Student Paul Bone offers his reaction to Bhanu Kapil’s recent BathHouse reading:
Bhanu’s Project For Future Children
Humanimal is probably a text that everybody reads differently, considering the interesting subject matter and multiple narratives in the story. This makes it interesting to hear the author of the book, Bhanu Kapil, read it out loud, because there is not much of a chance that it will sound the same as it did in the reader’s mind. To hear it read by Kapil gives the text an entirely different feel, and it is refreshing for the reader to hear something that they’ve already read with a new spin.
Personally, I read the text very quickly. The book’s description of the feral children along with the wild atmosphere of the jungle put me in a wild state of mind, and as a result I couldn’t help but read at a frantic pace, because anything else seemed unnatural. Kapil’s “document” has a certain chaos to it. This is established through its multiple narratives. The fact that the reader isn’t grounded in any one specific place throughout the story, but is jumping back and forth rapidly instead might be the reason for my feeling this way.
Kapil’s unique style of storytelling is something else that keeps the reader on their toes. One example of this is the importance of the letter “o” throughout the text. When one of the girls is grabbed by her hair, her mouth forms an o, and after that the alphabetized narrative (the narrative of the two girls) doesn’t go any further than the letter “o”. Another example of Kapil’s interesting storytelling is the poetic language inserted into the piece. One passage talks about the two girls licking the dictionary off of each other’s faces. I would like to make a comparison between Kapil and another writer, but I’m afraid that I simply can’t. Her style, from what I’ve seen, is completely her own.
Kapil’s reading of the book was exciting because I got to hear the text differently than how I’d heard it when I was reading it in my head. As stated before, I read the text at a very quick pace, not pausing very often except for in between narratives. Kapil, on the other hand, read the book very slowly. Before the reading, I realized that this text was somewhat poetic, but Kapil’s way of reading it seemed to bring out more of its poetry. Where my reading of the book was fast and ended up blurring words together, Kapil’s was very slow, and she made sure to completely articulate every word. The effect of this was that I was able to better place myself into the jungle of Midnapure. Hearing only Kapil’s voice in the dark room was immensely helpful toward further understanding the emotion of the book.
During both the reading and the smaller group discussion, I noticed that Kapil had a refreshing modesty that made her easy to talk with. For the reading, she didn’t have a long, drawn-out introduction. She simply said that she was going to read, and then she did. She also seemed noticeably nervous during the reading part of it, which, to me, further showed off her modesty. She didn’t seem pretentious, like she was reading the best thing that was ever written. On the contrary, she seemed almost embarrassed that that many people had come to see her. This didn’t detract from her reading performance, however. Her inflection and articulation made it a fun experience, and her throwing the book into the crowd when she was finished was a nice finishing touch.
While at the small group discussion, Kapil was very gracious in the way that she answered questions. She learned the names of everyone who was asking the questions, she answered those questions in an entertaining manner (with no boring one or two word answers), and she would always ask if her answer was helpful to the person who asked it.
Overall, it was an exciting experience. Kapil cared about this event. It was clear that it wasn’t simply another stop on her checklist.