Vikram Seth - A Suitable Boy

The greatness of the novel, its unassailable truthfulness, owes less to research than to imagination, an instinctive knowledge of the human heartwith all its varieties of kindness and cruelty, its capacity for hurt... As with all the best books, one feels only dismay when the pages on the right of the tome start thinning out.

Observer

So vast and so amiably peopled [A Suitable Boy] is a long, sweet, sleepless pilgrimage to life. Rich and epical, A Suitable Boy is nonetheless strikingly unpretentious... In 1,400 pages [the novel] covers India like a sun, warming a whole country in its historical rays... It is almost impossible to imagine an unswayed reader.

Guardian

Not merely one of the longest novels in English; it may also prove to be the most fecund as well as the most prodigious work of the latter half of [the twentieth] century.

The Times

A phenomenon, a prodigy, a marvel of 19th century storytelling in the language of today... It is hard to believe that Seth is only one man. He writes with the omniscience and authority of a large, orderly committee of experts on Indian politics, law, medicine, crowd psychology, urban and rural social customs, dress, cuisine, horticulture, funerary rites, cricket and even the technicalities of shoe manufacture.

Evening Standard

Conceived on the grand scale of the great 19th century novelsWar and Peace, MiddlemarchA Suitable Boy grows to match them in breadth and depth... [A] massive and magnificent book.

Sunday Times

We should be grateful for this panoramic sweep which revives in our memory a period when a whole way of life came to an end... [Seths] sure touch is really quite incredible, his characters are consistent from beginning to end.

The Hindu

A quietly monumental novel... [Seth] has given that unlikeliest of hybrids, a modest tour de force.

Times Literary Supplement

An immensely enjoyable novel which describes with unhurried pace the panorama of India... Everything appears familiar to us, yet in fact it is newly minted by a master artist.

Hindustan Times

To Papa and Mama
and the memory of Amma

A WORD OF THANKS

To these I owe a debt past telling:

My several muses, harsh and kind;

My folks, who stood my sulks and yelling,

And (in the long run) did not mind;

Dead legislators, whose orations

Ive filched to mix my own potations;

Indeed, all those whose brains Ive pressed,

Unmerciful, because obsessed;

My own dumb soul, which on a pittance

Survived to weave this fictive spell;

And, gentle reader, you as well,

The fountainhead of all remittance.

Buy me before good sense insists

Youll strain your purse and sprain your wrists.

I would like personally to thank Jaishree Ram Mohan and her enthusiastic young team at Penguin India for proofreading A Suitable Boy in 2013, and Ajith Kumar for typesetting it.

The author and publishers would like to thank the following for permission to quote copyright material:

The Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt of India for extracts from Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol. 2, 19501952 by Jawaharlal Nehru, general editor G. Parthasarathi (Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, distributed by Oxford University Press, 1986)

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd for extracts from The Koran Interpreted by A.J. Arberry (George Allen & Unwin Ltd; and Oxford University Press, 1964)

Oxford University Press for an extract from The Select Nonsense of Sukumar Ray translated by Sukanta Chaudhuri (Oxford University Press, 1987)

Faber & Faber for an extract from the poem Law, Say the Gardeners published in W.H. Auden: Collected Poems edited by Edward Mendelson (Faber & Faber)

Penguin Books Ltd for extracts from Selected Poems by Rabindranath Tagore, translated by William Radice (Penguin Books, 1985)

Bantam Books Inc. for extracts from The Bhagavad-Gita translated by Barbara Stoler Miller (Bantam Books, 1986)

The Sahitya Akademi for extracts from Mir Anis by Ali Jawad Zaidi published in the series Makers of Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi, 1986)

The Gita Press, Gorakhpur, for extracts from Sri Ramacharitamanasa translated into English (Gita Press, 1968)

While every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain permission, this has not been possible in all cases; any omissions brought to our attention will be remedied in future editions.

The superfluous, that very necessary thing....

VOLTAIRE

The secret of being a bore is to say everything.

VOLTAIRE

You too will marry a boy I choose, said Mrs Rupa Mehra firmly to her younger daughter.

Lata avoided the maternal imperative by looking around the great lamp-lit garden of Prem Nivas. The wedding guests were gathered on the lawn. Hmm, she said. This annoyed her mother further.

I know what your hmms mean, young lady, and I can tell you I will not stand for hmms in this matter. I do know what is best. I am doing it all for you. Do you think it is easy for me, trying to arrange things for all four of my children without His help? Her nose began to redden at the thought of her husband, who would, she felt certain, be partaking of their present joy from somewhere benevolently above. Mrs Rupa Mehra believed, of course, in reincarnation, but at moments of exceptional sentiment, she imagined that the late Raghubir Mehra still inhabited the form in which she had known him when he was alive: the robust, cheerful form of his early forties before overwork had brought about his heart attack at the height of the Second World War. Eight years ago, eight years, thought Mrs Rupa Mehra miserably.

Now, now, Ma, you cant cry on Savitas wedding day, said Lata, putting her arm gently but not very concernedly around her mothers shoulder.

If He had been here, I could have worn the tissue-patola sari I wore for my own wedding, sighed Mrs Rupa Mehra. But it is too rich for a widow to wear.

Ma! said Lata, a little exasperated at the emotional capital her mother insisted on making out of every possible circumstance. People are looking at you. They want to congratulate you, and theyll think it very odd if they see you crying in this way.

Several guests were indeed doing namaste to Mrs Rupa Mehra and smiling at her; the cream of Brahmpur society, she was pleased to note.

Let them see me! said Mrs Rupa Mehra defiantly, dabbing at her eyes hastily with a handkerchief perfumed with 4711 Eau de Cologne. They will only think it is because of my happiness at Savitas wedding. Everything I do is for you, and no one appreciates me. I have chosen such a good boy for Savita, and all everyone does is complain.

Lata reflected that of the four brothers and sisters, the only one who hadnt complained of the match had been the sweet-tempered, fair-complexioned, beautiful Savita herself.