What do you think?
Rate this book
The Golden Gate
One of the most highly regarded novels of 1986, Vikram Seth's story in verse made him a literary household name in both the United States and India.
John Brown, a successful yuppie living in 1980s San Francisco meets a romantic interest in Liz, after placing a personal ad in the newspaper. From this interaction, John meets a variety of characters, each with their own values and ideas of "self-actualization." However, Liz begins to fall in love with John's best friend, and John realizes his journey of self-discovery has only just begun.
John Brown, a successful yuppie living in 1980s San Francisco meets a romantic interest in Liz, after placing a personal ad in the newspaper. From this interaction, John meets a variety of characters, each with their own values and ideas of "self-actualization." However, Liz begins to fall in love with John's best friend, and John realizes his journey of self-discovery has only just begun.
307 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
About the author
Vikram Seth
68 books1,610 followersVikram Seth is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist.
During the course of his doctorate studies at Stanford, he did his field work in China and translated Hindi and Chinese poetry into English. He returned to Delhi via Xinjiang and Tibet which led to a travel narrative From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet (1983) which won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.
The Golden Gate: A Novel in Verse (1986) was his first novel describing the experiences of a group of friends who live in California. A Suitable Boy (1993), an epic of Indian life set in the 1950s, got him the WH Smith Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize.
His poetry includes The Humble Administrator's Garden (1985) and All You Who Sleep Tonight (1990). His Beastly Tales from Here and There (1992) is children's book consisting of ten stories in verse about animals.
In 2005, he published Two Lives, a family memoir written at the suggestion of his mother, which focuses on the lives of his great-uncle (Shanti Behari Seth) and German-Jewish great aunt (Henny Caro) who met in Berlin in the early 1930s while Shanti was a student there and with whom Seth stayed extensively on going to England at age 17 for school. As with From Heaven Lake, Two Lives contains much autobiography.
An unusually forthcoming writer whose published material is replete with un- or thinly-disguised details as to the personal lives of himself and his intimates related in a highly engaging narrative voice, Seth has said that he is somewhat perplexed that his readers often in consequence presume to an unwelcome degree of personal familiarity with him.
During the course of his doctorate studies at Stanford, he did his field work in China and translated Hindi and Chinese poetry into English. He returned to Delhi via Xinjiang and Tibet which led to a travel narrative From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet (1983) which won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.
The Golden Gate: A Novel in Verse (1986) was his first novel describing the experiences of a group of friends who live in California. A Suitable Boy (1993), an epic of Indian life set in the 1950s, got him the WH Smith Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize.
His poetry includes The Humble Administrator's Garden (1985) and All You Who Sleep Tonight (1990). His Beastly Tales from Here and There (1992) is children's book consisting of ten stories in verse about animals.
In 2005, he published Two Lives, a family memoir written at the suggestion of his mother, which focuses on the lives of his great-uncle (Shanti Behari Seth) and German-Jewish great aunt (Henny Caro) who met in Berlin in the early 1930s while Shanti was a student there and with whom Seth stayed extensively on going to England at age 17 for school. As with From Heaven Lake, Two Lives contains much autobiography.
An unusually forthcoming writer whose published material is replete with un- or thinly-disguised details as to the personal lives of himself and his intimates related in a highly engaging narrative voice, Seth has said that he is somewhat perplexed that his readers often in consequence presume to an unwelcome degree of personal familiarity with him.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 493 reviews
July 3, 2009
Completely unique book, as far as I know the only major verse novel written in English during the last 100 years. The life and loves of a bunch of 80s yuppies in Silicon Valley, told in Petrarchan sonnets. It should be a catastrophe, but in fact it's a brilliant success - funny, romantic, tragic, witty, you name it.
"To make a start more swift than weighty
Hail Muse. Dear Reader, once upon
A time, say, circa 1980,
There lived a man. His name was John..."
_____________________________________
So I was telling Bram yesterday that, as far as I was concerned, the real translation of Eugene Onegin into English was The Golden Gate. It was just a theory I made up on the spur of the moment; I know The Golden Gate very well, I read Pushkin once, and it was clear there were some commonalities. I love The Golden Gate, and translations of Pushkin have always left me cold, particularly the Nabokov one.
