vikram seth

by Guest Sun Sep 23, 2012 1:38 pm

[for PP]

this guy is a renaissance man or polymath! urdu, hindi and chinese. that is only in languages. anyway, hope you enjoy this:

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120923/jsp/calcutta/story_16008449.jsp#.UF9H2I3ibP8

even though i never much enjoyed his fiction (perhaps because i don't enjoy poetry), his from heaven lake is among the top 10 novels i have read. from heaven lake is not just a travelogue -- it has style and is a classic!

by Kris Sun Sep 23, 2012 1:55 pm

this guy is a renaissance man

>>>>> That he is! When he was at Stanford (phD econ, which I don't believe he finished), there was a write-up on him in one of the major California newspapers. I remember a Chinese Professor commenting that his facility with Chinese was that of a native speaker's. There was also an analysis of the structuring in his poetry ('golden gate') and it was lauded as a sea change in the genre and on a par with Chaucerian verse. I am surprised that he has not been more prolific, but then again that could be a function of not having control over when the muses hit you.

by Idéfix Sun Sep 23, 2012 2:40 pm

Wow, thanks for sharing. He is awesome.

by Idéfix Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:11 am

HK, did you try A Suitable Boy? There isn't much poetry in there. Just some very well-researched portrayal of India circa early 1950s. Kinda like the tale of A, B, C and D and their descendants and their attendants.

by Guest Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:22 am

i haven't tried it. i was intimidated by its size but i have subsequently read that it is perhaps one of his best works. i've read golden gate, his anthology of poems, from heaven lake and an equal music. i'll read a suitable boy! let me finish ashwin sanghi's krishna key that i am (slowly) reading right now. a suitable boy will be next.

by Idéfix Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:30 am

At the risk of hyping up expectations, let me say this: I envy any serious reader of Indian fiction who hasn't yet read A Suitable Boy. That is because they have in their future a joy that in my opinion is unmatched in modern Indian fiction. The parts that I liked most are not the descriptions of the bhadralok and the upper classes, but the descriptions of rural northindia and its mofussil towns. I have a feeling you will enjoy the book thoroughly. It is more than 10 years since I have read it, but still remember some portions vividly.

by Guest Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:33 am

then i *have* to read it. thanks for the heads up!

by Guest Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:52 am

Kris wrote: There was also an analysis of the structuring in his poetry ('golden gate') and it was lauded as a sea change in the genre and on a par with Chaucerian verse.

i think it was based on pushkin's meter as he had himself confessed.

by Idéfix Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:56 am

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:
Kris wrote: There was also an analysis of the structuring in his poetry ('golden gate') and it was lauded as a sea change in the genre and on a par with Chaucerian verse.
i think it was based on pushkin's meter as he had himself confessed.

Yeah he was inspired by Eugene Onegin. The whole novel is in iambic tetrameter sonnets, like Onegin. Seth has great mastery over meter and rhyme to the point where it all seems effortless. The section where one of his characters delivers a speech against nuclear weapons, quoting Deuteronomy and others, all in tetrameter sonnets, is a real highlight.

by Idéfix Mon Sep 24, 2012 2:09 am

Here is the speech from The Golden Gate, thanks to: http://scarriet.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/vikram-seths-golden-gate-our-centurys-greatest-poem/

In my opinion no more stirring words have been written against the utter madness of mutually assured destruction.

Bespectacled, short, nervous, chubby,
With few gray hairs for sixty years,
And scruffy cassock, the priest’s tubby
And unimposing form appears
A curious temple for the oracle;
And every hint of oratorical
Expectancy is squelched when he,
Bent down on an unsteady knee,
Two fingers fumbling with this collar,
Gathers the notes his jittery hands
Dropped on the ground; but when he stands
And starts to speak, the pudgy scholar
(By nature; activist by choice)
Holds them with his soft resonant voice.

Now both blockaders and supporters
Are silent as the priest says, “Friends,
Sisters and brothers, sons and daughters,
The little time each of us spends…
Can everyone in the back hear me?
Yes? Excellent—and all those near me—
Not too loud? … Well, these few short years
We spend pursuing our careers,
Our needs, our longings, our obsessions
Upon this earth, once gone, are dead.
Of some who’ve spent their time, it’s said
They gathered manifold possessions;
Of some, they broke their lives for wealth;
Of some, their striving broke their health.

