V. J. James interview: ‘Literature must forewarn about consequences of human actions’

Set in the hauntingly atmospheric Potta Thuruthu — The Isle of Reeds — The Book of Exodus tells the story of Kunjootty, a writer who struggles to chronicle the lives of a community untouched by the tide of modernisation, inhabiting a world poised on the edge of erasure. Through Kunjootty, and the painful story of exile of his family, James reflects on the human condition with poignant clarity, fusing the tangible with the transcendental.

Struggling to write his own Book of Exodus, Kunjootty aims to immortalise the lives and stories of his fellow villagers. However, as the mysteries and tragedies of his own existence come into sharp relief, the novel transcends the personal and assumes the scale of an epic. Past and present, myth and reality, flow together like the nameless river alongside the village, carrying the reader through a montage of interconnected lives. It is a story where the boundaries between time and memory blur, and where the individual struggles of Kunjootty’s acquaintances converge into a universal meditation on impermanence.

James, an engineer at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, continues to push literary boundaries with works like Nireeswaran, Chorashastra and Anti-Clock, which have earned critical acclaim in English translations. Now, with The Book of Exodus, readers are invited to experience the genesis of his literary journey — a novel that took over 12 gruelling years to write and remains one of the finest achievements in Malayalam literature. It is, above all, a work that reminds us why stories endure: because they carry within them the indomitable spirit of the storyteller.

In this interview to The Federal, James talks about the artistic, cultural, and humanistic depths of his extraordinary work. He talks about balancing fantasy with reality, the philosophical undertones of his writing, and how the isle’s transformation mirrors global ecological shifts. His reflections remind us why literature endures and how it archives, critiques, offering us a mirror and a map. Excerpts from the interview:

The title The Book of Exodus carries theological weight but is used here in an almost secular sense. What drew you to this biblical resonance, and how do you see it reframing the ideas of exile, salvation, and return in a contemporary, non-religious context?

We do not know where we come from. Neither do we know where we return or whether we do. The novel has a pivotal quotation from the Book of Exodus in the Bible. ‘But when they measured it with an omer, those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage.’

When the people of Israel fled from the slavery of Egypt, and wandered through the deserts seeking Canaan, Jehovah bestowed manna from the heavens. The uniqueness of manna was that nobody could store it for the next day. Human life is the same.

Birth is the beginning of the exile and death is the return. In this journey of returning to the land of origin, those who gather avariciously and those who gather only what is needed, remain equal. In front of death, there is no difference between them. Kunjootty recognises the truth after many harrowing experiences.

In my book Chorashastra: the Subtle Science of Thievery, the thief undergoes a similar experience. After mastering the fine art of thievery, gaining the ability to open every lock with a mere glance, having amassed all the treasures of the world, he realises that he controls nothing. In a way, we are all thieves, stealing from nature. We are trapped in the prison of this world. The highest level of existence is the mind’s absolute detachment, before nature forcibly takes everything back. Kunjootty eventually accepts this truth.

Potta Thuruthu, the Isle of Reeds, becomes almost a character in The Book of Exodus. You write in the Introduction how a visit to an isle in the neighbourhood of Kochi made you a writer. What was it about this remote, isolated isle that held such a sway on you, compelled you to weave it into a novel? Was there a specific moment on the isle that crystallised its role in your imagination?

The seed of Purappadinte Pustakam aka The Book of Exodus sprouted in me and took a life of its own, similar to a seed buried deep inside the earth, budding and blooming at the appropriate time. I had reached the isle to attend the marriage of my friend’s sister. He was my engineering batch mate. Even as I sat on the boat which moved towards the isolated island, far removed from the pomp and luxuries of Cochin city, something surged from within. In front of their house was a Chinese fishing net. Without a skiff, one could not move about in that landscape of endless waters. It was a geography unfamiliar to me. Shrimp farms, omnipresent Potta plants that dotted the shore, and the innocent natives, soon won over my heart.

There were many friends and relatives who had arrived to attend the wedding, due to be solemnised the following day. Everyone joined hands to make arrangements for the feast and the dais. The air was full of hearty laughter and jokes were cracked in the peculiar Cochin slang. All of a sudden, a rain storm struck, destroying whatever had been painstakingly prepared. I was shaken by the incident. How would they overcome this calamity? Yet, these men and women, who had overcome many trials in their lives, came together and created the wedding dais yet again, showcasing their fortitude and resilience.

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The Bhimanattam — a dance drama around Bhima’s story — which was depicted on the night of the wedding, the prophecy by a woman who was possessed, happened in front of my own eyes. I have added those parts faithfully in the novel. Shrimps, crabs, river, card games, local toddy…people swimming stone drunk, resembling heads bobbing around the lagoon (The character of Kayal Pottan in the novel), all these tidbits, furrowed a field of stories inside me.

