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Solo

3.58 of 5 stars 3.58 · rating details · 568 ratings · 132 reviews

With an imaginative audacity and lyrical brilliance that puts him in the company of David Mitchell and Alexander Hemon, Rana Dasgupta paints a portrait of a century through the story of a hundred-year-old blind Bulgarian man in a first novel that announces the arrival of an exhilarating new voice in fiction.
In the first movement of Solo we meet Ulrich, the son of a railroa...more

Hardcover, 357 pages

Published February 21st 2009 by Harper Collins (first published 2005)

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Apr 30, 2013 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: With an imaginative audacity and lyrical brilliance that puts him in the company of David Mitchell and Alexander Hemon, Rana Dasgupta paints a portrait of a century though the story of a hundred-year-old blind Bulgarian man in a first novel that announces the arrival of an exhilarating new voice in fiction.

In the first movement of Solo we meet Ulrich, the son of a railroad engineer, who has two great passions: the violin and chemistry. Denied the first by hi...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Kunal Sen rated it 5 of 5 stars

‘Solo’ is a novel by Rana Dasgupta that is actually two novels- movement one and movement two, the life and the daydreams, the reality and the illusion, or maybe the illusion and the reality. Somewhere for me, ‘Solo’ combined the lyrical existentialism from the cobbled streets of Kafka's Prague with the detached, disjointed sweep of Tulse Luper’s suitcases.

There are three things that, I think, are striking about it:

1) THE CONCEPT

The first thing has to do with the conception of the novel, its in...more ‘Solo’ is a novel by Rana Dasgupta that is actually two novels- movement one and movement two, the life and the daydreams, the reality and the illusion, or maybe the illusion and the reality. Somewhere for me, ‘Solo’ combined the lyrical existentialism from the cobbled streets of Kafka's Prague with the detached, disjointed sweep of Tulse Luper’s suitcases.

There are three things that, I think, are striking about it:

1) THE CONCEPT

The first thing has to do with the conception of the novel, its intent, not because it should decide why the book is necessarily better or worse because of it, but because it is one of the reasons why I had recommended it for discussion.

I think, it was in the South Asian literature festival, where one remembers Rana saying that he did not believe in the old adage: ‘Write what you know’. He said that he considered that baggage limiting to his imagination. And thus he took on the novel, almost as a personal challenge. He chose Bulgaria simply because it is considered 'banal' and probably one of the least ‘attractive’ European countries and a place that no body would want to write about. He also chose Bulgaria, because he was drawn to its ravaged history and music. That he manages to create an evocative world fraught with characters that resonate and live, simply out of this self-imposed challenged, is a fascinating tale in theory. And while I vehemently disagree with his point of view (I still think the greatest writing comes from inside-out), I have to respect it and also respect that he backed his theory with not arguments, but work.

2) THE NARRATIVE

The second and least important is that it is a monument to ordinariness. Nothing much is ever accomplished by Ulrich, in Bulgaria or anywhere. Often many lives pass his, tangentially touching him but not quite dwelling with him. As a result, the novel’s form (rudderless in essence but labored and structured in execution, wherein it is basically housing two novels) becomes relevant as it allows for the more fanciful reveries of Ulrich to contrast with the humdrum vestiges of his hundred year old life. The novel exemplifies how each life, important or unimportant, is worth telling and chronicling.

3) THE FORM AND THE ESSENCE

And yet, it is not just a novel about celebrating ‘the form’ because all along the cerebral odyssey, there is a residual, yet paradoxically overarching core that retains its ability to disarm the reader, with snippets of unexpected melancholy. Take for example, Ulrich's memories of his mother's smile turning orange in the dawn, a contrast to her 'philharmonic sadness' described earlier on. Suddenly, that smile, in that sentence, that dawn, that one, isolated moment of his mother’s happiness, becomes more affecting and soulful than any sadness that could’ve been depicted, as is.

Throughout the novel, the author’s use of the language is unconventional. He eschews the maudlin in favour of a science-journal like approach to pain, as though the narrative itself is one of Ulrich’s chemistry experiments or lab-rats, bottled in slipstream vignettes and what not. Often, when confronted by a plot-point where normally one would expect to ecnounter an emotional response, Rana primarily works around it, not because his voice is disdainful of showing emotion but it is as though his characters are too affected by it, too emotionally-full to even talk about it viscerally, honestly. And so when Ulrich’s father throws his violin into the fire, Ulrich immediately starts talking about the different colours of the sparks, the copper of the G-string, the varnish and the wood, as the violin burns. The fact that he would never play the violin again, after this incident, is mentioned only hurriedly in other places in the book. This ‘tone’ of the novel is one of its biggest strengths, as though Ulrich is an outsider looking in on his own life, not heuristically, but voyeuristically, from a peephole.

As to reservations and minor irks, one could say that the novel, in part, seems to sound unmistakably like a bunch of loosely-connected vignettes (it does even become an itemised list at times) than a novel but then again, in an exercise of memory and existence, that is probably as good a writing technique as any other.

My rating: 5/5.(less)

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Jan 05, 2011 Jill rated it 3 of 5 stars

Despite the title SOLO, this is a book that focuses on duality: reality versus daydreams, science versus music, communism versus oligarchy, success versus failure. It’s an audacious book, a highly imaginative one, and certainly an enigmatic one.

Given its duality, it’s no surprise that I’m of two minds about it: in many places, I admired SOLO more than I loved it. Characters are often sacrificed to themes, yet often, the themes do become transcendent.

SOLO is divided into two movements. In the fi...more Despite the title SOLO, this is a book that focuses on duality: reality versus daydreams, science versus music, communism versus oligarchy, success versus failure. It’s an audacious book, a highly imaginative one, and certainly an enigmatic one.

Given its duality, it’s no surprise that I’m of two minds about it: in many places, I admired SOLO more than I loved it. Characters are often sacrificed to themes, yet often, the themes do become transcendent.

SOLO is divided into two movements. In the first movement we meet Ulrich, an everyman, a blinded centurion who has lived his life in politically unstable Sofia, Bulgaria. As he combs through his life, his memories are mostly linear: he ruminates about his friend Boris who fell victim to anti-communist reprisals, his mother who was exiled to a labor camp, and his own spotted career as the handpicked factory administrator of an overly ambitious five-year plan. For the most part, he has lived his life on a false note, subjugating his passionate love of music for the pursuit of his chosen work in chemistry.