Of some it’s said they learned to master
The secret fusion of the sun,
Of some that they ran, rode, swam faster
Than till their advent man had done,
Of some, they eked life out as drudges,
Of some—but any way one judges
Their lives or ours, to dole out blame
Or praise, one attribute may claim
To cut across all our partitions
Of wealth and vigor, fame and wit:
Did they serve life? Or injure it?
These are more naked oppositions
Than can sieve truth in every case,
But we may use them when we face

Choices such as, today, we’re facing.
What is our will in life? To race
As, lemming-like, mankind is racing
To liquidation, or to face
With what small strength we have, the massive
Machine of omnicide, impassive,
Oiled by inertia and by hate
And the smooth silver of the state?
Today we meet in celebration
Of life; some have their children here;
And all of us are of good cheer.
Indeed, with our incarceration
In those yellow school buses, we
May find ourselves compelled to be

As little children. Let’s inquire
With the same childishness as they,
Should we not try to douse a fire
That threatens to consume away
Not just our home but the whole city?
Or with a worldly-wise and witty
Shrug and rejoinder should we turn
The volume up and let Rome burn?
Well, we have gathered here this morning
In disparate but harmonious voice
To show that we have made our choice;
That we have hearkened to the warning
That hate and fear kill; and are here
Confronting death and hate and fear.

Hate is a subtle weed; vagaries
Of soil and time give it new growth.
Only the food of hatred varies;
England and Germany were both
Our bitterest enemies; we hated
Each of them. Yet when we had sated
Our enmity and made them friends,
Hate found new sustenance for its ends.
The English gone, it found the Spanish.
Japan defeated, China served
To keep its lethal life preserved.
Its victim crushed, it would not vanish.
Even before we’d reached Berlin,
Moscow was our new sump of sin.

Hate shifts with diplomatic fashion.
To love is to be resolute.
By Christ’s own sacrifice and passion,
We cannot flinch, we must not mute
The strength and grace of his humanity
By acquiescing in insanity.
Neither crusading frenzy nor
The specious pleading of ‘just war’
Permits the least justification
Of that which, once used, will ensure
That God’s creation won’t endure.
Without hate, without hesitation,
Taking our freedom in our hand,
Let us each pledge that here we stand.

Though Catholic, I make no apology
For quoting someone we’ve proclaimed
The arch-monk of our demonology
These several hundred years. I aimed
To show that in this murderous weather
That threatens, we will stand together,
As now; and with our common breath
Cry out against our common death.
Catholic and Episcopalian,
Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist,
Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist,
We are all here; no one is alien
Now radiation’s common laws
Impel us into common cause.

It was once asked on Belsen’s ashes,
‘Where were you then? Where was the Church?’
If once more our high sentence clashes
With our inaction, we need search
No further for complicit stigma
Than those hands bearing the enigma
Of blood and body in the mass.
Please God, this will not come to pass.
Our bishops’ recent pastoral letter
On nuclear arms demands a freeze.
Today our own archdiocese
Of San Francisco’s an abettor
—They’ve lent us transport—in this fight
Against the law, but for the right.

I have heard some who denigrate us
Claim that we wish to abrogate
The constitutional hiatus
Between religion and the state.
Our job, they say, is to be godly
While the state goes on acting oddly.
The scripture for their vision is
‘Give unto Caesar what is his.’
Let me observe that separation
Of church and state does not exempt
The church from action, may not tempt
The state from all examination
Of conscience, and ought, lastly, not
To serve as partisan buckshot.

There are occasions when morality
And civil law are in dispute.
Granted its sole officiality,
Civil law is not absolute.
If we accept our obligation
Not to accept annihilation
Or that, in our name, bombs are hurled
At others elsewhere in the world,
The quote above needs its addenda.
Students who gloss a narrow text
Should read the passage that comes next;
It is suggested that we render
Things that are God’s to God, as well
As stocking Caesar’s citadel.

What Caesar, battling for democracy,
Unasked, relinquished his regime?
What cotton king decried slavocracy?
What cat forwent its dish of cream?
If we expect disinterested
Judgment from Congress, from our vested
Arms gluttons—from the White House down—
We’re living in cloud-cuckoo-town.
We cannot wait for legislation.
There is no shame in following
Thoreau and Anthony and King,
The old traditions of a nation
That once, two hundred years before,
In its own birth resisted law.

