This is like a buffet of Indian food. Everything seems to be here, in this monster of a book, all 1349 pages and 3 kilos of it: law, politics, business, history, tradition, superstitions, deities, romance, suspense, tragedy, humor, festivals, marriages, infidelities, friendship, betrayal, family, deaths, births, suicide,court trials, land reform, poetry, the Chatterji's couplets, amusing characters, etc. Even my mother is here (I mean, a character who, in some ways, resembles my mother). There's something in it for everybody and this comprehensiveness makes it difficult for anyone not to like--or at least not to like something in--this book. Personally, I think the best here would be a tie between the love stories and Vikram Seth's wicked, humorous turn of phrase and the witty conversations between his characters which made me smile so many times.Even the heftiness of this book did not escape the author's humor. A character here, Amit, is also an author. In a scene somewhere near the end of the book Amit is entertaining some questions from a group of academicians after a poetry reading he held. One asks him about the novel he is writing which is rumoured to be more than a thousand page long already--"'Why, then, is it rumoured that your forthcoming novel--to be set, I understand, in Bengal--is to be so long? More than a thousand pages!' she exclaimed reproachfully, as if he were personally responsible for the nervous exhaustion of some future dissertationist."'Oh, I don't know how it grew to be so long,' said Amit. 'I'm very undisciplined. But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they're bad, they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they're good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of 'Middlemarch.'"'How about Proust?' asked a distracted-looking lady, who had begun knitting the moment the poems stopped."Amit was surprised that anyone read Proust in Brahmpur. He had begun to feel rather happy, as if he had breathed in too much oxygen."'I'm sure I'd love Proust,' he replied, 'if my mind was more like the Sundarbans: meandering, all-absorptive, endlessly, er, sub-reticulated. But as it is, Proust makes me weep, weep, weep with boredom. Weep', he added, He paused and sighed. "Weep, weep, weep,' he continued emphatically. 'I weep when I read Proust, and I read very little of him.'"There was a shocked silence: why should anyone feel so strongly about anything? It was broken by Professor Mishra."'Needless to say, many of the most lasting monuments of literature are rather, well, bulky.' He smiled at Amit. 'Shakespeare is not merely great but grand, as it were.'"'But only as it were,' said Amit. 'He only looks big in bulk. And I have my own way of reducing that bulk,' he confided. 'You may have noticed that in a typical 'Collected Shakespeare' all the plays start on the right-hand side. Sometimes, the editors bung a picture in on the left to force them to do so. Well, what I do is to take my pen-knife and slit the whole book up into forty or so fascicles. That way I can roll up 'Hamlet' or 'Timon'--and slip them into my pocket. And when I'm wandering around--in a cemetery, say--I can take them out and read them. It's easy on the mind and on the wrists. I recommend it to everyone. I read 'Cymbeline' in just that way on the train here; and I never would have otherwise.'"Vikram Seth may not be aversed to the idea of his book being torn up for easy reading like what his character Amit did to his 'Shakespeares'. But whether you do that or not, you will not weep, weep, weep while reading 'A Suitable Boy.' This is a delightful work of art.
A fact : I never ever understood how postpartum depression works or why women suffer from it. Yet another fact: Having finished A Suitable Boy arouses similar feelings in a reader as postpartum depression in a new Mum. Why? Well, by the you finish reading one of the longest English novels ever written and the longest English Novel written by an Indian and that Indian is Vikram Seth, you're kind of used to the story, the characters, the way their life goes on. So, when you turn the last page of something that has sprained your wrists for days, you certainly feel the sense of accomplishment which matches in effort if not in pain, to delivering a baby but at the same time you're depressed you'd NEVER be able to read this book again for the first time, that its time with you in that unique one to one bond, though cherished, will never be intimate in the same sense as before.Having expressed my feelings, thus, I will now proceed to review one of my favourite author's biggest masterpiece. To all those who wonder and have asked me, "Is there a dull moment or dry spells in the book? : NO! Not one! Not half a page and no, my blind love for Vikram Seth doesn't make me say so. In fact, as I said weeks ago about The Color Purple, it is as complete in every sense as a book could be. I love how Vikram Seth seems to have a laugh at everyone including himself. I love how his mother's life was the theme for this story. And I love how if you're remotely interested in anything in the world, be in Schubert or Classical Indian Music, Post Independence History or Indian Politics, Religion or Riots, English Lietrature or poems by Urdu/Arabic/Persian poets like Mast, Daagh, Minai or Rumi, you will not fail to love this book! Vikram Seth's characters are a class apart, supremely hilarious even in the gravest of situations, laughably filmy and over dramatic and yet as close to being real as characters could be. They don't claim to be perfect, they all have flaws, you will probably be angry at one or more of them during the course of the novel but you will not fail to love them despite all their faults!Should you read it? Certainly! I don't see why being daunted by the length of the novel, you should miss on something so exquisitely well written as this book. Will you regret spending a thousand bucks/ a couple of pounds/ a few dollars? Not at all if you claim to love literature for it is the finest piece of contemporary literature there is! Any tip for how to go about it? 1.If you're Indian, try and think of Bollywood film stars for every character. That makes the book even more fun and more lucid than it already is but that's entirely optional! 2. Have someone else read it with you, a friend or someone from your book club. You need to keep discussing it and gushing about it with someone. It's like Harry Potter that way!More than just a good read! Rather, a BRILLIANT read and already my novel of the year!
