I've never read R.K. Narayan's work but had been fascinated by the simple yet thought provoking episodes of the popular TV serial, "Malgudi Days", and one of these, viewed sometime in the previous year inspired me to have a look into his works. But at the 2008 Calcutta Book Fair, owing to my purchase exceeding my budget and the confusing titles of the Penguin India publications, which puzzled me to choose among the abridged and the unabridged versions, I didn't go for buying one. Later I researched @ wikipedia and penguin online and so this time at the Book Fair 2009, I purchased this copy containing- Swami and Friends
- The Bachelor of Arts
- The Vendor of Sweets
An introduction, summarising the contents by S. Krishnan, initially discouraged me as I don't like stories being told before going through the whole of it, but as I flipped though the initial chapters of Swami and Friends, I was instantly delighted to find that even if the whole story been known from the first, the author's style was simply so elegant and unique that just devouring the words can bring pleasure to the mind.
In Swami and Friends, the author has described the activites of the young schoolgoer Swami who lived in Malgudi, the fictitious Tamil town of India and barring the South Indian dishes I just couldn't find any difference between the protagonist and the ordinady school goer from any part of the country. Not only for Indian readers, this narrative will surely usher nostalgic school day memories for other readers from every part of the world.
I don't know, maybe it's my age that is responsible, but I liked 'The Bachelor of Arts' more than 'Swami' and starting from the 1st sentence, I just couldn't resist loving Chandar, the lead character. In this story the transition of a young scholar to a mature individual is brilliantly depicted and I found it quite justified in considering this to be the sequel to the first novel and while finishing it I was kept longing for the third in the trilogy, 'The English Teacher' that was sadly not a part of this volume. In fact Penguin India may seriously consider this and may reconfigure their volumes so as to maintain the continuity in the novels by Narayan.
But I think the best piece in the volume is 'The Vendor of Sweets', where the skilled penmanship of the author nicely portrays the conflict between the father and his growing son and nowhere else had I found the generation gap so decently depicted. Prior to reading this piece I had an apprehension whether this would be so much delightful as the other two as this was the 10th novel by Narayan and thus, I quite naturally & also erroneously assumed the lateness to adversely affect the writing. But as I was going through the piece I was gladly proven wrong and I'll may even say that this enchanting piece turned me into a follower of Narayan novels though the final chapters were a bit boring. The refreshingly curt way of narration adds to the splendour and the author never used too much emotion to sympathasize or alienate any particular character thus leaving it to the readers to infer about their nature. It won't be out of the place in acknowledging the fact that it was the televised edition of 'Vendor of Sweets' in the 'Malgudy Days' series that, in the 1st place, drove me to buy Narayan's novels.
The author covers all the aspects of everyday living including most of the emotions that a person, in his lifetime, goes through with the ease of a master storyteller. So his partrayal of severe misunderstandings, slight betrayals, forced hypocracies, illogical conjectures, cruel break ups, opportunistic behaviours never bring malice to the reader's mind, instead the unbiased readers can be silently amused while identifying himself/herself with the fictional characters. The realistic touch blended with humour, as was the custom of Mr. Narayan, has made the stories so much live, that I request all Indians to read this so as to understand India from a more rational and more Indian perspective.
In Swami and Friends, the author has described the activites of the young schoolgoer Swami who lived in Malgudi, the fictitious Tamil town of India and barring the South Indian dishes I just couldn't find any difference between the protagonist and the ordinady school goer from any part of the country. Not only for Indian readers, this narrative will surely usher nostalgic school day memories for other readers from every part of the world.
I don't know, maybe it's my age that is responsible, but I liked 'The Bachelor of Arts' more than 'Swami' and starting from the 1st sentence, I just couldn't resist loving Chandar, the lead character. In this story the transition of a young scholar to a mature individual is brilliantly depicted and I found it quite justified in considering this to be the sequel to the first novel and while finishing it I was kept longing for the third in the trilogy, 'The English Teacher' that was sadly not a part of this volume. In fact Penguin India may seriously consider this and may reconfigure their volumes so as to maintain the continuity in the novels by Narayan.
But I think the best piece in the volume is 'The Vendor of Sweets', where the skilled penmanship of the author nicely portrays the conflict between the father and his growing son and nowhere else had I found the generation gap so decently depicted. Prior to reading this piece I had an apprehension whether this would be so much delightful as the other two as this was the 10th novel by Narayan and thus, I quite naturally & also erroneously assumed the lateness to adversely affect the writing. But as I was going through the piece I was gladly proven wrong and I'll may even say that this enchanting piece turned me into a follower of Narayan novels though the final chapters were a bit boring. The refreshingly curt way of narration adds to the splendour and the author never used too much emotion to sympathasize or alienate any particular character thus leaving it to the readers to infer about their nature. It won't be out of the place in acknowledging the fact that it was the televised edition of 'Vendor of Sweets' in the 'Malgudy Days' series that, in the 1st place, drove me to buy Narayan's novels.
The author covers all the aspects of everyday living including most of the emotions that a person, in his lifetime, goes through with the ease of a master storyteller. So his partrayal of severe misunderstandings, slight betrayals, forced hypocracies, illogical conjectures, cruel break ups, opportunistic behaviours never bring malice to the reader's mind, instead the unbiased readers can be silently amused while identifying himself/herself with the fictional characters. The realistic touch blended with humour, as was the custom of Mr. Narayan, has made the stories so much live, that I request all Indians to read this so as to understand India from a more rational and more Indian perspective.
No comments:
Post a Comment