A Suitable Boy is a lengthy and heavy going novel set in post-independence India and follows the story of four families over a period of just over a year. The main focus of the plot centres around a mother searching for a suitable husband to marry her daughter and the remainder of the novel covers how each of the four main families interact as this search goes on. At 1349 pages and 591,552 words, the book is described on Wikipedia as one of the largest english language novels of all time and a sequel is apparently planned for publication in 2013 entitled A Suitable Girl. Bearing in mind its length then, this is certainly not a book for either the ...  Read the complete review

When this clattered through my letterbox from Amazon, I took one look at the phenomenal length of it and the tiny font size on each page and thought, this one is going to be a struggle! However, never one to shirk from a challenge, I dove straight in and a month or two later, I was sorry when the book ended. It emcompasses a huge number of people in the 'cast' but follows two main characters, Lata, a girl who in a very Jane Austen style is searching with the driving force of her mother behind her, for a suitable husband. The other character is Mann, a young tearaway who we see fall in love with a totally unsuitable muslim courtesan and go on a journey of self ...  Read the complete review

This book tells the story of a girl who is looking for a husband is post-independence India. Yet it is also a political book, charting and explaining the career of another character. There are other narratives I do not have space to describe. These narratives intertwine and separate with all the drama and ordinariness of life. It is the most daring attempt since Ulysses to show human life in all its glory and complexity. In short it shows the entire country in full. A point often missed in analysing this book is that in places is it actually very witty and funny. Indeed several of the characters sole purposes are to be laughed at and mocked. Some of the verbal ...  Read the complete review