A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

I've finally finished it!  Three months and 1474 pages of tiny print later, I can consign A Suitable Boy to my 'read' shelf on goodreads.  This post will contain first a general review of the book without spoilers, then a discussion of the third section for the readalong.  The discussion part will contain spoilers, so steer clear if you haven't read or finished the book yet.

Review:
A Suitable Boy is the inter-connected tale of four families in post-independence India.  Although the central story is Mrs Rupa Mehra's quest to find a suitable husband for her daughter Lata, Seth's novel is more than that and is best described as a panoramic of Indian society.  From racial tension to religious festivals to adultery, ambition and politics, A Suitable Boy is an epic in every sense of the word.  The many individual stories are told alongside each other in nineteen parts and cover the human condition in all its forms.  I enjoyed reading about Savita's journey into motherhood, Pran's struggle to become an academic, the Nawab Sahib's bewilderment as the world he knew disappeared and the eccentric Chatterji family, who were more liberal and liked to speak in couplets.

If you have the time to invest in it, A Suitable Boy is a very rewarding book.  For me, it's up there with Gone with the Wind and Anna Karenina as a book that I will always remember.  Lata and the cast of characters feel like members of my friends and family; two days after putting this book down for good, I'm missing them.  Towards the end of the book when things start to happen and events get resolved, I was emotionally invested in the outcome each character would have.  Seth made me connect with each one (even if I didn't like them all) and I have a clear visualisation of what each character is about, which is not easy to pull off.  It felt almost like the book got into my soul.

As the scope of Suitable Boy is so broad, there's guaranteed to be something in it for each reader.  I'm a fan of multiple perspective books anyway and the rapid shifting between points of view stopped this long book from becoming tedious to read.  I'm in utter awe at the way Seth managed to wind all of his characters and events together without losing the impact of the story.  There are some plot points not resolved by the end and everything doesn't tie up nicely, but then it's not the kind of book where everything would.  A Suitable Boy does require an investment of time and effort but most definitely repays anything you put into it.

Discussion - Part Three (Spoilers):
I had mentioned in my review of Part Two that events were dragging and the book was becoming a bit of a slog - not so in Part Three!  Suddenly everything seemed to be happening at once and the pace was whirlwind by the last two or three hundred pages.

The main event was clearly Lata's marriage to Haresh.  I must admit to being disappointed with her choice, especially as it seemed to be one so clearly based on the head rather than the heart.  My opinions conicided with Malati's, who felt that Lata had turned down the gold and silver prize in order to settle for the bronze.  Whilst I agree that she could never have married Kabir, much as I liked him (the attitude of her family would have made their life very difficult), I had a soft spot for Amit.  There's one section where Lata is thinking about his poems and Seth writes something like 'they were already a part of her, without her knowing it'; from that point on I was rooting for Amit.  Lata's reasoning sold Amit short; I didn't find him selfish or demanding at all.  Besides, if anyone proposed to me with a beautifully written poem like that, I would certainly accept!  Haresh seemed very drab and unispiring compared to her other choices and it felt like Lata had chosen sensibly rather than for happiness. 

Religious tension was a theme throughout the whole book but it was really hammered home in this section with both the stampede at the Hindu event and the clashes between Hindus and Muslims when their festivals coincided.  I feel like Seth must feel strongly about clashes like this, as the sections dealing with them were powerfully written.  A message of the whole book seemed to be how futile religious quarrels are. I didn't expect events with Maan to take the turn they did, especially after he saved Firoz earlier in the story.  But I saw a different side to him and to Mahesh and this made me appreciate their characters more. 

The third part was my favourite of the three, mainly as so much happened and the pace was brisk.  I'm still reflecting on all the events and looking forward to the release of A Suitable Girl sometime in 2013, that follows Lata's search for a wife for her grandson eighty years after the events of Suitable Boy.  I hope Seth is on track and the book gets published on time.

Thanks to all the readalong participants for giving me the motivation to finally tackle this book; it had sat on my shelf for years prior to this.  I'm glad I finally got the chance to read and enjoy it.

Source: Personal copy
First Published: 1993
My Edition: Phoenix books UK, 1993 (purchased second hand)
Score: 5 out of 5

On Mammoth Books

For the past three months, I have been reading Vikram Seth's epic novel about post-Independence India, A Suitable Boy.  I am loving it and completely in awe of Seth's talent but it is a mammoth book.  In fact, I think it's the longest book I have ever read.  My edition has 1474 pages and I am currently on 1083.

