A sharp critic and devoted teacher, G S Amur, whose birth centenary is being celebrated on May 8, brought unmatched depth to Kannada and English literary discourse
Gururaja Shyamacharya Amur (1925-2020), a professor of literature, writer and critic in Kannada and English, popularly known as G S Amur, brought an unusual academic rigour to criticism, casting works of Kannada among the world’s best literary traditions. The author of more than 100 works on literary criticism in English and Kannada, he remained an avid translator right into his 95th year — his last.
Sharing his understanding of Amur with The Federal, SR Vijayashankara, critic and author, says: “Amur subjected the entire range of 20th-century Kannada literature to his critical examination. He won recognition by the Central Sahitya Akademi for Bhuvanada Bhagya (The Luck of the World), a study of Da. Ra. Bendre.”
According to Vijayashankara, Amur produced a unique critical tool — the idea of a universal literary sensibility — after a close comparison of the sensibilities of multiple literary traditions. “Kannada literature was enriched by the insights that emerged from his workshop.”
A Fulbright fellowship allowed Amur to conduct research at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Yale University for Research while a British Council grant enabled a visit to England. Amur used these opportunities to compare the direction in which criticism was evolving in these cultural contexts and expressed deep disappointment at the declining state of critical discourse in Indian universities.
A literary explorer
Over a decade-long career, Amur taught literature at universities in Maharashtra and Karnataka. He wrote even as he taught, contributing several well-known works in Kannada, including Kannada Kadambariya Belavanige (The Evolution of the Novel in Kannada), Arthaloka (A World of Meaning), Vyavasaya (Workshop), Kadambariya Swaroopa (The Form of the Novel). Koralu Kolalu: A Collection of Critical Articles on Modern Kannada Poetry (2006), Anthology of Selected Plays of Sriranga/ Adya Rangacharya (2005), Swatantryottara Sannakathegalu (Short Stories Written Post-Independence-2004), Avala Kathegalu (Her Stories,1999), and Selected Kannada Short Stories (1993). Prominent among Amur’s English writings are Forbidden Fruit, Views on Indo-Anglian Fiction and Colonial Consciousness in Commonwealth Literature.
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Born in a village, Bommanahalli (now Haveri district of Karnataka), Amur completed an MA in English from the University of Mumbai and a PhD in English from Karnatak University, Dharwad, writing a thesis titled ‘The Concept of Comedy.” His critical essays range from a study of RK Narayan’s novels —The River, the Lotus Pond and the Ruined Temple: An Essay on Symbolism in RK Narayan's Novels (1985) and Philip Roth’s My Life as a Man: Portrait of the Artist as a Trapped Husband (1984) to commentary on Ralph Waldo Emerson in The Beautiful and the Necessary: A Note on Emerson’s Idea of Form (1983).
He examines marriage as symbolic strategy and the idea of “self-recognition” in Raja Rao’s The Serpent and the Rope, and the literary mechanisms at work in The Catcher in the Rye, RK Narayan’s The Guide and EM Forster’s novels. The Karnataka Sahitya Academy awarded him for his contribution to literary criticism and literature in 1988.
On the education system
Sharing confidence in the female perspective in literature with this author a long time ago, he had said. “The literary standards created by men and the male perspective are inadequate in the analysis of women’s literature.” In Essays on Modern Kannada Literature, published by Karnataka Sahitya Academy in 2001, Amur noted: “The nature of these essays varies from encyclopaedia entries and centenary tributes to critical assessment of the writer’s total work. Though the book cannot claim to be literary history in the full sense of the term it is, in its broad outlines, a graph of my serious engagement with Kannada literature for over three decades.”
“There is considerable interest in Kannada literature at home and abroad, and I trust that this volume would find a wide readership outside Karnataka, but I hope these essays will be of as much interest to many Kannada readers as to those outside the language. Essays pertaining to major writers such as D R Bendre, Adya Rangacharya, A N Krishna Rao and Shantinatha Desai are, of course, more extensive and better known. But even then, these essays, which cover a large ground, should be of interest to readers,” he added.
