dovegreyreader scribbles

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 17, 18 &19 The End

It is 21.48 on Friday 20th June 2014 and at last I have turned the final page of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth....isn't it the best feeling when we do that with these long shared reads. We started on September 14th 2013 and here we are on the Longest Day, the Summer Equinox which all feels nicely auspicious... and I took a picture of the book in the ten o'clock dimpsy Devon light with Munstead Wood hovering above to remind me of the moment...

I hope you have all experienced that real sense of achievement too.

I just wanted to record that, not only for posterity but also to let you know that I am writing this post just an hour or so before it must go online for our final weekend of discussions, so my apologies for the rather disjointed thoughts to start us off. It's been to the reading wire this month, but who was to know the weather would be so wonderful, that the garden needed planting up, that there has been watering to do and standing and staring to indulge in, and flowers to pick...

Cue picture of flowers ( sweet william, ammi majus and phacelia) a congratulatory and thank you nosegay to all of you for getting this far..


But neither could I have guessed that Vikram Seth was going to compress so much action and excitement into these last three parts, so much so that I had to keep stopping and thinking because I was in danger of rushing.

And how could I possibly rush the death of Mrs Mahesh Kapoor..

Or the hubris of her grieving husband...

Or Maan's terrible deed...

Or the dirty tricks of the election campaign...

Or Pran's interview...

Or Kabir's jealousy...

Or Amit's poetic proposal...

Or Arun's letter to Lata...

Or Firoz's about-turn in the courtroom...

And finally Lata's decision and the wedding...

A Suitable Boy is definitely the longest book I think I have ever read... and reading the titles of those apparently ahead of it in the word count stakes, it may well stay that way, yet I look back at my convoluted character page, with genograms and arrows hither and yon, and remember what a muddle it all felt last September, yet how well and clearly I feel I know them all now...

But setting all that aside I am wondering how I feel about Lata's decision...

I haven't had much time to think about it, and who knows, you may all make me change my mind by Sunday, but I am currently feeling that she has made a safe decision, a mature, sensible and informed one, and that Haresh will be a perfect husband.

But will he be too perfect...

Will he be interesting enough...

Do we already know that he might privilege his work above his marriage...

Has Lata settled for the predictable and rejected all else...

Did I expect more or differently of her...I'm not sure...

And the ending...what is the ending saying..

Needless to say I am now on the edge of my seat waiting for A Suitable Girl.

So that's a wrap everyone, I hope you have enjoyed the book as much as I have, and thank you so much for reading along with me. I would never have managed it on my own that's for sure, and now I can't wait to hear what you all think...

 

 

Related articles

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 9 & 10

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 11 & 12

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 15 & 16 - Sarah's thoughts

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 15 & 16 - Angela's thoughts

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 13 & 14

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts One & Two

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 15 & 16 - Angela's thoughts

These are the things that Angela has ' loved/wondered about and thought about while reading Parts 15 & 16...

•     When Mrs Rupa Mehra conferred honorary citizenship on Shakespeare for his beautiful prose and then withdrew it when Lata/Olivia asked Kabir/Malvolio if he would go to bed I thought – yet again – how real Seth has made Mrs RM, so real that I no longer think of her as a character but as a human being who I feel I’ve met. And the way she’s disarmed by Kabir because, ‘In general [Mrs RM] believed in good looks’! is heavenly. In so very few words Seth keeps reminding us that she’s a rounded living woman.

 

•      The terrible inter-caste cruelty

 

• ·    How poignant to plant a tree for Uma: ‘so that it will always be as old as’ her. It’s such a delicately celebratory idea.

 

• ·    And how Maan and Firoz wandered ‘hand-in-hand’ on their way from the Muslim festival to the Hindu one. It set me wondering again about their relationship and then when the horrifying clash between the Hindu and Muslim religious processions happens and the crazed cries that were heard at the time of Partition are repeated – on behalf of their opposed Gods – (or, it seems to me, the gods the humans set in opposition to each other) I thought perhaps they’d both be killed and I really worried for them the way I would for friends. (They too are no longer characters to me, but real breathing humans.) I was so glad when Maan stood up for and defended his friend (I wasn’t sure he would), particularly against that crude accusation from one of the Hindu mob about Maan preferring someone of Firoz’s physical state, to put it less crudely. And the terrifying memories of Partition that this clash rekindles made the violence horribly real and – I don’t know why – but I wondered if this whole scene had happened to Seth, in all its horror and humanity.

 

• ·         The religious nature of the Test Match to Pran! And I wondered whether Kabir’s success at cricket was a sign that he would succeed with Lata? And I also loved the way Seth set up the meeting of all the suitable boys at the cricket match in a slightly difficult, hesitant, who-knew-who way. I was worried there’d be a confrontation but – cleverly – there wasn’t … we know more than they do so we worry but they don’t. Yet. And Maan’s exuberant somersaults – so glad to be alive, to have survived, I thought, the horror of the religious riot – at the end of the cricket match when he catches Kabir out. And Varun’s comparison of the Indian Team’s progress to the Indian nation when he says, ‘We can always snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory,’ made me wonder whether Lata and Kabir will fail to find the courage to score their own victory … : why can’t Kabir say why he loves Lata? Why won’t he summon the courage to visit her? I thought that oddly diffident but also it prolongs our wait (see below) to find out who the suitable boy will be. And then Malati’s letter and Lata’s terrible jealousy and her recognition that she’s hardly encouraged Kabir and her sleepless night … will she tell him how she feels or will she take his visit (but his failure to seek her out) as a sign that he doesn’t care for her? And I felt so sorry for Haresh spending money he hasn’t got on that expensive lunch for Lata and her family but I’ll be amazed if he ends up being her suitable boy (I hope he doesn’t: he won’t make her happy, they’re too different) because his ideas about what matters and his sensibilities are so different from Lata’s. And then I was – as I’m sure Seth intended – surprised to find that Amit’s kiss annoys/astonishes Lata. But I was glad it made her dream of Kabir, ‘The most unsuitable boy of them all’. But only because of his religion, not in her heart, I feel. And also his saving of Bhaskar at the Pul Mela will surely help him break down Mrs RM’s defences … in the end?

