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SUCH A LONG JOURNEY
by Rohinton Mistry ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 25, 1991
A first novel from Mistry (the notable story collection Swimming Lessons, 1989) about a family man in 1971 India who experiences a political scandal firsthand. Set at the time of India's war with Pakistan over Bangladesh, it convincingly dramatizes how an honest but naive man can be compromised by events he doesn't understand. Gustad Noble is a bank clerk faced with an assortment of family problems—an inexplicable low-grade illness of daughter Roshan; a son (Sohrab) who wins a college scholarship but refuses to accept it; and a nostalgic dream for a mythical golden age. Evocative instances of domestic humor and travail (Noble, for instance, decides to bring home a live chicken for a feast, with amusing consequences) and local character sketches (notably that of Tehmul, a man harmless but brain-damaged, whom we first meet ``directing traffic around the demon tree'') give way to undercover intrigue when Major Bilimoria, an old friend who works for Indira Gandhi's secret police, recruits Noble to receive mysterious parcels and deposit sums of money (under a false name) in the bank where he works. The plot thickens (dead animals begin to appear on Noble's doorstep) as domestic travail tightens (no medications seem to help his daughter) before scandal erupts. Bilimoria is arrested: it turns out he's either a sort of Oliver North, officially transferring funds to aid guerrillas in East Pakistan, or a crook. Noble, confused, his world in disarray, travels form Bombay to Delhi for a chilling meeting with Bilimoria, who is now near- delirious. The agent admits his guilt: he intended to line his own pockets and those of his friends, including Noble. Amidst revelations of gross governmental corruption, Bilimoria dies—but Noble survives as the war begins to ``liberate'' Bangladesh. A finely textured look at India in a time of upheaval.
Pub Date: April 25, 1991
ISBN: 0-679-40258-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1991
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A LITTLE LIFE
by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara ( The People in the Trees , 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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by Hanya Yanagihara
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PERSPECTIVES
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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by Harper Lee
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Such a Long Journey - Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis
Such a Long Journey Study Guide
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Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry
Such a long journey book summary.
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Such a Long Journey takes place in Mumbai, Maharashtra, in the year 1971.
The novel's protagonist is a hard-working bank clerk Gustad Noble, a member of the Parsi community and a devoted family man struggling to keep his wife Dilnavaz, and three children out of poverty. But his family begins to fall apart as his eldest son Sohrab refuses to attend the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology to which he has gained admittance and his youngest daughter, Roshan, falls ill.
Other conflicts within the novel involve Gustad's ongoing interactions with his eccentric neighbours and his relationship with his close friend and co-worker, Dinshawji. Tehmul, a seemingly unimportant and mentally disabled character, is essential in Gustad's life, as he brings out the tender side of him and represents the innocence of life.
A letter that Gustad receives one day from an old friend, Major Bilimoria, slowly draws him into a government deception involving threats, secrecy and large amounts of money. He then, begins the long journey, that sheds new light on all aspects of Gustad's personal and political life. The novel not only follows Gustad's life, but also India's political turmoil under the leadership of Indira Gandhi.
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Such a Long Journey
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Overview. Such a Long Journey, written by Canadian-Indian author Rohinton Mistry, follows Gustad Noble as he navigates interpersonal conflict and political scandal in early 1970s India. Indira Gandhi's corrupt government and India's war with Pakistan provide the story's political backdrop. Critics widely praised the novel's compassion ...
"A Long Journey" is a free verse poem by the Zimbabwean poet Musaemura Zimunya. Zimunya included "A Long Journey" in his book Country Dawns and City Lights, published in 1985—just five years after Zimbabwe attained independence from Britain.In "A Long Journey," a Zimbabwean speaker describes the effects of industrialization and the complex changes that their village undergoes during ...
This study guide contains the following sections: This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry. Such a Long Journey examines the life of a handful of Parsi Indians in the turbulent early 1970's. When Britain withdraws from the subcontinent in 1948, two states are ...
Summary. Gustad Noble, the protagonist of Such a Long Journey, is a well-meaning man with a highly developed sense of duty. Lesser men might well have become embittered by the losses that his ...
Such a Long Journey. Such a Long Journey is a 1991 novel by Rohinton Mistry. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won several other awards. In 2010 the book made headlines when it was withdrawn from the University of Mumbai 's English syllabus after complaints from the Maharashtrian politician Aditya Thackeray.
