Rating: 
Summary: Fathers and Sons
Review: It is a few years after independence and partition in India. Meet the members of the middle class, you will recognize them, and this book will give you a chance to consider them in a tale of the caliber of BUDDENBROOKS or WAR AND PEACE. The quality of the book is extraordinarily high, hence the comparisons. This family saga sprawls and there are a lot of exotic names to identify. Fortunately there is a chart at the beginning of the book.The story opens with the wedding of Pran and Savita. Savita is the daughter of Mrs. Rupa Mehra, a widow. Her sons are Arun and Varun. There is another daughter, Lata. The new wife arranges to melt down the ceremonial medals of her father-in-law. The jeweler and everyone else counsel caution, but she persists in her wish to liquidate the gift of her mother-in-law, the widow. Arun writes of the catastrophe and the family is duly horrified. The title, A SUITABLE BOY, derives from an expression for a marriage partner in the context of arranged marriages. Mrs. Rupa Mehra is seeking a suitable boy for her daughter Lata. This requires a good deal of investigation on her part, and the consent of Lata who is becoming a modern sort of person-- she attends the university, while remaining a dutiful sort of daughter. Lata learns a boy she knows at the university is a Muslim. Her friend tells her to read P.G. Wodehouse by way of solace. Lata's friend, the boy Kabir, is a distinctly unsuitable boy in her mother's eyes, and so they leave Brahmpur and go to Calcutta. One of the families fell from wealth in Lahore to virtual destitution after 1947 following the partition. In the nascent democracy there is a struggle of form over substance. There is a parliamentary debate over the compensation scheme employed for the taking of private lands and residences. We are reminded of attributes carried over from colonialism in education, sport, and the exercise of democratic political values. Excellent and colorful speeches are presented covering the details of land reform. Mrs. Rupa Mehra now travels from Calcutta to Delhi. Meanwhile the son of a politician, the Revenue Minister, participates in a wolf hunt while visiting his Urdu teacher Abdur Rasheed. The two had traveled from Brahmpur to the house of Rasheed's father near Baitar. The father is a zamindar, a landlord. The area of Muslim League activism is filled with landlords resorting to coercion to overcome the effects of land reform. Maan, the minister's son, acts with such rage that he nearly murders an agent of the Nawab Sahib. During the visit Maan becomes a sort of universal confidant. The constitutionality of the Zamindari Act, the land reform measure, is litigated. British, Indian, and American precedents are cited since India, as distinguished from Britain and as is the case in the United States, has a written constitution. A major issue is the delegation of powers. A Raja is removed from the courtroom. The watch and ward staff is called. The law is upheld as constitutionally valid. Dipankur Chatterji makes a pilgrimage to the Ganges for Pul Mela. A holy man, Sanaki Baba becomes interested in him and seeks his company. A tent city is formed on the sands. Unfortunately at the festival in the crush of people there is a stampede and deaths and injuries result. A Kapoor grandson, Maan's nephew, is injured. Mrs. Mahesh Kapoor is a prize-winning gardener. Mr. Mahesh Kapoor resigns from the ministry and from the Congress Party. At the time it is hoped that Nehru will do the same and form a new party. This does not happen and later Mr. Mahesh Kapoor rejoins the Congress Party. Maan returns to Brahmpur, and Pran, Savita's husband, falls ill with asthma and a heart condition. Both Lata and Kabir are to appear in a Shakespeare play at the university. In a complication of emotions and familial ties and loves Maan is faced with a serious charge of assault and his Urdu teacher disintegrates mentally. Maan's conduct has poltical consequences for his father and his mother dies seemingly from the shock of the events. The story ends, a Tolstoyan touch, with another marriage. The novel is about four families, Muslim and Hindu, in Calcutta, Brahmpur, and Delhi who plan for the careers, education, and marriages of their sons and daughters. All of the families are bound by ties of obligation and expectation to their respective communities, and seek to enable and persuade the children to step into their shoes. This does not always happen for reason the younger people oftentimes seek freedom and adventure and desire to obtain the means of artistic expression. Both C.P. Snow and Jane Austen have written about the career moves of youth, and this book, in some respects, resembles their work. It is marvelous and energetic.
Rating:
Summary: A Suitable Boy
Review: I must say that ever since I first read A Suitable Boy in 1995 I have been utterly in love with this book. I've probably driven everyone that I know totally demented telling them how great it is. Despite that, I still continue to sing its praises. I must recommend A Suitable Boy to anyone that appreciates a truly satisfying read. Although I have to warn you, that once you read it you're only going to want to sit down and read it again. But sure, what's wrong with that!?! Anyway there's always An Equal Music, and The Golden Gate to keep you going in between.
Rating: 
Summary: Can be Shrunk to 7 pages!!!!
