A Suitable Boy A Novel
Reviews
This book was good, but a lot of parts of it dragged on. Whenever I got to the political stuff, or life on a farm, it took me ages to read. But when it would get to my favorite characters, the pages flew by.
When it got to the political stuff, about 40-50 pages would take me all day, and other times 100 pages would fly by in almost an instant because it was the part of the story that I happened to enjoy.
I almost felt like it could’ve been edited a little bit more, but at the same time, editing would’ve made it lose an aspect of what made the story good. This just made it very 50/50 for me.
By the time I finished, my loved ones were eager for me to finish as well because I was constantly complaining to them about the slower bits.
By the time I got to the ending, the ending felt weirdly rushed, even though it was a 1500-page book.
I almost felt cheated at the ending, like there was more story to be told somehow.
Anyways, I’m glad I read it, even if I was slightly disappointed at the ending.
My ride-or-die characters were Pran, Savita, and Veena. I wish them the best; they were so kind.
Finally finished! It was so so long and some parts were so overly detailed it resembled the kind of waffling you'd do in an essay to reach the word count. But the storyline was really good, even if it played to western stereotypes.
Too long to drag myself through. Maybe will return to it later
Highlights
“There are two different kinds, I believe, of human attraction. One that merely excites, unsettles, and makes you uneasy: The other that -
Well, I can't remember exactly, but he talks about a calmer, less frantic love, which helps you to grow where you were already growing, "to live where as yet I had languished" - I just read it yesterday, it isn't in my head yet, but it said everything that I couldn't express on my own. Do you understand what I mean? ... Malati?"
When the world has been unkind, when life's troubles cloud your mind,
Don't sit down and frown and sigh and moon and mope.
Take a walk along the square, fill your lungs with God's fresh air,
Then go whistling back to work and smile and hope.
“I sometimes feel that it’s a consolation in times of deep grief to know that the world, by and large, does not care.”
'You grieve for those beyond grief,
and you speak 'words of insight;
but learned men do not grieve
for the dead or the living.
Never have I not existed
nor you, nor these kings;
and never in the future
shall we cease to exist.
Just as the embodied self
enters childhood, youth, and old age,
so does it enter another body;
this does not confound a steadfast man.
Contacts with matter make us feel
heat and cold, pleasure and pain.
Arjuna, you must learn to endure
fleeting things — they come and go!
When these cannot torment a man,
when suffering and joy are equal
for him and he has courage,
he is fit for immortality.
Nothing of nonbeing comes to be,
nor does being cease to exist;
the boundary between these two
is seen by men who see reality.
Indestructible is this presence
that pervades all this;
no one can destroy
this unchanging reality….
I'm haunted by a tender passion, The ghost of which will never die.
The leaves of autumn have grown ashen: I'm haunted by a tender passion.
And spring-time too, in its own fashion, Burns me with love's sweet song — so I —
I’m haunted by a tender passion, The ghost of which will never die.