It is the experimentation of chemistry that causes so much heartache, including his blinding with acid. Ulrich’s real chemistry is with music, not with science. In the second movement, Daydreams, there is a propulsive energy that is missing earlier on as Ulrich births a world of new characters and situations.

His best friend Boris, for example, is transformed from a murdered would-be-musician to a Bulgarian prodigy, discovered by Plastic – an American music producer. The poetic Irakli and his highly ambitious and magnificently beautiful sister Khatuna likely morph from qualities within Ulrich; like him, they survive a rough transition from communism and a hard-drinking mother. The millennial setting and the thrillerish pace are at sharp contrast with the first movement.

The brilliance of the book can be found in the way that Mr. Dasgupta weaves and reinvents characters, motifs, and themes in a subtle way. More than once, I stopped and thought, “This rings a bell”, only to realize that it had appeared in a different form earlier on in the book.

There is definitely political undertones – or overtones – throughout, sometimes used seamlessly and at other times, a little jarringly. Bulgaria under communism in the first movement is contrasted with the imagined exploration of what happens when a nation’s economy is turned over to a wealthy gangsta oligarch; it’s no longer about “the people”, it’s about personal interest only. Both societal models are shown to be wanting.

Yet there is beauty, too, as Ulrich muses, “Life happens in a certain time. But there is a great surplus left over, and where will we stow it but in our dreams?” And a little later: “When I die they will put me under the ground, and I will lie with an eternity of dreamers, breeding visions that will flicker on the surface – and the children of my daydreams will roam free.” Life and daydreams, Mr. Dasgupta suggests, are fluid, one harmoniously leading from the other. And in communicating that thought, he hits the right note. (3.5)
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Feb 29, 2012 Diana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After reading 'Solo' and then taking a step back and reflecting on the book, I was able to appreciate Rana Dasgupta's writing. Dasgupta brings us a story about a man, Ulrich, his life, one of ordinary nature. There is no flash, no great success for Ulrich. He is a man who lived, who lost, who wanted to be someone, to be someone who did something great. But, as he reflects on his life we see that to him, his life fell short, there were points where a different choice could have pushed him to the...more

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Dec 17, 2010 Sve rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: history-lovers, literary experimenters, global citizens, Bulgarians

Shelves: indian, books-about-bulgaria

Rana Dasgupta says in an interview : "I have lived in the US and India for a long time and they are such big countries and so obsessed with themselves and think they are the whole world. I found it interesting to write about a small country."
The book tells a story of a 100-year old Bulgarian. It was published in Bulgarian by "Janet-45" and has a marvellous tranlation.
I am too much connected to this book already to comment extensively, just want to say it is a brave and exciting literary experime...more

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Feb 22, 2012 Allan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: early, reviewer, book

The Chinese saying – or curse – “May you live in interesting times”, appropriately defines the canvas that Rana Dasgupta’s Solo is painted on. The horrors of war, epic corruption and anarchy in early twentieth century Bulgaria, has created a blasted, cursed landscape in this corner of eastern Europe. [return][return]The novel opens with Ulrich, a centenarian who has witnessed his native Bulgaria under the rule of the Tsars, through the Second World War as an ally to Nazi Germany and into the Com...more The Chinese saying – or curse – “May you live in interesting times”, appropriately defines the canvas that Rana Dasgupta’s Solo is painted on. The horrors of war, epic corruption and anarchy in early twentieth century Bulgaria, has created a blasted, cursed landscape in this corner of eastern Europe. [return][return]The novel opens with Ulrich, a centenarian who has witnessed his native Bulgaria under the rule of the Tsars, through the Second World War as an ally to Nazi Germany and into the Communist era when Bulgaria was mined and polluted to provide resources for the Soviet empire. [return][return]Early in his life Ulrich is forced to abandon his dream of becoming a musician when it is forbidden by his father, a railway engineer, who throws his violin in the fire. He goes to Berlin to study chemistry but must abandon his studies and return to Sofia when his family loses everything and the suppression of dissent destroys whatever dreams and ambition he still had.[return][return]The second “movement” of Solo is a narrative crafted from the daydreams Ulrich has fostered during the sad collapse of his life and ambition. When he is left old and blind with nothing, he has imagined a world of impossible ambition and fortune that from the beginning is doomed to collapse. [return][return]He imagines Boris, an extraordinary violinist that has lived alone in an abandoned town with his vegetables and pigs; Khatuna, an impossibly beautiful and ruthless woman who will do anything to leave behind the poverty of her childhood; Irakli, Khatuna’s younger brother, a withdrawn poet who develops an obsessive relationship with Boris. [return][return]Most of this section takes place in post-communist Georgia , controlled by wealthy oligarchs with massive security. Later, Boris is discovered by international music producer ‘Plastic’ Munari and whisked off to fame and fortune in twenty-first century New York, along with Khatuna and Irakli. Ulrich himself appears in these final bittersweet scenes. [return][return]Solo mixes realism and fantasy in a blend that is always compelling and often wonderfully transcendent.(less)

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Mar 22, 2013 Prabhat Saraswat rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Prabhat by: parul panthri

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 08, 2013 Buck Doyle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Seems talent-y and I enjoyed it, yet only three stars? Why? I can’t say.

There’s some beautiful imagery.

The shape of the world changed when Ulrich lost his sight. When he had relied on his eyes, everything was shaped in two great shining cone rays. Without them, he sank into the black continuum of hearing, which passed through doors and walls, and to which even the interior of his own body was not closed.

ME:

But he felt inhibited around her suffering, and he could not bring himself to ask how she

...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Lane Ashfeldt rated it 5 of 5 stars