 

• ·         And I doubt Dipankar will stick with his decision about joining the bank but I loved the way I was lead to doubt, by Seth’s writing that Dipankar’s decision will be ‘irrevocable unless he changed his mind’. Another lovely simple statement about the way a human being (sorry, character) is.

 

• ·         And the way Dipankar persuades Amit they must do something about Tapan’s abuse at the hands of senior boys at school and the recognition that Tapan hasn’t spoken about it because – as Dipankar says – ‘He probably thinks we’d make a couplet out of it. No one ever talks to anyone in our family, we just exchange brilliances.’ Again Seth shows us what we recognise about the Chatterjis, but Dipankar’s self-knowledge is touching and this time they take action and don’t mock (or fall back on yet another couplet).

 

• ·         The only negative feeling I had as I read these two parts was that – at times – Seth was adding length to the scenes to prolong our wait to know who the suitable boy will be … .

 

Related articles

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 7 & 8

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 5 & 6

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 13 & 14

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 11 & 12

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 9 & 10

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 15 & 16 - Sarah's thoughts

Dear Blog,

Please be upstanding and cheer and applaud like crazy in honour of Sarah and Angela who have got me out of a right old fix this week by answering my plea for thoughts on Parts 15 & 16 of A Suitable Boy.

How on earth I thought I would even finish this month's reading, let alone write about it, I have no idea...

An airport run with Offspringette after her three week sojourn at home and now happily arrived and settling into a New Zealand winter, followed by a few recuperative and wonderful days for me in Fowey, plus the arrival of summer and a greenhouse bursting at the seams with goodness and greenery all in desperate need of planting out.

But enough flimsy excuses from me, without further ado here are Sarah's thoughts...

After the political machinations of Part 14, with Nehru and the Congress Party at the fore, it was something of a relief to start Part 15. It opens with Arun conveying the news from Calcutta to his mother in Brahmpur: Meenakshi's miscarriage (which we soon learn was much desired and courted), Kakoli's engagement to Hans, and Amit's interest in Lata. The deliciousness of Mrs Rupa Mehra's reaction to 'so much news', especially now we feel we know her so well, is a delight. And so is the description of Arun's handwriting, 'illegible to the extent that it seemed almost to amount to contempt for any possible reader'. And then, at last, the performance of Twelfth Night, and a meeting between the 'very obviously good-looking' Kabir and Mrs Rupa Mehra. 

Next we're onto the festival season, with important Hindu and Muslim festivals coming one on top of the other. We start with the Ramlila (Rama's play), the ten day re-enactment of the life of Rama, which in this case fills the lanes and alleys of Misri Mandi. Bhaskar is beside himself with excitement, promoted to the part of a monkey prince because the boy playing him the previous evening has fallen ill; Mrs Mahesh Kapoor's soul longs to see the action, but she is pulled away by her husband who can't stand the noise. 

And then, in one of those transitions which Vikram Seth handles so brilliantly, we're suddenly plunged into terror and violence. The last night of the Ramlila coincides with the Shia Muslim tazia processions which commemorate the death of Imam Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad. Though the routes have been 'charted out with great care' we can already sense the tension as the Muslim mourning and Hindu celebration pulse through the congested heart of Brahmpur. Firoz and Maan stumble into the horrendous violence that has errupted in Misri Mandi when a late tazia procession meets the jubilant Ramlila crowd. In grave danger for his life in this Hindu area, Firoz escapes only through Maan's bravery, to the welcome sanctuary of Veena and Kednarnath's home.

And then another of those changes of place and pace which I think keep the book spinning along, and in Part 16 we're in Calcutta and once again focusing on Lata and her suitors. Haresh, having triumphed over his production line and his Czech managers, prepares to entertain the Mehra clan at the Prahapore Officers' Club. But will anything ever be enough for him to win Arun over? And how does Lata really feel about him? (Those co-respondent shoes again - I had to google them in the end, and now I'm as concerned as Lata!). 

Meanwhile, Kabir has enlisted Malati in his quest to win Lata's heart. Lata herself escapes her chaperone with Amit at a New Year's Eve party, and when he kisses her she can think only of Kabir. And then it's 1952, and on New Year's Day the three suitors meet in the wonderfully farcical (perhaps more Shakespearean comedy?) scene at the test match between England and India. When Haresh, who has no idea that he has any competitors, mentions seeing Kabir to Lata later that evening he can't understand why her mood changes so quickly; and before she knows what she's doing she's called him 'mean' and he is offended enough to leave immediately. Malati writes to Lata to let her know that Kabir has been spotted with another girl, and we leave the heart-broken Lata sleepless and 'racked with jealousy so intense it almost forced the breath out of her and misery so complete she could not believe it was she who was feeling it.' What will come next? Can it all end happily, for Lata at least? 

