book data
344 ratings,
3.82
average rating, 60 reviews
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published
March 1st 1997
(first published 1995)
by Back Bay Books
binding
Paperback, 560 pages
isbn
0316132934
(isbn13: 9780316132930)
description
A critically acclaimed novel by the author of Love and Longing in Bombay offers a surreal, panoramic tour through modern Indian and American histo...more
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avg 3.82
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
Read in January, 2002
recommends it for:
everyone
A young man returns to India after going to college in Los Angeles. While tangled in a web of identity issues, the young man shoots a monkey that had stolen his levis ( symbolism anyone?). This is a big no-no in their neck of the woods and the young man's family rushes to save the monkey.
While nursing the monkey back to health, it becomes clear that the shooting had flipped a switch in the monkey that allows him to remember his past life as a poet. The monkey proceeds to climb up ...more
While nursing the monkey back to health, it becomes clear that the shooting had flipped a switch in the monkey that allows him to remember his past life as a poet. The monkey proceeds to climb up ...more
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This book holds a special place in my heart. My husband brought this to book on our first date...when ever I see it or re-read it I think of that night.
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Read in January, 2009
Red Earth and Pouring Rain is a whirlwind of a book, and a heavy whirlwind at that. The book itself is weighty, and its contents are jammed full of an overwhelming amount of characters.
I had trouble remembering who did what, what the effect was, and how things influenced each other later. So to me, it seemed in parts like one random thing happening after another.
I really enjoyed the first third or so of the book, and then I think things all started to jumble together....more
I had trouble remembering who did what, what the effect was, and how things influenced each other later. So to me, it seemed in parts like one random thing happening after another.
I really enjoyed the first third or so of the book, and then I think things all started to jumble together....more
Read in July, 2009
This book is an endeavor. Written largely as a story-within-a-story, Red Earth and Pouring Rain relates the tales of two story-tellers - one, an Indian poet reincarnated in the form of a red monkey (whose human consciousness emerges after an accident), and the other, a newly-returned student sent to the United States for university. The two stories leapfrog back and forth, with each being told a chapter at a time. They tell the coming of age of two vastly different characters in vastly differ...more
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Read in June, 2008
recommends it for:
readers
I really enjoyed this book.
When i first picked up the book i was disappointed because i didn't feel as if i was in the mood for a long read (at this point in my summer).
However, once i began reading Chandra's work i became enthralled.
The first thing that is unusual is the inter-weaving of so many plot lines. The main story plot begins in the present day and revolves around an Indian boy and his adventures during his senior year in U of C Pomona.
However, it quickly unravel...more
When i first picked up the book i was disappointed because i didn't feel as if i was in the mood for a long read (at this point in my summer).
However, once i began reading Chandra's work i became enthralled.
The first thing that is unusual is the inter-weaving of so many plot lines. The main story plot begins in the present day and revolves around an Indian boy and his adventures during his senior year in U of C Pomona.
However, it quickly unravel...more
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Read in January, 2002
recommends it for:
absolutely anyone
THE GIST:
This is a threaded and layered story. The narrator's tier involves a young Indian man coming home to his parents' house from college in America. After a series of events, multiple characters begin telling stories. You'll have to read to find out why, but I'll just say that one of the characters is a century-old warrior-poet in the body of a monkey. No, it's not a silly book; how this comes about relates to Hindu beliefs.
The book deals primarily with themes of famil...more
This is a threaded and layered story. The narrator's tier involves a young Indian man coming home to his parents' house from college in America. After a series of events, multiple characters begin telling stories. You'll have to read to find out why, but I'll just say that one of the characters is a century-old warrior-poet in the body of a monkey. No, it's not a silly book; how this comes about relates to Hindu beliefs.
The book deals primarily with themes of famil...more
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Read in March, 2008
This book is epic in scope, a story within a story, within a story sort of construction. The basic premise is that Sanjay, re-incarnated as a typewriting monkey, needs to spend two hours every day entertaining an ever-growing crowd of listeners with the story of his life, lest he be taken by Yama, god of death. He is helped in this endeavor mostly by Abhay, home from college, Abhay's parents, and a young neighbor girl.
