Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi

"For some things there are no songs".

I confess I don't know how to rate this book - a decadent, soulful, magical realist text by a debut author who sometimes loses control of himself. Perhaps primarily I'm concerned about cultural differences. On the one hand, did I enjoy the tone in part because it was foreign to me (rather than actually being good)? On the other, were some of the elements I disliked a result of having a different literary history to the author?

Other reviewers have said everything I want to say. Simply put, this book is a lot of fun. Chronicling the marriage of two beautiful young people in 1920s India, the novel follows them through first love, tragedy, rediscovery, and many a miracle along the way. Shanghvi doesn't always feel the need to explain his magical elements (how can Nandini walk on water, for example?) and he's not always concerned about the gulf between fable and literature, as in some odd appearances by Gandhi and Virginia Woolf, the former a stickler for rules, the latter a bare-faced colonialist. The characters are closer to fable too, with a sense that even the worst of them is more virtuous than complicated.

The novel resonates and pulsates with the vibrancy of an era wrought in vivid colour, with some neat stabs at colonialism and the artistic world along the way. I think Shanghvi's prose may be a little ripe at times, and I found it rather exuberant for my taste, but I enjoyed the experience nevertheless. Would read another of his.… (más)