Book Review | Poet’s Eye View Of Two Curious Babies

Marigold and Rose are twins who are not yet one-year-olds. They can’t talk, and they don’t know words, yet they are not nothing. As Rose firmly maintains, “we have inner lives”.

It is their “inner lives” that this absolutely charming-to-the-point-of-being-scrumptious novella records. Both Marigold and Rose have strong personalities, but are diametrically opposite each other. Rose is charming, sociable, self-assured (why, she can even hold her spoon properly), and loves being praised and fussed over. Marigold on the other hand is angst-ridden, a hard-nosed cynic, fears mortality, and suspects that she inherited Jewish guilt from her father’s side of the family.

Of the two, it is Marigold who is terribly ambitious — she yearns to write a book, and is waiting impatiently to learn words so she can get on with it. Meanwhile she reads a lot of picture books because books don’t judge you, and gets so engrossed in them that Rose, who loves company, feels left out. However, it’s okay that they are different, Marigold thinks, because, “This must be why they were twins. Together they included everything.”

Even though the twins don’t know words yet, they understand what’s happening around them, catch on to what their parents discuss with each other, and are discerning enough to pick a favourite grandmother out of the two in their family. Their mother, in particular, talks to the twins constantly about everything under the sun, as if they were adults. Sharing is one of her pet subjects for instance, but the twins don’t like to share. While Rose is very protective of Marigold and adores her (she’s the bigger twin), there is a certain amount of sibling rivalry.

As we share a few months of the twins’ lives, we learn more about their parents too (they have different personalities as well), and see how the family unit deals with things that life throws at them. For instance, one grandmother goes to heaven, then Mother wants to start working, and other uncomfortable things happen. This delightful story ends on their first birthday party. Rose, of course, enjoys it thoroughly, while Marigold “…looked grimly out at the party from her high chair. Chaos and imprecision, she thought…meanwhile people they didn’t know were touching them and calling them lambs and chickens though it was perfectly obvious they were human babies.”

This book is a must read for all — after all, we were babies once, and perhaps even had “inner lives” like Marigold and Rose. It’s so utterly delicious, you may even find yourself clapping and calling out “Author, author!” hoping that Louise Gluck will appear and take a well-deserved bow.

Marigold and Rose

By Louise Gluck

Aleph

pp. 61; Rs 399/-