WITH his debut novel, British-born author Rana Dasgupta threw his cards on the table as if to announce that here was one new writer who refused to play the ethnic fiction game.
Hailed as a kind of Canterbury Tales of its time, Tokyo Cancelled, in which 13 travellers exchanged their stories in the neutral space of an airport waiting room, proved Rana’s ability to leap in and out of a variety of cultural mindsets.
So when his second book, Solo, fades up on an old man who sits alone “in front of beau...more WITH his debut novel, British-born author Rana Dasgupta threw his cards on the table as if to announce that here was one new writer who refused to play the ethnic fiction game.
Hailed as a kind of Canterbury Tales of its time, Tokyo Cancelled, in which 13 travellers exchanged their stories in the neutral space of an airport waiting room, proved Rana’s ability to leap in and out of a variety of cultural mindsets.
So when his second book, Solo, fades up on an old man who sits alone “in front of beauty contests, infomercials, German pornography, travel shows, and other similar kinds of modern wisdom”, the reader may be forgiven for wondering: Where are we now? London? Lagos? Delhi? Tokyo?
But this is not Tokyo, this book is no literary Lost in Translation. Its subject is the strange days we live in now, viewed through the eyes of an aged Bulgarian man.
The book covers a 100-year period from 1905 to 2005, and was appropriately launched at Clerkenwell’s Crown Tavern, where in 1905 Lenin met Stalin. But why did Rana choose Bulgaria as the setting for Solo?
“Bulgaria is a country that has been a kind of laboratory for ideological experiments,” he says.
“It’s had fascism, it’s had communism, it’s had empire – and I wanted to look at the effect it has on an individual’s life when their country is ripped apart and they must to put themselves back together for a new regime.”
From an unquiet room in Sofia the aged Ulrich, whose father was a catalyst for progress, relives the advent of trains and cars and science and plastic, and muses on the disappearance of horses.
He remembers the rise of one kind of music or one kind of dictator, and the fall of another.
Over its 360 pages the novel reveals stories of wars – ideological and physical – and allows the reader to witness the moment when Ulrich’s ambitions as a scientist, and indeed science itself, are sold off to the highest bidder.
By this point, the young Ulrich has travelled to Berlin, a city then at the forefront of technological advance, in order to study science.
“That moment completely fascinates me,” Rana says, “because it was the end, really, of the time when science was part of culture.
“People followed Einstein’s theories and the newspapers explained those theories, and there was this connection between public culture and science. Then [when the Nazis began to persecute Jewish scientists], this scene was completely destroyed. I mean it was an amazing handover of Europe to America.”
Or, as the bewildered Ulrich wonders in the wake of Hiroshima after the burning light of progress has shown its dangerous side: “What happened to those beautiful scientists when they got to America?”
Music and creativity are other key themes in Solo. The book is divided in two self-contained movements in the style of a musical composition, and the second half offers a variation on what went before, looking forward instead of back.
Rana says: “I was very attracted to Bulgaria through its music. The country has an amazing musical tradition. There is a vibrant folk music, but, having been part of the Ottoman Empire, there has also been Turkish, Arabic and Gypsy music. And the story of how the Communist state banned all this other music, banned jazz, and created an enormous silence around music – all this is a very Bulgarian story, and it’s a big part of the story I wanted to tell.”
Early on in the novel Ulrich’s father bans him from learning the violin, and his best friend Boris gives up a promising musical career for politics. But in the second movement, in which Ulrich daydreams about the modern world, he meets a young and different Boris: one who grew up in a forgotten village, untouched by “isms”, for whom music is everything.
Rana’s eyes light up as he speaks of the contemporary resurgence in Bulgarian music of old musical forms, and of more recent popular hybrids. “There’s a form called chalga that mixes Turkish and Arabic sounds with hiphop,” he says. “Middle-class Bulgarians sneer at it because in the 1990s this became the official music of the gangster elite.”
The end of Solo, when its characters are caught up in the 1990s über-capitalism that replaces communism, takes on the strains of chalga’s restless, unstoppable urgency. To this tune, perhaps, Ulrich follows the new Boris to an imagined America, and struggles blindly to make sense of this unknown world.
This is a powerful and exhilarating novel that entices readers to see old stories afresh.
(Review I wrote for Camden New Journal)(less)

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Jun 26, 2012 Ian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Solo, Rana Dasgupta's beautiful and fantastical prize winning novel, addresses themes like thwarted destiny and the ways in which historical events shape individual lives, and looks for inspiration to 20th-century science and the ascendancy of Communism in early 20th-century eastern Europe. Dasgupta's main character is Ulrich, who, blind and 100 years old, is living alone in a shabby apartment in Sofia, Bulgaria. The first half of the novel consists of chronologically ordered recollections spann...more

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Jun 10, 2012 Nick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Review

The story of an ancient Bulgarian man, Ulrich, written by a young English Indian, Solo is an achievement to be sure. The book is more or less divided into two halves, with the first half being reflections of the now blind Ulrich which are more-or-less straightforward, and the second half being a stranger look at Ulrich's past through his dreams and fantasies. The first half is certainly well-written overall, but it is not easy to get into. At points I found it an arduous slog indeed, as so...more

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Mar 01, 2012 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

For the first one hundred or so pages of this novel, I feared I was caught again in what I consider to be one of the fiction workshop formulae: create a character well on in years (in this case approaching one hundred!), put him in a setting quite foreign to the typical reader (in this case Bulgaria!), and then, through a series of flashbacks, explore his life and how it intersected with political developments. Despite this initial reservation, two things kept me reading. First, "Solo" has been...more

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Feb 22, 2011 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bulgaria is not a common locale for English language novels, but the verb "Balkanize" has been disseminated widely, and no longer limited in meaning to just the hostile division of the Balkans. Now, author Rana Dasgupta has given the reader an epic overview of Bulgaria's geopolitical hardships and character, acquainting us with a blemished region often overlooked. The theme that we all go solo, either literally or spiritually, is identified here, in both the Balkanization of a region and of the...more Bulgaria is not a common locale for English language novels, but the verb "Balkanize" has been disseminated widely, and no longer limited in meaning to just the hostile division of the Balkans. Now, author Rana Dasgupta has given the reader an epic overview of Bulgaria's geopolitical hardships and character, acquainting us with a blemished region often overlooked. The theme that we all go solo, either literally or spiritually, is identified here, in both the Balkanization of a region and of the soul.

There is a new type of fiction written by young, talented, inventive authors, called "altermodernism," and Dasgupta is among them. It is a term coined by Nicolas Bourriaud to describe a type of art within today's global context that is a reaction against standardization and commercialism, stressing the experience of wandering in time, space, and mediums. I mention this primarily to warn that this type of fiction is an acquired taste.

Dasgupta examines the life of centenarian Ulrich, a Bulgarian from Sofia with a German name and German wanderlust. The first half, or "movement" of the novel takes us through Ulrich's difficult life. The second half, "Daydreams," is Ulrich's re-imagined life of repressed dreams flowering into a fabricated existence.

Much cross cutting of events and ideas takes place to realize the fullness of the story. Ironically, the first half, Ulrich's actual life, is more dreamily narrated. The dream-life events of part two are more linear, with a concrete storyline occasionally interrupted by temporal shifts. Certain characters from the first half reenter the dream world but are altered to a different relationship with Ulrich.

