A Suitable Boy

A Suitable Boy: A Novel
First US edition
Author Vikram Seth
Country India
Language English
Set in Gangetic Plain, 1951–52
Publisher HarperCollins (US)
Phoenix House (UK)
Little, Brown (Canada)
Publication date
 May 1993
Media type Print (hardback)
Pages 1,349
ISBN 0-06-017012-3
OCLC 27013350
823 20
LC Class PR9499.3.S38 S83 1993
Followed by A Suitable Girl

A Suitable Boy is a novel by Vikram Seth, published in 1993. At 1,349 pages (1,488 pages softcover) and 591,552 words, the book is one of the longest novels ever published in a single volume in the English language.[1][2][3] A sequel, to be called A Suitable Girl, was due for publication in 2017.[4]

Plot summary

A Suitable Boy is set in a newly post-independence, post-partition India. The novel follows the story of four families over a period of 18 months, and centres on Mrs. Rupa Mehra's efforts to arrange the marriage of her younger daughter, Lata, to a "suitable boy". Lata is a 19-year-old university student who refuses to be influenced by her domineering mother or opinionated brother, Arun. Her story revolves around the choice she is forced to make between her suitors Kabir, Haresh, and Amit.

It begins in the fictional town of Brahmpur, located on the Ganges between Banares and Patna. Brahmpur, along with Calcutta, Delhi, Kanpur and other Indian cities, forms a colourful backdrop for the emerging stories.

...reviewers and critics alike have frequently compared it to Tolstoy's War and Peace, as well as to fictions by British novelists from more than a century ago, including George Eliot's Middlemarch, Charles Dickens' Bleak House, William Makepeace Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Henry Fielding's Tom Jones and Samuel Richardson's Clarissa.[5]

Seth has stated that the biggest influence on writing A Suitable Boy was the five-volume 18th century Chinese novel The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin.[6]

The 1349-page novel alternately offers satirical and earnest examinations of national political issues in the period leading up to the first post-Independence national election of 1952, including Hindu–Muslim strife, the status of lower caste peoples such as the jatav, land reforms and the eclipse of the feudal princes and landlords, academic affairs, abolition of the Zamindari system, family relations and a range of further issues of importance to the characters.

The novel is divided into 19 parts with, generally, each part focusing on a different subplot. Each part is described in rhyming couplet form on the contents page.

Characters in A Suitable Boy

The four main families in the novel are:

  • The Mehras
    • Mrs. Rupa Mehra, a mother searching for a suitable boy for her youngest daughter.
    • Arun, Mrs. Mehra's oldest son, married to Meenakshi Chatterji
    • Varun
    • Savita, married to Pran Kapoor
    • Lata, whose arranged marriage forms the basis of the main plot.
  • The Kapoors, Mr. Mahesh Kapoor, Mrs. Mahesh Kapoor and their three children Veena, Pran (married to Savita Mehra) and Maan.
  • The Khans, The Nawab Sahib of Baitar and his three children Zainab, Imtiaz and Firoz.
  • The Chatterjis, Mr. Justice Chatterji and Mrs. Chatterji and their children Amit, Meenakshi (married to Arun Mehra), Dipankar, Kakoli and Tapan
  • Kabir Durrani, a love interest of Lata, and a central hub of one of the main themes of the novel. His father is a respected, charmingly bumbling, maths teacher at the university that both Kabir and Lata attend. Kabir is a highly successful player on the university cricket team. Lata and Kabir have a brief, intense courtship; the ramifications of which echo through the rest of the novel.
  • Haresh Khanna, an enterprising and determined shoe-businessman, who is also a love interest of the heroine.
  • Amit Chatterji, Justice Chatterji's eldest son and internationally acclaimed poet and author. Again, a prominent love interest of Lata.

Four family trees are provided in the beginning of the novel to help readers keep track of the complicated interwoven family networks.

