Vikram Seth

Janet Hayakawa, a yet-to-be-discovered sculptor and drummer in the Liquid Sheep, secretly places a personal ad for her friend John, even though she too is single. "Only her cats provide distraction,/Twin paradigms of lazy action." The seventh letter does the trick. Lawyer Liz Donati's submission is two sonnets in toto and disarms John into meeting her. Soon they fall into brief bliss, as do her brother, Ed, and John's old college roommate, Phil. Unfortunately, the first couple's love is too show more soon destroyed, partly by a pet, partly by politics; and the second is rent by religion. Ed pulls away thanks to the Bible: "I have to trust my faith's decisions, / Not batten on my own volitions."

The rest of the novel leads less to the traditional comic ending--rapprochement and marriage all around--than to surprising sadness. But in between there is wit, wordplay, abounding allusion, and some marvelous animals, among them the iguana Schwarzenegger. The author even steps onto the stage on occasion: at a frou-frou publishing party a powerful editor accosts him, curious to hear about his new novel. When Seth tells him it's in verse, the temperature plummets. "'How marvelously quaint,' he said, / And subsequently cut me dead." Luckily, Seth's real editor did anything but. show less

For 'read but unowned' in my tags, substitute 'thrown away'. I bought cheap copies of this and another novel about musicians following a recommendation, but I obviously have different standards to the other eager reviewer. For a start, a narrator whose head isn't jammed up his own backside. Julia, the long-suffering object (and I don't use the term lightly) of his affections, is a great character, and I would have loved to read the same story from her perspective, but Michael is an show more egotistical twit. He abandons her in Vienna, while suffering some pretentious existential musical crisis, then decides that a decade is a good length of time to try and pick up where they left off, despite Julia having married and moved on with her life. She has a bit of a fling with him while trying to deal with her own (actually important and life-changing) issues, then tries to shake him off - so he turns into a crazy stalker. I actually really hated him, and had to remind myself that I was only reading about a fictional character - and if Vikram Seth, who has written better novels, was aiming to create such a loathsome protagonist, then more power to his word processor. Basically, another novel about music where the characters suffer for the author's art. show less

I was searching for something to say about the imposing length of this book, but it seems every other review has already said it, and indeed, the author makes reference to it a few times as well. Long it may be, but extremely readable, with its smooth, polished, conversational prose and unhurried but regular pacing. In time, it covers just over a year, in people it covers four families and assorted people in their orbits, in theme it goes from comedy to tragedy to romance to domestic drama, show more to campus politics to national politics to urban industry to rural agriculture to religious ferment to obsessive love to social class to music, art and poetry to corruption, reform, idealism and revolt and madness and misogyny and bigotry and catastrophe and riot and two weddings and a funeral and so on and so forth.

Despite its sprawl, it never seems to sprawl, and though there's a lot to keep track of, the leisurely pace and the distinctive characters - who are mostly lovable to one degree or another despite very identifiable foibles and failings - moving through their lives never seem rushed or muddled or melodramatic. There's no zany plot twisting soap operatics here, and all the twists and the turns of their lives, big and small seem natural and unforced. Indeed, perhaps a more ruthless author might have visited more in the way of loss and grief on the central families -at times they seem quite blessed, despite the upheavals personal and political and social going on around them. But life can be like that sometimes too, and the experience is so immersive and vivid and the world so rich and the families so alive it seems like a small complaint that they're not quite unhappy enough. show less

I FINISHED!!!

And I am sad - profoundly and deeply sad - because I, well, finished.
And I never wanted this book to end. Yes, it's over 1300 pages
(hardback). Yes, it's extremely awkward to carry, especially if you're
hauling it to work everyday, or to the beach on your week off, or
balancing it precariously on your lap on the metro while the guy next to
you gives you a dirty look because the corners are jabbing into his knees, but you don't care because you're at the part where everything is show more happening and you can't look away.

There's not much for me to say that hasn't already been said...I am, after all, very late to this party. But goodness - the entire microcosm of not just India but humanity itself is in this book. Every human emotion, every shade of good and evil, every particle of humor and gravity and pathos is here, and not one note rings false.

If there is anything lacking in this book, it is that it ended. If only Vikram Seth had written this in monthly installments, ones that might come every month, guaranteed for the rest of your life, if only to ensure you would never have to separate yourself from these four families that can only become your friends after reading of their lives for so many months...

There is a consolation prize...he's apparently writing a sequel, set in the present, to be released 2013 - entitled _A Suitable Girl_. What's 2 years, after all, in the scope of things? :) show less