 

But here are the things that I really want to know from you:

Now that we're so close to the end, who do you want to marry Lata, and who do you think actually will?

And who do you think has truly won her heart? Kabir, Haresh, Amit or none of them.

And is anyone else starting to worry about characters we've 'lost' along the way?

Who would you like to see more of?

I loved Veena's friend (& A.L. Argawal's daughter) Priya, trapped in a house with her husband's family. And what about the brave and enterprising daughter of the Nawab Sahib (Firoz and Imtiaz's sister) Zainab who acted so quickly to save Baitar House. I'd love to see her and her sons Hassan and Abbas again.

Just a month to go, and I really feel like I'm going to be bereft when this is over. Thank goodness there's A Suitable Girl to look forward to!

 

My thanks again to Sarah.

 

Angela's thoughts will follow tomorrow, so with two posts we are doing far better than usual...and you never know, this might just be the way forward with any future Big Reads, a sort of contributory approach...what do you think, might it work...would anyone be willing to try it...

 

Meanwhile over to you for your thoughts on A Suitable Boy.

 

 

Related articles

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts One & Two

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 5 & 6

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 13 & 14

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 11 & 12

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 9 & 10

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 13 & 14

'When warned to expect questions about his favourite author at the Edinburgh Festival, Vikram Seth turned to the critic he was with and asked "Do you have the name of a bad Scottish saga writer?" On being supplied with a name, Seth vowed that, if asked, he would say he read the novels of Dorothy Dunnett "with the greatest admiration."

This little anecdote was quite a prescient find this week because I had just bagged up about twenty Dorothy Dunnett novels for the charity shop having finally decided that life really is too short, as are my shelves, and I have far too many other good books to read. I will of course probably regret this in years to come when I suddenly absolutely have to read The House of Niccolo series...or the Lymond Chronicles.

I came across the quote in a little book of critical commentary on A Suitable Boy by Anne Atkins but which has remained firmly closed on my shelf for fear of spoilers. I still don't know who Lata will marry (DON'T TELL ME ANYONE) and now live in constant and daily fear that somehow someone somewhere will mention it..Jim the Postie... or the recycling man... or whoever.

But I sneaked a look at the first few pages this week and also read this...

'Seth has made a more serious contribution to the debate about popular subjects in his novels, saying, "love, death, passion, honour, ambition etc. are now treated as the province of so-called airport novels; and that is nonsense.'

And here we are on the home run, just two more sessions to go (17 May Parts 15/16... 21 June to the end) and I am starting to feel as if all the love, death, passion and ambition of A Suitable Boy has been with me for ever... somehow for longer than Middlemarch, though in fact we have read this one in half the time of other long reads.

Am I allowed to say that I still love the parts which feature Lata, and that I love slightly less the parts which deal with the political situation??

I am still reading it all of course, but find myself much more eager to stay with Lata's life, even though I know the backdrop to the country is of course crucial to the whole, so I am hoping that in some way Vikram Seth will draw the two even closer together as the book nears its close.

Interestingly Anne Atkins details the critical reception of A Suitable Boy back in 1993 and I thought it might be of interest and relevance at this stage of our read.

A huge print run of 20,000 copies in the UK had virtually sold out prior to publication. Think of that pre-internet bookshop footfall, unprecedented, and the book was even added to the list compiled for the Queen to read during her annual holiday at Balmoral.

Who can know...did she...or didn't she.

By August 1993 100,000 hardback copies had sold, that is staggering, but among the reviews there were complaints about the dullness of the sections about land reform and politics, and when A Suitable Boy didn't even make the Booker shortlist there seems to have been some amusing mayhem, with polarised opinions about lack of editing versus 'thematic unity' ...'diffuse and disjointed' versus ' a cohesive whole.' Chairman of the judges Lord Gowrie argued that the book was

'abysmally edited and tailored...promising lines of development and tension kept running out. The book needs cutting like a movie.'

Vikram Seth's determination not to explain anything to the Western reader has been very noticeable for many of us I think, and I wonder how much more acceptable that is to us now (because why on earth should he) than it may have been in 1993??

'Gratuitous confusion' seemed to abound and there were cries from the US for some form of 'translation' for a country that lacked a share of East-meets-West colonial history with the sub-continent. It is an interesting point...is anyone reading from afar who feels disadvantaged by that lack I wonder??

It wasn't something I had considered at all, but it is true, here in the UK we have a shared history with India.

There were accusations too that Vikram Seth failed to allow his characters to develop, whilst others felt they were 'convincing, appropriate and pleasing,' and I am wondering what our thoughts are on all this??

I am still in the latter category of  'convincing, appropriate and pleasing,' though can see how this could be stretched and tested by the intermittent and often lengthy political machinations that take the narrative elsewhere. Interestingly I feel our reading method, with time to step back and ponder between each couple of sections, might actually be giving added depth to the characters...I wonder what you think...

