Set in the early 1950s, in the first years after Indian independence and partition, the novel follows widowed matriarch Mrs Rupa Mehra as she searches for a suitable husband for her daughter Lata, who is drawn to three very different suitors. Around this central courtship, Vikram Seth weaves the intertwined fortunes of four families across politics, land reform, courtrooms, poetry recitals, and the shoe trade in the fictional city of Brahmpur and beyond. Sprawling in scope, it captures a newly democratic nation finding its footing through the domestic dramas, religious tensions, and everyday compromises of ordinary people.
Books mentioned in A Suitable Boy (20)
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann: “It was Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks, and it was unutterably dull.”
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare: “‘What’s that book?’ ‘Twelfth Night.’ ‘No, the other one—the one with the green and white cover.’”
The Dead by James Joyce: “‘“The Dead”,’ said Dr Narayanan.”
Emma by Jane Austen: “‘What’ll you read on the way?’ ‘Emma.’ ‘Not like our saloons, is it?’”
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare: “he was talking about the play that he had put on for Annual Day the previous year: Julius Caesar—a typical university choice”
Don Juan by George Gordon Byron: “As does Thackeray’s father and one of Dickens’s sons, and the original for Byron’s Don Juan,’ said Amit, with a proper Calcuttan pride.”
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville: “I thought of what happened when Maan decided to play Holi with Moby-Dick.’”
Cymbeline by William Shakespeare: “I read Cymbeline in just that way on the train here; and I never would have otherwise.”
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce: “There is the worse than unreadable Finnegans Wake.”
Howards End by E. M. Forster: “Sandeep Lahiri sat down in the stationmaster’s office and pulled Howards End out of his bag.”
Abol Tabol by Sukumar Ray: “‘Piddles and Cullow—like the Whalephant,’ said Kakoli, referring to her favourite Bengali book, Abol Tabol.”
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: “Came home, read a few pages of The Mayor of Casterbridge and slept early.”
Ideal Marriage by Theodoor Hendrik van de Velde: “She looked at a copy of Van de Velde’s Ideal Marriage in a bookshop on Park Street and, though the contents made her blush, determinedly bought it.”
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens: “It’s like A Tale of Two Cities.’ Amit laughed at this pleasant young fellow’s analogy, but was forced to come to the defence of his own city.”
Rose Aylmer by Walter Savage Landor: ““Rose Aylmer, whom these watchful eyes”.’ ‘Wakeful.”
The Lotos-Eaters by Alfred Tennyson: “Lata could scarcely believe that this was the poet of ‘Maud’ and ‘The Lotos-Eaters’.”
Maud by Alfred Tennyson: “Lata could scarcely believe that this was the poet of ‘Maud’ and ‘The Lotos-Eaters’.”
The Relief of Lucknow by Robert Traill Spence Lowell: “She had, however, never read this particular poem, ‘The Relief of Lucknow’. (Author identified from general knowledge of this well-known Mutiny-era poem; not named in the given text.)”
What Is Mathematics? by Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins: “‘Courant and Robbins—it’s an excellent work.’ ‘Oh?’ said Lata.”