BOOK REVIEW

A SUITABLE BOY by Vikram Seth

Reviewed by Devapreeti Sharma
A Suitable Boy is one of the longest novels ever published in a single volume in the
English language. Penned by Vikram Seth, the novel was first brought out by Penguin
Books in 1993. This narrative of around 7,00,000 words is accommodated in 1349 pages.
The novel is sectioned into 19 parts, with each part gyrating around a different story to
eventually come back round again. The plot in each part is depicted by a rhyming couplet
in the Contents page. On the face of the book is a young, remarkably poised lady in sari,
named Prem Lata in the credits. And these precisely, are the trivia that render the novel a
compelling, authoritative look and enthrall the reader.
A Suitable Boy is, one might say, a love story set in the post-independent India of
1951. Against the backdrop of Brahmpur, the capital of Purva Pradesh (an imaginary
state of North India) is Mrs. Rupa Mehra, widow of Mr. Raghubir Mehra. A Suitable Boy
traces her (Mrs. Rupa Mehras) efforts to arrange a marriage for her youngest, 19 year
old daughter, Lata with a suitable boy to be chosen from amongst a variety of
interlinked families and friends. Throughout the novel, Lata and her mother stay with
their kin scattered over different parts of North-India, thereby offering us glimpses of
Brahmpur (a city modeled on Lucknow), Calcutta and Kanpur. The trails and tribulations
of Lata and her extended families and friends make the novel come to life.
However, if I were to summarize the novel in these lines above, I would only
affront the writer. A Suitable Boy is not a simple story of a mother in search for her
daughters better half. It is much more than that.
A Suitable Boy is a tale of love and life. To anyone who has not gone through
each page of this novel, Lata and her mother would appear to be the protagonists of the
book. But such a person would be gravely mistaken. The immediate and extended
families of Lata, her suitable boys and their families and all the other supporting
characters have been lovingly detailed by the author. Each character appears more
important than the other. As the lives of these characters move through the pages with
apparent aimlessness, we come to see a society from the viewpoint of all kinds of people
that form it. The individual ups and downs of the varied characters have been cleverly
utilized by Seth to depict the socio-economic and political setting of India in the 1950s.
Insightfully woven into the main thread of the novel are religious strife and communal
riots, the status and plight of the lower caste people, the abolition of the Zamindari
System in India, the first language policies, the rift in the post-Gandhi Congress and other
strands of political life. Along the way, we also learn the minutes of rural life, the
technicalities of shoe-making, Ghazals of several Urdu maestros, politics in education,
politics in politics, crowd psychology, law, math, music, theatre, poetry and even cricket.
It may all seem to be much to be included in one novel. However, one would not
feel so when one reads it. The writers easy, free flowing narrative style makes sure that
the reader moves by the novel. His remarkable wit and soft satirical tone keeps the reader
hooked relentlessly.
What I liked most in the novel is the authors outstanding skill in bringing out the
characters. Despite the story being set in the 1950 India, there is so much in the book that
even a reader living in the 2012 India can identify with who has not seen a
hypochondriac and meddlesome Mom like Mrs. Rupa Mehra? Who has not seen
frivolous and flowery ladies like Mrs. Meenakshi Mehra? And who hasnt seen someone
like Lata- intelligent, poised but maybe not ready to marry just yet? As a matter of fact, it
is actually the characters that lift the novel beyond its 1400 pages. The characters are
beautifully etched. In each, Seth portrays human psychology exactly as it is. The book
has several characters, all of them consistent throughout the novel and a lot of whom are
on opposite sides- still, these are the kind of characters that one will have seen
somewhere, sometime in ones lifetime.01 November 2012 Devapreeti Sharma Page 2
Reading the novel with its elite characters in an A-Class society sometimes
reminds of Jane Austen. This novel, I would say, has much in common with Austens
Pride and Prejudice. The entire setting and set-up of the novel also lead me to see
Dickens in Seth. Like any of Dickenss work, A Suitable Boy is, in the truest sense, a


social commentary. Seth, in his A Suitable Boy identifies with the average person and
retains scepticism against the fine folk and their aristocratic snobbery. If I could, I would
tag Vikram Seth as the modern, Indian version of Charles Dickens and this, I mean, as a
huge complement to this master writer.
Perhaps the shortest review of this work of this master writer would be the three
words really worth reading. A Suitable Boy, at the end of the day, remains the story of
ordinary people trapped in a labyrinth of love and aspirations, happiness and sadness,
justice and prejudice, the most refined social etiquette and the most atrocious violence. It
is a story that takes us to the pulsing core in ourselves; a story where every other person
will find something to touch them - be it the ruthless politics, the state of evicted
landlords, peasants and outcastes, the religious strife, the family tussles or simply the
discovery of self that forms the basis of this book. A Suitable Boy is a genuine,
breathtaking portrayal of India and the Indians. I would recommend it to anyone who has
not read it yet.