Do You like book A Suitable Boy (2005)?
This is one of my five all time favorite books (along with the Handmaid's Tale, On Beauty, the Red Tent, & Corelli's Mandolin). It is a patch work story of many characters' lives; by the end of the story, you see how they all intersect. This was one of those books where when I finished the book I was completely invested in each of the character's life. The story is set in post-independence India and explores a number of social/political issues of the time (i.e. land reform, muslim-hindu relations, women's rights, arranged marriage, the caste system), but the political commentary doesn't hit you over the head, and the characters really drive the story. Despite my enthusiastic recommendations, I've had a hard time finding anyone to read this book! At 1379 pages it is apparently the longest book to be printed in English in one volume. However I found it to be a total page turner. Just resign yourself to the fact that you'll be reading this book for a couple of months and give it a try.
—Danielle Franco-Malone
The book blurb says it all. I will only add my comments.While reading this monumental novel of 1535 pages, I was wondering how much of the original offering was edited out to end up with this number of pages as the final result! I also wondered, while ploughing through it, how much of the existing book can be cut out and still leave the essential core. Probably half of it. Compared to Barbara Kingsolver and Yung Chang, Vikram Seth needed twice as much pages to tell similar stories as these two authors.So yes, it was a long-winded journey: a story of India after Partition, that was told through the eyes of four extended families with each member profiled to the last red spot of paan on the teeth. This book really celebrates the good, the bad and the ugly of humankind. Mrs. Rupa Mehra, with her daughter,Lata, get the train rolling when it becomes time to find a suitable husband for Lata. India in all its colorful splendor is presented to the reader to almost the puking stage, to be really honest! But how fascinating the journey!Enough! Enough! Enough! I often wanted to just run away, and I did, since it is the end of the financial year (February) and what is normally a quiet relaxed month turned out to be one of the craziest in recent history. But each evening I sneaked off to bed and grabbed the book as though my life depended on it. In retrospect this book was amazing. The drama lasted the entire 1535 pages and that really makes this book outstanding! There's no villains, only ordinary people writing their own histories while living their lives. I do not want to add too much spoilers and blow the plot, or give away the story. But I cannot leave out one of the most outstanding moments in the book, for me: it was the passing of a mother and it had me crying like losing my own. (view spoiler)[" She had dispersed. She was the garden at Prem Nivas (soon to be entered into the annual Flower Show), she was Veena's love of music, Pran's asthma, Maans generosity, the survival of some refugees four years ago, the neem leaves that would preserve quilts stored in the great zinc trunks of Prem Nivas, the moulting feathers of some pond herons, a small unrung brass bell, the memory of decency in an indecent time, the temperament of Bhaskar's great-grandchildren, indeed, for all the Minister of Revenue's impatience with her, she was his regret. And it was right that she should continue to be so, for he should have treated her better while she lived, the poor, ignorant, grieving fool." (hide spoiler)]
—Margitte
ATTENTION: SMALL SPOILERS AT THE END!This book literally had it all: love, intrigue, death, birth, lust, suspense, comedy, sibling rivalry, politics, religion, history, all with an overly dramatic mom. While I didn't give this five stars because I loved the book, I gave it five stars because of its complexity. This wasn't just a story, I was transferred to India circa 1951. It totally envelopes you in the story. While the backbone is Lata's quest for "a suitable boy" you become a member of the f
—Chris
