On to-read list.

I’ve had this on my shelf for more than a year. After I read ‘An Equal Music’ by Vikram Seth (the written version of a soapie) I kept hearing about this book of his that was supposedly brilliant. I kept seeing it in shops, and my housemate had a copy on her shelf, so in the end I saw it cheap and bought it, thinking it sounded like something I should own and read at some point. (Sometime before this I also had a chance to obtain an audio CD of his first novel, a poem called ‘The Golden Gate’, which I really enjoyed as a very fresh piece of writing.) I guess the vast size of the book stopped me from reading it sooner, as well as being uninspired by the back cover. But I was in a friend’s house on a recent weekend, saw the book on her shelf, and was told that it was a book that changed the way she thought about a lot of things. The week after I started reading it.

Two weeks and many many hours of reading later, and I am still not halfway through. I’m getting the feeling this is the kind of book that stays with you, not just because of the skilled portraits that Seth paints, but also because the reader spends so much time with them, just reading the book. He’s not just painting portraits of people, though – the places and nations and races and castes of India also get detailed and lively description. Even though I know that reading about something in no way prepares me for the reality, I can’t help feeling like I am being educated. At the very least, my mind is being opened to the possibilities of new horizons.

[This book confirms Seth as one of the more eclectic writers I have read, given that his first book was poetry about American city life and included a man’s emerging gay identity, ‘An Equal Music’ was – in my vague memory – an angst-filled European love saga, and A Suitable Boy is a sweeping portrait of India.]

i think that this book is absolutely lovely. often i read books too quickly, so it’s good to slow down with this one.

it took me a month to read this and when i finished I felt like I’d farewelled old friends.