This afternoon, I was standing in the line at Cambridge train station, when I noticed that the person behind me was a friend who's a Professor of Russian Literature. I said I was sure she had an opinion on Nabokov's translation of Pushkin. She wasn't that keen on it; she said it was incredibly accurate, and the commentary was "brilliant", but it still left her feeling disappointed. Then, without any prompting whatsoever from me, she went on to recommend reading Vikram Seth's book, which she said was virtually a transposition to American English and 80s California. Same number of chapters, close correspondences between people and motifs, many explicit references.
Well! It's the closest I've ever got to the scene in Annie Hall, where Woody Allen suddenly produces Marshall McLuhan to support his argument. What are the odds against that happening?
"To make a start more swift than weighty
Hail Muse. Dear Reader, once upon
A time, say, circa 1980,
There lived a man. His name was John..."
_____________________________________
So I was telling Bram yesterday that, as far as I was concerned, the real translation of Eugene Onegin into English was The Golden Gate. It was just a theory I made up on the spur of the moment; I know The Golden Gate very well, I read Pushkin once, and it was clear there were some commonalities. I love The Golden Gate, and translations of Pushkin have always left me cold, particularly the Nabokov one.
This afternoon, I was standing in the line at Cambridge train station, when I noticed that the person behind me was a friend who's a Professor of Russian Literature. I said I was sure she had an opinion on Nabokov's translation of Pushkin. She wasn't that keen on it; she said it was incredibly accurate, and the commentary was "brilliant", but it still left her feeling disappointed. Then, without any prompting whatsoever from me, she went on to recommend reading Vikram Seth's book, which she said was virtually a transposition to American English and 80s California. Same number of chapters, close correspondences between people and motifs, many explicit references.
Well! It's the closest I've ever got to the scene in Annie Hall, where Woody Allen suddenly produces Marshall McLuhan to support his argument. What are the odds against that happening?
July 5, 2021
3 October 2013
I'm finished! Now to write some sonnets
For a review I hope you'll like.
No mean feat, so give me time on it--
It's not like riding on a bike!
Perhaps I'll post something by Sunday.
(Which means you'll have to wait 'til Monday
Or Tuesday instead, or later--
Call me King Procrastinator!)
And if you think this plan improper,
You have my sad regrets, so choose
Instead to read other reviews.
My muse, although I tried to stop her,
Demanded this. I must appease!
Now, back to that review I teased...
September 2014
My muse looks bored; I've not impress'd her.
Oh, shit! How did a year go by?
These half-done verses won't int'rest her!
Should I go on? I can't see why...
For I don't know how she can be wooed;
It's been far too long since I reviewed.
("Dare I disturb the universe?"
Asked Eliot in better verse.)
Then--"Hey, Miriam, your help, I plead!
I swear to finish this review--
October 10th is when it’s due--
Or you can assign me books to read.
The worst you know!" And with that treat
(Or threat) in place, here is, complete: [1]
5 October 2014
THE GOLDEN GATE: A REVIEW IN VERSE
(With apologies to the man
Who wrote the book. Please, sir, do not purse
Your lips so! Yours is better than
My sad attempt, and much bigger, too...
No, not that--I don't mean--okay, you
Probably dominate there as well...
No need to show--no need to tell.
I meant your many sonnets, whereas
My paltry handful--shut up!--looks
Like a weak joke next to your book.
"Imitation...flattery," that jazz...
But I digress. Sorry, Vikram.
Now, where were we? Oh, yes: *Ahem*)
1.
Good Readers, I have such a hard-on...
Oh, sorry, was that TMI?
How crude of me. I beg your pardon,
But won't you let me explain why?
See, the man who wrote that book of weight
A Suitable Boy, Mr. V. Seth,[2]
First wrote this one, called The Golden
Gate, in which he is beholden
By a certain rhyme scheme, self-imposed,
(That is, a-B-a-B-c-c-
D-D-e-F-F-e-G-G)
To write in sonnets instead of prose!
