SUCH A LONG JOURNEY

Mistry, Rohinton

ISBN 10: 0679402586 / ISBN 13: 9780679402589

Published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, NY, U.S.A., 1991

About this Item

SUCH A LONG JOURNEY is the 1992 Winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize: Best Book. It is Bombay in 1971, the year India went to war over what was to become Bangladesh. A hard-working bank clerk, Gustad Noble is a devoted family man who gradually sees his modest life unravelling. His young daughter falls ill; his promising son defies his father?s ambitions for him. He is the one reasonable voice amidst the ongoing dramas of his neighbours. One day, he receives a letter from an old friend, asking him to help in what at first seems like an heroic mission. But he soon finds himself unwittingly drawn into a dangerous network of deception. Compassionate, and rich in details of character and place, this unforgettable novel charts the journey of a moral heart in a turbulent world of change. By the author of FAMILY MATTERS and A FINE BALANCE. As new, first edition, first printing, in fine, mylar-protected dust jacket. L24.

Seller Inventory # 0280

Bibliographic Details

• Title: SUCH A LONG JOURNEY
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, NY, U.S.A.
• Publication Date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679402586
• ISBN 13: 9780679402589
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First U.S. Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Modern Literature

About this title

Synopsis

With his personal life unraveling, Gustad Noble, a Bombay bank clerk, agrees to help the Indian intelligence service, and is quickly caught up in a political scandal

Reviews

Mistry, Bombay-born author of Swimming Lessons and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag , serves up an exotic feast with this novel. The year is 1971, and India is ready to pursue a war against Pakistan over the region that will become Bangladesh. This chaotic period is seen through the eyes of one Gustad Noble, a family man and Parsi bank clerk in Bombay. Gustad's fortunes have begun to change for the worse, with disappointments and bad luck sweeping through his previously secure way of life. When an old friend secretly recruits him to assist in a seemingly heroic mission under the aegis of Indira Gandhi's CIA-like operatives, he becomes enmeshed in a series of dangerous events, with tragic results. Mistry's prose displays the lightest of witty touches, and the narrative is often quite funny, particularly when it invites us inside the minds of the knowable, likable, somehow familiar men and women whose activities propel the plot. A writer of enormous range and shrewdness, Mistry delivers no manifesto, but an intelligent portrait of the corrupt aspects of Indira Gandhi's years in power. Throughout his byzantine scenario, he demonstrates empathy for and deep understanding of his characters. His novel evokes Rushdie in its denser, florid moments, and T. Coraghessan Boyle in its more madcap flights.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Set in Bombay in 1971, this novel is both microscopic and macrocosmic in its portrait of the various lives of Gustad Noble--his family life, his work as a bank clerk, and, ultimately, his innocent participation in national intrigue. India's overall decay and corruption is evident everywhere, from the petty behavior of Noble's neighbors and friends to the double-dealing of Indira Gandhi's regime. Yet, at the end, Gustad Noble, with much of his previously placid existence disrupted, resolutely continues on his arduous journey of survival. There is one serious flaw--a much-needed appendix of Hindi expressions used in the story, with English translations--but otherwise this is an unusually superior novel.
- Glenn O. Carey, Eastern Kentucky Univ., Richmond
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.