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marigold_bookshelf 's review for:
Malgudi Days
by R.K. Narayan
Malgudi Days is a collection of short stories by R.K.Narayan (Madras 1906-2001), based on life in and around the fictional south Indian town of Malgudi. This Penguin Classics edition brings together 16 stories from An Astrologer’s Day, 8 from Lawley Road and 8 “New Stories”, with an introduction by novelist Jhumpa Lahiri.
Since all the stories narrate the lives of different inhabitants of Malgudi, the collection reads almost like a novella about the town and its surroundings. All of the tales are delightful, poignant and witty gems. We enter the lives of a host of wonderful characters such as a pick-pocket, snake charmer, the village postman, a knife grinder, stray dog, or the wonderful “Talkative Man” who tells us about how his encounter with a man-eating tiger.
The author not only has a brilliant talent for making the ordinary fascinating, but similarly he is brilliant at bringing extraordinary events into the lives of the ordinary unsuspecting citizens of Malgudi. One such tale, on eof my favourites, is Engine Trouble. This is another story that is recounted to us by the Talkative Man. After buying a raffle ticket in the village fair, he finds himself the owner of a “road engine” – some sort of road or steamroller which is so large and heavy that just moving it out of the showground becomes a major logistical adventure, worthy of an episode of Laurel and Hardy or Monty Python!
The stories are generally quite short, most of them 4 to 6 pages long. But the images that Narayan conjures up stay with the reader much longer.
Since all the stories narrate the lives of different inhabitants of Malgudi, the collection reads almost like a novella about the town and its surroundings. All of the tales are delightful, poignant and witty gems. We enter the lives of a host of wonderful characters such as a pick-pocket, snake charmer, the village postman, a knife grinder, stray dog, or the wonderful “Talkative Man” who tells us about how his encounter with a man-eating tiger.
The author not only has a brilliant talent for making the ordinary fascinating, but similarly he is brilliant at bringing extraordinary events into the lives of the ordinary unsuspecting citizens of Malgudi. One such tale, on eof my favourites, is Engine Trouble. This is another story that is recounted to us by the Talkative Man. After buying a raffle ticket in the village fair, he finds himself the owner of a “road engine” – some sort of road or steamroller which is so large and heavy that just moving it out of the showground becomes a major logistical adventure, worthy of an episode of Laurel and Hardy or Monty Python!
The stories are generally quite short, most of them 4 to 6 pages long. But the images that Narayan conjures up stay with the reader much longer.