Through the open window of my friend’s room, I could see the circling beacon of the lighthouse afar. It was that room which I kept aside for Kunjootty in the novel. I went searching for the beacon once, wishing to see it closely. Many of Kunjootty’s experiences, fraught with vulnerability, were borrowed from the life of another friend. These stories I presented in the backdrop of Potta Thuruthu, the Isle of Reeds.

In retrospect, I realise that the book was the beginning of my own spiritual sojourn, even as it portrayed Kunjootty’s exodus. The exploration of life’s philosophical planes, revealed in my later books, Nireeswaran and Anti-Clock, started with the Book of Exodus. The motivation for the writing sprung not from one incident, but from the varied lives, customs, myths and beliefs. The stark distinctiveness of the isle called Potta Thuruthu played its own vital role. It might be truthful to state that Nature herself invited the writer to re-create the isle through words.

Your characters in the novel inhabit a world that oscillates between the tangible and the mythical. Do you see this duality as a reflection of the human condition — our simultaneous yearning for certainty and transcendence? How did you decide which elements of Potta Thuruthu would lean toward reality and which toward legend?

Writing fiction is like driving a two-wheeler with perfect balance. One wheel is reality and the other is fantasy. I feel that an accomplished writer creates fiction by efficiently balancing both wheels using his imagination. If there is the slightest misbalance, the vehicle shall topple over.

We live oscillating between fantasy and reality every day. It is similar to experiencing our dreams as reality when asleep, and realising the truth on waking up. Inside every writer there is a constant tussle between what’s certain and what’s unreal. Fiction allows the untrammeled flow of imagination. A writer succeeds when he can gift the reader an experience wherein the border lines of reality and fantasy merge smoothly.

When you create, both the heart and intelligence come into play. The heart is the seating place of emotions and intelligence, that of logic. If one dominates, it would affect the perfection of the creative work. Editing becomes significant at this juncture. The misconception, about one’s writing being excellent, clears up when we re-read the sentences after some time. In the case of The Book of Exodus, editing and rewriting over 12 years, must have helped to bring about a greater balance between the heart and the intelligence.

Once you master a two-wheeler, one can develop a proficiency to display many tricky maneuvers without falling off! When writers display such skills, we call them versatile and talented. While encountering classics, which endure through the ages, one can notice the skilful interplay of intelligence and the heart.

There is a palpable tension in the novel between the act of preserving a culture and the inevitability of its transformation. How do you reconcile this tension in your writing? Do you believe literature has the power to act as an archive, or is it more of an elegy for what is lost?

When Kunjootty laments about the slow erasure of the shrimp farms, the fields, and the backwaters, the inevitability of changes come into focus. Twenty years have passed since the publication of the original book, Purappadinte Pustakam. Now the world is intensely discussing about preserving nature. Global warming and climate change are the results of the human species seeking limitless consumerist pleasures and a life far removed from nature. When such irreversible transformations happen in every corner, the earth changes as a whole. Potta Thuruthu, a small isle, thus turns into a replica of the world.

While walking through Cochin recently, a sardonic anecdote from the novel suddenly came alive. A father tells his son, ‘The lagoon was beyond these high-rise buildings. I saw it when I was young.’ What was written in The Book of Exodus has come terrifyingly true, like a chilling prophecy. The concrete jungle has virtually swallowed the backwaters.

A writer is someone who worries about the future, while arguing with the present, with one foot in the past. Across the globe, there are protests about the mindless destruction of nature. It is the duty of literature to be aware of what human actions entail and to forewarn about the imminent consequences. Undoubtedly, literature has great power to provoke inner transformation in the reader. Someone who has finished reading a fine piece of literature is not the same human being who set out to read it.

The notion of community in The Book of Exodus feels precarious, as though it exists on borrowed time. Were you inspired by specific communities or historical moments where the fragility of collective identity was starkly evident? How did this influence the narrative?

While mining the history of the isle, I discovered its feudal past, when many social injustices prevailed. From many sources, both written and oral, I became familiar with the stories of relentless resistance of the marginalised communities. My friend’s father recounted poignant stories of the olden times.

In the social history of Kerala, we know that Communism took root as a reaction against the oppressive practices and inequalities prevailing in society. Though these hierarchical power struggles have been alleviated to a great extent in Kerala, we are aware that they continue in many North Indian villages. Yes, the social inequities which the forbearers of Potta Thuruthu suffered, as well as the remnants of that suffering, have influenced the narrative.

The act of writing is central to the novel, but Kunjootty’s attempts are often met with failure or dismissal. What do you think failure reveals about the creative process? Would the novel have been the same if Kunjootty had succeeded in becoming a recognised chronicler?

If we look at history and memorable books that are firmly placed in it, we find that most were created because the world is not beautiful. It is ironic that war, hunger, famine and diseases: a procession of failures, became the primal reason for excellent literature and finest works of art. If Kunjootty and the characters around him had not met with painful experiences, The Book of Exodus would never have been created.