Ulrich's desire to become a musician was cruelly arrested by his father. Later, he studied chemistry in Berlin until he was forced to return to Sofia and care for his mother. Ulrich's life of mediocrity and tragedy in part one was re-imagined in part two, which takes the reader to Georgian territory and eventually to the U.S., in New York. A Gypsy musician, a quasi-narcissistic mistress of a gangster, and her bohemian poet brother seem initially disconnected to Ulrich. This is where Dasgupta's style of altermodernism comes into play and unites the two disparate halves.

It took me a while to warm up to this book. The author is a skilled craftsman of descriptive language; however, it was initially too muted and cool for me to engage emotionally. There was a riot of images taunting me like a slide show, but the tale was told through a portal of politics and sociology more than felt. Dasgupta's cerebral approach held the essence of the story suspended above me, or from me. It was educating and coldly visceral, rich in its industrial ugliness, and dryly poetical, yet I felt vaguely outside of it. But, in the last 150 pages, I was hooked, and read it in one intense sitting. The narrative was splintery, immediate, and petulant. The author also used various entry and exit points of the first half and juxtaposed them in the latter part of the story to render a measured gravity. I don't want to say any more except that the author's insurrectionist technique is part of the journey and grip of the tale.

"Life seemed nothing more than a series of improbable accidents, and yet everyone had a sense--didn't they?--that there was something else, deeper and prior, to which they had to return."

As you read, you will feel and anticipate that deeper sense of things, dormant but sharp. Stay. The whole is a provocative sum of its parts.

(less)

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Jan 29, 2011 Cameling rated it 4 of 5 stars

What would we like our lives to be like if we had a choice and control in situations? This book is divided into 2 parts. The first covers the life of Ulrich, 100 years old, now blind due to an accident with a jar of acid in his workshop after he retired, as he sits and listens to the world outside his apartment. His memories from his childhood in Bulgaria, his relationship with his parents, his friends through his youth, his passion for chemistry and jazz music in Berlin, and later on his life i...more

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Jul 04, 2009 David Hebblethwaite rated it 5 of 5 stars

Solo is the story of Ulrich, a blind, hundred-year-old Bulgarian man who has little to do with his days but reminisce and daydream. He does during the course of the novel.

By most standards, Ulrich’s life would be considered a failure. Thwarted (by his father) in his early ambitions to become a musician, Ulrich turned instead to chemistry; but abandoned his studies in Berlin and returned to Sofia when his family’s investments failed. He became a bookkeeper and married a pianist, but that relation...more Solo is the story of Ulrich, a blind, hundred-year-old Bulgarian man who has little to do with his days but reminisce and daydream. He does during the course of the novel.

By most standards, Ulrich’s life would be considered a failure. Thwarted (by his father) in his early ambitions to become a musician, Ulrich turned instead to chemistry; but abandoned his studies in Berlin and returned to Sofia when his family’s investments failed. He became a bookkeeper and married a pianist, but that relationship was ultimately doomed; then came the Second World War, and after that, the rule of communism. Regarded with suspicion by the ruling party, Ulrich is nevertheless given a job in charge of operations at a chemical factory, where he works until made to retire. He then does his own experiments at home, until the Party closes down his laboratory. And that, more or less, is the sum of Ulrich’s life.

The second half of Solo consists of an extended daydream of Ulrich, in which he reimagines his friend Boris (whom in reality was executed as a young man in the early 20th century) as a young, successful musician in the present day. Also in the dream are Plastic Munari, the music producer who ‘discovers’ Boris; Khatuna, a Georgian girl who goes up in the world when she gets a job working for a gangster-politician, but flees to New York when he’s shot, and later becomes Plastic’s girlfriend; and Irakli, Khatuna’s wayward poet brother, who becomes dazzled by Boris, though Khatuna hates the musician. There is happiness, of a sort, to be found in the daydream; though it’s not for this post to say which characters find it.

Solo is an exquisite book, one of the best I’ve read all year; but trying to encompass why is quite difficult, because it could go in so many directions — Solo is ‘about’ man different things, so consider this post only a partial treatment. On a stylistic and technical level, the novel is superb. Here, for example, is how Dasgupta describes a change in Ulrich’s mother when her husband dies:

While he was still alive, Elizaveta would say, ‘All he ever does is sit in that chair and look out of the window.’ It infuriated her to see him so inactive. But after he died she never said anything but, ‘That was the chair he loved.’ Or, ‘How he loved sitting in that chair.’ Or, ‘They are spoiling the view your father loved so much.’

The contrast between the novel’s two parts is also well-handled and subtle. It’s not simply that one depicts failure and the other success. It’s that, in life, one of Ulrich’s obsessions caused so much tragedy — chemistry destroyed his marriage, poisoned his country, took his sight; but, in his daydreams, it is Ulrich’s other obsession, music, that brings so much joy. And it’s that Ulrich’s memories, being somewhat hazy and episodic, feel much like daydreams; whilst his daydreams have a structure that make them feel more like reality (come to think of it, isn’t that often the way in our own lives?).

Yet there’s much more to Solo than technique. There’s a political side, too, though it tends to stay in the background (or, more accurately, often has the feel of staying in the background), because Ulrich is rather naïve politically (in retirement, when the police describe his unofficial experiments as ‘dangerous’, Ulrich takes them literally, replying, ‘I wear a gas mask’). Now, admittedly, I don’t know much about the history and politics that the novel’s concerned with, so it may be that my reading is sketchy; but my overriding impression of the politics in Solo is that, whoever’s in power, they’re out largely for themselves, and it makes little difference to Ulrich’s lot.

I’ve heard Rana Dasgupta say that one of Solo’s themes is the ‘Faustian bargain we make with modern life’. Looking at the novel through this lens… well, the twentieth century is not very kind to Ulrich, or to Bulgaria in general; and I’ve already mentioned the fruits of Ulrich’s love of chemistry. The daydream is interesting in this regard, because it’s Ulrich’s attempt to make a better life for his friend Boris, and so he does — but the imagined reality is hardly the best of all possible worlds; there are prices to be paid for the glory. Perhaps Ulrich cannot bring himself to create a world without tragedy; perhaps, Solo suggests, it isn’t really possible (’if we are to feel the thrill of progress and achievement, there have to be sacrifices elsewhere,’ says Ulrich at one point).

Then there is the question Ulrich thinks about at the end of his reminiscing: what does it truly mean to call a life a failure? ‘How can a dog fail its life, or a tree?’ he thinks. ‘A life is just a quantity; and he can no more see failure in it than he can see failure in a pile of earth, or a bucket of water. Failure and success are foreign terms to such blind matter.’ Well, perhaps if Ulrich can imagine a better life for someone else, that can be his success (the way Ulrich thinks and imagines, his daydreams have equal weight to his life). And if Ulrich must fail, at least it will be — in his words — ‘a fantastic failure. A triumphant failure.’

