Seth, Vikram

▪ 1994

      With the publication in 1993 of A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth weighed in as a heavyweight of English letters—quite literally. The massive epic of more than 1,300 pages—one of the longest works of fiction in English since the 18th century—drew immediate comparison with Seth's compatriot Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. Both books depict India shortly after the Partition and its independence from Britain, and both are panoramic in scope; however, while Rushdie's works are known for free-wheeling invention, Seth's Boy is a model of gentle pacing and classic English prose. More akin to Jane Austen, E.M. Forster, or Charles Dickens, Seth gives the reader an "India of the drawing room." It fondly portrays the lives of four interwoven families (complete with family trees on the endpapers) and a traditional privileged society at a time of change. The narrative—with its main plot that deals with the question of which suitor will gain the hand of Lata, a Hindu college student, and its equally important subplots—is bracketed by two weddings; its exquisite detail of daily life gives parts of the book the feel of a documentary. While secular in tone, the novel describes religious customs and rituals; the Hindu-Muslim tensions eerily prefigure the current conflict. Seth's clever wordplay and the passion and sheer magnitude of the subcontinent are controlled by the classic form, much as his earlier poetry was contained by meter and rhyme. The work made best-seller lists in India and Britain and was a Book of the Month Club selection in the U.S.

      The son of a judge and a businessman, Seth was born June 20, 1952, in Calcutta. He attended the exclusive Doon School in India, then studied at Corpus Christi College, Oxford (B.A., 1975), and Stanford University (M.A., 1978). His first volume of poetry, Mappings (1980), was written while he was in China doing research for his doctoral dissertation at Nanjing (Nanking) University. The Humble Administrator's Garden (1985) is divided into three sections that reflect his life in China, India, and California. From Heaven Lake (1983), the story of his journey hitchhiking from Nanjing via Tibet to New Delhi to visit his family, won him critical acclaim and Britain's most prestigious travel-writing award. Called "the great California novel" by Gore Vidal, The Golden Gate (1986) is a tour de force. It follows the lives of several yuppies in Silicon Valley (touching on topics such as gay rights and the antinuclear movement) and is written entirely in metered, rhyming 14-line stanzas based on Charles Johnston's 1977 English translation of Aleksandr Pushkin's Yevgeny Onegin. His mastery of the verse form brought comparisons to Alexander Pope. Seth returned to live with his family in New Delhi in 1987. Other works include the 1990 collection All You Who Sleep Tonight and Beastly Tales from Here and There (1992), tetrameter couplets of animal fables from India, China, Greece, Ukraine, and Seth's own mind. (ELLEN FINKELSTEIN)

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▪ Indian author

born June 20, 1952, Calcutta, India

      Indian poet, novelist, and travel writer known for his verse novel The Golden Gate (1986) and his epic novel A Suitable Boy (1993).

      The son of a judge and a businessman, Seth was raised in London and India. He attended exclusive Indian schools and then graduated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford (B.A., 1975). He received a master's degree in economics from Stanford University in 1978 and later studied at Nanking (China) University. In 1987 he returned to India to live with his family in New Delhi.

      Although Seth's first volume of poetry, Mappings, was published in 1980, he did not attract critical attention until the publication of his humorous travelogue From Heaven Lake (1983), the story of his journey hitchhiking from Nanking to New Delhi via Tibet. The poetic craft of The Humble Administrator's Garden (1985) foreshadows the polish of The Golden Gate, a novel of the popular culture of California's Silicon Valley, written entirely in metred, rhyming 14-line stanzas and based on Charles Johnston's translation of Aleksandr Pushkin (Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeyevich)'s Eugene Onegin. In the work Seth successfully harnesses contemporary situations to a demanding 19th-century form; the young professional characters discuss nuclear weapons, Roman Catholic teachings on homosexuality, and the perils of overwork. Seth continued to use controlled poetic form in his 1990 collection All You Who Sleep Tonight, and he also wrote the 10 stories of Beastly Tales from Here and There (1992) in tetrametre couplets. A collection entitled The Poems, 1981–1994 was published in 1995. He turned to prose, however, in A Suitable Boy, which depicts relations between four Indian families. The book's compelling narrative and great length invited critical comparisons to Leo Tolstoy (Tolstoy, Leo), Marcel Proust (Proust, Marcel), James Joyce (Joyce, James), Honoré de Balzac (Balzac, Honoré de), and Charles Dickens (Dickens, Charles). His next novel, An Equal Music (1999), is a love story set in the world of professional musicians.

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