Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A suitable Joy., 31 Jan 1999
By A Customer
This book, reputed to be the longest written in the English language, is a total immersion experience, and you can almost smell India at times. Anyone who has read their share of English classics will hear echoes, from George Eliot, Dickens and Austin, as the old concerns about marrying well are analysed in newly-independent, post-war India. Whom should our girl marry, the poet or the cobbler? Should we marry one we are enthralled by or one that lets us be ourselves? These things are asked but not always answered, against a background of politics and religion. What made it for me were the totally loveable and some equally repellent characters you meet along the way. These seem like real people, which is the delightful triumph of this epic work. There are plenty of blank pages at the back of the book to write your own glossary of the many Indian words you will come across. A book to savour, as you lie on your charpoy, sipping a cool nimbu pani.
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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Magical Journey, 6 Feb 2003
One could say that "A Suitable Boy" is the perfect title for this work by Vikram Seth as it is indeed the tale of Lata's search for an ideal husband, according both to Lata's own and her family's definitions of "suitable"; be they social, religious, political or personal. Alongside her and her family, we are lead to antagonise over how much she should value love? How much she may be willing to sacrifice for it and where following such intense love might lead? We share these and many other quandries with her. However, around Lata there are many other lives, all connecting with her own, and yet heading in their own directions too. As is the case in real life, there is never just one story, and I am tempted to say that to read "A Suitable Boy" is like living in the heart of India and, more particularly, in the heart of the world Seth created, with all your soul. So much are we drawn into the characters' lives by the rich nature of Seth's descriptions and dialogues, that it has been very tedious to have to do anything else but read and be with them all. I am not sure what I will do without them now that I have sadly reached the end and discovered who the suitable boy actually was......... This is a very special book indeed, perhaps the best I have ever read.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful depiction of India and an epic story too., 12 Jan 2003
This is certainly one of the best books I have ever read and is an astonishing achievement! Being of Pakistani origin, I found I could empathise more with the Muslim characters in the book than with some of the others but Vikram Seth's superbly detailed accounts ensured that none of the characters were un-interesting. I was particularly enthralled by the characters of Saeeda Bai, the courtesan, and Firoz and Maan as well as the Ustad of classical music. This was what was so great about the book. It seemed as if all of India was here, in front of me as I read this book. Princes, businessmen, academics, paupers, villagers, tanners, untouchables, priests, mullahs, imams, Urdu, Hindi, English...the wonderful scents and colours painted a great and detailed canvas of Indian life. Seth's erudition too becomes clear from his excellent rendition of the ghazals of Ghalib and Mir into English during, perhaps, my favourite section of the book which was the musical performance given by Saeeda Bai in Mahesh Kapoor's house. Simply wonderful!
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by John Irving
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