Apologia of A Fine Balance

On Friday November 7^th at seven o’clock, The River Run centre in Guelph housed an annual event know as a Lecture on “What it means to be Canadian”, where a collection of Canadian writers, artists and other culturally motivated individuals presented varying facets of their life’s work in front of an audience, who sought an answer to the timeless question-what is a Canadian and what do they have to offer to the world? Yet upon closing of the evening this significance was not explicitly remarked upon even once. This left many members of the audience at a loss for any feeling of solidarity in regards to the significance of what exactly these people had contributed to the canon of Canada’s identity. At first, one might consider this a deep flaw within the structure of such an event, but at a closer glance it can be concluded ironically that this reflects the exact nature of the complexity behind the Canadian identity. Rohinton Mistry becomes a symbol of this complex identity when we discover he is a Canadian author, originally of Indian dissent. A Fine Balance as a piece of literature also epitomizes the quality of complexity that Canadian literature upholds as a standard of authenticity. Canada cannot be represented by one face, one story or any idea of a homogeneous nature and its boundaries do not lie in the defining landforms of Canadian geography. Canada is the meeting place for the world’s people and the histories, stories, and cultures of those individuals. This ultimately makes our nation indefinable by a single means, and displays it as being  reflected by the multicultural intricacy of what becomes a canon of Canadian thought and eventually literature.

            By writing A Fine Balance, a powerful piece of historical fiction from a land out side Canada’s physical boundaries (India), Rohinton Mistry has made a highly significant contribution to the diversity, that Canadian literature like its people, have come to associate an identity with. He has drawn attention to his book in this way, with a fervor that cannot avoid attention. By these means he has enlightened all who read his book by giving them a portrayal of the truths of humanity, a reflection of the Canadian condition, and an affirmation that the importance of all cultures and world histories continue to be reflected undeniably in the fabric of Canadian literature.

            Canada has been known for decades as a multicultural mosaic of global identities.  By writing as a Canadian citizen on the issues of India that affected his personal history, Ronhinton Misrty has made A Fine balance a work of fiction that should be paid attention to for the profound way it portrays our Canadian connection to the global situation. ‘Like Dina, the widow in his story, Mistry grew up in a Parsi family in an Indian city by the sea in his case, Bombay, though he is careful not to identify the city in ''A Fine Balance.''’(Mazzacco, Mary) A Fine Balance is written with such an intimate tone, aptly describing not only the lives of Dina, Ishvar, Om and Maneck in a way that illuminates their fully life like characterizations, but also gives them an intricate past and a history that could only have been created with Mistry’s personal connection to his own life in India. In this case the fact that he was not born as a Canadian citizen was not an impediment to his ability to write like one. He moved to Toronto, shortly after the Indian Emergency of 1975 began, and for this reason was able to write A Fine Balance with the integrity of an affected observer, but without the intense and sometimes overpowering emotion that would have been present had he still be an Indian citizen. In this situation being a Canadian citizen allowed him to blossom as a writer. It gave him the objectivity required to write a deeply honest story, one that could touch Canadians, and also be seen as a piece of the ever growing cultural puzzle that Canadian literature has grown into.  Yet this was not how it was originally received. Many critics and readers alike could not decipher the connection that a story about four characters struggling through the Emergency, could possibly have to Canadian literature. Upon it being nominated for the Canadian Booker Prize, Germaine Greer an Australian critic for the BBC remarked on the nature of this seemingly apparent conflict of interest. ‘"I absolutely hate it." Laughingly she said, "It's a Canadian book about India. What could be worse? What could be more terrible?"’(Richards, Linda) Yet this only assisted Mistry on his journey of breaking free from any constrictions that were conceived about Canadian Literature as he went on to win the Giller prize, and the Royal Society of Literature's Winifred Holtby Prize for this amazingly poignant novel. (Richards, Linda) These remarkable acknowledgements that were given to A Fine Balance, despite resistance from many citizens who had a different idea of what Canadian Literature should be, reflect once more the contribution this book and author have made to shape our understanding of Canadian lit. This book should be given credit not because it is controversial in a nationalistic sense, but because it brings all Canadians from different backgrounds together on a common cause- accepting that Canada and its literary work is shaped by all cultural forces.  Embracing the histories of all nationalities not only ties us together within our own country but educates us on the universal nature of all of our lives.

            Maragaret Atwood has written an essay concerning the nature of Canadian literature, called the Victim Theory, and by choosing for the plot of A Fine Balance to play out in a tragic manner, Rohinton Mistry has become an example of this truly Canadian identity. He has accurately reflected the condition that Maragaret Atwood says means ‘hanging on, staying alive. Canadians are forever taking the national pulse like doctors on a sickbead. Mistry also reflects with complete accuracy idea that in the canon of Canadain lit ‘Canadian authors spend a disproportionate amount of time making sure that their heroes die or fail. Much Canadian writing suggests that failure is required because it is felt.” Perhaps Mistry ha the courage to completely annihilate the future of every single one of his characters for the reason that Canada upholds and supports this tragic identity and is neutral to the story in a way that India never could be. With a firmer sense of nationalism to India, Mistry might have made the mistake of creating a happy, rewarding ending that made the struggle of his characters worth the effort. Instead he was able to find in his writing the courage to narrate from the place of the victim and truly portray the hardship that his characters faced. By writing A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry has added a new level of honesty to the Canadian literary scene. Canadians have been shown the ways in which a story so foreign to our own, in every sense of the word, can have a deep impact our impression of the human condition and its unlimited capacity for overcoming resistance. This allows each person who reads this story to see how the Canadian identity is shaped by each and every culture, and that is truly a cause for recognition and attention.