Solo is no failure, but it is triumphant.(less)

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Apr 13, 2009 Shalini rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

Solo

Painting the surreal landscape of love, relationshsips, society, bonds, politics comes naturally to Rana. His imagination creeps slowly and steadily binding the reader's thoughts and taking them on this experience that leaves them at the end of the ride either drained or mesmerised or floating.

Rana is an artist at work, his language flows, "On hot days, the smells become overpowering, and rain comes as a relief, washing everything away. The blind man sits by the window when the rain is hea...more Solo

Painting the surreal landscape of love, relationshsips, society, bonds, politics comes naturally to Rana. His imagination creeps slowly and steadily binding the reader's thoughts and taking them on this experience that leaves them at the end of the ride either drained or mesmerised or floating.

Rana is an artist at work, his language flows, "On hot days, the smells become overpowering, and rain comes as a relief, washing everything away. The blind man sits by the window when the rain is heavy and he can hear the different patters of near and far: the silky spray in the trees, the heavy drumming on plastic water tanks, the hard scatter of roads and pavements, the different metallic pitches of car roofs and drain covers, the baritone trilling of tarpaulin, the sticky overflow of mud, the concentrated gushing of drainpipes ?and, for a moment, the landscape springs forth, and he is reminded of how it is to see."

"He raised his violin and played the things of sixty minutes. The colours, the thought. The uncippled nails, the oval pool of vision. the time, the need, and the sounds that break through from beyond. The book on the fence post. The other person drawing close. The normal emotions, the thing-at-hand, the body's suck and pump.
He did it in a couple of moments, which was another part of the feat"

His language dances with a range of ideas, like a butterfly flirting one moment and suddenly sucking at the flower the next moment drawing out a unique flavour and spilling the atmoshpere with a strange perfume.

where the real ends and where the surreal begins happens so easily that one keeps asking, how will this story end? where will this story take me? I used to feel that with fairy tales. They had overpowering and overwhelming strenghts and great imagination and Rana is most times a fairytale writer.

Solo is like that too. Its a journey that starts with the rich telling of the story of science, Bulgarian history, its society and politics through the dreams and memories of Ulrich -the failed musician turned chemist who somehow could never find his place in the world order.

I loved the first half of the book. the second half made me jerk out of comfort and sit up to keep a watch out for the surreal taking over the real and then it ends in a strange wisdom as mystical as life and its mysteries perhaps?

I thiink the dream that ulrich sees in the second half is pivotal to the story's narrative. I would love to discuss this with Rana and figure out more.

An amazing book but only for those who are willing to shift from the mundane to the strangeness of dreams and the deja vu they bring each time they recur.(less)

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Jun 17, 2011 Theresa rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm having a hard time deciding how I feel about this book. I like the idea of the first half of the story before, but at the same time, I read it very slowly, which is unusual for me. I didn't feel compelled to keep going when I ended a chapter as I usually do with other books. I didn't have trouble putting it down and going back to work. The second half I read much more quickly, the action pulling me along, the pace certainly much quicker than the first half. However, I didn't enjoy the concep...more

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Feb 11, 2013 Tanuj Solanki rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21-century, commonwealth, e-book

A Miserable Pretension

I picked up this novel because of Anis Shivani's glowing recommendation on an article in the American Book Review. Anis Shivani, for those who don't know, is an against-the-grain literary critic and a lit-mag-represented poet and probably some other things, who endeared me some time back with an article bashing the contemporary American short story. That even in that article on short stories his conclusions ran astray and he ended up making a demand for pointless novels a l...more A Miserable Pretension

I picked up this novel because of Anis Shivani's glowing recommendation on an article in the American Book Review. Anis Shivani, for those who don't know, is an against-the-grain literary critic and a lit-mag-represented poet and probably some other things, who endeared me some time back with an article bashing the contemporary American short story. That even in that article on short stories his conclusions ran astray and he ended up making a demand for pointless novels a la Haruki Murakami must have guarded me against the fluidity of his views. Nevertheless, I'd nothing against pointless novels or Murakami, and because Shivani was now recommending Solo as the unparalleled manifestation of a new kind of 21st century novel, a post-ideological one perhaps, the kind that makes him salivate, I decided to dig in, mostly because of curiosity. Of course, the fact that Rana Dasgupta has Indian connections and an Indian name must have pushed me further.

The novel began earnestly, quickly dispensing, in a series of declarative sentences, all that needed to be known about the central character Ulrich. Ulrich is in Bulgaria; he is 100+, which means he has gone through a lot; and we are going to 'remember' his life.

This idea of a man (usually an old man) looking back on a long life ravaged by political movements and personal strife isn't really new. Midnight's Children is about that, though Saleem Sinai protagonist is only 30+ when he gets into his exuberant first person telling. Here Dasgupta chooses a third person voice.

The first error Dasgupta commits is to present the flurry of memories not as a binding narrative in itself, but as a scenopedia of episodic memories, a scenopedia that harks back to the protagonist's current life of decrepitude every now and then. The problem is the evident cleavages of the whole thing. The writing is just not good enough to maintain the hazy memory-stream vision. It is too formulaic, too clear; it is pure telling, and although at times it is laced with sentences of Marquez-like poetry, those moments are few and far between. This and this and this, and that. One feels indifferent to and unaware of Bulgaria's history, nor does one feel the gravity of events in Ulrich's youth, nor does one feel any relevance in being told what is happening in Ulrich's life today. The personal and the historical don't gel like in other great novels; the drama is very often very predictable; the temporal interplay is there just for the sake of it and serves no purpose at all. Now, of course, Shivani will say that that is the point of a pointless novel. To which I would say, Bah!

When communism arrives in post-War Bulgaria, the novel assumes a solemnity that makes the reader believe that it will save itself now. Some interesting events do take place. But Dasgupta, in his immaturity, carries certain characters too long. Ulrich's mother's character is a total burden in these parts, and one wonders why the silly interactions with her had to take so much space. And then one inches toward this conclusion: maybe Dasgupta didn't have enough confidence to give us 100 pages of a truly made-lonely character. The guy probably just doesn't have the talent.

