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thebookflicker 's review for:

The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth
4.0

The Golden Gate written by Vikram Seth.  It is one of a kind novel that i have read. The novel is written verse composed of 590 Onegin Stanzas following the rhyme scheme AbAbCCddEffEgg. Author has even written acknowledgement, contents in verse 🙂

Author dabbles in  love, friendships, Christianity, homosexuality, nuclear warfare, tolerance, feminism. He even mentions in the novel the criticism, struggle he faced while writing the novel.

I personally liked the book , I am not a big fan of poetry but still got immersed in the book. Starting I faced difficulty reading but after some time the reading was smooth ,I kinda lost track of time 😜. The story has  wit ,humor and emotions.

The story revolves around a group of friends living in California in twentieth century John, Phil, Janet. John a lonely tech guy ends up meeting Liz through an ad placed by his ex lover Janet.  Phil unemployed, divorced & single father  has a passionate affair with Ed- Liz’s brother who couldn’t accept himself due too religious guilt. John likes Liz a lot but used to fight with her because of her cat who never liked john 😂.Eventually he breaks up with LIz. Meanwhile Phil & Liz friendship blooms and after breaking up with John , Liz marries Phil. John couldn’t accept Phil’s queers and eventually was mad at him more as he ends up marrying Liz. After all this John ends up falling Janet again but she ends up dying in car accident and he ends up being the god father to Phil & Liz newborn son.

I would definitely recommend this to read, not for the story but the for the way it’s written. It is definitely unique despite the plot not being too extravagant