here was she occupying her yesterdays as solidly as she did her todays.”
Nena’s life is a subtext for the lives of most women in our world. “All women were divided into two-a young girl doted on by parents and a young woman in her husband’s hot embrace.”
It is a history of the women who said ‘no’. Despite all the expectations and norms, those who said, I can’t, I won’t—“even though it will destroy lives and whisk the earth from under your feet. You shake your head with a raw grief, knowing they see you now as an ingrate, as stubborn, while you’re only being you.”
Tata’s life is a representation of men’s existence. A story of confusion, cluelessness, chaos. A tale of unbecoming until something or someone nudges us towards becoming.
“I could see mouths move, hands reach out, but I had backed off from speech and touch, retreated where none could follow. I, who never really knew who I was, moved further away from that knowing.”
‘Can’t’ is fundamentally a story about finding oneself amid the cacophony of societal expectations. It’s about wading through the overwhelming tide of all the labels and identities that are thrust on us by everyone else-our families, our society, the world at large, and then stumbling across our true selves finally being able to understand and recognise who we are.
“Because one expects shelters to be outside of oneself, spelt out in bricks and hand-picked tiles. Packing and unpacking, settling and moving. You can go from room to room and not be home.”
One of the most significant aspects of this narrative is that it encourages readers to ask the ever-confounding question that humans have been asking for eternity: Who am I? And what is the meaning of my life?
“Who salts the sea, washes the water?
Who will bell the bell,
Buy what I won’t sell?
See eye to eye on the same face?
And whom will
My death kill?”
I wholeheartedly recommend ‘Can’t’ to readers seeking a brilliantly bizarre journey into the intricacies of identity and existence. Antony’s storytelling prowess, coupled with the rich character dynamics, creates a narrative that is both surreal and profoundly relatable.
Whether you are drawn to outspoken narratives like Nena’s or resonate with the silent introspection of characters like Tata, ‘Can’t’ offers a universal exploration of the self.
This book has been published by Speaking Tiger. You can follow them on YKA here.