Ode to Memory

IN THE LITTLE BOOK OF GOODBYES, RAVI SHANKAR ETTEΤΗ TURNS PARTING AND LOSS INTO SOMETHING QUIETLY RESTORATIVE

- Aditya Mani Jha

Organised as a loosely connected mass of friends-and-family lore, Ravi Shankar Etteth’s The Little Book of Goodbyes is a highly unusual and, given its theme of deaths and other kinds of farewells, oddly comforting collection of memories. Note that I said ‘memories’ and not ‘anecdotes’, because ‘anecdote’ evokes traditional plotting. A memory is an untamed beast with no narrative constraints at all. This allows Etteth to pepper his stories with literary allusions, historiographic observations and counterintuitive life lessons.