Ben Antao's market
By Augusto Pinto
pinto...@gmail.com
A profile of Ben Antao and a review of:
Living on the Market
By Ben Antao
Published: 2008
Publisher: Palabras-Press, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Cover Design: Rick McKenna
238 pages, Canadian $ 25.00
In 2008, the Velim-born Ben Antao came out with his fourth
novel Living on the Market. Once a journalist with The
Navhind Times and, later, the Indian Express, in 1966 he won
a journalism fellowship awarded by the World Press Institute
based at the Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, for a
year's study and travel in the United States.
He then moved to Canada where he worked as a
journalist, teacher, writer and certified financial
planner. He has written five novels, several short
stories, a play as well as a movie script based on
his novel The Tailor's Daughter, besides a memoir
and a travelogue of his visit to Sicily in Italy.
It is difficult to avoid the issue of self-publishing when
writing about Ben Antao. Most of his books have taken this
route to appearing in print. It says something about his self
confidence that when he believes that he has something
worthwhile to say, he is ready to put his money where his
mouth is instead of waiting for a commercial publisher.
The problem with commercial publishers is that their major
consideration will be how much profit they can make. This is
the reason for their lack of interest in books that have
niche audiences. Thus many a promising writer remains
unknown, or a manuscript which may not be written in a
currently fashionable style stays unpublished.
Of course, in this regard, Antao follows a long
list of distinguished Goan writers. As the writer
Vivek Menezes points out, "It's not much of an
exaggeration to say that if it weren't for
self-publishing, Goans wouldn't have much of a
literature at all. This is particularly true when
you consider Konkani, but much the same situation
exists across the board."
The previous novels of the 74 year Antao alternate between
Goan and Canadian themes and include Blood and Nemesis a tale
of love and lust set during the era of the freedom struggle
in Goa; Penance which examines Catholicism in Canada; and The
Tailor's Daughter which looks at caste among Goan Catholics,
especially those diaspora Goans known as the Afrikanders.
What makes Antao a very easy writer to read is his
journalistic eye for detail as he describes events and
scenes. In fact, they might make good film scripts given that
he likes to sprinkle a lot of bedroom scene masala in them.
His plot lines, although strong, tend to be fairly
straightforward; but depth of characterization is not his forte.
His language has an air of no-nonsense simplicity and his
novels could be described, for want of a better term, as
'theme' novels. That is to say, the success of his novels
depend mainly on how accurately he has accomplished the task
of explicating his theme -- whether it is the prejudice
generated by caste; or the atmosphere in Goa around the time
of the freedom movement; or in the case of the book under
review, how the stock market operates.
As the writer himself says, "My novels are plot
driven as they explore the universal themes of sex
and love, caste, religion and money. My characters
serve as vehicles for these themes." Since he
usually writes about things that he seems to have
personally experienced, seen or heard about, his
novels have a true to life feel about them.
Antao's latest offering takes as his subject the worlds of
the school system and of small-time stock market speculators
in Canada, which is the backdrop of a family break-up.
The protagonist of the novel Doug Thomas, is a 41 year old
'supply' teacher, someone who is much like the Goan
lecture-basis or contract-basis teacher only perhaps a little
worse off as he gets called to teach only when a regular
teacher is sick or absent. However in Doug's case he does it
out of choice, as this relieves him of the drudgery of doing
routine school work which he finds boring; and frees him to
play the stock market.
However this puts him under pressure, especially when there
is no supply teaching like during school vacations, as he has
to figure out how to provide for his wife Gladys and their
two children. While in the previous two years Doug has
managed to be reasonably successful in his speculations, he
is not going to be third time lucky.
A crisis erupts when Doug gambles away all his
family's money on the market. Along with the market
crash his family life crumbles too, as his wife is
not prepared to put up with a wastrel and they are
separated. The novel takes us through the ups and
downs of his life as he tries to fight off a life
of penury and depression.
Antao weaves in and out of the minds of his characters,
revealing their motivations. Annoyingly, most seem to worship
Mammon in their hearts, and cannot conceive of anything other
than a consumerist lifestyle. Although none of them is very
complex, each is sufficiently well crafted to hold our
interest.
There is Doug's wife Gladys who would probably
shock Goan sensibilities. She abandons her husband
not because of any infidelity or infertility but
only because of the piffling matter of his
financial improprieties even though she loves him.
Then there is Clem Perry a teacher colleague at a
school where Doug offers his supply teaching, whose
hints to him about the risks that the market holds
for the gullible are not heeded by Doug. Another
major character who is clearly defined is the
stock-broker Bill Mackenzie who fawns on Doug in
good times and cuts him dead when he is broke.
For those who want a gentle entry into the mysteries of the
stock market this book gives an outline of the keywords. It
is peppered with terms such as call options; bull and bear
phases; marginable securities and so on. However one also has
to sometimes bear with dialogue and passages which sound as
if it comes from a seminar conducted by a stock broker or a
financial planner, which incidentally happens to be one of
Ben Antao's occupations.
All in all, Living on the Market can be safely recommended as
an excellent and enjoyable read. Copies of the book are
available with the author "Ben Antao" <ben.an...@rogers.com>
--
Augusto Pinto lives at Novo Portugal in Moira, and is a
lecturer in English at Panjim. He is known for his
Konkani-to-English translations and is on mobile +91 9881126350
