Book Review: 'Devdas' by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay - The Tale of a Weak Man's Misfortune

 

Cover photo of 'Devdas' by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay

This is not the story of the life of Devdas Mukherjee, but an account of his tragic death. The book highlights the thoughts and social trends of the time very well though there's not much to think about when it's over.

Read half-way and you'll realise that Devdas was a wrecked man. With minimal control over his emotions, his downfall was inevitable. It wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that he would have died much earlier if it wasn't for his wealth. He was a very helpless character and very stubborn to his own loss. Yet, he had caring people in his life like his Mother, Parvati, her mother and Dharamdas and was fortunate enough to have met good people like Chunnilal and Chandramukhi, all of whom loved him. In any case otherwise, he could have had it much worse. The story doesn't invoke many feelings and seems like a commentary on the life of Dev and Paro for the most part and all you can feel after reading this book is pity, much more for Paro than Dev. Maybe a lot was lost in translation.

What makes this book worth your while is the subtle complexity of the story, SCC's style of character development and the detailed description of the social situation of the time; the age of the characters, the caste barriers, the system of marriage, social stigmas of the time, the pristine innocence of Dev and Paro and the recurring 'Dev Bhaiya'.

Note: I haven't seen the other adaptations, but the SRK starrer Devdas has minimal resemblance to the original story.