An incessant journey that begins at the end of the lane, a gnome that travels with a merchant to the land beyond to stop an impending war, an otter on an expedition to explore himself, a matchstick girl looking for a companion, a sailor’s compassionate relationship with his wife living on the shore, a little ghost girl longing to get into Harvard, an island that wakes up to a hovering storm and an untold danger, a murder in the streets of Notre-Dame and some moments in between... these are the glimpses into the fantastical and surreal world painted by author Zuni Chopra for the readers.
Borrowed from a figment of the teenaged author’s imagination, The Island of the Day Before is nothing short of a flight of fancy and lingers somewhere between reality and reverie. The language is simple and clear and the writing is lucid with elements of wit, humour, harmony, rhythm and a lot of mystery and symbolism. This anthology — with prose, poetry and flash fiction — is crafted with much care, given Zuni’s take on various issues with the boldness of a teenager, yet showing gentleness towards the characters.
Zuni’s natural flair for magic realism and the inspiration she draws from authors like Neil Gaiman is very evident throughout the book. I appreciate how she does not refrain from experimenting with themes and forms and ends up with this eclectic collection consisting of some peculiar word choices and a unique manner of expression. I also commend the awareness Zuni carries with her about the world, but I’m sure that’s a privilege she enjoys, being the daughter of filmmaker Vidhu Vinod Chopra and film critic Anupama Chopra.
Although, there are times when the book’s strength becomes one of its ultimate weaknesses. The stories get too verbose and the metaphors too far-fetched, not fulfilling their purpose of being explicable. The book jacket rightly says that this collection of short stories is highly extraordinary and unpredictable. However, not necessarily in the right light every time. The plot is a bit weak at times and the stories have loopholes as well.
Individually, some stories like Okkie, The Matchstick Girl, The Merchant and The Gnome and even poems like The Sailor’s Wife are comprehensive in themselves. But put together, the stories lack the connection, pattern and the flow that a good book of short stories should possess. This flow takes the reader on a journey in the outer dimension and presents the bigger picture, the sentiment behind the whole book (but that’s something the publisher should have kept in mind).
But The Island of the Day Before lacks that wholeness and gets a little too arbitrary. For instance, the Otter, after a day of sunbathing, sleeping and floating in the water, gets one random thought about the human race and how they ‘don’t spend their time doing something a bit more useful. This would have made sense if there was a gradual progression to the thought.
What also struck me about the book, and I absolutely loved, was how quickly Zuni escalates from being sweet and gentle to being dark. From a beautiful poem like Sometimes, my personal favourite, or the cute one H.A.U.N.T.E.D, she gets all nihilist in The Party where she meets strange people and the room gets smaller by the minute. In Okkie, a little girl succumbs to the mechanical way of living, and two fishes — Red and Blue — decide to leave their school of fishes to get their life back and the moment they do, they are eaten by a bigger fish. I sense a bit of existentialism, but it gets too fantastical for that.
It’s a good, easy and fun read and the progress and depth of Zuni’s writing over the years, compared to her previous three books, is pretty evident. Overall, I think the book will be a better fit for children and pre-teens than a young-adult audience.