A verse novel! Impressive stuff.
And now you know what has me chuffed.
2.
"A verse novel." What could have been said
In a sentence or two just took
Fourteen lines of (awkward) verse instead.
But that's what Seth did in his book--
For three hundred pages, and more than
Six hundred stanzas! Salute that man!
I did. (If you know what I mean--
But I should strive to keep this clean,
Lest some user lets a freak "FLAG!" fly...
And I guess I'd better drop it
Before they scold: "You're off-topic!"
AMAZON SEES ALL!--wave and say hi!
Police reviews? Oh, they'll try t'...
Readers, go! RELEASE THE HYDRA!)
3.
...If that last sonnet seems outdated,
My bad; I cannot tell a lie:
I wrote it, then procrastinated,
As weeks; months; then a year went by,
And here we are. But there you have it:
Procrastination is my habit.
(Please bear with me--I'll use that word
Oft 'n' awkwardly here; absurd,
I know, it's too polysyllabic...)
And since then I've reviewed little
(I my books, Nero his fiddle),
But the thing that cuts me to the quick--
Twelve months these paltry verses took!
It's time to talk about the book.
4.
But first, a better explanation,
In case Verse 1 is still unclear:
--No, not my (wink) "standing ovation"
(Which probably did not endear
Me to you...but I digress)--the verse
Seth writes in, and which I write in worse,
Is Onegin[3] in form, so named
After that book Pushkin is famed
For, Eugene O-- (Which I've not read yet--
Seth’s called louder). Check the Wiki
Page for more, because this sickly
Verse o' mine is all I fear you'll get.
Don't look at me so gloomily!
Perhaps you'd like a summary?[4]
5.
"To make a start more swift than weighty,
Hail Muse. Dear Reader, once upon
A time, say, circa 1980,
There lived a man. His name was John,"[5]
Our book begins. Our John is only
Twenty-six, fit, well-employed. Lonely,
(A thrown Frisbee makes him heart-sick--
For me, 'twas reading Moby-Dick)
He seeks some kind advice from Janet
(A friend and ex), who swift supplies
The sage suggestion, "Advertise!"
In spite of his command to "Can it!",
She posts in secret, vets replies,
Sends him duds, 'til at last he tries
6.
A last-ditch date with Elizabeth
Dorati, lovely legal drone
With a love-life equally bereft.
They meet; they match; they make sweet moan.
--And since he agrees it's sickening
And not conducive to quickening
In certain organs (the heart!), Seth
Kindly skips over each petite-
Mort[6] they die, to hie us south, to sad
And gloomy Phil (old friend of John),
A single dad to Paul, his son.
His job was lifeless; his marriage bad:
His wife left him and went back east,
He left his job to work for peace.
7.
Then, at a party John and Liz throw,
Phil meets her younger brother, Ed.
They chat a little, until--hello!--
Phil takes him home, and then to bed.
But Ed's less closeted than cloistered
And can’t take that world for his oyster.
Unmoving faith, unstopping love--
What do these forces have to prove?
But keep one or both? Ed doesn’t dare.
John and Liz may have lovers' pains--
Like John’s great war with Charlemagne--
But can their small squabbles quite compare
To a love triangle this odd,
With Ed torn between Phil and God?
8.
Okay, it's not that devoid of hope.
Nor pure melodrama! Trust me.
And don't dismiss this as 'Yuppie Soap
Opera,' all white and sudsy.
But 'round the Liz/John, Phil/Ed bubbles
Drift flotsam, jetsam, worries, troubles:
A grumpy cat, an agèd mom,
A protest march against The Bomb:
"No to Nukes!" they cry, and "Save the earth!"
So, though Seth's tale in verse might look
Puny next to his larger book,
It packs in punch what it lacks in girth.
Why not let him work his magic?
Warning, though: there is a tragic--
9.
I'll stop here so it isn't spoiled--
No pitchfork'd mob shall have my head!
And anyway, I think I've toiled
Enough on this review you read.
Truth is, I hope only to succeed
In making this the next book you read!
Now: while Goodreads votes aren't scary,
I’m beginning to feel wary
Of the attention this might earn me.
