The Vikram Seth fan club!

am i suitable ?
Hi friends,

Am a 21yr old postgraduate student of physics.Iam fan of Vikram Seth.His book"A Suitable Boy" was the best novel i'd ever read.Iam eager to talk to you guys.

love
marco

Welcome, to the club, Marco! You are very discerning!:wink:
And a big welcome to A2K!

Fire away with any comments, any questions, thoughts you might have about Vikram Seth ...

Another admirer of Vikram Seth checking in. I read A Suitable Boy some years ago and loved it. Loved it for his flair for storytelling, and the way his characters speak. And also because it seemed to be set in my hometown and that just made me so very nostalgic. (Not Kanpur, Spidey.) I really thought I could feel exactly what Lata was feeling on that boat. Confession: When I was a bit younger, I had the biggest crush on VS. I once attended an annual function at my brothers' school, which is also VS's school, and he was the chief guest. I just thought he was so very cute.

I think I have to read A Suitable Boy again. And Golden Gate, and his travelogue through China & Tibet. It's been a while since I read him - I've been a bit stuck on other Indian authors lately - Rushdie, my first, last and in-between love. Rohinton Mistry, Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Divakaruni. But that's all stuff for another thread.

I'm about a third the way through A Suitable Boy, no comments just yet.
I mentioned before liking An Equal Music a great deal, was quite carried away with it. Read his travel book written in between his years of school in China fairly recently and enjoyed it. Find it interesting to have read commentary on China from both him and Paul Theroux; since I read fast and rather non analytically, almost for the flow of experience and the sounds of words, I can't say anything intelligent at this point to compare the travel tales.

Greetings & welcome, Heatwave!

You're going to read A Suitable Boy again?

Do you have a holiday coming up? :wink:

osso

You have 3/4 of the way to go through A suitable Boy? Ah, lucky you! You're in for a special treat! Please do report back!

That's a lovely list, _Heatwave_! You've listed most of my favorites too, and also Rushdie being your first last and in-between (although "Fury" infuriated me, lazy bad writing).

Just read a new short story by Jhumpa Lahiri in the New Yorker, she just does it again and again. "Interpreter of Maladies" was a knock-out debut, and she doesn't seem to be slowing down.

msolga, I know what you mean! Ah, to have 3/4 of "A Suitable Boy" ahead of me... sigh. It might be almost long enough since I last read it to dive into it again... but I have so many other things I'd like to read in that time. (Not least Seth's newest, "Two Lives."

Thank you, msolga. And you're so right - I was caught up in the excitement, talking about Vs that I totally didn't even think where I'd conjure up the time from. My 10-mo old has just started crawling, we're planning a coast-to-coast move for the next month, and I'm going to go back to work full time after we've moved. I'll be lucky if I even get to read grocery store flyers.... I miss reading already!

Sozobe, I have to agree with you about Fury. It was a real let down. I have to confess also to not being able to read the Satanic Verses. For some reason, I just couldn't get into it. I just kept feeling that had I had more knowledge of the Bible & the Koran, I'd get it more. I just gave up after 100 odd pages. Will try to pick it up again.

I love Jhumpa Lahiri's short stories. Intepreter of Maladies truly deserved the Pulitzer, it was brilliant. I could only like the Namesake - it had it's moments of brilliance, but on the whole, I think I like her short stories better. The Atlanta Monthly had one of her stories online "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter, that was actually my introduction to JL. If you haven't read it, you can probably still find it online. I just had to read everything JL after reading that one. Will have to look for the NY-er you have mentioned.

I read "Satanic Verses" kind of late in the Rushdie canon -- "Midnight's Children" was first, and I happened to need to fill in my undergrad schedule with some non-English courses and so took a course on Indian history because of it, and then also a course on Islam kind of becuase of it and kind of because of the fatwa and kind of just in general, and by the time I got to "Satanic Verses" I was pretty familiar with the references.

I think "Midnight's Children" is still my favorite -- if everyone has one novel in them, that's Rushdie's, and he tells the story over and over again in various ways with various emphases, but that one hits the most notes with the most virtuosity and force. "Satanic Verses" is right up there, though.

My continuing problem since the kid was born has been that I can't stand episodic reading. I've always been a sit down, start reading, and finish the book type. (Often one day, sometimes 2-3 -- "A Suitable Boy" was a record in that department, I think it took me a week or two.) The writing I like best requires it, because it's referential and elliptical and doesn't pander, so you have to pay attention and remember things to get the full impact. I read "Middlesex" on vacation last summer and loved it, but other than that I really haven't been able to read the kinds of books in the kind of way I want to since I became a parent (5.5 years ago).

Ah well, I'll have plenty of time to read in the future...

Oh and I agree that Lahiri is even better at short stories than novels -- so far -- but I did really enoy "The Namesake." (OK, one more that I squeezed in there somehow, her writing is more forgiving for the episodic reader, though, much more straightforward...)

(Sorry for going off track, msolga.)

Never mind, Heatwave. You can save it up for when you have a very long break (you will ... eventually! ) & then really savour it! By that stage you'll have forgotten most of the story-line & you'll be wondering how it's all going to end!

I hope so, Msolga. On days like today, when my little crawling critter wants either full & complete freedom to go anywhere she pleases (read: electrical sockets & wire jungles), or just be held (teething!) - reading seems like a very distant dream. And sleep is at an even higher premium.

Sozobe, I can ^ empathise ^ with the non/episodic reads. Yes, Midnight's Children was a heck of a story. I had go thumb through my dog-eared copy. Will have to read that one again too. Have you read Haroun & the sea of stories?

So sorry, really, Msolga, I should start a whole new Rushdie thread. In fact, why don't I do just that....

Oh, before I go...Mrs. Dutta writes a letter is actually a Divakaruni story, not a Lahiri. The same person introduced to me to both these amazing authors...hence my confusion. Oh oh and Divakaruni's Mistress of Spices has just been made into a hindi movie (these days they all come with English subtitles, in case you're interested). I'm sure the movie won't be half as interesting as the book (especially with the wooden lead actress), still will have to watch it.

No reason to feel sorry at all, Heatwave. But why not start a Rushdie thread? There seems to be plenty of interest here.

hey anyone's read that fabulous collection of poems by seth - All you who sleep tonight ?
some of em reminded me of the kakoli's couplets and most seth's unique best.
some one's thru 2lives?
love marco.

Hello, Marco & welcome to Vikram's fan club! (A very select group! :wink: )
And a big welcome to A2K, too!

No, I haven't read many of his poems. It sounds like I should, though!

Hello, Marco. Welcome to A2K. Three years ago, I got an oppurtunity to read one of Seth's poems. It was based on the tradegy of Japanese after the 1945 bombings. Can't recall the title of the poem, though. It was a very thought-provoking piece of muse and I had studied it to detail as it was part of my school curriculum.

I enjoyed Mistress of Spices but couldn't remember who wrote it - very different.

I have just made a search on this man, and...he what?! He translated some Wang Wei, Li Po, and Tu fu's poems...?...That's an awesome work to do. Because as far as I know Chinese classic poems have unique structures that can never duplicated by Indo-European letter-words.

He's a pretty awsesome writer, J-B!
I'm not surprised.

chitra divakaruni wrote it.
it has been made into a movie starring famous indian actor aishwarya rai.
but it never did well at the boxoffice.