And then what happened...?: Poonam Saxena, on incomplete tales, published posthumously

They thrill and frustrate me, Saxena says. A recent such work by Marquez reminded me of Mangalsutra by Premchand, and of so many others.

Recently, an unfinished novel by the Nobel Prize-winning Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez was published, sparking great literary curiosity. Titled Until August, it was unfinished in the sense that, although Marquez had finished writing the book, he wasn’t done revising it. It could, in that sense, be more accurately described as an advanced draft.

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It is always thrilling but frustrating to me, when this kind of posthumous publishing occurs. Unfinished novels by major writers released in this way have included Jane Austen’s Sanditon (1817; about the secrets and ambitions of the residents of a seaside resort town in the Regency era), part two of Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls (1855; a satire about an enigmatic conman), F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon (1941; about a Hollywood studio manager) and so many more.

They remain literary mysteries: What had the authors intended for their characters? How would the books have ended? (Dead Souls actually stops mid-sentence.)

Thinking about this reminded me of another great writer, close to home, who left behind an unfinished work: the Hindi literary legend Munshi Premchand, and his novel Mangalsutra.

By the summer of 1936, Premchand was extremely ill. He was unable to eat or sleep. His stomach hurt all the time. Walking was difficult; his legs felt like jelly. Worst of all, he was vomiting blood. A variety of doctors and mendicants tried to heal him, but nothing helped.

His last complete novel, Godan (Gift of a Cow; the moving saga of a poor peasant and his family) had been published in May, to great acclaim. In her memoir, Premchand Ghar Mein (Premchand At Home), his wife Shivrani Devi writes that when she finished reading Godan, she wept at its tragic end. Hearing her sobs, Premchand walked in, on the pretext of wanting a paan.

“Why are you crying over a piece of fiction?” he chided her lovingly. “Now smile and I’ll tell you the plot of my new novel.”

“I don’t feel like listening to it,” the still tearful Shivrani Devi said.

I wish she had.

Premchand struggled to finish the new book. Despite his failing health, he would get out of bed, sit on the floor and work on it as often as he could. But, by the time of his death in October, only 60-odd pages were done.

Mangalsutra, as we know it, is the story of a highly respected writer named Dev Kumar, who has never sought wealth or money. Many years earlier, he sold some property, and now his son Sant Kumar wants to reclaim it, on the grounds that it was wrongly given away for a pittance.

Dev Kumar is outraged at the idea, but Sant Kumar won’t give up. He sets about seducing the daughter of the judge who will hear the case, hoping to convince them that his father was not of sound mind at the time of the sale. Meanwhile, Dev Kumar starts to rethink his life, does an about-turn, and agrees to let his son proceed with the case. This is where the novel ends.

Like all Premchand’s work, Mangalsutra is riveting. But I wish I knew what happened next. We don’t even know if the few existing chapters were drafts or the finished version. They appear quite polished and are written with Premchand’s inimitable clarity. But the novel ends when Dev Kumar breaks his lifelong commitment to honesty and austerity. Would he have regretted the decision? The plan to reclaim the property seems doomed to fail. What would Sant Kumar have done then? And why was the novel titled Mangalsutra? The few existing chapters bear no link with this piece of jewellery worn by married women.

It pains me that we will never know the answers to these questions.

I guess we should just be glad that Premchand wrote as he did, tirelessly, every day. When he died at just 56, he had already written more than a dozen novels and hundreds of short stories. Few writers have managed so much in a life cut so brutally short.

(To reach Poonam Saxena with feedback, email poonamsaxena3555@gmail.com)