There is no time, when escalation
Bloats our stockpiles with overkill,
When secular proliferation
Means that a score of nations will
Soon hatch these eggs, and when with manic
Slaver we froth the world to panic,
To nourish niceties. We must pray,
Reflect, and act in any way
—Peaceful; that needs no emphasizing—
That may decelerate, reduce,
Or ban the inception, test, and use
Of weaponry so brutalizing
Its mere birth brings opprobrium down
Upon the name of Lungless Town*.

Workers of Lungless Labs—when dying
Will you be proud you were midwife
To implements exemplifying
Assault against the heart of life?
You knew their purpose, yet you made them.
If you had scruples, you betrayed them.
What pastoral response acquits
Those who made ovens for Auschwitz?
Indeed, it’s said that the banality
Of evil is its greatest shock.
It jokes, it punches its time clock,
Plays with its kids. The triviality
Of slaughtering millions can’t impinge
Upon its peace, or make it cringe.

Killing is dying. This equation
Carries no mystical import.
It is the literal truth. Our nation
Has long believed war was a sport.
Unoccupied, unbombed, undying,
While ‘over there’ the shells were flying,
How could we know the Russian dread
Of war, the mountains of their dead?
We reveled in acceleration
At every level of the race;
And even now we’re face to face
With mutual extermination
We talk as blithely as before
Of ‘surgical strikes’ and ‘limited war.’

There is no victory, no survival,
And no defense, no place to hide,
No limit, and indeed, no rival
In this exhaustive fratricide.
We’ll all fall down. Despite resilient
Airs of omniscience, our brilliant
Leaders, when all is said and done,
Have no solution, no, not one.
With quaint autumnal orthodoxy
They point out that America’s best:
The Russians can’t, they say, protest.
That only means we must stand proxy
For those who cannot speak, but are
As much opposed as we, to war.

Ten hostages is terrorism;
A million, and it’s strategy.
To ban books is fanaticism;
To threaten in totality
All culture and all civilization,
All humankind and all creation,
This is a task of decorous skill
And needs high statesmanship and will.
It takes a deal of moral clarity
To see that it is right to blitz
Each Russian family to bits
Because their leaders’ muscularity
—Quite like our own—on foreign soil
Threatens our vanity or ‘our’ oil.

Quo warranto? By what authority,
I ask you in the wounds of Christ,
Does strength confer superiority
Over God’s earth? What has enticed
Mere things like us into believing
The world may be left charred and grieving
In man-made doom at the behest
Of patriotic interest?
It’s come that close. A Russian freighter
—In autumn 1962—
Halted before the line we drew
To cut off Cuba. Minutes later,
And our own manly president would
Have finished off mankind for good.

To those who with tall intellectual
Prudence sniff at our brashness and
State that our stance is ineffectual,
That with our puny sling to stand
Against this latter-day Goliath
Is not wise, let me ask, ‘How dieth
The wise man? As the fool.’ To turn
Your face from horror will not earn
You an indulgence. Help us fight it.
Two hundred years ago, indeed,
Who would have dreamed slaves would be freed?
To show how conscience, starting small,
In God’s good time, may conquer all.

From history we may learn two lessons:
How slowly—and how fast—things change.
Whether the permanent quiescence
Of fear—or life—occurs, it’s strange
Not to know how long we’ll be striving,
Or which succeeds in first arriving;
But whether we prevail or lose,
One thing is certain: we must choose.
God won’t forsake you or ignore you—
So don’t forsake him. Let me close
With Deuteronomy’s plain prose.
Here it is: ‘I have set before you
Life and death… therefore choose life.’
Or, as that sign says, ‘Strive with strife.’”

* Lungless Town, I suppose, is Livermore, California, home to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

by Guest Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:27 am

even i was curious about lungless, as to whether it was some lab. you are probably right in your connection. i had to google many other references including deuteronomy. the knowledge (and the prodigious skill with words and verse) that he writes from makes me dizzy. i had written a review for AEM for sulekha that i am tempted to post here but i will instead post it along with my review of ASB when i am finished reading it.

i like these lines:

There is no victory, no survival,
And no defense, no place to hide,
No limit, and indeed, no rival
In this exhaustive fratricide.