Kunjootty seems like a failure, when viewed through a specific frame of reference. He starts on an inner journey seeking truth and gets closer to reality. We are all characters created by the universe. None of us decide our births, deaths or life circumstances. In the book written by the writer called Nature, we are merely enacting our pre-defined roles. So, in a novel written by one character called James, another character named Kunjootty tears apart his book. Isn’t it meaningless to wonder what would have happened otherwise?

It is the insight, the insignificance of chronicling the tales of those who appear and disappear in a corner of the infinite universe that makes Kunjootty destroy his creation. It seems recurrent and meaningless to him. He is searching for an eternal meaning that transcends all futility.

In another of my novels, Dattapaharam (published by Penguin Random House), there is a character called Freddie Robert. Freddie, who experiences nature as a part of his own self, transforms into nature eventually. In that state of existence, a lion shall see Freddie as another lion; an elephant as one of its own. The dualities like joy and sorrow do not touch Freddie. In one way, Freddie Robert is Kunjootty in a fully actualised form. Kunjootty is like Gautama who has left the royal palace. The journey to become Bodhisattva begins at that point.

If Kunjootty had insisted on recording the history of Potta Thuruthu, the title of his book would have been rendered irrelevant. The exodus is not just an exile. It is an internal sojourn which begins due to the insufferable furnace of external experiences.

The story is deeply rooted in the geography of Kerala’s backwaters, yet the novel resonates on a universal level. Do you see regionalism as a form of resistance in literature, especially in a world increasingly shaped by homogenised narratives?

In a world increasingly becoming a global village, it is very difficult for any region to isolate itself totally. The most desirable response would be to balance the interaction, engage in a fruitful give and take, while retaining the essence of its own language and distinctive characteristics. I do not imply the morphing of regionalism into extreme separatist tendencies, after declaring war against homogenisation. Nature has designed particular terrains, suitable physical features and appropriate food habits to live in harmony with the region where we are born.

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The world which existed 25 years before, when the book was written, was different. Globalisation followed in due course of time. Societies and governments are aware of the implications, both positive and negative. They also have strategies for handling those. Today, seated in any corner of the world, a person can fully immerse himself in the rural landscape The Book of Exodus evokes. Diversity is the heart of the universe’s beauty. A universe with a single language, colour and culture would be so tedious.

The book evokes an intricate interplay of memory, forgetting, and invention. How much of The Book of Exodus is an act of invention versus reconstruction? Do you see memory as a reliable tool for storytelling, or is it inherently suspect?

Since we are caught in the time-space conundrum, we undergo experiences in the form of memories and discoveries. In reality, we are learning every moment. During the process of writing, many inexplicable, unforeseen developments occur in a writer’s mind. His memories, and the past, might be instrumental in creating these experiences. One cannot clearly delineate what is invention and what is reconstruction. Life itself is the merging of memory, forgetfulness and invention.

Kunjootty feels haunted not just by his personal past but by the collective history of his people. How do you view the relationship between personal and collective memory in shaping identity? Does one inevitably overpower the other?

Kunjootty is merely a link in the chain of a great memory. Like the transmission of familial genes across the generations, his memories are moulded in the shadows of haunting ancestral histories. A man’s existence is a single river in which both the rivers of personal and collective memories converge. Sometimes one flow can be overpowering in its impact. I think personal memory might dominate at times.

You’ve mentioned how rejection and delays shaped the book’s journey to publication. Do you think the story matured alongside you as a writer, or was the delay an imposition on its natural trajectory? Would the book have been different if published sooner?

The delay had a positive impact on the book. By continuously working on one book, for long years at a stretch, I was endeavoring to polish it further. The unceasing editing helped in catching even trivial defects. The man who finished the book was not the man who started writing it.

The unintentional delay happened when I tried to get the book published. Editing per se, never appeared as an imposition. That was the writer demanding the best of himself. The 12-year journey and the setbacks while trying to publish Purappadinte Pustakam, the serendipitous winning of the DC Books Silver Jubilee award, and the graceful ushering of a writing career all seem to have been blessings in disguise.

Many people have told me that The Book of Exodus does not feel like a debut novel. The effort that has gone into the making of this particular novel, might be the reason.

There’s an inherent contradiction in Kunjootty’s longing to document a place that resists being documented. Did you see this paradox as a reflection of your own writing journey — attempting to capture the intangible, knowing that words might not suffice?

No human life can fight against the phenomenon of time. The only way forward is to equably accept nature and time. No character inside a story can change the trajectory of its life course, can it? Human beings struggle, until recognition dawns that we are merely characters already etched by nature.

Irrespective of all the castles we build on earth, at any moment, we shall return empty-handed. It is this uncertainty which prompts us to seek out that ineffable, pristine essence, transcending the materialistic aspects of life. To experience that phenomenon, is to become a part of it. My later novel Dattapaharam and the character Freddie Robert, as I mentioned earlier, were attempts at describing that particular state of existence.