“It is strange but true that there are quite a few readers whose mother tongue is Kannada who, because of the peculiar nature of our educational system — which has not shed its colonial character even after half a century of Independence — remain largely unaware of developments in Kannada literature. I remember U. R. Ananthamurthy once saying that it is possible for students today to complete their graduation without any knowledge of the work of our major writers. I have found this to be true in my own experience. I hope the present volume will help them discover what they have missed.”
A critic par excellence
Among the celebrated authors, Amur was the first to respond to Devanuru Mahadeva’s collection of short stories and D R Nagaraj’s Shaktisharadeya Mela. DR Nagaraj has observed that Amur’s criticism is objective and rigorous and that, while remaining in the background, Amur “uses all his scholarship and intelligence to clearly and beautifully describe the work and identify the literary tradition of which it is part.” He saw Amur as being a critic in the mould of FR Leavis.
Other writers have observed that in his early career, Amur successfully contended with and overcame the dependence of Kannada literary tradition on theories propounded in other literary cultures. Amur did this by evolving his own critical framework.
UR Ananthamurthy described Amur as “a true scholar-critic, someone who could analyse without letting ideology overpower insight.” Further, he said, “Amur’s readings are always measured, deeply informed and generous. He doesn’t judge writers by fashion, but by the integrity of their craft.” Ananthamurthy was deeply appreciative of Amur’s work on Bendre, calling it, “…one of the most important literary studies in Kannada.”
In Sankathana, Kannada writer and critic KV Narayan has observed: “Amur introduced a rare blend of western literary theory and Kannada sensibility. His critical essays never alienated readers; they invited them to the very heart of literature.” Poet and playwright HS Shivaprakash saw in Amur a rare humility of scholarship. “He had read world literature deeply yet his roots were firmly in Kannada and helped many writers to see how local and global literary sensibilities can converse.”
K. Satchidanandan of the Sahitya Akademi saw Amur as “a bridge between Indian languages and English criticism, between tradition and modernity. He upheld pluralism in literature — linguistically and ideologically.” Fellow critic GH Nayak, who passed away recently, had said: “Though analytical, Amur’s language always touches the reader. He gave classical criticism a breath of emotional resonance.”
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Amur wrote a three-part autobiography Neera Melana Gulle (Bubble on Water) in his last years. Commenting on it, fellow literary critic C.N. Ramachandran says that even as the autobiography hurls Amur between the scylla of self-glorification or charybdis of settling scores with others, Amur navigates deftly to avoid both perils.
“The best and the most moving part of the autobiography is the first part — Home — which depicts his early life and close relationships”. In another essay, ‘G S Amur: A Scholar of the Gandhian Generation’, Ramachandran observes that “Amur’s critical writing is not polemical, but dialogic. He represented a transitional phase where Indian criticism moved from impressionistic commentary to academic rigour”. He credited Amur with laying the foundation for comparative literary studies in Kannada.
His concept of comedy
Commenting on Amur, Prof NS Gundur of Tumkur University makes the following observation in his essay, ‘Transgressions: Studies in Indian Literature in English’: “G S Amur was responsible for bringing Manohar Malgonkar into the mainstream of Indian writers in English … (through his) monograph Manohar Malgonkar (1972). … [I]n his much-acclaimed Concept of Comedy (1963)… [Amur] makes a significant contribution … arguing that the crux of comedy is an element of joy, rather than laughter.”
“He is one of the makers of modern literary criticism in Kannada. Amur’s critical writings evince his brilliant scholarship in both the Western critical tradition and in the indigenous intellectual traditions of Kannada and Sanskrit. One important pattern in his engagement with literary criticism is his ‘double bind’ (dual loyalties). His unflinching commitment to Kannada literature, especially after his retirement, has resulted in the publication of a vast body of Kannada criticism, bringing him several awards,” writes Gundur.
Amur passed away five years ago on September 28, 2020, at the age of 95. Sahitya Prakashana of Hubballi, Vasanta Prakashana of Bengaluru, and Manohara Granthamaala of Dharwad brought out three books — Swikruthi (Acceptance), Neera Melana Gulle (Bubble on Water) and Kuvempu — which were released to mark Amur’s 90th birthday in 2015.