Whilst much of Part Fourteen went over my head, this was partly because I had been so completely engrossed in Part Thirteen. So much so that I hardly took any notes, I really did just want to read this for pleasure and pure pleasure it was, and my mind kept straying back to it all even while Nehru was resigning and disputes raged about which language should be the official one .

Pran is sitting in hospital quite enjoying the rest and reading Agatha Christie whilst wife Savita's Lady Baby Uma is finally born, 'not to a couple but to a clan,' and all despite Mrs Rupa Mehra's horror stories. 

Meenakshi and Kakoli arrive to see the baby, though the novelty soon wears off and then the shock (to me, but seemingly not to her) of Meenakshi's baby announcement....and the burglary...oh heavens, poor Arun, no insurance...at last a chink, a vulnerability in his arrogant armour appears.

Lata's letters to Haresh and his back to her and the couple's developing friendship.

Haresh's frantic search for a job, and the shoes...the immaculate shoes.

Lata and Kabir and their rehearsals for Twelfth Night...

Amit's poetry and the clever concealment of Lata's name in the first letter of each line...that had me skipping back through my Kindle.

Three suitors all lining up...

Enough from me, over to you...

 

 

 

 

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 11 & 12

An interesting aside to A Suitable Boy this week...

I am slowly learning the politics of all this and must confess I have not felt moved to do any background reading for fear of turning a pleasurable read into a GCSE exam, so beyond knowing that Nehru was the first Prime Minister of India and a leading light in the country thereafter, knowledge is only shaping up for me as the book allows it to and I want to keep it that way.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had just been mentioned in the book when we came across this unfinished portrait of Vijay Lakshmi Pandit at the Laura Knight exhibition which opened at the Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery this week.

© The Estate of Dame Laura Knight DBE RA RWS

This the recent portrait exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery which has miraculously traversed the broken Dawlish sea wall to reach us, and we are keeping it until May so expect much more about it all on here.

Vijay Lakshmi Pandit was Nehru's sister, the aunt of Indira Gandhi and a diplomat and ambassador for many years. The portrait, possibly unfinished because Vijay travelled so much, not only gives a wonderful insight into the construction of Laura Knight's paintings (look at the elegance of those hands) but also a glimpse of a very beautiful woman, serene and dignified. 

Right...firstly Part 11 of A Suitable Boy and a few scattered thoughts..

As soporific to read in part as it must have been to sit through. Lengthy legal ramblings that I will be very honest almost defeated me, and had I been wavering over whether to continue reading A Suitable Boy or not, well this might have been my throwing in the towel point.

Thankfully it wasn't, though I am still very confused about the whole issue of zamandars and who actually won the case. This might however be because I was reading whilst drinking a pot of hot chocolate in the Bedford Hotel and life was going around me. I also think this might be a point where reading from the book is far better than reading on a Kindle, where it seemed endless, but now I look it was only twenty pages or so

But how sad it would be to have given up at this stage in the book and miss what was coming next, and I will remember to say this should anyone ask me about reading A Suitable Boy in the future.

Now for the Pul Mela.

The pilgrimage to bathe in the Ganges and the carnage that followed...

'There was complete and dreadful chaos...'

Says Vikram Seth in so few words, but enough to convey the fear. One thousand people dead in fifteen terrifying minutes and I was holding my breath as Bhaskar slipped from his mother's grasp.

And despite L.N.Agarwal coming under siege from all directions with accusations of disorganisation and poor planning, how I respected him as he took charge despite knowing that Priya, his own daughter. was in the melee.

Interesting contrasts between the Hindu grief juxtaposed with the Muslim revelry of Ramazan and overtones of lack of respect between the two opposing religions...

Part 12 saw me relishing every page again as Mrs Rupa Mehra and Lata return to Brahmpur from Lucknow and all the threads of 'suitable boys' are starting to weave together and connect.

At mention of Haresh, I suspect Mrs R.M.'s boy of preference, and with reference to the awkward presence of 'some girl in his life,' didn't you love Vikram Seth's description of her determination...

'Mrs Rupa Mehra made it clear by her tone that an armoured corps of Sikh damsels could not come between her and her target...'

I suspect we have treats and embarrassments a-plenty in store with Lata's Olivia playing opposite Kabir's Malvolio in the production of Twelfth Night...

and sadness to come with Kabir's visit to his mother and her dementia.

And Pran, oh dear. I am worried for Pran and it's all bound to kick off just as Savita's baby is born.

Meanwhile Maan re-enters the fray on his return from exile and as if on cue, though not his fault, the student riots start..

'One cannot run a state by kindness,' says the beleagured L.N. Argarwal, 'a rigid man who for all his intelligence, lacked any human touch.' 

'He dreaded to think of running one on nothing but discipline and fear,' thinks Sharma, the Chief Minister, before relieving the Home Minister of the problem.

Another little aside and mention of the Oxford college with a pelican perched on a pillar in the quad...bet that's Corpus Christi where I stayed many moons ago for the Oxford Literary Festival I thought...

Vikram Seth's alma mater.

Looking back at the unfinished portrait of Vijay Lakshmi Pandit and I can only liken it to the ever-broadening canvas of this book, those early sketches slowly filling with colour and shape and intrigue. Who can know what detail Laura Knight had in mind to fill in next, and I am starting to think the same about Vikram Seth.