I may have had my fun with this,
But I would still be quite remiss
If I don't put my foot down firmly:
I don't care if the "likes" rush in—
I’m not doing this for Pushkin.[7]
10.
One last thing before I say finis:
If I've offended you, my friends,
Do I, I wonder, have it in me
(That's what she said!) to make amends?
The first lines I wrote for this review
(My appeal to Seth; Verse 1; Verse 2)
Are much cruder than the others.
Although, if I had my druthers,
They’d be tongue (or something else) in cheek
As well. But since those verses lack
That bawdiness, fear of attack
Leads me to say, since I'm feeling meek:
If I lost your admiration...
Sorry for the cock fixation.
---
Endnotes
[1] And look, I finished with five days left!
[2] Did you know his name sounds like "Sate?"
(Till just last week that said "book of heft"--
I should have rhymed with Golden Gate.)
[3] And I wracked my brain o’er "Onegin,"
'Til Seth whispered "Pssst! Sounds like Reagan!"
(Good thing I di'n't try t' rhyme it...)
[4] I know, I know, that rhyme was shit!
[5] Just quote whole verses? Oh sure, why not?
[6] When I thought Seth was pronounced "Seth,"
I used the English, "little death."
...But with petite? It was worth a shot...
[7] News from the Bullshit Desk JUST IN!--
Fine--I might do this for Pushkin...
I'm finished! Now to write some sonnets
For a review I hope you'll like.
No mean feat, so give me time on it--
It's not like riding on a bike!
Perhaps I'll post something by Sunday.
(Which means you'll have to wait 'til Monday
Or Tuesday instead, or later--
Call me King Procrastinator!)
And if you think this plan improper,
You have my sad regrets, so choose
Instead to read other reviews.
My muse, although I tried to stop her,
Demanded this. I must appease!
Now, back to that review I teased...
September 2014
My muse looks bored; I've not impress'd her.
Oh, shit! How did a year go by?
These half-done verses won't int'rest her!
Should I go on? I can't see why...
For I don't know how she can be wooed;
It's been far too long since I reviewed.
("Dare I disturb the universe?"
Asked Eliot in better verse.)
Then--"Hey, Miriam, your help, I plead!
I swear to finish this review--
October 10th is when it’s due--
Or you can assign me books to read.
The worst you know!" And with that treat
(Or threat) in place, here is, complete: [1]
5 October 2014
THE GOLDEN GATE: A REVIEW IN VERSE
(With apologies to the man
Who wrote the book. Please, sir, do not purse
Your lips so! Yours is better than
My sad attempt, and much bigger, too...
No, not that--I don't mean--okay, you
Probably dominate there as well...
No need to show--no need to tell.
I meant your many sonnets, whereas
My paltry handful--shut up!--looks
Like a weak joke next to your book.
"Imitation...flattery," that jazz...
But I digress. Sorry, Vikram.
Now, where were we? Oh, yes: *Ahem*)
1.
Good Readers, I have such a hard-on...
Oh, sorry, was that TMI?
How crude of me. I beg your pardon,
But won't you let me explain why?
See, the man who wrote that book of weight
A Suitable Boy, Mr. V. Seth,[2]
First wrote this one, called The Golden
Gate, in which he is beholden
By a certain rhyme scheme, self-imposed,
(That is, a-B-a-B-c-c-
D-D-e-F-F-e-G-G)
To write in sonnets instead of prose!
A verse novel! Impressive stuff.
And now you know what has me chuffed.
2.
"A verse novel." What could have been said
In a sentence or two just took
Fourteen lines of (awkward) verse instead.
But that's what Seth did in his book--
For three hundred pages, and more than
Six hundred stanzas! Salute that man!
I did. (If you know what I mean--
But I should strive to keep this clean,
Lest some user lets a freak "FLAG!" fly...
And I guess I'd better drop it
Before they scold: "You're off-topic!"
AMAZON SEES ALL!--wave and say hi!
Police reviews? Oh, they'll try t'...
Readers, go! RELEASE THE HYDRA!)
3.
