A Suitable Boy can actually be interpreted as Jane Austen in India. Definitely, no Dickensian mood can be attached to the novel. Perhaps, here again Mr. Perry confused Vikram Seth with Salman Rushdie, and A Suitable Boy with Midnight's Children.
Interestingly, in an 2006 essay in The Times, commemorating the 25th publication of Midnight's Children, the creator of Saleem Sinai had generously thanked the creator of Oliver Twist. Rushdie was grateful to Dickens for his great, rotting, Bombay-like city (i.e. London), and his ability to root his larger-than-life characters and surrealist imagery in a sharply observed, almost hyper-realistic background, out of which the comic and fantastic elements of his work seemed to grow organically, becoming intensification of, and not escapes from, the real world.
Could Mr. Perry be thinking Midnight's Children, and typing A Suitable Boy on his keyboard? A tragedy of errors? An accident?
Both Jane Austen and Charles Dickens were great authors but they wrote about two entirely different worlds. To any book-lover, linking the Jane-Austenish A Suitable Boy to Charles Dickens appears as a crime not to be pardoned. Mr. Alex Perry, and the Time Magazine, must apologize.
Article comments
1 - Suyog
LOL! Your last line had me in splits.
2 - Dave Nalle
What a tragedy that this article in Time was read by the one person who actually knew what was wrong with it.
Dave
3 - Nancy
Give Mr. Perry a break: India is, after all, a small country, and after awhile all these little hick towns start to look alike - you know how it is.
Whoo! That's some pretty embarrassing errors.
4 - Dave Nalle
It's just like not being able to tell the difference between New York and Peoria. I know I can't.
Dave
5 - Ruvy from Jerusalem
The idiots at Time have been distorting stuff out of here for a half century. You think India should be privileged not to be a victim of their stupidity?
6 - Nancy
In any event, I too love Jane Austen, so I'll have to check out this "Suitable Boy".
7 - nugget
picky picky. Abe Lincoln was from Kentucky and Illinois. mark Twain was from anywhere along the Mississippi.
Who gives a crap?
8 - Natalie Bennett
Do try A Suitable Boy Nancy - it is a challenge in terms of its length, but I got so wrapped up in it that I read the whole thing in about three days. Didn't do much else in those three days (including some things I really should have done), but it was worth it.
9 - Mayank 'Austen' Singh
Nancy, please get a copy of 'A Suitable Boy. Now! You love Jane? I can't live without her.
As for Time journalist confusing Bombay with Delhi or Calcutta. These three are completely different planets in India. Bombay pulsuates with the vibrancy of New York City. New Delhi is as dismal as Washington DC. And Calcutta? Well there's no city like Calcutta! Can any journalist confuse NYC with washington DC and hopes to get away with it?
10 - Geeth
I think he certainly mixed it up with Salman Rushdie. Vikram Seth is not even British-Indian!
11 - Snarkattack
I think that's a fair call. I'd be supremely embarrassed to submit a piece like that for publication, and have it pointed out by a reader that there were some major errors in it. In either an amateur or professional publication. Can't professional journalists lose their jobs over things like this?
Yes, I'm genuinely wanting to know.
12 - Natalie Bennett
Extraordinarily rarily Snarkattack. Once you're inside, you're inside, particularly at this level.
13 - Justintime
When I read the sentence in question, I didn't read it the same. It's about WHERE the author was when he wrote the book, not the setting for the novel itself (the highbrow haven in Bombay being a place intellectuals and artists congregate).
14 - Mayank 'Austen'
Justintime,
Even if that's teh interpretation, it is factually incorrect. 'A Suitable Boy' was written by Vikram Seth in his New Delhi home.
15 - MoreValiant
Yea, that's a bad blooper for a senior correspondent like Perry. Think you should write a brief letter to Time. They might even print a correction