Over to you, I hope a few of you are hanging on in there and didn't throw in the towel, and we reconvene on Saturday April 12th for Parts 13 & 14 barring Acts of God or natural disasters or circumstances beyond my control that is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 9 & 10

You will have to believe me when I tell you that what follows happened in this order...

1. I am reading this month's parts of A Suitable Boy and come to the passage about the wolf hunt.

2. 'Wolf hunt??' I think, wasn't there one of those in War and Peace??

2.5  I have been making comparisons to Middlemarch for some time, but now I start to think more closely about comparisons with War and Peace. Do we have our Prince Andre and our Natasha?? How interesting in fact that after the W&P wolf hunt doesn't Natash do her famous dance followed by some discussion about finding her a suitable husband...

3. I set my Kindle aside for a while and pick up a forthcoming autobiography by John Carey, The Unexpected Professor. It is every bit as good as I thought it might be and I will continue with it and report back.

4. But didn't John Carey write that book about reading for pleasure, something about the most enjoyable 100 books of the twentieth century... and surely I have it on the shelf somewhere.

4.5. Have I already checked, I can't remember but I wonder if John Carey rates A Suitable Boy as one of them..

5. I find the book, Pure Pleasure, and frantically scan the index... A Room With a View, The Garden Party, The Great Gatsby, The House in Paris, Of Mice and Men, Brighton Rock...yes, yes, but no Vikram Seth...oh wait a minute, they are in order of year of publication and there it is, third from the end, A Suitable Boy.

In my haste to read what John Carey has to say the pages are almost coming out of the book, I find it and start to read the opening paragraph..

'Vikrams Seth's mammoth novel about newly independent India challenges comparison with War and Peace and does so knowingly. The wolf-hunt in A Suitable Boy clearly mirrors the wolf hunt in Tolstoy's epic, and Tolstoy's technique of mediating huge political events through the fortunes of a small group of families is adopted by Seth.

Bingo.

Suddenly the value of these shared reads of big long books over the last five years becomes even more apparent. If you were on board the troika and the brougham, perhaps even remembering some elements of Team Ulysses, then this journey through India might be resonating more deeply than ever. I am so pleased we chose A Suitable Boy because we have unwittingly (in my case, I was mainly up for something more recent, unread and hefty) given ourselves a mighty quadrumvirate (3564 pages in total) of brilliant and connected reading.

John Carey goes on to say...

'Both novelists have an uncanny gift for characterization, creating people so real and engaging that you speed-read to see what happens to them next. Seth's daring extends to his choice of subject. There is no topic on which enlightened English people feel more superior to Indians than that of arranged marriage.'

It's true..

'The idea of being forced into wedlock outrages our strongest liberal instincts.'

It does.

As the novel progresses, and the plot and the list of suitors grows, John Carey hits the nail squarely on the head about my attitudes...

'...we are programmed to react with horror. Yet we do not. For so skilfully does Seth convey Mrs Mehra's essential goodness that our urge to condemn is replaced by understanding.'

And perhaps that understanding elicited more powerfully than ever in this month's reading, especially Part Nine, and Lata's terror at the unwelcome night time advances of Mr Sahgal and her recovered memory of a childhood incident with him. By deduction we assume that we now 'know' what is happening to his tearful and fearful daughter Kiran...her room just along the corridor, Mr Sahgal's creeping footsteps passing Lata's door, now blocked with her suitcase, and continuing on to Kiran's, and only heard returning two hours later.

Suddenly the vulnerability of these young, over-protected women becomes starkly apparent and I want them all married off as quickly as possible.

That aside we have another Suitable Boy in Haresh, the completer-finisher introduced in Part Four and with connections to Lata via Bhaskar, the little maths-genius son of Veena (Kapoor, sister of Pran who is married to Lata's sister Savita) and Kedarnath Tandon (the shoemaker) and thence connected to Kabir son of Dr Durrani to whom Bhaskar was taken to meet by Haresh for some mathematical sharing.

Are you keeping up??

My spider's web pages of genogram connections now a mess, but coming in very handy.

I haven't even touched on Maan's progress in the village, or the other sides to Rasheed's life now emerging...marrying his brother's widow, taking on the children...

But that's enough from me, over to you...

 

Future suggested discussion dates for the diary barring flood, natural disasters or Acts of God::

Parts 11 & 12 :: Saturday March 8th 2014
Parts 13 & 14 :: Saturday April 12th 2014
Parts 15 & 16 :: Saturday May 17th 2014
THE GRAND MIDSUMMER FINALE - Parts 17,18 & 19 :: Saturday June 21st 2014

 

Related articles

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 7 & 8

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 7 & 8

My fault entirely, I had no idea that this month's reading would extend to almost 200 pages... that's quite a lot, no wonder it seems to have taken me so long and it gives us vast amounts to talk about, so please consider this post by way of an introduction rather than an in-depth anything, far too much to mention so fire away in comments with whatever grabbed your attention.

I blame that pesky Goldfinch too, along with me relaxing utterly into the spirit of the midwinter festival. It has been nigh on impossible to settle into another book, even one which is starting to feel as familiar and comfortable as A Suitable Boy. Dragging myself away from Theo's life to catch up with Lata's has been a real effort, but now I'm there I'm fine. I realise too how far I have travelled in my midwinter armchair of late too, New York, Las Vegas and  Amsterdam with Donna Tartt, to the Isle of Lewis three times with Peter May, and thence to St Kilda with writers various, plus several Lunnpoly tours with Penelope Fitzgerald. Hardly time to unpack the virtual bags before I must head to India and I definitely didn't feel ready for the trip. As we always used to say to children showing last minute reluctance about anything, 'It'll be alright when you get there,' and the minute I read of Lata seeing the letter I was back in the groove.

