Being the sonnet lover that I am, I enjoyed the immense amount of work this story must have taken. The story was light hearted and entertaining and for the most part the sonnet form neither detracted, not added to the text. However, having read his other works, the novel in prose isn't not his strongest text. ( )

Gotta be one of my favourite books. Good style, rythmn and verse technique, good plotting momentum, good sense of place and culture in well-bred and -schooled California. Never loses the readers' interest, never becomes formulaic. Funny and ingenious. ( )

I just love this book and have read it over and over. This was my introduction to Vikram Seth who remains one of my favourite authors. ( )

Again and Again and Again ( )

Published in 1986, Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate chronicles the search for love by late-20-something yuppies in the Bay Area. The reader dances, with tetrameter sonnets, through the lives of these young people, very contemporary, yet in a world before cell phones and the internet changed all our lives. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel though it verged on silliness and unbelievability at times. As editorial poet, Seth bounces in and out of the narrative, commenting on cats and iguanas and poetry itself. The entire work, including acknowledgements, afterword, and the table of contents adheres to the form Seth prescribed for himself.

Here, for instance, is the Table of Contents:

1 The world's discussed while friends are eating.
2 A cache of billets-doux arrive.
3 A concert generates a meeting.
4 A house is warmed. Sheep come alive.
5 Olives are picked in prime condition.
6 A cat reacts to competition.
7 Arrests occur. A speech is made.
8 Coffee is drunk, and Scrabble played.
9 A quarrel is initiated.
10 Vines rest in early winter light.
11 The Winking Owl fills up at night.
12 An old affair is renovated.
13 Friends meditate on friends who've gone
The months go by; the world goes on.

And, Seth's justification for using iambic tetrameter:

Why, asks a friend, attempt tetrameter?
Because it once was noble, yet
Capers before the proud pentameter,
Tyrant of English. I regret
To see this marvelous swift meter
Demean its heritage, and peter
into mere Hudibrastic tricks,
Unapostolic knacks and knicks.
But why take all this quite so badly?
I would not had I world and time
To wait for reason, rhythm, rhyme
To reassert themselves, but sadly
The time is not remote when I
Will not be here to wait. That's why.

Absolutely delicious. ( )