A review by emma_victorian
The Romantics by Pankaj Mishra

5.0

Beautifully written, intelligent & succinct novel about a young Brahmin (though not wealthy) student in Benares who befriends a group of Westerners. The novel explores romanticism - do we find happiness through our pursuit of love or by stepping away from emotional trauma. How to live somewhere between the void and the illusion as one character describes it. The protagonist is naive but extremely well read and the relationship between literature & 'real life' is also explored - how does Flaubert's "Sentimental Education" relate & engage a young gangster? Philosophical without being pretentious, evocative without being ponderous.