And so part 1 ends not very long after Ulrich's mother dies, and the reader is a bit tired after wading through a hundred years of narration compressed in 180-odd pages with paragraphs that seldom go beyond the complexity of 200 words, and rely so heavily on expository dialogues that it almost makes the reader wonder if this is a novel of 17th century written in the early 18th.

Part 2 begins, and the 'experiment' or 'leap' or 'novelistic gamble' that many have called it begins to unfold. Ulrich's daydreams of contemporary youngsters from Georgia and Bulgaria reveal themselves as stories. It appears, again, for a short while, that the novel will redeem itself, but it doesn't. The writing is even worse than in the first part. The connections with Ulrich's real life seem forced at most points. And the entire project of an old man reviving himself through daydreams of youngsters becomes a total farce. A farce that is unintended, and hence a supreme failure. Dasgupta gives us nothing to even think of him as a writer to look forward to. Pages after pages pass by with no substantial kick to the already bland narrative, no linguistic delight, no technical innovation, no decent imagery -- nothing! The novel hurtles along to end itself, repeatedly invoking tropes of sex, crime, drugs, machismo, music, music industry, poetry, for the sole reason to be understood as a grave novel. As if just that forced gravity would make it good. The characters are hurriedly sketched, there are very few moments of any poignancy. The novel doesn't unfold, it collapses unto itself, and while critics have called Dasgupta an imaginative writer, I would like to say that his imagination fails miserably. In fact imagination is so absent from this work...it is only the effects of imagination that is attempted here.

Solo is literary dregs. It hides behind its obvious blurb-happy effects, a total failure of talent, and a total devaluation of the rigour that goes into a wonderful novel. It's criticism across the world has tended to be favorable, and that is shocking because it is not very difficult to see how bad it is. Its reception makes one a pessimist.

About its post 20th century new novel credentials

Solo is decidedly anti-ideological, placing a value to even individual failures that are well earned. Its poetic flourish of calling the living the daydreams of the dead is fresh. Its aside on the value of dreams, of life being bigger than what is lived, are also refreshing in some ways. In other words, when it sticks to what it wants to say, it is good. And perhaps some of that messaging is required. I think an equitable diminishing of both communism and capitalsim, as is evinced here, is a good thing. But alas, there is too much gibberish packed in, too much 'desire to be a complex work of art'. Its credentials to be the new novel are seriously damaged by how it has come out to be. Someone else will write a better Solo.(less)

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Mar 07, 2012 Milena rated it 3 of 5 stars

Странна книга, от тези, които можеше със същия успех и да не бъдат написани. С изненада прочетох, че определят стила на Дасгупта като магически реализъм и го сравняват с Маркес. Действително, книгата му нарежда много образи като мозайка, без да си поставя за цел да ги завърши или да ги откроява кой знае колко ярко, което като структура донякъде наподобява Маркес.
Ако не бяха двете части на книгата, с така умело вплетени една в друга дребни детайли и образи, макар и наречени с други имена, книгат...more

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Aug 23, 2011 Thea rated it 3 of 5 stars

Началото ми хареса - може би заради проявената заинтересованост към България и внимателното изследване на новата ни история (пък и си имам огромна слабост към началото на нашия ХХ век, към Стара София и прочие). Много скоро обаче - всичко ми дойде някак насилено. Отново като в "Токио:отменен" - повече думи, подреждане на изречения и т.н., отколкото в крайна сметка някаква развръзка. Дасгупта има страхотен стил - типично модерен, обаче май съм станала твърде консервативна и трупането на страници...more

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Jan 24, 2012 Saurabh Sharma rated it 3 of 5 stars

'Solo' is a wonderfully written novel by Rana Dasgupta. The novel is engrossing and enchanting, thanks to the compact writing style and the mix of elements of tragedy and hope. The story is replete with pain and loss, but, at the same time it is also a manifestation of how there's no success or greatness without loss and sacrifice. That behind every great man there are many who have failed, yet if it were not for the success of that one man/woman, the loss of others would be futile.

Solo has no p...more

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Apr 07, 2010 Darryl rated it 4 of 5 stars

Solo was selected by readers of the Guardian's Books page as the inaugural winner of the paper's "Not the Booker" prize, for the best book that was not nominated for this year's Booker Prize. This captivating novel is divided into two distinct and minimally related parts, or movements. In the first movement, 'Dream', we are introduced to Ulrich as he approaches his 100th birthday in his home town of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. He has no heirs and is nearly penniless, and he despairs that his l...more Solo was selected by readers of the Guardian's Books page as the inaugural winner of the paper's "Not the Booker" prize, for the best book that was not nominated for this year's Booker Prize. This captivating novel is divided into two distinct and minimally related parts, or movements. In the first movement, 'Dream', we are introduced to Ulrich as he approaches his 100th birthday in his home town of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. He has no heirs and is nearly penniless, and he despairs that his life's work has been meaningless. Ulrich reviews his life from early youth, and uncovers the multiple external disappointments and personal failures that characterized his early life. His father throws his beloved violin in the fire, destroying his dream of becoming a classical musician, and he is forced to give up his university studies in Berlin before obtaining his degree, and to say goodbye to the love of his life. He returns to mid-1920s Sofia, where brutal government suppression of dissidents leads to personal tragedy. The country is devastated by World War II and its aftermath, as the communist regime strips Ulrich and his mother of dignity and freedom. He is able to use his chemistry background to eke out a meager living, but unscrupulous apparatchiks thwart and destroy his best efforts. He is given a pittance of a pension, and only the grudging generosity of his neighbors prevents him from homelessness.

The second movement, 'Daydreams', is initially set in post-communist Bulgaria and Georgia at the turn of the century, and features three young people eager to make their mark: Khatuna, a beautiful and ruthless woman who uses powerful men and her own considerable wit and skill to climb out of poverty; her brother Irakli, a sensitive and troubled poet; Boris, a farm boy and talented violinist; and 'Plastic' Munari, a popular music producer in the US whose discovery of Boris leads to a meteoric rise that threatens to engulf and destroy all of them in a post-9/11 America that is both welcoming and fearful of eastern European culture. Toward the end of this movement Ulrich makes several appearances, which provide a linkage to the first movement as this symphonic novel closes.

This novel manages to cover a lot of territory for its relatively short length of just over 350 pages, with rich portrayals of its main and secondary characters. The differences between the first and second movements are quite striking, and it took me quite awhile to get used to the flow of the second half. Once I did, the novel regained its hold on me. This would have been a worthy nominee for the Booker Prize, and it would have made my shortlist had it been selected.(less)

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Jan 16, 2012 Parikhit rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: indian-authors

Can dreams and reality ever be combined to create a rich work of literature? Absolutely, for Rana Dasgupta does that and beautiful is the amalgamation. 'Solo' is a masterpiece, in my opinion. The effect can be delusional as it becomes hard to distinguish between dreams and reality. But the book isn't just a cryptic take on merging existence with hallucination; the book is uncannily identifiable.

