The Mammaries of the Welfare State
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The Mammaries of the Welfare State is an English-language Indian novel, the sequel to Upamanyu Chatterjee's debut novel, English, August, also told from the perspective of the fictional character Agastya Sen.[1] It won the Sahitya Akademi Award (English) in 2004.[2] The novel tells the story of political bureaucracy in the fictional state of Madna when an epidemic breaks out.[3] The title derives from a line of dialog in the novel, where a civil servant states "In my eight years of service, I haven't come across a single case in which everybody concerned didn't try to milk dry the boobs of the Welfare State".[3]
Critical reception
Anand Vardhan states that the novel anticipated India's initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic in its portrayal of a pandemic where civil servants are preoccupied more with "procedure and spin".[3] Anjana Sharma, writing for The Hindu, says that it "dares to voice a moral outrage that very rarely finds its way into fiction".[4] Various reviews praise the humour of the novel as a "hilarious satire",[5] "funny"[6] and "a book of laughter and disgust".[1]
It received some criticism for its structure, focus and length. Vardhan criticizes the novel's "scattered plot and meandering narratives",[3] while Sharma concurs that it is "a bit repetitive".[4] The Modern Novel states that it "does drag out somewhat" and "you just want him to get on with the story. Which he doesn’t."[6]
References
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