I am surprised by how disappointing I found "The Lowland." For about 100 pages, in the middle of the novel, I was interested in seeing how the characters' fates unwound. But that is entirely too small a percentage of a 350 page book. Most of the time, their circumstances and internal struggles we...
~~SPLENDID BOOK~~Big Bright & Shiny Five Stars to this excellent work by Jhumpa LahiriBooks of Jhumpa Lahiri have been lying since very long in my TBR, but ocean size thanks to Ashu for this personalized gem and making me read this.The first story Temporary Matter is about a couple who has lost t...
What can I say about Malgudi Days? Malgudi is a fictional Indian town created by R.K. Narayan, conceived in such realistic detail that the University of Chicago Press once mistakenly put it in their atlas. But can you blame them? Most of Narayan's works take place in Malgudi, and the more you rea...
To return to my lecturing days: I automatically gave low marks when a student used the dreadful phrase "sincere and simple" - "Flaubert writes with a style which is always simple and sincere" - under the impression that this was the greatest compliment payable to prose or poetry. When I struck th...