The Vikram Seth fan club!

hey is anyone thru with 2lives?

I started it, Marco. But somehow got side-tracked & have put it aside for a bit . Unusual for me with Vikram. I can't explain it. And you?

Exactly the same -- I have it, I've picked it up a few times, I can't seem to get motivated to start. The fact that it's non-fiction may have something to do with it, I dunno.

That's interesting, soz.
I wonder if it's because he wrote it out of "family duty"?
I'm sure that the story is admirable, but I suspect this type of book is not really what he would choose to write, if he had his druthers. I could be wrong, of course.

me too.i'd dropped it more than once.but i sure liked it as far.
i wanted to know if someone's thru ..but it seems like dropping it too is common btwn us.

Looks that way, Marco. I'm going to make a big effort to read it ... soon!

Can I be an "almost" member of the club.

I've read Suitable boy, Golden gate and An equal music.

A suitable boy
I agree msolga that the ending was a little depressing but probably very realistic; it's hard to choose love when there's a whole family as well as the fabric of society beyond that urging the following of traditions upon you...

The golden gate
First recommended to me at Uni on a Russian Lit module [in translation, obviously] in connection with Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. I agree with Sozobe that the simplicity of the writing makes it a joy to read; it takes great skill to make writing look that simple!

On another note I disagree with Sozobe about Rushdie's Midnight's Children being his best work, although I concede that you are in a majority opinion. [MC being voted best Booker Prize winner of the first 25 years of the prize; and it certainly was the favourite of my tutor at Uni on the Indian Lit Module who went on to write a book of criticism on Rushdie]. For me, however, The Satanic Verses was Rushdie's greatest novel where his skill and imagination were at the peak of their powers. He has written nothing that has come close to this since. For me, the fatwa scared Rushdie's imagination into retreat. They didn't kill the man but they cartainly succeeded in crippling his imagination. Sorry to get heavy for a moment, there.

An equal music

I remember buying the signed first edition of this one in hardback but it was so disappointing that I havn't even hung onto it. Like Sozobe said he loses the simplicitity of style that had formerly made him so charmingly readable and the technical detail surrounding classical music made me feel uneducated as I was reading, not a comfortable feeling.

I havn't read anything of his since then.

Absolutely not, Tino! I have officially made you a fully-fledged one!

Actually, my reactions to the (VS) novels you mentioned are almost identical to yours. I bought the hardback copy of An Equal Music because I couldn't wait for the paperback edition. But, like you I felt a little uncomfortable, rather excluded by it.... uncultured klutz that I am! :wink:
I agree that The Golden Gate was a joy to read. I can recall being moved to tears by parts of it & laughing out loud at other parts. I must read it again!

I'm on page 38! (Of "Two Lives".)

It's gracefully written, but unfortunately it's annoying me just a bit. It seems (I am only on page 38 out of 503, so this might change) like the conceit is that it's basically Vikram Seth's OWN memoir, wrapped around a biography of his aunt and uncle. The problem that I'm having is the modesty inherent in that conceit. It's like the personal stuff is being dragged out of him at gunpoint.

Example -- when he was 17, he had to take German O-levels and had only a few months to study as opposed to the years most people take. He spends a lot of time talking about how difficult it was. Then eventually you figure out that he took the test and passed -- it's only barely alluded to, an aside while focusing on something else. There is nothing about how HE felt about it (happy, one would imagine! huge accomplishment!), just this shy, self-effacing rush to get to the next part of the story.

I think he does much better when writing through a proxy (fictional character) and doesn't have to be so damnably modest. But maybe he eventually really gets into the story of his aunt and uncle and they become proxies/ full characters (they're still pretty much ciphers at this point).


Nice analyses, Tino. I'd definitely put "Satanic Verses" right up there, but I still think "Midnight's Children" is Rushdie's canonical work, not just for its quality, in a vaccuum, but in terms of context and how it hits almost all of the themes he has focused on ever since.

OK, soz, if you can give it another try, then so can I!
I'll try a bit harder this time - holidays not too far off & all!

Thought you might say something in MCs defense, Sozobe.

The reason I prefer Verses is that it seems to be written with a real freedom, I get the feeling that here was a man at the peak of his powers really getting into the religious constraint that he felt as a young man [and at many levels, still: hence the power of his exploration].

With MC I get more of a sense of careful plotting than exploration. It's a very, very clever book, but something about that cleverness leaves me a tiny bit cold.

I read them both several over when I was doing my Rushdie essay at Uni but Verses is the one I could still read again [as this thread is making me want to!]

I know what you mean, and I do really like Satanic Verses. I have an almost opposite reaction to it though -- there is an anger in it that is present in MC too, but I see MC as more joyous and sprawling whereas SV is more... "spiteful" is the best word I'm coming up with, not quite it.

At any rate, I agree that he seems to be increasingly in a rut -- it seems that he isn't a great writer without the canvas of India, and he hasn't lived in India in a long time. I hope he can become a great writer of other canvases/ contexts too, maybe he just needs some time to adjust. (I remain deeply annoyed at him for "Fury," not least because it was the book that was chosen to inaugurate the A2K book club, after much agitation from me, and then it SUCKED. Grr.)

Meanwhile, I've only made it to page 53 of "Two Lives." Still ain't grabbing me.

Yeah, I think I got about that far when I last tried, soz.
Funny though, how I feel this sense of duty to read it!

Me too!

OK, immediately after page 53 (page 56 or something) "Part Two" started. That's just the story of Shanti and Henny. Seth right away sounds more comfortable and in his element -- he's talking about THEM. The factual stuff seems to trip him up a bit, to mess with his flow -- he'll be getting some good storytelling going and then interrupts with a transcription. Still, it's more promising than what came before, so far.

Oh good, soz!
(Very good of you to lead the way for us all! :wink:)

Well, I finished it.

Quite disappointing.

There is a heaviness and lack of joy throughout that is somewhat explained at the end. (Can get into it, don't wait to be too spoiler-ish, let me know.)



That will never seems to have found. He says later that he did indeed get started and that it wasn't a false start, but his heart seems to have never been in it. He talks about writing "A Suitable Boy" and how all-encompassing that was -- this was clearly not nearly so pleasurable of an experience (and that translates to the reader's experience, too).

A bit later:



Overall the book is plodding, pedestrian, and never finds the right tone -- he's not an impersonal biographer, but his first-hand knowledge and insight is limited. He handles some things with kid gloves in a way that becomes highly irritating -- for example, it appears that Aunty Henny had at least one lesbian relationship and was perhaps not heterosexual at all, explaining a great deal about her romantic life, but you can practically see him squirm with discomfort during this section, and then he gallops away from it as fast as he can.

I hope that now that the book is written he feels free (as there seems to have been some sort of sense of duty involved) to have fun and write some more delightful fiction.

Thanks for reporting back, soz.
Somehow I had this feeling the book was never going to exactly jump up & grab me by the throat!
I might just give it a miss, I think. Stop struggling with it. <sigh>
Just goes to show, doesn't it? One should only write (& publish) what one really, really wants to write!

I bought two Lives yesterday, will start after I finish my current one (I have taken to reading mindless drivel these days - have enough crap in my life already so dont want to start reading any serious books)

Ah well then, G, we'll look forward to your report when you've read it!