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Paperback A Suitable Boy: A Novel (Modern Classics) Book

ISBN: 0060786523

ISBN13: 9780060786526

A Suitable Boy

(Book #1 in the A Bridge of Leaves Series)

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Format: Paperback

Condition: Very Good

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Book Overview

"Surrender to this strange, beguiling world and be swept away on the wings of story. . . . It is difficult to imagine that many contemporary writers could give us a novel that provides so much deep satisfaction." --Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book WorldA sweeping panoramic portrait of a complex, multiethnic society in flux, A Suitable Boy tells the story of ordinary people caught up in a web of love, ambition, humor, sadness, prejudice, reconciliation, the most delicate social etiquette, and the most appalling violence.Vikram Seth's novel is, at its core, a love story: the tale of Lata's--and her mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra's--attempts to find a suitable boy for Lata, through love or through exacting maternal appraisal. Set in the early 1950s in an India newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis, this compelling story takes us into the richly imagined world of four large extended families and spins a compulsively readable tale of their lives and loves. This description may be from another edition of this product.

Customer Reviews

76 customer ratings | 15 reviews

Rated 5 stars
A Suitable Book!!

This sprawling historical novel is magnificent. Looking for a summer book? This is the one. It is somewhat reminiscent of the Raj Quartet which was also set in India, and equally sprawling, but with another plot line and slightly different time line The rhythm of this book hinges on cycles, balance, and duality: Hindu and Muslim, Pakistan and India, rich and poor, male and female, young and old, religious and secular,...

3Report

Rated 5 stars
The Vastness of India

Just finished my second reading of "A Suitable Boy", it will always be one of my favorite books. Looking over some of the other reviews here I see that this 1474 page novel has been called "just" an Indian soap opera, and while I think soap-opera may be an apt description, it is one of the best books I have ever read. This novel reminded me of an old fashioned English novel in the style of Dickens or Trollope or Eliot, with...

6Report

Rated 5 stars
A delectable slice of Indian life

Marriages (or divorces, according to Oscar Wilde) may be made in heaven, but as human intervention is undeniably required to negotiate them on earth, matchmaking of near and not so near ones has been a perpetual source of fascination for people from time immemorial. Perhaps it gives them a feeling of playing God to interlink the destinies of two people, probably forever.This universal trait is remarkably well-manifested among...

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Rated 5 stars
A year in India, one step at a time

I've always sustained that a good writer can describe the simple ascent of a flight of stairs, and make it interesting. A bad writer can describe a truly interesting event, such as a disaster, or falling in love, or death, and render it boring. Vikram Seth's novel is an example of the former. Seth takes the lives of several well-to-do families in India during the early '50's, and follows their steps day by day for a little...

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