O such a long long journey. In the first stanza of ' A Long Journey ,' the poet begins by describing the history of his town, like running rivers. His town's history is long and seemingly endless. The town/rivers also experienced "endless woes.". Their history continued on and on, and they suffered repetitively.
Mistry's first novel, Such a Long Journey (1991), brought him national and international recognition. Mistry's subsequent novels have achieved the same level of recognition as his first. His second novel, A Fine Balance (1995), concerns four people from Bombay who struggle with family and work against the backdrop of the political unrest in ...
for only $0.70/week. By. View Collection. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "Such a Long Journey" by Rohinton Mistry. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
A first novel from Mistry (the notable story collection Swimming Lessons, 1989) about a family man in 1971 India who experiences a political scandal firsthand. Set at the time of India's war with Pakistan over Bangladesh, it convincingly dramatizes how an honest but naive man can be compromised by events he doesn't understand. Gustad Noble is a bank clerk faced with an assortment of family ...
Such a Long Journey - Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis Rohinton Mistry This Study Guide consists of approximately 65 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Such a Long Journey.
Such a Long Journey. Rohinton Mistry. McClelland & Stewart, May 3, 1997 - Fiction - 352 pages. It is Bombay in 1971, the year India went to war over what was to become Bangladesh. A hard-working bank clerk, Gustad Noble is a devoted family man who gradually sees his modest life unravelling. His young daughter falls ill; his promising son defies ...
Such a Long Journey Book Summary Table of Contents ... Such a Long Journey takes place in Mumbai, Maharashtra, in the year 1971. The novel's protagonist is a hard-working bank clerk Gustad Noble, a member of the Parsi community and a devoted family man struggling to keep his wife Dilnavaz, and three children out of poverty. But his family ...
Such a Long Journey is one of the important works by Mistry which explore the various aspects of India like culture, community, administration, society, life, and faith of the Parsi community. Mistry, re-portrays the historical backdrop of this group and nation as it has been in the post-independence period. This paper attempts to analyze the ...
So Long a Letter begins when Ramatoulaye, a Senegalese woman living in Dakar, the country's capital, decides to write a letter to her old friend Aissatou, who lives in America.The letter is occasioned by the sudden death of Modou, Ramatoulaye's estranged husband.In keeping with Muslim custom, Ramatoulaye must observe a mirasse, a forty-day period of isolation and mourning.
Such a Long Journey takes place in Bombay, India, in 1971. The story begins with the main character, Gustad Noble, a Zoroastrian Parsi, performing his daily early morning prayers in the yard of his apartment complex, the Khodadad Building, as the compound slowly comes to life around him. Gustad is in his 50s but still strong and vital despite an accident a few years earlier that gave him a limp.
Get LitCharts A +. "Journey of the Magi" is a poem by T.S. Eliot, first published in 1927 in a series of pamphlets related to Christmas. The poem was written shortly after Eliot's conversion to the Anglican faith. Accordingly, though the poem is an allegorical dramatic monologue that inhabits the voice of one the magi (the three wise men who ...
Historical Context of Journey. "Journey" is written within the context of Māori resistance to white New Zealanders' ongoing colonization of Māori land. Beginning in the early 1800s, Māori people, who had been living on the islands of Aotearoa (or New Zealand) for centuries, experienced a dramatic increase in the number of Europeans ...
Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "Such a Long Journey" by Rohinton Mistry. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Analysis. On May 21, 2000, Enrique waits with two other migrants, a Mexican brother and sister, at the beginning of the journey across the river with El Tiríndaro. On the other side of the river, a U.S. Border Patrol tower aims its cameras out over the water, and patrol vehicles move across the far riverbank in the night The three migrants all ...
Analysis. It is Monday, March 18th, 1918, and Captain Hardy is drying his wet sock over a candle flame. He sits in the dugout of the British trenches in St. Quentin, France, where the military is involved in trench warfare with German forces stationed only 70 yards away. As he dries his sock, Hardy sings a little ditty, mumbling, "Tick ...
Analysis. The narrator prepares for his trip into the city to meet officials about his land. He thinks of himself as "an old man going on a journey," though he notes that he is only 71, not really an old man. His family buttons up his coat for him and gives him money, making him feel more like an old man than he wants.