Hi Sumantra! I am also interested in the use of humor (particularly satire) in nineteenth-century texts, and I had a lot of fun reading your work!

I was wondering about your opinion of the use of humor in nineteenth-century literary realism. You write, “Humour was important as without it the text would have become a specimen of the history book collecting facts, describing incidents and making progress.”

Do you see satire, irony, etc. as a tools that serve realism in _Hutom_ or do they work to challenge the text’s genre (maybe “diluting” its realism, so to speak)?

Also, since you are interested in the act of history-writing, if you haven’t checked out Hayden White’s work on Metahistory, it could be helpful!

Thank you for sharing!