To make matters worse, the font is ridiculously tiny (see photo to the left!) and there are no page breaks between chapters.    Both of which make the reading feel slower as it seems to take a long time to make any visible progress.

So things will go quiet on the blog whilst I enjoy the last 400-ish pages.  I've been reading this book for so long now that it will be strange not to spend time with the characters any more.  I am so impressed by Seth's ability to create so many fully dimensional characters and link them in different ways.

Before I started blogging, I used to read a lot of chunky books like this as I love a good epic.  But now I catch myself thinking about the gap between reviews appearing on my blog and how long it will take to read a longer book.  And sometimes it puts me off starting them, even if I know it shouldn't.  So this week, I'm burying myself in this book even if it takes ages to read and even if there are no posts on my blog for a week or so.  No pressure, just reading the way I want to read.

Do you read chunky books, or does the pressure of blogging put you off?

A Suitable Boy Readalong: Part Two

A group of us have been reading Vikram Seth's monumental epic, A Suitable Boy, over three months.  Today is the end of month two so it's time to check in again (you can find my part one post here).  I have to start this post with a confession; we were supposed to read up to page 1032, finishing chapter 13.28, but I've only managed to get up to page 837, making me about two hundred pages short.  I blame work but fully intend to catch up so I finish the read-along on time.  There will be spoilers in this post.


As much as I loved the first third of the book, I've found this middle section a bit of a slog.  Lots of my favourite characters (the Chatterjis, Pran & Savita and even Lata to a certain extent) take a back seat to newer characters that I didn't find as engaging.  Maan Kapoor, the son of an eminent politician, is sent into the countryside with his Urdu teacher to get him away from a relationship with a known courtesan.  Although the setting is described in lush vocabulary by Seth the narrative gets caught up in village politics and land ownership and this made it hard for me to get through it.  I wanted to know more about Rasheed's wife, not what Rasheed was doing to transfer his father's land to the peasants that had worked on it for years.

Politics is very much a strong theme throughout this section.  The Zamindari Act, that would remove land from hereditary landowners, is being challenged in the High Court.  I do find this bit of politics interesting but every discussion and debate is reported on in the book and the resolution, when it finally comes, is a bit of an anti-climax.  Again, I think Seth misses a trick but not showing us human rather than political reactions to the bill.

The search for a husband for Lata does continue in this third of the book, with a new suitor, shoemaker Haresh.  I like Haresh despite his all-encompassing ambition, which Seth gently pokes fun at (he carries his certificates around at all times), but he's not as interesting as Kabir or Amit Chatterji.  Although Rupa Mehra is there and still continues to make outrageous remarks, the humour in this part of the book is a bit less.

Events turn more serious when administrative incompetence at a busy religious festival by the river Ganges leads to thousands being crushed to death.  These sections had me glued to the book as some of my favourite characters were involved.  Despite my complaints above, I'm still enjoying the book and still think Seth's writing is wonderful, deceptively simple.  I hope events pick up pace as we move into the last third of the book (600 pages to go!).

How is everyone else getting on?  Have you found this section of the book a slog too?

A Suitable Boy: Part One

 

It's been exactly a month since the start of the Suitable Boy group read and I'm happy to say I have completed the 538 pages in the first section of our reading.  I was excited to start this book as I'm a fan of Indian literature and many times in the past I had picked it up off my shelf only to be daunted by the size - it's 1474 pages and the font is tiny.  But now I've started it, I'm so glad I did as it's well on the way to becoming a favourite.

The anchoring story is about Lata and her mother's search to find her a suitable husband but it's really a panoramic novel with four main families and many more secondary characters.  There are lots of  stories happening at once and Seth jumps between them (the family trees at the front are very helpful and mine are now covered in annotations!).  I'm enjoying the Chatterji family the most so far, they are more liberal than the other families and have some memorable characters, such as Meenakshi, who would have a lot in common with Scarlett O'Hara, Kakoli who has a German boyfriend, and writer Amit.   Their little quirk of speaking in rhyming couplets is cute.

I've been surprised at how much religious tension is right up there in the novel.  It's set straight after partition (Bangladesh doesn't exist at the moment) and there's some Hindi characters, like Kedarnath, who have had to flee from Pakistan to India and who have lost everything.  The theme is really hammered home when Lata falls in love with Kabir, a fellow student.  They have been dating for a while before she finds out he is a Muslim and when her family finds out too, there are serious repurcussions.   Her mother even thinks "it was one thing to mix socially with Muslims, entirely another to dream of polluting one's blood and sacrificing one's daughter."  Not quite a 'suitable boy' then!