So, knowing that the main character is a monkey who can type, the...more
So, knowing that the main character is a monkey who can type, the...more
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recommends it for:
people who have time to read it all in one sitting
It seems strange or maybe a little general/stereotypical for me to say that I usually love Indian literature, as all Indian literature is not the same. However, there are certain characteristics that I use in that term such as subject matter, style, history, etc. This book has a lot of those elements but is so scattered that it's hard to really understand all that the author is trying to accomplish. It took me 4 different attempts to actually finish this book and when it finally happened I was d...more
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12/01/08
Cotleen
added it
Another one of my absolute favorite books. Vikram Chandra is one of those brilliant authors who can weave a tale of completely unrelated stories into one fascinating culmination. It is highly imaginative and riveting. It examines both American and Indian culture through a unique spectrum of wit, drama, love, passion... too good to pass up.
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Abhay, a college student in the U.S. but home on break in India, shoots a scavenging monkey, only to find, as the creature is dying, that the animal is the reincarnation of a passionate warrior-poet named Sanjay. A deal is struck with the gods: the monkey may live if he entertains others with tales of all of his previous lives. Accordingly, a kaleidoscopic epic unfolds of the history and mythology of India. What is the meaning of life? Why are we sidetracked by ephemeral pleasures? Can we ...more
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Read in May, 2008
This book is epic. I like that about it. It's huge and mythic and speaks to enormous sweeping themes that don't often show up in the books I read. I loved the typing monkey especially. I'm still thinking about some of the questions the story raised for me.
There are a few sections that I just couldn't stay with - these sort of ancestral swashbuckling war stories at the beginning felt as though they'd never end - but for the most part, wading through those less compelling sections were tota...more
There are a few sections that I just couldn't stay with - these sort of ancestral swashbuckling war stories at the beginning felt as though they'd never end - but for the most part, wading through those less compelling sections were tota...more
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It's hard to keep Rushdie out of mind while spinning through this 1001 Arabian Nights - modeled multilayered narrative. Chandra deftly weaves in and out of an assortment of story tellers including a monkey-nee-early colonial Indian poet, a contemporary road tripping college student, and the sublayered tales of ancient warriors, self conscious kindergarteners, a yammering set of Hindu deities, and on and on. It takes a while to find your footing, but once the layout begins to fall into place, t...more
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Read in September, 2008
recommended to Kristin by:
Cynthia Brantley
This book had a lot of great stories to tell, and an interesting way of telling them. The oscillation between ancient history and current events made both seem raw and powerful. My one critique is that sometimes the author spends so much time in one world that picking up where you left off in the other is difficult, especially if it takes you a week to read a book, like me. It's not that either of the parts is forgettable, but the exquisitely detailed and emotional stories deserve a little mo...more
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12/23/08
Mike
marked it as to-read
going back to reread this. Sacred Games, Chandra's latest, was on my faves list for 2007
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Read in December, 2008
I recommend this book for everyone. I don't think I can give it a great review though becasue this seems to be one of those books that affects every reader in a different way. Chandra is able to write about some of the most exotic places and times yet still remind you of your own life. The book is divided between modern and ancient times and I found some of the ancient times a little drawn out but there is a lot more going on in the past than the present in this book so that is probably the r...more
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11/27/08
fbuser594092942
marked it as to-read
I loved Sacred Games...so I can't wait for this one...
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Read in March, 2008
This book contains several smaller stories within the frame story about a monkey who was a poet/warrior in a previous life. The common thread in all the stories seems to be the search for identity by Indians during the fall of the Mughals and rise to power of the British, and by modern Indians and NRIs. I enjoyed it for the most part but wasn't super thrilled by it, and thus am having a hard time pinpointing exactly what I think about it. One criticism is that I think some of the characters w...more
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03/11/09
Amanda
marked it as to-read
Giving up on this one for now...the stories embedded within stories embedded within stories - there's too much going on here.
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05/21/09
Lynne Addams
is currently reading it
It is really really good so far
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quotes from this book
"'And so I began to read,' Sorkar said. 'And at first the complete works were like a jungle, the language was quicksand. Metaphors turned beneath my feet and became biting snakes, similes fled from my grasp like frightened deer, taking all meaning with them. All was alien, and amidst the hanging, entangling creepers of this foreign grammar, all sound became a cacophany. I feared for myself, for my health and sanity, but then I thought of my purpose, of where I was and who I was, of pain and I pressed on.'"
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