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This novel is couched in a mood of reminiscence and reverie that makes it feel like Proust writing a crime novel. It's also comparable to Javier Marias, with an Englishman's more clipped diction substituted for Marias' lavish, dilatory prose. Of course it's also an entry in the crime genre, with...

I know of Pale Fire and Life: A User's Manual. Do you know of any other examples?

In some ways, Triton (as this novel was titled on its initial publication, in 1976) is as much about science fiction as it is about social and political models. The infodump or exposition is a vital part of the SF genre; it helps ground us in the imagined world of the story at hand and to...

'Bliss is ephemeral; true for anyone or anything. The oceans have been decimated several times in the last billion years. Sterile waters in a clay bowl. Life returned unbidden on each occasion. The world slumbers, twitches and transforms. From the jelly, lizards crawled around the fetid swamps...

This article claims they should: The Hindu : Literary Review : Recognising each other I find it all somewhat questionable or at least over-emphasised.

Since we have fairly diverse music tastes, and the best way to sample new music is to listen to it, I though a thread where we share links to youtube videos of songs or artists we are listening to would be a good idea. I recently saw this pianist play in Bangalore. Very impressive. YouTube -...

The new Shamsie book seems like a bit of over-reaching, with a long-suffering protagonist somehow associated with every major tragedy of the last 50 years or so. I liked A CASE OF EXPLODING MANGOES considerably more than Stewart did - cheeky, mostly well-paced and bang-on in its satire.

This is an extremely cheeky political satire that purports to look at the events leading up the death of General Zia, the man who ruled Pakistan from 1977 to 1988, and a great target for satire in any case - he always struck me as what it would like if Groucho Marx were to do a sketch about a...

I offer a very brief impression, in the hopes of opening the discussion: Sebald rambles along on a walking tour and riffles through history and literature to find patterns in the broken remnants of the past. His sympathies are with the dispossessed, the marginalised, the quixotic, his...

'Although the sun had sunk behind the houses, the sky was still luminous and the blue of the wall had deepened. She rubbed her fingers along it: the wash was fresh and a little of the powdery stuff came off. And she remembered how once she had reached out to touch the face of a clown because it...

Kitchen-sink magical realism? Could be. A bit of Borges, a hint of Marguez, a twist of Calvino, perhaps a dash of Burroughs' cut-ups and lots of emo screamification about how miserable it is to be ditched by some chick. There's a lot to enjoy and marvel at in this book, but much of it is like...

Shall I simply rephrase it as 'stretching SF boundaries'? That's more accurate anyway. SF is all about going beyond the boundaries of the known after all.

Aha! I've been wanting to mention Delaney on this thread for a while actually. Also worth noting is Dhalgren which contains much explicit sexual content, involving homsexual and bisexual acts, as well as in one case a tree. These scenes were very explicit, but seemed more about exploring power...

Wikipedia describes Dominique Fernandez as an 'openly gay French novelist', although I see he was married to a woman for 10 years and had two children; presumably this was before he came out. I'm currently reading, in translation, his novel Porporino or the secrets of Naples (Porporino, ou...

Onitsha by JMG Le Clezio. Very beautifuly written and with a haunting, powerful story to tell about the devastation wrought in Africa by succesive waves of colonialism (imperial and then corporate). It's seen through the eyes of a young European boy who goes to live in the town of Onitsha in...

Heads up to Indian enthusiasts of French literature: Rupa, in collaboration with the French Consulate has a series of inexpensive reprints of American and British english translations of French literature under the imprint Rupa France. It's a pretty good list of French lit from the 20th cent and...

Thanks Jayan, I think I'll have to pick this one up. (I do hope the blurb writer meant that Karthy is a rare example of a confident woman who is sufficient unto herself as a character in Indian fiction or some such.) It's published in India by Rupa, no idea if it's been picked up by foreign...

The ironic thing is that many Indians I know also confine themselves to English works, perceiving books in 'regional languages' as boring, stodgy and serious. I did that for years myself until a good friend of mine bought me Vilas Sarang's book and I realised there was a whole world of...

Sorry, I should have mentioned this. Malayalam is the language spoken in Kerala, a state in South India. It's a language and the literature thereof, which could include works by people of various castes and religions. A Malyali is a speaker of Malayalam. I suppose a better spelling is Malayali.

I second the recomendation of Manto. A collection is available from Penguin Modern Classics, and Toba Tek Singh, which may be read here.