... and many others that you have bolded.

by Kris Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:21 am

panini press wrote:
Huzefa Kapasi wrote:
Kris wrote: There was also an analysis of the structuring in his poetry ('golden gate') and it was lauded as a sea change in the genre and on a par with Chaucerian verse.
i think it was based on pushkin's meter as he had himself confessed.
Yeah he was inspired by Eugene Onegin. The whole novel is in iambic tetrameter sonnets, like Onegin. Seth has great mastery over meter and rhyme to the point where it all seems effortless. The section where one of his characters delivers a speech against nuclear weapons, quoting Deuteronomy and others, all in tetrameter sonnets, is a real highlight.

>>>>Iamabic tetrameter, that's the term I couldn't recall. I didn't know that it was inspired by someone else. The article (it was I think in the LA times supplement mag, with Seth on the cover) didn't make mention of this. It may not have been an interview with him, which may be the reason his inspirational works were not brought up.

by Guest Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:33 am

yeah suitable boy was epic.. not only did it portray india of the times well, it had the entire masala or spectrum of many many kinds of relationships, and possibilities. normal as well as psycho.

by MaxEntropy_Man Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:05 am

natty romanova -- good to know you have other interests besides love tunes from bolly cinema and dead mice.

i loved the golden gate although i read it a very long time ago. makes me want to pick it up again. haven't read anything else by the man who goes both ways.

by Guest Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:27 am

ah, i just remembered what some reviewer had noted long ago. notice how all of seth's works have a hint of utopia, perfection or paradise in them:

the golden gate
from heaven lake
an equal music
a suitable boy
a suitable girl (forthcoming)

the man is a perfectionist -- that there is no doubt. he had his sister lay out dozens of saris in his delhi house to understand the texture of each before he could use and describe the apparel in ASB.

i think i am ready to rediscover seth. i missed out on something in my youth. charvaka's "envy" at readers who have not read ASB makes me want to read it like yesterday. i don't know. i might pick it up tomorrow. let's see if exigencies allow me. i am buying it right now and probably read a few pages tonight.

max -- i am not convinced he swings both ways. i think only one. not that there is anything wrong with it.

by Idéfix Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:30 am

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:ah, i just remembered what some reviewer had noted long ago. notice how all of seth's works have a hint of utopia, perfection or paradise in them:

the golden gate
from heaven lake
an equal music
a suitable boy
a suitable girl (forthcoming)

the man is a perfectionist -- that there is no doubt. he had his sister lay out dozens of saris in his delhi house to understand the texture of each before he could use and describe the apparel in ASB.

i think i am ready to rediscover seth. i missed out on something in my youth. charvaka's "envy" at readers who have not read ASB makes me want to read it yesterday but. i don't know. i might pick it up tomorrow. let's see if exigencies allow me.

max -- i am not convinced he swings both ways. i think only one. not that there is anything wrong with it.

I think he swings both ways. At least that's the impression I got from his collection of poems. Assuming that at least some of them are inspired by events from his own life.

by Guest Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:51 am

panini press wrote:I think he swings both ways. At least that's the impression I got from his collection of poems. Assuming that at least some of them are inspired by events from his own life.

no doubt that is the impression his books give. i got that impression in his poems, FHL and AEM. but i was relying on details from his personal life. i cannot remember which details. he is a very honest man. i think he had himself confessed that he is bi or homosex. the only thing i recall is that i had formed an impression that he was homosex and was writing heterosex with substituted protagonists. ( my impression is by no means reliable.) he never goes into describing the act of love making or aspects of it in some detail but i haven't read ASB. then again he is a bit different type of writer -- not a pejorative using, chutneyfying and shocking readers type. he is a bit subtle. his sexual orientation does not matter but readers are a very curious species. whitman, eliot were homosex and desani never married nor had an affair.

by Idéfix Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:58 am

Yes, readers are a curious species. I googled and found this.
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?232671

He says:

When I realised that I had feelings for men as well as women, at first I was worried and frightened, and there was a certain amount of Who am I? Am I a criminal? and so on. It took me a long time to come to terms with myself. Those were painful years—painful then and painful to look back on.