...If that last sonnet seems outdated,
My bad; I cannot tell a lie:
I wrote it, then procrastinated,
As weeks; months; then a year went by,
And here we are. But there you have it:
Procrastination is my habit.
(Please bear with me--I'll use that word
Oft 'n' awkwardly here; absurd,
I know, it's too polysyllabic...)
And since then I've reviewed little
(I my books, Nero his fiddle),
But the thing that cuts me to the quick--
Twelve months these paltry verses took!
It's time to talk about the book.
4.
But first, a better explanation,
In case Verse 1 is still unclear:
--No, not my (wink) "standing ovation"
(Which probably did not endear
Me to you...but I digress)--the verse
Seth writes in, and which I write in worse,
Is Onegin[3] in form, so named
After that book Pushkin is famed
For, Eugene O-- (Which I've not read yet--
Seth’s called louder). Check the Wiki
Page for more, because this sickly
Verse o' mine is all I fear you'll get.
Don't look at me so gloomily!
Perhaps you'd like a summary?[4]
5.
"To make a start more swift than weighty,
Hail Muse. Dear Reader, once upon
A time, say, circa 1980,
There lived a man. His name was John,"[5]
Our book begins. Our John is only
Twenty-six, fit, well-employed. Lonely,
(A thrown Frisbee makes him heart-sick--
For me, 'twas reading Moby-Dick)
He seeks some kind advice from Janet
(A friend and ex), who swift supplies
The sage suggestion, "Advertise!"
In spite of his command to "Can it!",
She posts in secret, vets replies,
Sends him duds, 'til at last he tries
6.
A last-ditch date with Elizabeth
Dorati, lovely legal drone
With a love-life equally bereft.
They meet; they match; they make sweet moan.
--And since he agrees it's sickening
And not conducive to quickening
In certain organs (the heart!), Seth
Kindly skips over each petite-
Mort[6] they die, to hie us south, to sad
And gloomy Phil (old friend of John),
A single dad to Paul, his son.
His job was lifeless; his marriage bad:
His wife left him and went back east,
He left his job to work for peace.
7.
Then, at a party John and Liz throw,
Phil meets her younger brother, Ed.
They chat a little, until--hello!--
Phil takes him home, and then to bed.
But Ed's less closeted than cloistered
And can’t take that world for his oyster.
Unmoving faith, unstopping love--
What do these forces have to prove?
But keep one or both? Ed doesn’t dare.
John and Liz may have lovers' pains--
Like John’s great war with Charlemagne--
But can their small squabbles quite compare
To a love triangle this odd,
With Ed torn between Phil and God?
8.
Okay, it's not that devoid of hope.
Nor pure melodrama! Trust me.
And don't dismiss this as 'Yuppie Soap
Opera,' all white and sudsy.
But 'round the Liz/John, Phil/Ed bubbles
Drift flotsam, jetsam, worries, troubles:
A grumpy cat, an agèd mom,
A protest march against The Bomb:
"No to Nukes!" they cry, and "Save the earth!"
So, though Seth's tale in verse might look
Puny next to his larger book,
It packs in punch what it lacks in girth.
Why not let him work his magic?
Warning, though: there is a tragic--
9.
I'll stop here so it isn't spoiled--
No pitchfork'd mob shall have my head!
And anyway, I think I've toiled
Enough on this review you read.
Truth is, I hope only to succeed
In making this the next book you read!
Now: while Goodreads votes aren't scary,
I’m beginning to feel wary
Of the attention this might earn me.
I may have had my fun with this,
But I would still be quite remiss
If I don't put my foot down firmly:
I don't care if the "likes" rush in—
I’m not doing this for Pushkin.[7]
10.
One last thing before I say finis:
If I've offended you, my friends,
Do I, I wonder, have it in me
(That's what she said!) to make amends?
The first lines I wrote for this review
(My appeal to Seth; Verse 1; Verse 2)
Are much cruder than the others.
Although, if I had my druthers,
They’d be tongue (or something else) in cheek
As well. But since those verses lack
That bawdiness, fear of attack
Leads me to say, since I'm feeling meek:
If I lost your admiration...
