Truly Inspiring... Review on My Days - R K Narayan

Before commencing... I really do not know how good the autobiography would have proved to people who are not aware of chennai and it's vicinity or rather a non-indian, it was definitely a mind soothing one for me.

Starting with R.K.Narayanan's childhood in purasavakkam, the narrative skills of the author takes one to the place where the story is moving. Visualization is excellent. What makes the novel move one's mind is that, the incidents one or the other would have been experienced by everyone. His description of the environment, his lovable grand mother, the peacock, the monkey is the ultimate native atmosphere that can one bring up in the readers mind.

As the novel proceeds through his life in karnataka, the college days, I expected something different may be things popping the author to be different from others. However he kept the pace simple with every normal behaviour, attracted by girls, cutting classes, flunking in exams being portrayed beautifully.

The success of a novel usually lies in, how the author can bring up perfect visualization of his ideas in the readers mind. Here Narayanan has reached an above average mark. The most different and unexpected twist happened to be after the death of his wife, rather one would always expect grief. but after a few pages of the expected stuff, something went abnormal. He has started to describe his experiences of communicating with his dead wife and ghosts. Though it runs for a few pages, it was the part that a reader who expects plots from a novel will enjoy the most.

I have not yet read the most famous novel of this author, 'Swami and his friends', but after Narayanan himself admitting that it was his best and his efforts to write it has thrown an uncontrollable zest in my mind to read it.

After going through half the novel, the reader will certainly be inspired to write a novel( or just a short story ) that will reveal his ideas of his experience in life. I wondered how the author was merging himself as a part of the reader, was it through his narrative skills? or it's me who felt it as i'm in chennai. The most enjoyable and soothing part of the novel are his description of the place where he writes his novels.

At the final stages of this novel he depicts most of his middle and old age experiences, the tough time he came across for publishing his novels. They are enjoyable but never

had great impact on me. May be for elders, they should have proved interesting.

Narration - 7/10

Story - 6/10

Impact on readers - 6/10

Plots Revealed - 4/10

Inspiring - 7/10

Reach the mass - 5/10