" There is no escape from loneliness and separation....." I told myself often. "Wife, child, brothers,parents,friends.....We come together only to go apart again.It is one continuous movement.They move away from us as we move away from them. The law of life cant be avoided. The law comes into operation the movement we detach ourselves from our mothers womb.All struggle and misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false..........................No sense in battling against it..."
An exact excerpt from the novel The English teacher... A simple everyday story of a man in late twenties or say early thirties of a middle class man hailing from a small town (Mysore as it is R K Narayan work) during 1950's.The fact is, the novel has so appealed me that it has compelled me to write the blog after a very long time.. So here I am writing it in the middle of night without thinking or caring that I have to report to work tomorrow and have a lot on my platter... In between I have read few other books but I don't know why I have not had the wish nor the heart to write.. I guess as I was having some emotional turmoil during these months may be the reason for not writing or it may be plain letharginess... Still reading this somehow has evoked me to write. about it...
I usually never connect much to a novel having a male protagonist....This is one of the exceptions I guess.. An ordinary story told extraordinarily... The way he has captured the essence of everyday going ons changes the very meaning of human humdrum that one has to read it and will definitely fall in love with the book... For example, the paragraph cited above is one of the few such beautiful ones that is scattered about the end of the novel...The paragraph is anything but simple yet simple... If one reads the paragraph one would feel it is a sad and desolate tale but it is not...The musing in the paragraph is of the male protagonist and it is during his most melancholic period but the tale ends with a optimistic note... ''We stood at a window, gazing on a slender, red streak over the eastern rim of the earth. a cool breeze lapped our faces. The boundaries of our personalities suddenly dissolved. It was a moment of rare, immutable joy- a moment for which one feels grateful to Life and Death."
reading this somehow has made me realize that loneliness is the only truth but the time we spend in lonliness depends on the lifetime we spend with others at various walks of life..A bad analogy but I guess the gist can be made out...
The review present at the back of the novel gives away the story but the novel has to be read to be savored and here story is just a backdrop.. The writing is the plot...The fact is aptly highlighted by the observation of Elizabeth Bowen and Spectator and does justice to the author...
An exact excerpt from the novel The English teacher... A simple everyday story of a man in late twenties or say early thirties of a middle class man hailing from a small town (Mysore as it is R K Narayan work) during 1950's.The fact is, the novel has so appealed me that it has compelled me to write the blog after a very long time.. So here I am writing it in the middle of night without thinking or caring that I have to report to work tomorrow and have a lot on my platter... In between I have read few other books but I don't know why I have not had the wish nor the heart to write.. I guess as I was having some emotional turmoil during these months may be the reason for not writing or it may be plain letharginess... Still reading this somehow has evoked me to write. about it...
I usually never connect much to a novel having a male protagonist....This is one of the exceptions I guess.. An ordinary story told extraordinarily... The way he has captured the essence of everyday going ons changes the very meaning of human humdrum that one has to read it and will definitely fall in love with the book... For example, the paragraph cited above is one of the few such beautiful ones that is scattered about the end of the novel...The paragraph is anything but simple yet simple... If one reads the paragraph one would feel it is a sad and desolate tale but it is not...The musing in the paragraph is of the male protagonist and it is during his most melancholic period but the tale ends with a optimistic note... ''We stood at a window, gazing on a slender, red streak over the eastern rim of the earth. a cool breeze lapped our faces. The boundaries of our personalities suddenly dissolved. It was a moment of rare, immutable joy- a moment for which one feels grateful to Life and Death."
reading this somehow has made me realize that loneliness is the only truth but the time we spend in lonliness depends on the lifetime we spend with others at various walks of life..A bad analogy but I guess the gist can be made out...
The review present at the back of the novel gives away the story but the novel has to be read to be savored and here story is just a backdrop.. The writing is the plot...The fact is aptly highlighted by the observation of Elizabeth Bowen and Spectator and does justice to the author...
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