Dreams Of Rivers And Seas
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Book Description
A novel of India from one of England's finest writers
Product Description
'For some time now, I have been plagued, perhaps blessed, by dreams of rivers and seas, dreams of water.'
Just days after Albert James writes these lines to his son John, in London, he is dead. Abandoning a pretty girlfriend and the lab where he is completing his PhD, John flies to Delhi to join his mother in mourning.
A brilliant and controversial anthropologist, the nature of Albert James's research, and the circumstances of his death, are far from clear. On top of this, John must confront his mother's coolness, and the strangeness of the cremation ceremony that she has organised for his father. No sooner is the body consigned to the flames than a journalist arrives, determined to write a biography of the dead man. The widow will have nothing to do with the project, yet seems incapable of keeping away from the journalist.
In Tim Parks's masterly new novel, India, with its vast strangeness, the density and intensity of its street life, its indifference to all distinctions between the religious and the secular, is a constant source of distraction to these westerners in search of clarity and identity. To John, the enigma of his father's dreams of rivers and seas appears to be one with the greater mystery of the country.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
'On reception of his mother's brief phone call announcing his father's death, John James took a deep breath, booked himself onto the first available flight to Delhi, had Elaine drive him to Heathrow, travelled towards the coming night and arrived at Indira Gandhi Airport to find the weather much cooler than expected.'
This opening sentence sets up the key protagonists and the setting for the exploration into a father's life by a son and into a different culture by a Westerner. Every relationship and every assumption about those relationships is questioned and explored from different points of view in the course of this beautifuly written novel. A biographer stands ready to document his take on Albert James' life and questions his widow on tragedies in Albert's past and on their highly interdependent lives together in so many different cultures. Meanwhile John starts to find his way into his father's most recent preoccupations and passions which include communcation through dance and spiders and their webs. He receives a cryptic letter from his father referring to his dreams about rivers and seas.
I am a big fan of the polymath Gregory Bateson so was intrigued to see that Albert James is an homage of a kind to him although the reader is urged not to learn about Bateson from the novel. It did prompt me to wonder about both characters and I will research more into some of the interconnections.
John has essentially been an outsider in his parents marriage. Just when he can't communicate directly with his father any longer he longs to know and understand more.
A very thought provoking novel.
This opening sentence sets up the key protagonists and the setting for the exploration into a father's life by a son and into a different culture by a Westerner. Every relationship and every assumption about those relationships is questioned and explored from different points of view in the course of this beautifuly written novel. A biographer stands ready to document his take on Albert James' life and questions his widow on tragedies in Albert's past and on their highly interdependent lives together in so many different cultures. Meanwhile John starts to find his way into his father's most recent preoccupations and passions which include communcation through dance and spiders and their webs. He receives a cryptic letter from his father referring to his dreams about rivers and seas.
I am a big fan of the polymath Gregory Bateson so was intrigued to see that Albert James is an homage of a kind to him although the reader is urged not to learn about Bateson from the novel. It did prompt me to wonder about both characters and I will research more into some of the interconnections.
John has essentially been an outsider in his parents marriage. Just when he can't communicate directly with his father any longer he longs to know and understand more.
A very thought provoking novel.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book was a surprise for me. I am not sure what I had expected but it wasn't this. There are so many facets which I enjoyed. The familial tensions between mother and son who clearly barely know one another, and even stronger tensions with the now-dead father who has had an almost ethereal presence in both their lives; there are tensions between the mother and the American biographer, between the son and girlfriend, all in highly unusual circumstances. These tensions vary from the dystopian and fraught to the highly erotically charged and all are equally well conveyed in my opinion.
All this takes place against the backdrop of Delhi which can never fail to be interesting. Although many books have been written involving India and its amazingly varied cultures, its confusing and often obtuse caste system, and the uncanny abilities of people to survive the common problems of poverty and bad hygiene, I have an endless fascination with this which I increasingly feel that I prefer to encounter vicariously without having to experience first hand the upset stomachs and beggars that can blight many a trip to this part of the world. One incident which was amazingly-well described that summed this up for me was the passage where the son, John, has to make an emergency visit to the toilet while out in a non-descript back street cafe. The passage had me right there sharing his shame and agony and feeling relieved that it was him and not me
What's more, just as the book seemed in danger of losing its way a bit, the tension was built once more to a genuinely climactic finale. I agree with the reviewer who said it was hard to empathise with a lot of the characters, although I found one or two really grew on me and again, it didn't make the books any less intriguing. In fact it raised many questions about what it was in their lives that had made these people so prickly and difficult to like, as if they were real people. Certainly the central family in the book have lived extraordinary lives, and while a work of fiction it nevertheless highlights the challenges of people trying to marry up ordinary family relationships with extraordinary careers and lifestyles. The only slight downsides I experienced were with the passage of the book where John begins to lose his grip on reality, something which is inevitably hard to express, but this is a minor criticism.
All-in-all a fascinating book that kept me engaged throughout.
All this takes place against the backdrop of Delhi which can never fail to be interesting. Although many books have been written involving India and its amazingly varied cultures, its confusing and often obtuse caste system, and the uncanny abilities of people to survive the common problems of poverty and bad hygiene, I have an endless fascination with this which I increasingly feel that I prefer to encounter vicariously without having to experience first hand the upset stomachs and beggars that can blight many a trip to this part of the world. One incident which was amazingly-well described that summed this up for me was the passage where the son, John, has to make an emergency visit to the toilet while out in a non-descript back street cafe. The passage had me right there sharing his shame and agony and feeling relieved that it was him and not me
What's more, just as the book seemed in danger of losing its way a bit, the tension was built once more to a genuinely climactic finale. I agree with the reviewer who said it was hard to empathise with a lot of the characters, although I found one or two really grew on me and again, it didn't make the books any less intriguing. In fact it raised many questions about what it was in their lives that had made these people so prickly and difficult to like, as if they were real people. Certainly the central family in the book have lived extraordinary lives, and while a work of fiction it nevertheless highlights the challenges of people trying to marry up ordinary family relationships with extraordinary careers and lifestyles. The only slight downsides I experienced were with the passage of the book where John begins to lose his grip on reality, something which is inevitably hard to express, but this is a minor criticism.
All-in-all a fascinating book that kept me engaged throughout.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I really enjoyed this book ;in fact I couldn`t put it down, but at the same time I found it very difficult and thought provoking. I have never enjoyed a book so much where I found all the characters so unlikeable-but that was the the factor that made the book so enjoyable- it was about complex , not simple emotions, people and events. I actually got a headache trying to follow the theories of Albert- help needed in interpretation please!
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