Equally retrospective and introspective, Ulrich narrates his hundred year life-all that was and could...more Can dreams and reality ever be combined to create a rich work of literature? Absolutely, for Rana Dasgupta does that and beautiful is the amalgamation. 'Solo' is a masterpiece, in my opinion. The effect can be delusional as it becomes hard to distinguish between dreams and reality. But the book isn't just a cryptic take on merging existence with hallucination; the book is uncannily identifiable.

Equally retrospective and introspective, Ulrich narrates his hundred year life-all that was and could have been. Born in Bulgaria and destined to never leave the country Ulrich reflects back upon his ‘unsuccessful’ and ‘rudderless’ life. But is there truly a definition for what separates a successful life from one without any hint of success? 'Solo' is the biography of an ordinary person under extraordinary circumstances. Ulrich’s life is much like the Bulgarian state of affairs-crumbling and dwindling happiness. His family is reduced to a piteous condition in war-torn Bulgaria, he lets go his passion for music and chemistry, his wife and son abandon him, and he is, over decades, reduced to a blind man. That is the first part. In the second part, Ulrich’s daydreams are portrayed; they seem independent stories but are soon threaded together as indispensable elements of the same story. The dreams seem so vivid and real that reality feels dreamy in the second part. His dreams catapult Ulrich to the valley of success if success were to be defined by the standards we know of. Ulrich isn't the poster of achievement or failure; he represents us, our dreams and reality.

Rana Dasgupta is a wizard of strange and beautiful description. He abruptly closes those moments of impending rush of emotions but creates a void for the reader to fill. Ulrich’s changing relationship with his mother was what touched me the most and so did the reappearance of Ulrich’s love. Albert Einstein is mentioned in the book and strangely makes his presence felt throughout-appalling, shocking yet truthful.

‘Solo’ would be one of the best books I’ve read recently. It has been days with the closure of this book yet Ulrich refuses to disappear from my thoughts.
(less)

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Nov 29, 2011 Zoom rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This is another of those books that I'd give 3.5 stars if I could.

Some of the things I liked about it included the character development, the lyrical language, and the unusual combination of subjects, including science, music and poetry. I also liked that it was set in Bulgaria.

However, I got to the end thinking I should re-read it because I was confused. I took too long to read it - nearly a month - and I think I forgot critical things from the beginning that would have helped me understand t...more

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Aug 13, 2010 Charlotte rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Solo (2009)
Winner of the 2010 Commonwealth Writers' Prize

Ulrich, a blind man of a 100, wanders back through his life and ponders on the meaning of it all. He really has achieved nothing – he abandoned his music and failed as a scientist, as a husband and father, but he has lived through an entire century of Bulgarian history – the Empire, war, Fascism, Communism, gangster-run Capitalism – all the way through the 20th century to globalization.

Solo is divided into two parts. The first is dedicated...more

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Mar 20, 2011 Kathleen Guler rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction, read-in-2011

I picked this book to read after finding a review in the Historical Novel Society's Review magazine that intrigued me. Divided into two sections, SOLO is the life of Ulrich, an elderly blind Bulgarian man approaching his 100th year. The first half illustrates his long life, moving back and forth seamlessly between his youth and his later years. As he nears death, he begins to lose touch with reality, which leads to the second half where he daydreams what life might have been for himself, the chi...more

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Jan 30, 2012 Smitha rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: solid

This was an incredible read - quite an unusual one for my tastes, but I enjoyed reading this book and conjecturing about it. This book has a central character, Ulrich, who is a blind old man, maybe well into his nineties when the book starts. In Part 1 of the book he lives alone, is poor and depends upon his kind neighbours for food and other material things. He introspects a lot, thinks a lot, and through his thoughts and actions we come to know of his life starting from his childhood - a comfo...more

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Jun 09, 2011 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-fiction

A: “Melancholy seems appropriate for here.”

Q: What did my long-suffering wife say when I remarked that Rana Dasgupta's novel Solo, set largely in our present home of Sofia, Bulgaria, was kinda melancholy?

I recently saw Dasgupta speak; his talk was titled (if memory serves) “Writing into the Unknown”. In it, he politely took a tire-iron to the habitual exhortation to young writers that they should “write what you know”. Since this seemingly-reasonable advice has resulted in endless reams of unint...more A: “Melancholy seems appropriate for here.”

Q: What did my long-suffering wife say when I remarked that Rana Dasgupta's novel Solo, set largely in our present home of Sofia, Bulgaria, was kinda melancholy?

I recently saw Dasgupta speak; his talk was titled (if memory serves) “Writing into the Unknown”. In it, he politely took a tire-iron to the habitual exhortation to young writers that they should “write what you know”. Since this seemingly-reasonable advice has resulted in endless reams of uninteresting fiction about the personal problems of privileged but unhappy 20-somethings in creative writing programs or just “come down” from Oxbridge, I listened to his talk with sympathy.

Dasgupta said that, many years before, he had read somewhere that there was no reason for anyone to be at all interested in Bulgaria. He knew next to nothing about Bulgaria himself, but some sort of circuit of intellectual cussedness kicked in and he decided to learn. Many hours in libraries and in country are evident, which I mean to be a compliment. He invests an ordinary-appearing life with a great deal of interest and observation. It's admirable that Dasgupta took a principled position about the role of a novelist, and followed through on his position in his work.

However, sometimes it appears as if Dasgupta, after much struggle, ended up with two or more related fragments of novel, and eventually just decided to paste them together and move on. In my fantasy of the book's construction, the author looked at his novel fragments and thought that the better of the incomplete stories, in which an ancient blind man sits in his Sofia apartment and thinks back on his tragic life through the 20th century, was concluding on an overly-depressing note (see melancholy remark above). So he shoved the lesser story of rescue in the face of peril, followed by subsequent success and tragedy, to the end, so the reader wouldn't go away from the book thinking something like “There's a guy who needs to cheer up” or “Booorrrriiinnng!”

