The Serpent and the Rope

Rao, Raja

ISBN 10: 0879512202 / ISBN 13: 9780879512200

Published by Overlook Books, 1986

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Serpent and the Rope
• Publisher: Overlook Books
• Publication Date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0879512202
• ISBN 13: 9780879512200
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

Studying abroad after World War II, Ramaswamy, a Brahmin from Mysore, India, falls in love with Madeleine, a young French woman

Reviews

This new edition of a book first published in 1960 and out of print for two decades, is likely to prove an insurmountable challenge to the general reader. Teeming wtih arcane legends, philosophical dialogues, songs and poetry, studded with a host of characters and a quantity of exotic locales, the novel seems a paradigm of India itselfas vast, diffuse and enigmatic as Western perception would have it. Its various parts are loosely bound together by a thin narrative thread describing the marriage of Rama, a young Brahmin doing graduate work in France, to Madeleine, an ethereal French college teacher, some six years his senior. In her eagerness to attain Eastern wisdom, Madeleine first casts her husband in the role of guru. Later, as her "saintliness" (or madness) progresses, she transcends the need for human companionship, leaving Rama free to pursue his own search for self-awarenessa quest that consistently leaves the reader uninvolved. This "sad and uneven chronicle of a life" is rendered without the kind of dramatic focus necessary to bridge the gulf between the protagonist's sensibility and ours.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.