Well, actually, I came out with it many, many years ago. Some of my poems, from my first book of poems onwards, have clearly been written to men. And if there's a poem to a woman, it's clearly been written to a woman.

by Guest Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:18 pm

wow. thanks! puts one niggling uncertainty to rest.

by Guest Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:50 pm

OMG ASB is not on kindle. tough corporate wheeling dealings here. a paperback it has to be then.

by Guest Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:01 pm

I read one more of his works, two lives. While reading it I thought maybe it's not that great, but could not help it when it grew over me with time, specially the letters and the photographs. Overall, it did leave an impact on me, which I realized when a certain real life incidence would take me back to some parts of the book.

by Guest Tue Sep 25, 2012 4:49 am

younger bought it today on his way back from school. his exams get over on friday. i had told him yesterday that i'd finish it in a week and he was to finish it the next week (since his exams would be over). he was upbeat and said he had read about the book and writer.

vikram seth Asb10

today when handing me the book, his face looked ashen. he hung around.

me - what?
him - papa, one week...?
me - ok, take one month. it's an easy read. there is no chutneyfication. it's only 1000+ pages.
him - i know. i've read the blurb on the back.

he left but clearly dissatisfied by the one month deadline. i plan on sticking with the one week deadline for myself.

(it does not help that it cannot be read on phone or ipad. Crying or Very sad

)

by Guest Tue Sep 25, 2012 5:34 am

I have read only "An Equal Music" by Vikram Seth. "The Golden Gate" sits on my bookshelf but it got a review of "fluff" from my husband and so I never bothered reading it.

After reading this thread, I am inspired to get hold of "A Suitable Boy" and will also read TGG.

by Guest Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:37 am

blabberwock wrote:After reading this thread, I am inspired to get hold of "A Suitable Boy"

maybe you should. then we can discuss it here.

by Guest Tue Sep 25, 2012 6:43 am

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:
blabberwock wrote:After reading this thread, I am inspired to get hold of "A Suitable Boy"
maybe you should. then we can discuss it here.

Alright. Heading to the library now. I am currently reading "The Silent Raga" by Ameen Merchant (it's about an authentic Tambram woman). I shall complete that tonight and get started on this one.

by Impedimenta Tue Sep 25, 2012 7:45 am

ok, a suitable boy it is. ordering it from amazon or maybe i should buy it from this local mom and pop book shop to support them.

by MaxEntropy_Man Tue Sep 25, 2012 8:08 am

blabberwock wrote:
Huzefa Kapasi wrote:
blabberwock wrote:After reading this thread, I am inspired to get hold of "A Suitable Boy"
maybe you should. then we can discuss it here.

Alright. Heading to the library now. I am currently reading "The Silent Raga" by Ameen Merchant (it's about an authentic Tambram woman). I shall complete that tonight and get started on this one.

call me closed-minded, but i don't think someone who goes by the name of ameen merchant can write authentically about a tamil brahmin woman especially if his exposure to the culture is second hand. the most culturally authentic writing i've read is by rohinton mistry whose subjects are exclusively bombay parsis.

by Guest Tue Sep 25, 2012 8:20 am

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
blabberwock wrote:
Huzefa Kapasi wrote:
blabberwock wrote:After reading this thread, I am inspired to get hold of "A Suitable Boy"
maybe you should. then we can discuss it here.

Alright. Heading to the library now. I am currently reading "The Silent Raga" by Ameen Merchant (it's about an authentic Tambram woman). I shall complete that tonight and get started on this one.

call me closed-minded, but i don't think someone who goes by the name of ameen merchant can write authentically about a tamil brahmin woman especially if his exposure to the culture is second hand. the most culturally authentic writing i've read is by rohinton mistry whose subjects are exclusively bombay parsis.

A telugu brahmin woman I know gave me this book, asking me to read it since she found it all very "familiar and close to her heart". I read a page and put it aside. She asked me a couple of days ago how I "enjoyed" it. I felt guilty and am now reading it out of politeness and to be honest, it isn't all that gripping or authentic so far.

by Guest Tue Sep 25, 2012 8:51 am

Impedimenta wrote:ok, a suitable boy it is. ordering it from amazon or maybe i should buy it from this local mom and pop book shop to support them.

ADHD madam, the first 100 pages will need sheer will. you have to keep reading it. take a call on whether to continue reading only after 100 pages, not before. Smile

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