I could go on for ages about this book and all the different characters in it as I'm completely loving it.  After a month, they feel like old friends and I have a feeling this book is going to be truly epic before we reach the finishing line.  My absolute favourite character is Lata's Mum, Mrs Rupa Mehra, who is the very definition of interfering busybody and martyr.  She would be so irritating to have as a mother but she's certainly funny to read about.  My favourite quote of hers:

"I have to do everything in this house, and no one cares for me.  Everything goes wrong and I have to make peace.  I have slaved for you all my life, and you don't care if I live or die.  Only when I'm burned on the pyre will you realise my worth!" This is basically said every time someone disagrees with her.  I think we are in for a long search for a suitable husband for Lata!

Coincidentally, this is the first time I have ever read two books at once as I was a strictly monogamous reader before this.  At first I found it difficult to read two things at once, and felt guilty for picking up another book, but now I have 'seen the light', so to speak.  Reading this alongside other books means the length and my progress do not bother me as I'm still completing other titles.  I'm free to sink into the story and read at a leisurely pace, which has been lovely.

If you're doing the group read, please leave me a link to any posts you've done - I'd love to see what you all think.  Which storyline and characters are you most closely following?

A Suitable Boy Readalong Starts Tomorrow!

 

Just a reminder for those of you wanting to join in that the A Suitable Boy readalong starts tomorrow, Monday 23rd July.  Here's a recap of the schedule:

Schedule:

Book 1 : 1.1 to 7.46 (July to August)

Book 2 : 8.1 to 13.38 (August to September)

Book 3 : 14.1 to 19.16 (September to October).

 

Being bad about sticking to reading rules, I've already had a sneaky read of the first four chapters, set at a wedding arranged by Lata's mother, Mrs Rupa Mehra.  If these four chapters are anything to go by, the book is going to be vibrant, well written and events are going to move at a brisk pace for the size of the book.  I was surprised at how quickly lightness of skin and caste were mentioned as themes in the novel, and at how I can already see ideological differences between the older and younger generations.

As I'm now on school holidays, I'm looking forward to spending some time settled down with this book.  If you're joining us, hope you enjoy the first month of reading!

Group Read: A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

On Tuesday, I posted my list of Top Ten books I have been meaning to read for years, and one of them was Vikram Seth's masterpiece about India, A Suitable Boy.  It turns out that I'm not the only one who has wanted to read this book for a while as Jo from JoV's Book Pyramid got in touch and we decided to read the book together for encouragement.  Soon Aths (Reading on a Rainy Day) and Ana (What I Have Been Reading) were also involved and it turned into a proper read-a-long.

Here's the Goodreads synopsis:

"Vikram Seth's novel is, at its core, a love story: Lata and her mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra, are both trying to find -- through love or through exacting maternal appraisal -- a suitable boy for Lata to marry. Set in the early 1950s, in an India newly independent and struggling through a time of crisis, A Suitable Boy takes us into the richly imagined world of four large extended families and spins a compulsively readable tale of their lives and loves. A sweeping panoramic portrait of a complex, multi ethnic society in flux, A Suitable Boy remains the story of ordinary people caught up in a web of love and ambition, humor and sadness, prejudice and reconciliation, the most delicate social etiquette and the most appalling violence."

Sounds good, right?  We're reading the book on a schedule that works out to roughly 500 pages each month.

Starting Date: Monday 23rd July 2012.

Schedule:

Book 1 : 1.1 to 7.46 (July to August)

Book 2 : 8.1 to 13.38 (August to September)

Book 3 : 14.1 to 19.16 (September to October).

After each book, we'll all be posting an update on our impressions of the book so far and our reading experience.   I'm excited to start as the book contains many themes that I love to read about; the Indian setting, the establishment of post-Partition India, the personal lives of the characters contrasted with the life of society, romance and family life, politics etc.

This is going to be a very casual read-a-long so you're all welcome to join us if you like the sound of the book.  Although there is a schedule for reading, you can post as little or as much as you like and just join in whenever you feel like it.  All you need to do to join is drop me or any of the other bloggers a comment and then repost the image on your blog to advertise (you can find it on my flickr stream here). I'd love to get as many people involved as possible, this is a big book so it's perfect for the encouragement that a read-a-long offers.

Will you join us?