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2. 50 PoC Book Review
Mar. 2nd, 2010 02:52 pm2. Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
I absolutely, totally, completely adore this book. Now, I do admit that at about 1,400 pages, it's quite the commitment. But when all those pages are so lovely and engrossing and, well, happy-making, it doesn't seem that long at all.
Set in northern India in the early 1950s- just after the country achieved independence- A Suitable Boy ranges over topics as small as pet dogs and college plays to ones as big as mass political movements and religious riots. The main plot- if this book can really be said to have a plot, as opposed to many, many vignettes and character studies- focuses on the middle-class Mehra family, which consists of a widowed mother and her four adult children. The opening scene of the book is the wedding of the older daughter; a perfect time, the mother thinks, to begin looking for a suitable boy for the younger daughter. But there's just so much going on in this book that it's hard to describe: there's Mr. Mahesh Kapoor's attempt to get a bill passed that will change land ownership laws (and thus dramatically change the entire social structure of the area); there's Mahesh Kapoor, who falls in love with a courtesan and gets himself kicked out of the city; there's Amit Chatterji, the cynic who writes love poems; Haresh Khanna, who just wants to make good shoes; Bhashkar, the little boy who loves math; Rasheed, the son of a rich family who is obsessed with justice for the poor; Malati, the only woman in the school learning to be a doctor...
I could go on. There are exciting moments (murder! Secret children!) and quiet ones (gardening! Music!). This book is just stuffed full of details and observations. It's one of those books that you can come back to over and over. I do have to admit that the writing style- full of very short sentences and few attempts at any sort of lyricism or complicatedness- put me off at first. But I quickly fell into it, and with a book this long, I think it might well have been the best choice.
I can't think of anything to compare this book to. I've seen a lot of reviews mention the big doorstoppers of the 19th century- War and Peace, Vanity Fair- but I think A Suitable Boy has a very different tone and feel than those. All I can say is that I found it- and I'm a person not at all given to sentimentality- to be as comforting and welcome as hot cocoa. Really, really highly recommended.
(Crossposted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
50books_poc)
I absolutely, totally, completely adore this book. Now, I do admit that at about 1,400 pages, it's quite the commitment. But when all those pages are so lovely and engrossing and, well, happy-making, it doesn't seem that long at all.
Set in northern India in the early 1950s- just after the country achieved independence- A Suitable Boy ranges over topics as small as pet dogs and college plays to ones as big as mass political movements and religious riots. The main plot- if this book can really be said to have a plot, as opposed to many, many vignettes and character studies- focuses on the middle-class Mehra family, which consists of a widowed mother and her four adult children. The opening scene of the book is the wedding of the older daughter; a perfect time, the mother thinks, to begin looking for a suitable boy for the younger daughter. But there's just so much going on in this book that it's hard to describe: there's Mr. Mahesh Kapoor's attempt to get a bill passed that will change land ownership laws (and thus dramatically change the entire social structure of the area); there's Mahesh Kapoor, who falls in love with a courtesan and gets himself kicked out of the city; there's Amit Chatterji, the cynic who writes love poems; Haresh Khanna, who just wants to make good shoes; Bhashkar, the little boy who loves math; Rasheed, the son of a rich family who is obsessed with justice for the poor; Malati, the only woman in the school learning to be a doctor...
I could go on. There are exciting moments (murder! Secret children!) and quiet ones (gardening! Music!). This book is just stuffed full of details and observations. It's one of those books that you can come back to over and over. I do have to admit that the writing style- full of very short sentences and few attempts at any sort of lyricism or complicatedness- put me off at first. But I quickly fell into it, and with a book this long, I think it might well have been the best choice.
I can't think of anything to compare this book to. I've seen a lot of reviews mention the big doorstoppers of the 19th century- War and Peace, Vanity Fair- but I think A Suitable Boy has a very different tone and feel than those. All I can say is that I found it- and I'm a person not at all given to sentimentality- to be as comforting and welcome as hot cocoa. Really, really highly recommended.
(Crossposted to
50books_poc)
