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I know, I know. How can this sprawling historical novel about India from 1950 to 1952 be a book about books? Well it is. It's chock full of books, poetry, a play or two, and one of the main characters is a writer, another an English student. To me, it absolutely fits!

Spectacular. Definitely one of my top lifetime reads. Worth every minute I spent during the past 5 weeks reading it. If you love historical fiction or even history generally, you must read A Suitable Boy.

Very superficially, this is the story of Lata and her 3 suitors as 'a suitable boy' for marriage is sought for her by her mother, Mrs. Rupa Mehra. A large part of the definition for suitability is caste, social standing, and ethnicity. The Mehras are from one of the upper castes, Hindis, who were close to the ruling British before Independence.

What this book really is: a microcosm of India from late 1950 through April 1952, as seen from the lives of 4 families: The Mehras, Kapoors, Chatterjis, and Khans (a Muslim Family). This is the 5th year after independence from the British and the brutalilty of Partition of Pakistan and Bangledesh from India. Critical elections are approaching, Gandhi is dead, Nehru is struggling to keep his position as Prime Minister, and the Zemindars (vested landowners whose vast holdings are essentially farmed by serfs), who are being legally divested of their holdings through the adoption of the Zemindari Abolition Act, are fighting to overturn the new laws. Women have been given the vote for the first time, but purdah is still enforced in many families, and in many regions. Young women like Lata, her friend Malati, and sister Savita are obtaining university educations and even attending medical school or studying law, yet they are expected to conform to family traditions and demands such as arranged marriage. Yet we also have an upper caste suitor who is determined to make his own way in the shoe business, something that is considered by many to be beneath his caste.

We experience India from the midst of these families. There are festivals, riots, electioneering, parties, funerals (that led to ugly tears), scandal, and pagentry. There are so many events, plot lines, interconnecting relationships, it's impossible for me to summarize other than to say that I am going to miss these families deeply.

Seth does an absolutely brilliant job of keeping us engaged, emotionally invested while at the same time describing for us very complex political situations, for example. I'd say the only times he failed with me was when he was describing a couple of cricket matches; I had absolutely no idea what he was describing! But that's such a minor quibble and a little time with Google would have solved that problem.

It's a very rich reading experience, full of cultural, historical and political detail along with all the drama and milestones families endure. It opens with an Indian wedding and ends with one. Life and death is in between. It's a soap opera but also the depiction of a country at a moment of great change and upheaval. It's full of poetry (Seth is after all an award winning poet), humor, and references to great British classic literature. After all, this social class of Indian were very English - educated in English schools, working in English companies, socializing in the English clubs. The British are gone, mostly, but their imprint remains.

There are also racial tensions, and the scars left by Partition are still raw. All the stories are so very human and recognizable. One of my great joys was getting a sense of all the great Indian festivals - Holi, Diwali, Pul Mela (the annual ritual bathing in the Ganges). I adored the great legislative and courtroom battles over the Zemindari Abolition Act. It was surprisingly familiar as the newly independent India adopted a constitution like the US Constitution, which meant similar political and legal structures.

I could go on and on. What a treasure of a book!

I loved this book so much when I read it many years ago, for all the reasons you've mentioned. I don't even remember it taking me a long time (but this was in the days before I had a more-than-full-time job!) I've been wanting to re-read it for a while, so your review might just prompt me to do that!

There are a million special moments. I can definitely see rereading some if not all of it. In fact, I am still pondering the very final scene of Lata and the monkeys at the train station. May have to dip back in a bit for that.

In truth the reason it took me so long to read was just a lack of time. Work, family, holidays, travel...there were days when zero reading happened.

I own a copy of this book so will plan to fit it into my reading schedule. It sounds right up my alley. I think the only reason I haven't read it yet is the length.

The way it is organized, Joy, makes it very manageable to read in chunks.

It's so highly readable as well that you kind of forget about the length.

I am interested in it after reading, The Reading List, but I am quite intimidated by its size.

Thank you for taking the time to read it , Theresa and thank you for a review that makes me want to read it.

Booknblues wrote: "I am interested in it after reading, The Reading List, but I am quite intimidated by its size.

Thank you for taking the time to read it , Theresa and thank you for a review that m..."

I have that pretty high up on my TBR. I really want to read it but need to get going on Dune for Feminerdy Book Club. Plus have a couple of 2021 Unofficial Trim reads to get out of the way.

I like tackling once or twice a year a "big" read...usually some classic modern or traditional. Let's you inhabit a world for more than a couple of days.

I don't know why I have never read this. I will after your stellar review. It's also free to borrow if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription.

I have owned this for years, in a giant hardback but always had more pressing things to read. I did notice this year that although I read a lot of books (over 200, first time ever), those I enjoyed most tended to be the longer ones. So I will give this one more priority. The PBT games this year are quite low-key, only 6 books to read in a year for History and very flexible for Favorites. So a good time to read a saga.

Olivermagnus wrote: "I don't know why I have never read this. I will after your stellar review. It's also free to borrow if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription."

Warning on the ebook in Kindle Unlimited ... and it is the only ebook version - terrible proofing, some real problems, including missing chunks of text. You know they are missing because a sentence in the middle of a paragraph stops in mid sentence. I reported each error as did a friend of mine when she read it months ago. So far no corrections made.

There is also no unabridged audio version...only a 5 hour version read by cast of series. It is a 1,476 page book...god knows what that audio reads - only part one of the 19 that comprise the book?

You can get excellent condition used trade paperback from ABE Books. That is what I used, occasionally reading from the ebook or using the ebook to easily locate something I wanted to double check.

I got mine at a library sale or thrift store many years ago. You could also try Thriftbooks, I just checked and they have some as low as 6.29. Of course, you could take it out from a library but some of us would need to renew it more than once. Although it is too bad about the ebook because the physical book requires weightlifting skills!

After reading your review, Theresa, I know I would love this book...... but it's a big commitment! Reading this will probably take a few months, and it would "crowd out" other selections. The next time I am in my new favorite used book store, I will see if there is a copy, that will at least push me to look at page 1.