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Автор Викрам Сет

Vikram Seth

A Suitable Boy

Praise for A Suitable Boy

‘The greatness of the novel, its unassailable truthfulness, owes less to research than to imagination, an instinctive knowledge of the human heart — with all its varieties of kindness and cruelty, its capacity for hurt. . As with all the best books, one feels only dismay when the pages on the right of the tome start thinning out. ’ —Observer

‘So vast and so amiably peopled [A Suitable Boy] is a long, sweet, sleepless pilgrimage to life. Rich and epical, A Suitable Boy is nonetheless strikingly unpretentious. . In 1,400 pages [the novel] covers India like a sun, warming a whole country in its historical rays. . It is almost impossible to imagine an unswayed reader. ’ —Guardian

‘Not merely one of the longest novels in English; it may also prove to be the most fecund as well as the most prodigious work of the latter half of [the twentieth] century. ’ —The Times

‘A phenomenon, a prodigy, a marvel of 19th century storytelling in the language of today. . It is hard to believe that Seth is only one man. He writes with the omniscience and authority of a large, orderly committee of experts on Indian politics, law, medicine, crowd psychology, urban and rural social customs, dress, cuisine, horticulture, funerary rites, cricket and even the technicalities of shoe manufacture. ’ —Evening Standard

‘Conceived on the grand scale of the great 19th century novels—War and Peace, Middlemarch — A Suitable Boy grows to match them in breadth and depth. . [A] massive and magnificent book.

’ —Sunday Times

‘We should be grateful for this panoramic sweep which revives in our memory a period when a whole way of life came to an end. . [Seth’s] sure touch is really quite incredible, his characters are consistent from beginning to end. ’ —The Hindu

‘A quietly monumental novel. . [Seth] has given that unlikeliest of hybrids, a modest tour de force. ’ —Times Literary Supplement

‘An immensely enjoyable novel which describes with unhurried pace the panorama of India. . Everything appears familiar to us, yet in fact it is newly minted by a master artist. ’ —Hindustan Times

A Suitable Boy

To Papa and Mama

and the memory of Amma

The superfluous, that very necessary thing. .

VOLTAIRE

The secret of being a bore is to say everything.

VOLTAIRE

A WORD OF THANKS

To these I owe a debt past telling:

My several muses, harsh and kind;

My folks, who stood my sulks and yelling,

And (in the long run) did not mind;

Dead legislators, whose orations

I’ve filched to mix my own potations;

Indeed, all those whose brains I’ve pressed,

Unmerciful, because obsessed;

My own dumb soul, which on a pittance

Survived to weave this fictive spell;

And, gentle reader, you as well,

The fountainhead of all remittance.

Buy me before good sense insists

You’ll strain your purse and sprain your wrists.

~ ~ ~

I would like personally to thank Jaishree Ram Mohan and her enthusiastic young team at Penguin India for proofreading A Suitable Boy in 2013,

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