So good to be back in Lata's life, now in Calcutta, and I wonder just how many times her mother would shift her around the country if she could to avoid all these Unsuitable Boys.

But joy of joys...the crazy Chatterji family, and what a perfect name Vikram Seth has given them. Whatever it may mean in Indian terms it meant 'chattering' to me,  I loved them and that has been a surprise. Meenakshi the Medal-Melter had not been a particularly endearing envoy to date, so what a treat it was to find this sense of kinship, comedy and banter around the Chatterji's dinner table, and for the long-suffering Lata to feel so happy and comfortable amongst them. Didn't you just love Mrs Rupa Meehra's sudden realisation that Amit was becoming another suitor and ...

'...the unsavoury vision of sacrificing another of her children on the altar of the Chatterjis...'

Interestingly, I started to wonder how Maan was faring with village life, which made me realise that I am now fully committed and part of this knowable community, and so as Part Eight dawned I was ready to go there and find out.

I wonder if you have been as surprised, maybe even as shocked as me about two plot moments...

Meenakshi's affair in Part Seven, and who can blame her...

...and the tyranny of Rasheed's father. 

As I reached the end of Part Eight (last night!) I realised I was in page-turning mode again alright and truly can't wait to read on. Maybe I was expecting village life to be a sea of tranquillity and meditation, but far from it, much skull-duggery going on, and reading of Kachheru's abject slavery was heartbreaking. Rasheed's honourable decision will have repercussions but meanwhile I await Maan's transformation, surely it will happen??

And of course Mrs Rupa Mehra is now in Delhi looking for a Suitable Boy whilst she has left Lata behind in Calcutta...

It is only when I pause in my reading of A Suitable Boy, and I make myself do so every fifty pages or so, that I can somehow clearly visualise the broad cinematic sweep of the book, and this in complete contrast to the minutiae of daily life. It's quite an odd feeling...as if I have a helicopter view of the breadth of the canvas is the only way I can describe it, but it is to Vikram Seth's credit that this is happening unwittingly as I read, and something I am only aware of afterwards. 

It's also bit like spinning fictional plates, so over to you to spin a few more in comments.

 

IN THE DIARY :: SATURDAY FEBRUARY 8th (NB date changed)

PARTS NINE & TEN (150 PAGES)

 

 

 

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 5 & 6

What a pleasure it has been to finally have a portable edition of A Suitable Boy. My pre-ordered copy pinged onto my Kindle on publication day so I have read Parts 5 & 6 in all sorts of locations.

The advantages are obvious, I don't need a wheely trolley to transport it around; the disadvantages...no super quick flick back to the family trees, but I am slowly sifting everyone out and making the links, and in this regard isn't Vikram Seth wonderfully obliging.

Just as I feel a little web of confusion weaving itself, in steps Vikram with an aside, the briefest of references and I have a lightbulb moment. 

Kedarnath was the middle man in the shoemaking enterprise... Veena is his wife... sister of Pran... who is the husband of Savita, sister of Lata, and thus I find myself travelling from one to the next, around a community that is slowly becoming knowable.

Now I am wondering if this might be the point in the book where those who may not have been enjoying A Suitable Boy have surrendered and returned it to its role of keeping the door open on a windy day??

I knew we were in for some 'politics' and it was one of the reasons I wanted to read this one, because I am woefully ignorant of the details of partition and the conflicts that arose before and have continued since. The distribution of land and wealth rooted in colonial history and references to the Indian Mutiny had me doing some swotting. I have been plunged into the depths of the East India Company, familiar names popping up all over the place, distant history lessons drifting back at the mention of Warren Hastings and places like Lucknow.

So I was ready for all this and interested...but I am wondering how everyone else has fared??

Miraculously the grinding business of politics in the House threw up the wonderful Begum Abida Khan, a woman with the courage and tenacity to ask the awkward questions of L.N.Agarwal, the Home Minister, about the recent 'riots', about who exactly gave the order to fire and the subsequent shootings, before bravely issuing her words of warning...

'Beware of the time that you are about to bring upon yourself nd upon this country. It is three years since we obtained independence but look at the poor of the land: they have neither food to eat not clothes to wear nor shelter to prote themselves from the sky. You promised Paradise...'

Her speech explained far more than any history book could and I have read it several times...her words 'You have seperated the nail from the flesh,' felt like a searing indictment of  the government and by a voice thus far little heard outside the home, that of a woman.

L.N Agarwal's dastardly revenge, cleverly countered by the women of the house he arranges to foreclose on, reveals that the women in this book, and in this country, find the power and use it when they can.

There is a revealing conversation between Mahesh Kapoor and Minister Sahib in the next part which hints at the level of corruption just waiting to step into government should the Old Guard step aside. They are the bulwarks to those 'interested in money and keen to join the game,' 

Poor Mahesh Kapoor, beleagured and bedevilled by conflict, somehow demonstratng the patience and tolerance of a saint with the world and its mother around him, but sadly not with his wife and thankfully not with his son either.