Review: Yes... that is what VS. Naipaul said about -- A Suitable Boy....
a good plot.. but it seems to go on and on .....
and the end is so useless.. althought it gives us a claer idea of newly independant india .. hindu - muslim realtions... it tells us the pluck of that generation..... i'm an indian and yes, some of the instances are very true to even this day.. the marriges , the orthodox thinking .. etc etc. it's a long read with no postitive outcome. read it for the sake of apt words and litrature.. all in all.. it's ok... don't expect too much and u just might like it.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling - transports you into another era!
Review: What might put off most people from reading this book is its size.I put off my reading of this book too for that reason.But I would like to assure any reader to just go for it without thinking about the size!Coz here the size really does not matter! The book not only keeps you engrossed,but also involves you 'personally'into the lives of all the characters.But more than anything else it transports you into the era of post-independence modern India.Vikram Seth is not just telling the story of the characters ( as one might be mislead into believing because of the title) but more so he is telling about those times - socially,economically,politically and more intrestingly the linkages of these!This wonderful interweaving of events and people dosn't allow the narrative to become slack or unintresting. The book has a hidden 'wisdom'.Makes the reader feel wise and having 'grown' as a reader.Leaves one with a sense of accomplishment( apart from having gained much insight into those times). Definitely a 'must read'.
Rating:
Summary: Rich prose - four families in post Independence India
Review: After reading "A Suitable Boy" which is well over 1500 pages, I felt I could read more and Vikram should have kept going. The rich prose style makes it easy and simple for all readers. All the characters in this novel are finely etched and none overshadows the other. A sweeping panorama glimpsing the lives of four families in post Independence India was absorbing and fun to read. I read for many hours at a stretch and it will keep any reader totally engrossed in the lives of all the characters.
Vikram's style is crisp and richly woven. Don't read this book in a hurry. You will enjoy it more if you read it leisurely.
Rating:
Summary: Extremely absorbing!
Review: I picked up this 1300+ page book with a little trepidation, thinking there was no way I would get halfway through the book and still be interested in the story, but I was wrong! As I got farther into the book, the story got even better! Vikram Seth takes us into the time of post-partition India. The country has just been split into two, and all of the characters in the book are dealing with the aftermath as they struggle to go on with their lives. I do not mean to imply that the book is depressing - there are a few sad situations, but it was written in a far different vein from Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance. We are immediately introduced to the Mehras, the Kapoors, the Khans, the Tandons, and the Chatterjis. The daughter in the Mehra family is marrying the eldest son in another family, and his sister is married to the son of another family, and so on. During the wedding, the topic of Lata Mehra and finding a suitable boy is brought up, and the story progresses from there. Along the way we met a whole host of characters - Kabir, the charming cricketeer, Malati, the wild best friend, Maan, the wild brother-in-law's brother, just to name a few. You will love reading about the comically caricatured Chatterjis, who tend to speak in rhyme. I could almost imagine this family as the star of an Indian sitcom (with English subtitles, of course). This story is truly a saga in the greatest sense. I really loved the way the author interspersed elements of religion, history, politics, and culture in a way that will appeal to readers of all kinds. I found myself skipping through a few of the political discourses, just because the writing is almost too detailed at times and I can only take political discussion in very small doses. It was quite an educational book - I learned so much about Hinduism and Islam that I didn't already know, and also about different cultures. I even picked up a few new phrases in Hindi and Bengali. As a first generation American with Indian parents, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about Indian history, culture, politics, you name it - especially other 'abcds'. I could see it being an invaluable resource in schools for classes studying the history of India, although a person that doesn't have background knowledge in the history, culture, languages, and/or religons, might find it a little boring at times and harder to follow. This book has a little something in it for everyone - Seth has created a wonderful story that is quite lighthearted most of the time, although it covers very serious topics that are still issues in the Asian Subcontinent to this day. I can't wait to read his other books!
