Book Reviewed: The Cauliflower: A Novel by Nicola Barker

A provocative view of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa

Author Nicola Barker has written over 15 books, mainly fictional in nature that includes; Darkmans, The Yips: A Novel, Wide Open: A Novel, and few others. She widely uses strange imagination in her fictional narratives, and some of her books describes eccentric men in odd settings. In this book, she writes about the “odd” behavior of Ramakrishna, a Hindu spiritual leader who inspired Swami Vivekananda and host of modern Vedantins who created the “The Ramakrishna Order’ and the “Vedanta Society” around the globe. Her book mainly focusses on the challenges for his caretaker nephew “Hriday” and Ramakrishna’s benefactor Rani Rashmoni. There are scenarios in this book that are appropriate for a stage work. It is based on innuendos and legends; it is an insipid drama.

The author may have borrowed material from Jeffrey Kripal’s “Kali's Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna.” Other scholars are critical of Kripal’s work. Swami Tyagananda and Pravrajika Vrajaprana have observed that Kripal's book has speculations that are unsupported by facts or documents. It is difficult for Western authors like Ms. Barker to comprehend the concepts of Tantra, Kali Worship and Vedanta. Sigmund Freud's friend Romain Rolland examined the spiritual experiences of Ramakrishna and concluded that the “mystical states” of Ramakrishna as an "'oceanic' sentiment", and the feelings of unity and eternity, which Ramakrishna attributed to the Goddess Kali. Many scholars like Alan Roland, Somnath Bhattacharyya, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Sudhir Kakar, Kelly Aan Raab and J.S. Hawley have argued that the analysis of Ramakrishna’s “oddities” cannot be understood without understanding religious practices of Tantra and Kali Worship (bhakti yoga) rooted in Bengali Hindu tradition. In spite of this debate, the so called “eccentric” nature of Ramakrishna did not influence negatively for Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sri Aurobindo, Leo Tolstoy, Max Müller, Christopher Isherwood, Aldous Huxley, Franz Dvorak or Philip Glass who were influenced by Ramakrishna’s work.

The author’s style of writing is somewhat odd. Was she in a hurry when she wrote this book? The word “salt” appears in bold in several pages, which is confounding. In many consecutive pages, paragraphs start with word “uncle” or a phrase containing “uncle” or a phrase “In the beginning.” In an interview with a British Newspaper, Ms. Barker stated that, “Mystery is everything to me. I don’t like to have everything analyzed, torn apart and put back together again in terms of the construction of fiction.” “I am happy to confound people” Good news for the author, I am not confounded! But I have a question. How did she come to pick a social reformer like Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa as the focus for her novel? Why not pick other eccentrics like Jesus? Or is it too blasphemous to suggest.