by Vikram Seth
A Suitable Boy is now a major 2020 BBC TV series, and one of the BBC's 100 novels that shaped our world.
The award-winning BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Vikram Seth's masterpiece
'The drama highlight of the year...this sumptuous production, wonderfully atmospheric, written with pace and performed, by an all-Indian cast, quite superbly. The novel may be vast but I was convinced by this version right from the start. Magnificent drama' - Radio Times
A Suitable Boy is Vikram Seth's epic love story set in India. Funny and tragic, with engaging, brilliantly-observed characters, it is as close as you can get to Dickens for the twentieth century.
The story unfolds through four middle-class families - the Mehras, Kapoors, Khans and Chatterjis. Lata Mehra, a university student, is under pressure from her mother to get married. But not to just anyone she happens to fall in love with. There are standards to be met and finding a husband for Lata becomes a family affair in which all the members are to play a part. The characters struggle, they try to buck the system, to break free of restraint, of interference - but ultimately their strength and sense of being comes from their family and friends. It is a celebration of ordinariness; a beautifully composed story that is an affirmation of family and friendship.
In his sweeping epic, Vikram Seth has created an entire world filled with warmth, humour, pathos, tragedy - in short, life. Recorded on location in India, A Suitable Boy is made by the production team behind the award-winning Bleak House and The Handmaid's Tale.
Shortlisted for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, 1993.
Winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 1994.
Winner of the WH Smith Literary Award, 1994.
Dramatised and directed by John Dryden. A Goldhawk Production.
A Suitable Boy is now a major 2020 BBC TV series, and one of the BBC's 100 novels that shaped our world.
The award-winning BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Vikram Seth's masterpiece
'The drama highlight of the year...this sumptuous production, wonderfully atmospheric, written with pace and performed, by an all-Indian cast, quite superbly. The novel may be vast but I was convinced by this version right from the start. Magnificent drama' - Radio Times
A Suitable Boy is Vikram Seth's epic love story set in India. Funny and tragic, with engaging, brilliantly-observed characters, it is as close as you can get to Dickens for the twentieth century.
The story unfolds through four middle-class families - the Mehras, Kapoors, Khans and Chatterjis. Lata Mehra, a university student, is under pressure from her mother to get married. But not to just anyone she happens to fall in love with. There are standards to be met and finding a husband for Lata becomes a family affair in which all the members are to play a part. The characters struggle, they try to buck the system, to break free of restraint, of interference - but ultimately their strength and sense of being comes from their family and friends. It is a celebration of ordinariness; a beautifully composed story that is an affirmation of family and friendship.
In his sweeping epic, Vikram Seth has created an entire world filled with warmth, humour, pathos, tragedy - in short, life. Recorded on location in India, A Suitable Boy is made by the production team behind the award-winning Bleak House and The Handmaid's Tale.
Shortlisted for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize, 1993.
Winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 1994.
Winner of the WH Smith Literary Award, 1994.
Dramatised and directed by John Dryden. A Goldhawk Production.
Reviews-
-
An Indian pop tune swings, voices chatter around us. As we mingle with the party crowd, we hear Mrs. Mehra say, "You, too, will marry a boy I choose." "Not now, Ma," her daughter Lata responds. "It's Savita's wedding!" The cheery music lifts again to drown out the rest of the conversation, but we're hooked. This full-cast production spirits us away to India in the 1950s, where Mrs. Mehra's amusing and painful attempt to find "a suitable boy" for her university student daughter, Lata, provides a framework for discussing India's changing society. Seth explores the intricacies of class structure, the divide between Muslim and Hindu, the role of women (modern, traditional, and prostitute), all while keeping us on tenterhooks about Lata's future. Think Angela Thirkell meets Rohinton Mistry. The acting is perfect; the production sounds that round out every scene are imagination-inducing. In short, a wonderful listening experience. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
-
May 3, 1993
Seth previously made a splash with his 1986 novel in verse, The Golden Gate . Here he abandons the compression of poetry to produce an enormous novel that will enthrall most readers; those who are fazed by a marathon read, however, may gasp for mercy. Set in the post-colonial India of the 1950s, this sprawling saga involves four families--the Mehras, the Kapoors, the Chatterjis and the Khans--whose domestic crises illuminate the historical and social events of the era. Like an old-fashioned soap opera (or a Bombay talkie), the multi-charactered plot pits mothers against daughters, fathers against sons, Hindus against Muslims and small farmers against greedy landowners facing government-ordered dispossession. The story revolves around independent-minded Lata Mehra: Will she defy the stern order of her widowed upper-caste Hindu mother by marrying the Muslim youth she loves? The search for Lata's husband expands into a richly detailed and exotically vivid narrative that crisscrosses the fabric of India. Seth's panoramic scenes take the reader into law courts, religious processions, bloody riots, academia--even the shoe trade. Portraits of actual figures are incisive; the cameo of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, for example, captures his high-minded, well-meaning indecision. Seth's point of view is both wry and affectionate, and his voluble, palpably atmospheric narrative teems with chaotic, irrepressible life. 100,000 first printing; $200,000 ad/promo; BOMC main selection; QPB alternate; author tour.