Sorry for the cock fixation.
---
Endnotes
[1] And look, I finished with five days left!
[2] Did you know his name sounds like "Sate?"
(Till just last week that said "book of heft"--
I should have rhymed with Golden Gate.)
[3] And I wracked my brain o’er "Onegin,"
'Til Seth whispered "Pssst! Sounds like Reagan!"
(Good thing I di'n't try t' rhyme it...)
[4] I know, I know, that rhyme was shit!
[5] Just quote whole verses? Oh sure, why not?
[6] When I thought Seth was pronounced "Seth,"
I used the English, "little death."
...But with petite? It was worth a shot...
[7] News from the Bullshit Desk JUST IN!--
Fine--I might do this for Pushkin...
February 26, 2014
This book seemed to be the natural follow on from my recent amazing couplet experience with Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock. Why you may wonder? Well for the simple reason The Golden Gate is a twentieth century novel with a unique difference in that it has been written in verse, not with couplets but with sonnets in such a way as to be an uplifting experience, be it poignant, humorous, bitter-sweet, nostalgic, tragic…You name it; every conceivable emotion has been magnificently portrayed by Seth. You can browse through any page and I challenge you, as the reader, not to be as enthralled with this book as I have been and continue to do so.
The plot is nothing particularly special in itself, apart from the “nuclear abyss” thrown in and three cats which are definitely worth reading about. How a cat can cause problems between a couple is soon to be seen in all of its magnificence.
Set in the 1980s, this book follows the lives of a group of yuppies in San Francisco. Basically it revolves around the individuals John, Jan (a sculptor), Phil and his son Paul; Ed, Liz and Sue (siblings; with Sue in a minor role).
Out of all the relationships here, the one that really moved me was that between Paul and Ed. And another splendid aspect of this book is that you never know how things are going to turn out. In no way could I have guessed the ending.
It’s the poetic structure that tantalized me and the overall effect is spectacular. These sonnets are so well written and I cannot fault any of them. They continue to linger in my memory and here are four of them that I particularly liked:
The two cats, Cuff and Link:
1.16
Sweet Siamese of rare refulgence
With chocolate ears and limbs of tow,
Jan gives them love, food, and indulgence
The cats take this for granted, show
Scant deference to their human betters;
In splendour Jan can ill afford,
In silken bed, on sumptuous board
They fatten. Though, when out of favor,
The L and C on their beds are
Interpreted “Louise” and “Catarrh,”
Jan relishes the warmth and savor
The deeds of Cuff and Link confer,
The love they deign to yield to her.
4.50
Over large cups of coffee, steaming
And fragrant, Ed says, “Phil last night
I almost thought that I was dreaming.
But now – I know that it wasn’t right.
I have to trust my faith’s decisions,
Not batten on my own volitions.
The Bible says, if a man lie
With a man, he must surely die.
It’s in Leviticus, chapter 20,
Verse 13 – which means it’s as true
For me, a Christian, as for you.”
Phil laughs: “That old book, Ed, holds plenty
Of rules that may have made sense once
-Take shellfish– but you’d be a dunce…
And as for the third cat, Charlemagne:
6.24
When John’s invective grows too torrid
‘”I’ll cut them off myself”, et al.),
Liz exclaims, “John, don’t be so horrid.”
“Well, ship him off to Senegal
Or somewhere – Liz, you’d better do it –
Or – mark my words – that cat will rue it.”
“Oh darling, don’t be so annoyed.”
“What should I be then? Overjoyed?”
“Of course not, dear. I’m very sorry.
Let’s change the sheets. He’s twelve years old.
He really has a heart of gold.”
“I’ll bet!” “Well, dear, try not to worry.
As for that other thing, that would,
At his age, do more harm than good.”
13.20
Or late at night – when after turning
The lights out, he’s in bed alone,
He hears her voice, and waves of yearning
Drench his taut body to the bone,
And a sick turmoil of desire
Stirs through him with a craving fire
For her, her hand to touch his hair,
Her indrawn breath, and everywhere
The unique musk of excitation
Her body breathed when they made love.
