A Suitable Boy
by Vikram Seth · first published 1993
33% recommend67% neutral
The tale of Lata's and her mother's attempts to find a suitable boy, through love or through maternal appraisal. Set in post-independence India and involving the lives of four families, it is also an explanation of a whole continent faced with its first great General Election.
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A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. One of the longest English novels, but it has got me hooked. I love how descriptive the prose is. I can almost see the events happen in front of my eyes. There's a bbc adaptation as well,…
on “Ask HN: What are you reading?” ↗…the time to really sink into them-- you feel like you know the characters as people in the way you know your friends. They are like people you have known. The closest modern book to that I think is A Suitable Boy. But if it isn't for you in terms of your time or your interest you shouldn't feel bad about it.
on “8-Part Film Adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina Is Free Online” ↗Anna Karenina, A Suitable Boy, and the like. Excellent books but after college it's been difficult to start and keep at them in a acceptable period of time given the time (or lack of it) is an issue now. I also wanted to read Ulysses.…
on “Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?” ↗…Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azakaban - Rowling, J. K.: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone - Russo, Richard: Mohawk - Schwartz, John Burnham: Reservation Road - Seth, Vikram: A Suitable Boy - Shaw, Irwin: The Young Lions - Slotkin, Richard: The Crater - Smith, Dinitia: The Illusionist - Spencer, Scott: Men in Black - Stegner, Wallace: Joe Hill - Tartt, Donna: The Secret History…
on “Stephen King: Can a Novelist Be Too Productive? (2015)” ↗This feels like unusual timing. I am presently reading 'A Suitable Boy' by Vikram Seth. One of the main characters is sent into virtual exile where he learns how to read and write Urdu. Until now I don't think I'd heard of it. My own opinion is that we should preserve history,…
on “The Death of the Urdu Script ” ↗That'd have roughly as many characters as a 338,000 word book... longer than The Brothers Karamazov (365,000) but shorter than Gone With The Wind (418,000). Just over half the length of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, and probably just as entertaining. Heyooo!
on “Primes and Primality Testing” ↗In a very small sense, the rise of affluent diabetes is a sub-story arc in Vikram Seth's "a suitable boy". Mrs Mehta refuses to manage her diabetes if it means forgoeing her afternoon Nimbu Pani and cook has to ration out the Mango.
on “British colonialism increased diabetes in south Asians [video]” ↗Vikram Seth. Massive advance for a "jump novel" on "a suitable boy" characters in modern times, breaks up with life partner, has total catastrophic writers block, book still "coming soon" a decade later. Also a poet. Said to pick his team at the agency from people who…
on “Is Robert Frost Even a Good Poet?” ↗…think unfinished novels don't need a conclusion any more than an unfinished work of music does: you can imagine how the story goes on for yourself. Vikram Seth does the same thing with the ending of "a suitable boy" as does Anne Proulx in "the shipping news" Writing of one's own mortality in these situations obviously invites the final word, but it actually doesn't have to be cast as such. For this author the…
on “Perhaps my last post – we'll see (2016)” ↗55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
…make the book as a whole feel super difficult as long as the content is worth it. War and Peace is a classic example of this, with multiple intersecting storylines and a large cast of characters. A Suitable Boy is a modern example in a similar vein. But I think a lot of times when people say a book is difficult they just mean either "gosh I actually kind of have to pay attention to this" or "this is really…
on “Short Little Difficult Books” ↗