Assumption - That the readers of this post have read 'A suitable boy' by Vikram Seth. This is not a review, thus spoilers galore!
'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.
Thus muses the character of Amit Chattergy in Vikram seth’s A suitable boy. I would be only happy to notice a self reference to his own book. Only a smart and witty Vikram seth can do it with his signature verve and get away with it. I for one will let him, happily. A suitable boy is 1400 pages long. And I am happy (and not really surprised) to have completed the book in the expected time period of a couple of weeks; cases are abundant where avid readers have started the book and just left it midway with a sense of foreboding due to the bulk of the book. I would call this a wonderful big book. It was a great reading experience. Only a few writers have the knack of creating something of such epic proportions and not overdo a single thing in the process. (OK, may be the courtroom scene involving the Zamindaari abolition bill could have been a bit shorter) Apart from that I found it really amazing the way the story seemed weighed down nowhere by the heavy research of 10 years that has gone into the writing of this book.
The reasons for which I decided to work on a dp rather than a review on this book will unfold themselves hither and thither. In summery – it just seemed like such a Herculean task to sum this seminal work of fiction (at least in the Indian literary space) in 7500 words. In the DP I can muse and wander, ramble on without worrying about covering all the important aspects of the book et al. Here I can give in to my whims and go on about the genius of Vikram Seth not caring if I am biased or so..
OK, since I am assuming that the readers of this DP have read a suitable boy, I need not go into the story (oh, the luxury of dealing with the like minded) Just as a introduction - this is the story of Lata and her mother looking for a suitable boy for her. This is a very simple and very Indian story of love and marriage. What makes it interesting is the complex times when its set - the post independent India facing its first general election, the religious colors, the friendship between Hindu and Muslims and the amazingly real portrayal of Calcutta and the Bengali Diaspora. And all these things are presented in a way which keeps the reading process light throughout – something which has to be completely to the author’s credit. On Volume, depth and scope, the book has been aptly compared to Tolstoy’s War and peace and Eliot’s Middlemarch.
OK by now even I realize that I am not making much headway. (See the reason why I chose not to write a review?) Like I was telling Nonu the other day, it would be great to have a discussion going on this book, or on how it affected its readers. And I do not know how to do it on the MS grounds if not in the form of a diary post. It would be really interesting to know about other ‘A suitable boy’ experiences. Now I do not know how many readers we have and how passionately they feel about this work of art, but I am nothing if not hopeful.
And to start a discussion, I already have a set of questions that can be debated upon.
How satisfied are you with Lata’s final choice? Could it have been Kabir or Amit instead of Haresh?
Would you rather have had Meenakshi’s adultery exposed?
Could Maan and Saida’s story have been different?
Wasn’t Rashid’s story somewhat ambiguous?
And so on..
Like I said – it would be wonderful reading about other A suitable boy experiences – varied opinions welcome!
