Recommendations from our site
“It’s a slow read, but once you get into it, it has all those pleasures of a really big novel. You lose track, come back to it, skip a few pages, go back, fill in the blanks as best you can. It’s a huge house through which you can happily wander. That’s a quality I like. And Seth really loves his characters. He feels for them, perhaps more than Rushdie feels for his. It’s semi-autobiographical—it’s about his parents and family at one level, but it’s more than that too. And the writing is very elegant, very beautiful. There are descriptions of shoemaking, of Indian raga being sung as the monsoon breaks, of upper-class kids flirting at society parties in Calcutta.” Read more...
The Best Historical Novels Set in India
Ruchir Joshi, Novelist
“Once you get to know the characters, which does take a while, it becomes a book that you just can’t wait to get back to. It’s funny to think that a 1,400-page Victorian-type novel is something you can’t wait to get back to, but that’s exactly my experience of reading it. It takes a while to get a sense of who everyone is and to feel comfortable with the various characters and families. It’s a big cast and it’s like going up a hill to get to know them, and then there is this enormous downhill, this freewheeling period, when you’re enjoying yourself. It’s a fantastically entertaining book.” Read more...
Ed Smith, Sportspersons & Sportswriter
