Rating: 
Summary: Stop wasting your time reading comments - read the book!!
Review: Well, read this if you must. I have never appreciated poetry, but now I know why - what I had read before had been written by twits. But Seth is no twit, and so the story is not hidden by all the verse. I even laughed out loud at one point!Incidentally, this is a pleasant change from other books by 'Indian' writers - there is nothing connecting this novel with Bharat.
Rating: 
Summary: He's Written Better Books
Review: Well, to start with, I feel this book again capitalizes on the writer's ability/ desire to draw more than anyone else on style rather than substance. 690 verses (I hadn't noticed the count till I read it in one of the reviews), strung together to tell a story is in itself a novelty to make a book a hit. Admittedly, there is more to its credit than the verses themselves. But unfortunately, it is not too much. In any case it is worth a read. The style evidently makes up for the mediocre story line. The usual twists and turns are all there. However, some of the verses are striking in quality. Like the one describing spring. This particular one was a home run. Being a good poet who also has the patience to write a novel has its advantages and Mr. Seth is well aware of it.A story set in San Fransisco in 1980 about a bunch of yuppies, their fading families, queer pets, jobs and affairs of the heart. Touches upon a few issues which seemed to burn the world at that point of time. The emotional chrod just isn't struck. Actually, when I read the first verse which was describes the hero as a 26 year old with yuppie credentials (lonely, successful etc.) hopes were raised since I am 26, lonely and passably successful. Read it. Can be definately read once at least.
Rating: 
Summary: A good story in verse.
Review: What is the last novel in verse that you read? Perhaps Yevgeny Onegin,
by Pushkin?
Well this isn't a novel of THAT calibre. But it is a good story told in
quatrains that speed along so that you forget you're reading poetry.
Vikram Seth, author of 'A Suitable Boy', tells a tale of modern San Francisco.
Rating:
Summary: A novel of nothing but sonnets?
Review: Yep. The whole book is written in Sonnet form. The about the author is a sonnet. The acknowledgements are a sonnet. Even the table of contents is a sonnet! When you see a Jackson Pollack painting, you don't just see the painting, you see Pollack himself painting the painting. This novel is similar in that you are constantly watching Seth try to juggle the duel tasks of crafting sonnets while spinning a modern Californian tale. Seth rises to the task, not simply meeting his own structural challange, but also crafting a story with enough sour plot twists to keep the non-poetic types happy. The only downside is that the story occationally drags when Seth lets the characters give long winded speeches. But, that aside, this is a bold experiment
Rating:
Summary: Charming, witty, hilarious, sad -- a sheer delight!
Review: £7.99 for a book of poetry (and sonnets at that!)I thought I was mad but it's been worth every penny. This is a novel that I'll read again and again. I finished it today in a single sitting. If your only experience of Vikram Seth is the first page of A Suitable Boy then throw away those misconceptions. California should be proud to have adopted this author. Here is a writer who has carried on where Amistead Maupin left off. The post-AIDS sexual machinations will leave you delighted, bemused or furious, but through-out the sonnets (and, in particular, the rhyming couplets) assure you that this is just after all a nursery rhyme for adults. Born too late to understand the CND/Peace movements of the 80s, I relished the several stanza long tract given by Father O'Hare vilifying nuclear weapons. All warmongers should be forced to read those pages! Incidentally, I have just sent an e-mail to a friend, thanking him for recommending this novel and to tell him my news. (I wrote it in seven sonnets!) Poetry not for you, you think? Give this one a go. You'll not regret it.
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