Some other prominent characters, not mentioned above, include:

  • Nehru
  • Malati, best friend of Lata
  • Aparna, daughter of Meenakshi and Arun
  • Kedarnath Tandon, married to Veena (née Kapoor)
  • Mrs Tandon
  • Bhashkar Tandon, son of Veena and Kedarnath
  • Hashim Durrani, Kabir's brother
  • Dr Durrani, mathematician
  • Saeeda Bai, courtesan and musician
  • Tasneem, sister of Saeeda Bai
  • Bibbo, servant at Saeeda Bai's house
  • Rasheed, student at Brahmpur University, Tasneem's Arabic teacher
  • Ishaq, sarangi player
  • S S Sharma, Chief Minister
  • Agarwal, home minister
  • Priya, his daughter
  • Simran, a Sikh woman and former love interest of Haresh Khanna
  • Kalpana Gaur, friend of the Mehra family
  • Billy Irani, friend of Arun Mehra, later has an affair with Meenakshi
  • Shireen, his fiancee
  • Bishwanath Bhaduri
  • Abdus Salam
  • Raja of Marh
  • Rajkumar of Marh, his son
  • Dr Bilgrami
  • Professor Mishra, an English professor
  • Dr Ila Chattopadhay, an English professor
  • Hans, an Austrian diplomat
  • Begum Abida Khan, politician
  • The Guppi, inhabitant of Salimpur
  • Netaji, Rasheed's uncle
  • Sahgal
  • Makhijani, indulgent poet
  • Sandeep Lahiri
  • Waris, servant at the Baitar Fort and competes with Mahesh Kapoor in the General Election
  • Jagat Ram
  • Tandon
  • The Munshi, in charge of the Baitar Fort
  • Uma Kapoor, daughter of Savita and Pran
  • Badrinath
  • Professor Nowrojee, who runs the university literary club attended by Kabir and Lata.
  • Sunil Patwardhan, mathematician at Brahmpur University
  • Parvati, Mrs Rupa Mehra's stepmother

Real people and events

  • The Praha Shoe Company of the novel is modeled on Bata Shoes.
  • Pul mela is based on Kumbh Festival, which takes place at Sangam, Allahabad.

References

  1. ↑ Vikram Seth at contemporarywriters.com Archived October 17, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ↑ Randomhouse interview with Vikram Seth
  3. ↑ Size Does Matter. The Longest Novels. AbeBooks
  4. ↑ Armitstead, Claire (13 September 2013). "Vikram Seth finds a suitable publisher". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 December 2013.
  5. ↑ Ranjan Ghosh (2006). (In)fusion Approach: Theory, Contestation, Limits: (In)fusionising a Few Indian English Novels. University Press of America. pp. 214–. ISBN 978-0-7618-3464-9.
  6. ↑ https://www.telegraphindia.com/1090710/jsp/entertainment/story_11216652.jsp

Reviews

  • McGirk, Tim (27 March 1993). "Playing happy families in Brahmpur: Tim McGirk on the exhausting charms of Vikram Seth's frothy comedy manners, marriages and mynah birds: A suitable boy". The Independent.
  • Tejpal, Tarun J. (March 15, 1993). "Epic dimensions". India Today.
  • A Suitable Boy on the Internet Archive
  • Vikram Seth discusses A Suitable Boy on the BBC World Book Club
  • Author interview with Vikram Seth at HarperCollins
  • Analysis of the novel at Let's Talk about Bollywood
  • A book review
  • "Total immersion in 1950s India: Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy", 2010 review by Jo Walton
  • Richard B. Woodward (May 2, 1993). "Vikram Seth's Big Book". The New York Times Magazine.

Further reading

  • Shyam S. Agarwalla (1995). Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy": Search for Indian Identity. Prestige Books. ISBN 978-81-85218-97-7.
  • Angela Atkins (26 June 2002). Vikram Seth's Suitable Boy: A Reader's Guide. A&C Black. ISBN 978-0-8264-5707-3.
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