I wonder if like me you had thought Mahesh Kapoor, true-to-type and heartless when his son-in-law Kedarnath comes to see him and asks him to keep Veena's jewellery safe. The couple have hit on hard times and Veena is attempting to get it valued in order to raise some money. Mahesh Kapoor seems impatient and dismissive, oblivious and unsympathetic to their plight, but when Veena's brother, his son Maan, gets the slapping and the jolt he deserves, it becomes evident that Mahesh Kapoor hasn't missed a thing. I can't wait to read what happens to Maan next....off on a month's exile to a remote village with his language teacher.

I am also missing Lata and Mrs Rupa Mehra so am very pleased to see that Part 7 opens with...

'Lata saw the envelope on the salver...'

I had almost (but not quite) forgotten about Lata and Kabir in the hurly burly of political life and Maan's romantic escapades so I am really looking forward to reading on.

I can only cover a small fraction of what happens in one post so I feel sure those of you still reading will have noticed and been impressed by much more besides, over to you...

For the diary::

Parts 7 & 8 ~ Saturday December 28th...and I realise I may be talking to myself while you are all eating the leftover turkey etc, but the post will be here anyway, so you can catch up while the carcass is boiling up for soup.

 

 

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts 3 & 4

I have to admit I had one or two nervous moments when I started reading A Suitable Boy, about exactly how would the book stand up to being set aside and picked up again, perhaps with a reading gap.

I was talking to someone about The Luminaries this week and we had ecountered the same problem. A great book, both of us riveted by it, but a reading gap had left us both feeling we needed and owed it to the book and ourselves to start over, even though events so far remained fresh in our minds.

So this month was the big test with A Suitable Boy...

Parts 1 & 2 under my belt, and then a gap. so would I slip back into the flow of the book easily..

Had the characters, so many of them, stayed uppermost in my mind...

Would the sense of place materialise without me having to reread anything.

I really needn't have worried...

Sunday breakfast at Pran's house. Pran the character that, as this early stage, I somehow feel sure is destined to play an interesting and changing part in the book, plays that wonderful April Fool joke on Mrs Rupa Mehra. Lata has eloped with his brother Maan who has phoned from the railway station to tell them...

'Oh my poor daughter, oh my poor daughter,' wept Mrs Rupa Mehra.
    The door opened and Lata walked in.

And I can't have been the only one to have been taken in, and instantly I was back in Brahmpur.

Poor Lata, controlled by others, her free-will limited, her wishes unheard and ignored and serious trouble brewing when she meets and falls in love with Kabir. The hatred between the Hindus and the Muslims now abundantly clear, any union unthinkable.

Meanwhile another potential suitor (I'm starting to make a list) appears in the shape of the rather dapper Haresh. I was back to the family tree to check out the connections and I am intrigued by Vikram Seth's cleverness in making those connections.

Haresh takes the gifted Bhaskar (Pran's nephew) to meet Kabir's professor father.

He glimpses Lata boarding the train to Calcutta under the watchful eye of her mother.

It's like one of those diagrams of overlapping circles and Haresh reveals himself to be an astute observer ...

'The young woman seemed to be determinedly fighting back some sadness that went beyond the normal sadness of parting at a railway platform.'

He was already in my good books for refusing to cut out the middle-man in his shoe buying venture, now I like Haresh even more. Vikram Seth seems able to convey a great deal without me realising it is happening. I am shaping likes and dislikes as if these were real people. 

Reading a 1993 review of the book by Peter Kemp he suggests that it is written in such a way 'allowing instant, unimpeded acess to its people and events' and that feels exactly right. He also suggests that...

'This human abundance, prodigally scattered across India's vastnesses, is unobtrusively arranged into a fiction of meticulous, quiet artistry. Details that might seem merely applied as flecks of local colour subsequently take on deeper hues.'

Quiet artistry indeed.

And couldn't you just smell the stench of the leather tanning and dying...

I am now very excited about A Suitable Boy, this is proving to be a really enjoyable, engaging reading and I can't wait to know what happens next.

For anyone reading this who may have given up on the book, I'd love to know at what point you stopped reading, because there is no way, at page 242, that I could put this book down now.

Over to all of you...

For the diary ::

Saturday November 30th :: Parts 5 & 6 (and for those who have been waiting for the Kindle version, it's out on November 7th... go on, catch us up, you'll love it)  

 

 

A Suitable Boy ~ Vikram Seth :: Parts One & Two

'This novel, so vast and so amiably peopled, is a long, sweet, sleepless pilgrimage to life... Such writing reminds us that there are secrets beyond technique, beyond even style, which have to do with a quality of soul on the part of the writer, a giving of oneself ...His novel deserves thousands of long marriages and suitable readers...'

James Wood's Guardian review of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth is the first of the adulatory quotes in my copy of the book, countless others follow, but it was a review by John Lanchester in the London Review of Books  which helped explain why I had enjoyed Parts One and Two of the book so much...but couldn't quite pin down the reason.

John Lanchester is initially cynical about the hype that surrounded publication of A Suitable Boy back in 1993, flagging up the number of journalists dwelling on the size of the book, its weight, and the size of the advance, before doing likewise himself and then moving onto his assessment. There's a whole chunk of the review that I haven't read for fear of spoilers, and so skipping to the end I was holding my breath as his final verdict approached...

