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A review by terrypaulpearce
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
5.0
I'm very much in love with this book. About the highest praise I could hope to speak of a 1,500 page monster is that i didn't want it to end, and it's true. The book has everything; it's one of those where you finish it and don't want to actually put it down, so you go back over the quotes on the jacket and at the front without the word 'hyperbole' entering your head even once.
To paraphrase one of them, this a long, slow, sweet paean to life, to family, to love. It meanders, it rambles, but it does so like a beautiful stream curving through simple yet breathtaking countryside. For long stretches, nothing happens except people walking in and out of rooms and talking to each other. At other times, the drama is intense and momentous events, for the characters and, in the backdrop, the country, come thick and fast on the back of one another.
At the heart of it is the keenness of Seth's observation. I lost count of the number of times a line here or there, usually simple, not florid, made me grin from ear to ear, or laugh out loud, through sheer recognition. This man watches, and he sees. This book is about what it is to be human. And if that sounds like an overly grand endeavour, what backs its bid in spades is its humility. It talks about life not through grand and direct statements, but in a way that reminds us that life is made up of tiny parts like me and you and all the characters here, some of whom may feel themselves insignificant. This book reminds us that none of them, or us, are.
It succeeds on so many levels; there are so many threads woven through it. You grow to care about so many of the characters: dissolute, volatile Maan trying to work out what he can be; overbearing, over-emotional matriarch Rupa who adores schmaltz and somehow manages to make it deep; desperately egalitarian Rasheed struggling in a deeply unfair world; earnest and cocksure yet somehow humble Haresh; delightful child prodigy Bhaskar who unnerves many of the adults. We often leave a character for a hundred pages at a time, but when we return we are always pleased to find out how things fare with him or her, even if the answer is not so well.
And there ultimately, in how it deals with loss and tragedy, lies what for me will echo longest about the book. I have no intention of giving away the nature and scope of the dark moments for any of the characters, but the way they are handled reminds us that life is fragile, and precious, and unfair, but still, at the end of it all, it goes on, and the end of every cycle happens as new ones are beginning all around. The overwhelming note that resounds after the end is one of hope, and of appreciation, and I feel I appreciate life that little bit more for having read it.
What more can a reader ask?
To paraphrase one of them, this a long, slow, sweet paean to life, to family, to love. It meanders, it rambles, but it does so like a beautiful stream curving through simple yet breathtaking countryside. For long stretches, nothing happens except people walking in and out of rooms and talking to each other. At other times, the drama is intense and momentous events, for the characters and, in the backdrop, the country, come thick and fast on the back of one another.
At the heart of it is the keenness of Seth's observation. I lost count of the number of times a line here or there, usually simple, not florid, made me grin from ear to ear, or laugh out loud, through sheer recognition. This man watches, and he sees. This book is about what it is to be human. And if that sounds like an overly grand endeavour, what backs its bid in spades is its humility. It talks about life not through grand and direct statements, but in a way that reminds us that life is made up of tiny parts like me and you and all the characters here, some of whom may feel themselves insignificant. This book reminds us that none of them, or us, are.
It succeeds on so many levels; there are so many threads woven through it. You grow to care about so many of the characters: dissolute, volatile Maan trying to work out what he can be; overbearing, over-emotional matriarch Rupa who adores schmaltz and somehow manages to make it deep; desperately egalitarian Rasheed struggling in a deeply unfair world; earnest and cocksure yet somehow humble Haresh; delightful child prodigy Bhaskar who unnerves many of the adults. We often leave a character for a hundred pages at a time, but when we return we are always pleased to find out how things fare with him or her, even if the answer is not so well.
And there ultimately, in how it deals with loss and tragedy, lies what for me will echo longest about the book. I have no intention of giving away the nature and scope of the dark moments for any of the characters, but the way they are handled reminds us that life is fragile, and precious, and unfair, but still, at the end of it all, it goes on, and the end of every cycle happens as new ones are beginning all around. The overwhelming note that resounds after the end is one of hope, and of appreciation, and I feel I appreciate life that little bit more for having read it.
What more can a reader ask?