Vikram Seth

Novelist

1952-06-20

Books by Vikram Seth

A Suitable Boy
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From Heaven Lake
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An equal music
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Quotes by Vikram Seth

Wherever his faltering mind,unsteadily wanders,he should restrain itand bring it under self-controlKrishna, the mind is faltering,violent, strong, and stubborn; I find it as difficultto hold as the wind.
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How rarely these few years, as work keeps up aloof,Or fares, or one thing or another,How we had days to spend under our parents' roof;Myself, my sister, and my brother.All five of us will die; to reckon from the pastThis flesh and blood is unforgiving.What's hard is that just one of us will be the lastTo bear it all and go on living.
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Well, what do you think? Avanti?Avanti, cries everyone, and, after a few quick re-tunings of our instruments, and re-initialisings of our hearts, we enter the slow theme-and-variations movement.How good it is to pay this quintet, to play it, not to work at it - to play for our own joy, with no need to convey anything to anyone outside our ring of recreation, with no expectation of a future stage, of the too-immediate sop of applause. The quintet exists without us yet cannot exist without us. It sings to us, we sing into it, and somehow, through these little black and white insects clustering along five thin lines, the man who deafly transfigured what he so many years earlier had hearingly composed speaks into us across land and water and ten generations, and fills us here with sadness, here with amazed delight.
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But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they're bad they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they're good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of Middlemarch.
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To steel yourself against mangoes showed a degree of iciness that was almost inhuman.
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All over India, all over the world, as the sun or the shadow of darkness moves from east to west, the call to prayer moves with it, and people kneel down in a wave to pray to God. Five waves each day - one for each namaaz - ripple across the globe from longitude to longitude. The component elements change direction, like iron filings near a magnet - towards the house of God in Mecca.
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God save us from people who mean well.
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Well, what do you think? Avanti?Avanti, cries everyone, and, after a few quick re-tunings of our instruments, and re-initialisings of our hearts, we enter the slow theme-and-variations movement.How good it is to pay this quintet, to play it, not to work at it - to play for our own joy, with no need to convey anything to anyone outside our ring of recreation, with no expectation of a future stage, of the too-immediate sop of applause. The quintet exists without us yet cannot exist without us. It sings to us, we sing into it, and somehow, through these little black and white insects clustering along five thin lines, the man who deafly transfigured what he so many years earlier had hearingly composed speaks into us across land and water and ten generations, and fills us here with sadness, here with amazed delight.
Read quote
But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they're bad they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they're good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of Middlemarch.
Read quote
To steel yourself against mangoes showed a degree of iciness that was almost inhuman.
Read quote
All over India, all over the world, as the sun or the shadow of darkness moves from east to west, the call to prayer moves with it, and people kneel down in a wave to pray to God. Five waves each day - one for each namaaz - ripple across the globe from longitude to longitude. The component elements change direction, like iron filings near a magnet - towards the house of God in Mecca.
Read quote
God save us from people who mean well.
Read quote
How rarely these few years, as work keeps up aloof,Or fares, or one thing or another,How we had days to spend under our parents' roof;Myself, my sister, and my brother.All five of us will die; to reckon from the pastThis flesh and blood is unforgiving.What's hard is that just one of us will be the lastTo bear it all and go on living.
Read quote
Wherever his faltering mind,unsteadily wanders,he should restrain itand bring it under self-controlKrishna, the mind is faltering,violent, strong, and stubborn; I find it as difficultto hold as the wind.
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I know from an editor's point of view or a publisher's point of view it's easier to slot me into a particular niche. But I know that I'd be bored unless I wrote a book that in some senses was a challenge.
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You get your inspiration - suggestions - wherever you have to, even from your mother.
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In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I've remained an Indian.
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It is exciting to write about the present once one gets beyond the trivia of the moment. As a time to live in, as a time to think about, the present is intriguing.
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When I realised that I had feelings for men as well as women, at first I was worried and frightened, and there was a certain amount of 'Who am I? Am I a criminal?' and so on. It took me a long time to come to terms with myself. Those were painful years - painful then and painful to look back on.
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