'The prose is intended not to distract. The resulting structural clarity is remarkable - you never don't know what's happening, why, where and to whom...'

and he went on to be suitably impressed. It was one of my biggest fears that with a family tree of such magnitude I would have my Chatterjis muddled with my Kapoors, and with so little knowledge of Indian life and customs to fall back on confusion would reign. In fact I have found quite the opposite, and as John Lanchester suggests...

'It's a considerable technical feat which draws no attention to itself... A Suitable Boy breathes...the unfakable, unmistakable breath of life.'

It would seem nigh on impossible for my brain, teeming with Devon and the garden this summer, to find itself completely immersed in Brahmpur life each time I opened the book, but it has been effortless and entirely enjoyable reading. Vikram Seth sets the scene and peoples it with such panache that I did know exactly what was happening and to whom, 'tis true, and having expected to be confused I am pleasantly surprised that I am not.

I am slowly becoming acquainted with the characters too...

Mrs Rupa Mehra, the matriarch who has had any power taken from her by widowhood and a domineering eldest son, yet still capable of fighting her corner with some histrionics when needs be. 

Fiesty Lata Mehra, 'always the difficult one,'  who has benefited from her mother's sacrifices to ensure that both sons and daughters receive a good education following their father's death.

Louch playboy Maan Kapoor and his much more serious brother Pran; Pran married to Lata's sister, and a lecturer at the university.

The vacuous and everso slightly comical Meenakshi, married to Lata's older brutish and bullying brother, Arun.

But I am a naturally inquisitive reader and can see that I have a great deal to learn about Indian everything. I decided not to do any background reading, and though I have bought the BBC radio dramatisation of the book I have no plans to listen to it just yet. I need to get the voices into my head for myself rather than have it done for me too soon.

I just wanted to arrive and be shown around.

So Partition, purdah (what is it actually, I think I know, but do I really know) 

Food... kachauris, barfis, gajak, gulabjamuns...

Customs... Holi..

Drink...Nimbu Pan, 

..and so much more, there is little to be gained by stopping to check things out. I was quite relieved at the mention of 4711 cologne, at least I know what that is. I found some in a shop yesterday and wafted the tester around...can there be a scent that is any more familiar than 4711. However the book flows like the Ganges and I am happy to sail along with it, so much so that I have floated onto Part Three with ease.

I am wondering how you are all finding the book so I don't want to say much more, we can discuss in comments, but I did want to mention the whole notion of arranged marriage. I was startled to discover that I have never really given any thought to the impact of this on the man, I had only ever considered it from a woman's point of view, whilst Vikram Seth is very clear that there can be tensions on both sides. I fully expect to be surprised like this time and again.

But that's enough from me, over to you...

 

Related articles

A Suitable Boy... ON YOUR MARKS..

A Suitable Boy... ON YOUR MARKS..

Heavens above, half of September gone already, we must make a start.

So, do we all have copies of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth at the ready. I'm sure some of you may have begun reading already, I have... but very slowly to take full advantage of Vikram Seth's excellent scene setting and establishment of characters.
 

Have you chosen a nice bookmark??

This is very important. I have actually decided on this one for now, a quilt made by Lucy M.Boston (and my thanks to Adele Geras who sent it to me) 

'Babes in the Wood', and on first glance I thought nothing remotely Indian about it, for a start it's too soon for India to have filtered into my consciousness yet. However then I looked more closely and there was that little bit of paisley design at the base, a shape that found its way to the UK from India in the 18th and 19th century, but also the colours match the cover of my edition of the book, and say warmth, plus these Lucy Boston quilts are at the forefront of my creative mind at the moment.

Upon such particulars is the choice of book mark made.

I have also sorted myself out a notebook to keep to hand, (thank you to the Kayaker for sending it in that parcel from Oz) which I will need to keep track of the things that jump out at me in order to write the posts. It is always odd (often very odd) things and so far these include purdah and 4711 cologne. This will be a very new literary and geographical world for me and maybe some of you; there is much I have to find out about India the country and its culture, religion and customs, and I am really looking forward to it because I feel sure plenty of you will be filling in the gaps for the rest of us.

I think the best plan is for us to read two parts a month (approx 140 pages) and meet here to chat about them in comments on the last weekend. Hopefully this will offer a manageable reading pace, along with some flow and continuity to a book that I have a feeling might be quite hard to put down

So I will post here on Saturday September 28th and we can carry on discussing Parts One and Two in comments over that weekend and on through the month, so don't worry if you are away, or haven't read them in time, you can add your thoughts whenever you want.

Or you can of course just read and lurk, that's fine too. I hate the word 'lurk' in relation to all this, it sounds so sinister. I know plenty of people read here but don't want to comment, and there is no problem with that at all, just enjoy the read... but if you do feel brave enough to join in please don't feel daunted. No one will eat you, or disparage your thoughts and I always think it is very exciting to be in debate with readers from far-flung lands as I sit here in the Shire. This doesn't mean that we all have to agree with each other all the time, but we can disagree in the nicest possible ways and still be a friendly online haven, so you will be very welcome.

Don't feel under any pressure at all either. This is for pleasure not pain, if the reading becomes a chore, or you are not enjoying it for any reason, or life gets in the way please don't beat yourself up about it, or force yourself to continue... set it aside, go and cast on some knitting, or make the rest of us a nice virtual cup of Darjeeling.

So...On your marks...

Get set...