Especially, the part set in former Soviet Georgia, and later involving the same characters elsewhere, is a disappointment. Some of the dialog made me laugh out loud, and not in a good way (e.g., p. 272: “Let's not forget it was also the best performance of the Schnittke sonata we've ever heard!”) It also has a bad case of Poet As Tragic Hero Disorder, wherein an unprepossessing Poet is secretly a moral and swashbuckling (but still sensitive) talent, indifferent to public acclaim but possessing a loyal and eccentric following. He seems to have no money or job but, when the plot demands it, is able to produce, on no notice, effective false passports, complete with necessary visas, and a pair of airplane tickets to spirit an endangered young woman (his sister) from the clutches of gangsters to safety. I was willing to believe that Harry Potter could stop colossal forces of evil by pointing a stick and uttering faux-Latin gibberish, but certain things are just beyond the pale. Anyone who has even seen poets and gangsters in their Eastern European habitats would know that, in a situation like this, if the sister did not save them both, they would have ended up a bloody heap on the street. (less)

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Aug 13, 2009 Leon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed

In Dana Dasgupta’s first book Tokyo Cancelled passengers are stranded in Tokyo. Having nothing to do, they tell each other stories. However, they have a tenuous connection to each other, or the passengers: each has his own stand-alone story. This makes the book more a collection of stories than a novel. But in Solo, Dana’s new book, the stories seem just as tenuous, but Solo, in fact, is a proper novel, not an story anthology. The second story begins in the second half, a tale about a runt of a...more In Dana Dasgupta’s first book Tokyo Cancelled passengers are stranded in Tokyo. Having nothing to do, they tell each other stories. However, they have a tenuous connection to each other, or the passengers: each has his own stand-alone story. This makes the book more a collection of stories than a novel. But in Solo, Dana’s new book, the stories seem just as tenuous, but Solo, in fact, is a proper novel, not an story anthology. The second story begins in the second half, a tale about a runt of a son of one strong-man Old Petar.
After a disastrous attempt at slaughtering a huge pig at his uncle the mayor’s party, young Petar wins the heart and hand of beautiful Irina. They have Boris, and one cold night they inhale gas in their sleep. This leaves him to be brought up by his grandmother in a deserted town, with pigs for companions. Then there is Khatuna, an accidental birth of a drunken night of sex in the car after an official dinner.
Unconnected, the lives of all these characters still dovetail ultimately. For the main character Urlich his meeting with them, especially Boris, is all but surreal, near the end of the book.
Another connecting thread throughout is music, or rather, the talent or abilities of the characters. For Ulrich, he finally realises that he has no special talent, when he figures out the meaning of what Einstein said to him when he retrieved his dropped papers: ‘I would be nothing without you.’ Ulrich tells Boris: “It was not success he saw written in my face. He saw, rather, that I would never accomplish anything in my life.”
As a youngster he thinks he would become a musician when he grows up, but his ambitions are curtailed, by a father who once had such ambitions, known to him only after his death. So Ulrich decides to be interested in chemistry. Unfortunately he has to cut short his education, and work as a bookkeeper, and a very good one at that. So much so that later the Communists want him to manage the very factory he worked in.
For Khatuna her talent is for business. She survives her country’s economic disaster by succeeding in persuading people to buy her Malboro cigarettes. Which is how she meets Kakha, a rich gangster, whom she loves and marries. The only other person for whom she cares this much is her brother Irakli, who writes poetry. After Kakha gets gunned down, she has to leave the country with Irakli, for fear of the same reprisal. They meet Boris, later, in New York, where he becomes a huge star. Khatuna has a relationship with Plastic, who manages Boris.
All the characters had good comfortable lives in childhood, but have to struggle to survive in later life. Ulrich’s finances run out, and he nearly starves to death, if not for neighbours, who help pay for his electricity and food. Khatuna uses her intelligence and wit, and her wiles, to survive. Boris survives his young life alone, after his grandmother dies, with only his battered violin.
Dana has written a gripping novel, with interconnecting stories, his forte, that tell of extraordinary people struggling against the odds of economic and personal disasters. Your heart is wrenched, to read their stories.(less)

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Mar 23, 2011 rebellyell666 rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Inhalt:

Wir erfahren von Ulrich, der ein ziemlich normales, beinahe schon trostloses Leben führt. Dann erfahren wir plötzlich von Boris, einem anderen als Ulrichs toter bester Freund. Und von Chatuna und Katcha. Und von Irakli und Plastic, die eigentlich zusammen genannt gar nicht passen. Wir erfahren von Politikwechsel und Albert Einstein.

Schreib-/Erzählstil:

Was Dasgupta so ziemlich oft fehlte war die Tiefe. Keinerlei Charakter konnte mich reizen, zuletzt dachte ich, ich finde meine Sehnsucht in...more

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About Rana Dasgupta

Rana Dasgupta is a British-Indian writer. He grew up in Cambridge, England and studied at Balliol College, Oxford, the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud in Aix-en-Provence, and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He lives in Delhi, India.

His first novel, Tokyo Cancelled (2005), was an examination of the forces and experiences of globalization. Billed as a modern-day Canterbury Tales, thirteen passenge...more

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The National Short Story Prize (Short Stories)

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Quotes from Solo

“You haven't lost Iraki, you know. I don't know if it helps to say that. I lost a friend once myself, and I know how it goes.
'He'll find his way inside you, and you'll carry him onward. Behind your heartbeat, you'll hear another one, faint and out of step. People will say you are speaking his opinions, or your hair has turned like his.
'There are no more facts about him, that part is over. Now is the time for essential things. You'll see visions of him wherever you go. You'll see his eyes so moist, his intentions so blinding, you'll think he is more alive than you. You will look around and wonder if it was you who died.
'Gradually you'll grow older than him, and love him as your son.
'In the future, you'll live astride the line separating life from death. You'll become experienced in the wisdom of grief. You won't wait until people die to grieve for them. You'll give them their grief while they are still alive, for then judgement falls away, and there remains only the miracle of being.' ” — 10 people liked it

“He was like the other half of myself,' says Boris...Ulrich says, 'You haven't lost {him}, you know. I don't know if it helps to say that. I lost a friend once myself, and I know how it goes.
'He'll find his way inside you, and you'll carry him onward. Behind your heartbeat, you'll hear another one, faint and out of step. People will say you are speaking his opinons, or your hair has turned like his.
'There are no more facts about him -- that part is over. Now is the time for essential things...Gradually you'll grow older than him, and love him as your son.
'You'll live astride the line that separates life from death. You'll become experienced in the wisdom of grief. You won't wait until people die to grieve for them; you'll give them their grief while they are still alive, for then judgment falls away, and there remains only the miracle of being.” — 5 people liked it

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