Rating:
Summary: An exercise in reading: an immersion into another culture
Review: I bought this hardback eleven years ago, having seen Vikram Seth interviewed on Charlie Rose of PBS. I opened it a wee bit and shelved it. And, now, in this summer of recovery of health and cleaning out of books, I read it. At long last! I was often tired of holding or propping the massive volume up so as to read, but I moved into the 1950-1951 world of the Mehras, Chatterjis, Kahns and Kapoors and stayed for six days and nights, reading, resting, reading, dreaming, becoming one of the flys on the wall. I went back and forth to the internet, searching words, and places, and foods, and people in history. I learned. It was not painful; long, but not painful. And I feel that I will carry this wealth of experience with me and with it an understanding of a world culture I understood only slightly before this reading. Seth truly knows the culture and the politics of India of that time. He is young, but he did his homework and reflects the intensity of a newly independant nation in its struggle to make a new identity and maintain much of the old. It seemed impossible to me that such a world with so many primitive beliefs and practices could exist side by side with the refinement of education, higher education with a highly Westernized slant. To realize the importance of education to a world that many people still see as third world even 50 years later, was truly eye-opening. I started a legal size notepad of terms that I investigated via the internet, something I would have had less success at doing eleven years earlier, and I feel as if I have traveled this summer, not just back in time, but into another world that is strangely unreal, yet full of the same governances as much of Western culture: democracy, the family, religious practice, sports, moral values. I think I can only imagine how my former Pakistani and Indian students must have reflected on this culture of the United States. I feel enriched to have lived with Seth's book for so many days and to have gained new respect for the world of India. This book is thick in politics, in the struggle of various family members to maintain or to gain political power, for the good of India and for themselves. It is rich in class struggle, above the caste system, into the British system of its former colonial days. It is a book brimful with Urdu poetry, so foreign to this reader. It is a novel rich in varied characters, full and real. The humor and pathos are balanced skillfully, as Mrs Rupa Mehra pursues the search for a suitable boy for her younger daughter, Lata. And as the reader follows Mrs Mehra's pursuit, he or she also immerses into the world of vibrant India at her national beginning. What a classic piece of work. How I wish the Brits would produce it in a mini-series!
Rating:
Summary: The Vastness of India
Review: Just finished my second reading of "A Suitable Boy", it will always be one of my favorite books. Looking over some of the other reviews here I see that this 1474 page novel has been called "just" an Indian soap opera, and while I think soap-opera may be an apt description, it is one of the best books I have ever read. This novel reminded me of an old fashioned English novel in the style of Dickens or Trollope or Eliot, with a large cast of characters, a thick tome with many divergent plot lines that are eventually tied together by the ending, an incredible journey for a reader. They just don't write them this way any more. The title story of the novel is the one of Lata Mehra and her search (or rather her mother's search) for a suitable boy to marry. The novel opens at the wedding of Savita & Pran and introduces many of the characters we will be seeing more of later. Lata is struck by the fact that her sister is marrying a total stranger, accepting passively a marriage arranged by the family, later she will choose between passion and an arranged marriage for herself. Maan Kapoor is another central character that we get to know in depth following him through his obsession for Saeeda Bai, exile from the city and the dramatic scene involving Firoz. There's far more though than the stories of only Lata and Maan, both of whom are sometimes almost forgotten for several chapters, so many other unforgettable characters amongst the Mehra family, Kapoors, Chatterjis, Rasheed & his family, the Nawab Sahib & his family, Saeeda Bai's establishment. I found Arun & his wife Meenakshi, the anglophile snobs absolutely hilarious. Besides being "just a soap opera" revolving around the lives of half a dozen families of Bramphur, this is an ultimate book about India following the years after the death of Gandhi and independence from the British. Partition and ever increasing tension between Hindus and Muslims are ongoing themes and the continuing more subtle influences of the British on Indian culture. Every walk of life is covered from the untouchables of the Rudhia district to the Raja of Marh and his son. Don't let the size of this book discourage you, I found it easy to read over a period of time; each of the 19 sections is like a mini story in itself, with many short chapters in each section. I took several breaks in reading this, always drawn back the way one is drawn back to a family and old friends to see what's become of them now. Long as it is, I wished it could go on forever.
Rating:
Summary: So Good, I Never Wanted It to End
Review: My only criticism of Suitable Boy is that it's too short. When I realized I was reaching the last 100 pages, I read slower. When I read this book, I had 2 toddlers and had to sneak into the laundry room to read it. (I tend to associate Suitable Boy with my youngest sitting on my foot, pinching my leg.) I mention this only to emphasize what a compelling story this was. Even with constant interruptions and distractions, I was mesmerized. Quite simply, one of the best reads I've had for decades. I read Suitable Boy when it came out, and today still occasionally find myself chewing over the plot and characters. I wonder if Mira Nair or someone like her could do justice to it in a movie version?
Rating:
Summary: An enrapturing novel and thorough social critique
Review: Seth's novel has all the elements of a page-turner: love and loss, political and personal scandals, familial conflict, birth and death, and even two crucial court cases. The interwoven stories at times seem to drag on, but when they build to a climax, readers realize that the extended introductions and seemingly-insignificant details of daily life serve to make us truly care about the fortunate and shocking fates of the characters.
While it has all the elements of an intriguing soap-opera, the wealth of information about Indian society and the stinging social critiques Seth offers should not be underscored. Indeed, his novel gives us at least a taste of virtually everything that is beautiful, fascinating, troubling, and disgusting about India.
My only criticism of the book is that without quite a bit of prior knowledge about North and East Indian culture, the reader is bound notice several important puzzle pieces missing that would otherwise make for a more fulfilling read. I've spent several months in the country, and I was still missing bits and pieces. My suggestion would be to travel the country first- if finances don't permit, buy the reader's guide.
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