Each night, like dreams, strange figments of
The nights recur, prefiguration
Of dreams themselves. One night he dreamed
He stood by the seashore. It seemed…
I’m really surprised that this is the first novel of Seth. I wonder what his other books are like. I must pursue that.
This book was indeed a serendipitous find thanks to a GRs friend, Fionnuala, who said:
If you like stories told in rhyme, Vikram Seth has a more contemporary one: “The Golden Gate”
This work is unusual and I love it. It also made me read Shakespeare’s sonnets again. Wonderful to say the least. Now back to this wondrous and magical work. Do try it. You may find that you love it as I did! In fact I’m sure you will. This is one of those ultimate reading experiences. When I read the last page, I must confess that I felt a lump in my throat. Yes, I do indeed wax lyrical here and can you blame me?
The plot is nothing particularly special in itself, apart from the “nuclear abyss” thrown in and three cats which are definitely worth reading about. How a cat can cause problems between a couple is soon to be seen in all of its magnificence.
Set in the 1980s, this book follows the lives of a group of yuppies in San Francisco. Basically it revolves around the individuals John, Jan (a sculptor), Phil and his son Paul; Ed, Liz and Sue (siblings; with Sue in a minor role).
Out of all the relationships here, the one that really moved me was that between Paul and Ed. And another splendid aspect of this book is that you never know how things are going to turn out. In no way could I have guessed the ending.
It’s the poetic structure that tantalized me and the overall effect is spectacular. These sonnets are so well written and I cannot fault any of them. They continue to linger in my memory and here are four of them that I particularly liked:
The two cats, Cuff and Link:
1.16
Sweet Siamese of rare refulgence
With chocolate ears and limbs of tow,
Jan gives them love, food, and indulgence
The cats take this for granted, show
Scant deference to their human betters;
In splendour Jan can ill afford,
In silken bed, on sumptuous board
They fatten. Though, when out of favor,
The L and C on their beds are
Interpreted “Louise” and “Catarrh,”
Jan relishes the warmth and savor
The deeds of Cuff and Link confer,
The love they deign to yield to her.
4.50
Over large cups of coffee, steaming
And fragrant, Ed says, “Phil last night
I almost thought that I was dreaming.
But now – I know that it wasn’t right.
I have to trust my faith’s decisions,
Not batten on my own volitions.
The Bible says, if a man lie
With a man, he must surely die.
It’s in Leviticus, chapter 20,
Verse 13 – which means it’s as true
For me, a Christian, as for you.”
Phil laughs: “That old book, Ed, holds plenty
Of rules that may have made sense once
-Take shellfish– but you’d be a dunce…
And as for the third cat, Charlemagne:
6.24
When John’s invective grows too torrid
‘”I’ll cut them off myself”, et al.),
Liz exclaims, “John, don’t be so horrid.”
“Well, ship him off to Senegal
Or somewhere – Liz, you’d better do it –
Or – mark my words – that cat will rue it.”
“Oh darling, don’t be so annoyed.”
“What should I be then? Overjoyed?”
“Of course not, dear. I’m very sorry.
Let’s change the sheets. He’s twelve years old.
He really has a heart of gold.”
“I’ll bet!” “Well, dear, try not to worry.
As for that other thing, that would,
At his age, do more harm than good.”
13.20
Or late at night – when after turning
The lights out, he’s in bed alone,
He hears her voice, and waves of yearning
Drench his taut body to the bone,
And a sick turmoil of desire
Stirs through him with a craving fire
For her, her hand to touch his hair,
Her indrawn breath, and everywhere
The unique musk of excitation
Her body breathed when they made love.
Each night, like dreams, strange figments of
The nights recur, prefiguration
Of dreams themselves. One night he dreamed
He stood by the seashore. It seemed…
I’m really surprised that this is the first novel of Seth. I wonder what his other books are like. I must pursue that.
This book was indeed a serendipitous find thanks to a GRs friend, Fionnuala, who said:
If you like stories told in rhyme, Vikram Seth has a more contemporary one: “The Golden Gate”
This work is unusual and I love it. It also made me read Shakespeare’s sonnets again. Wonderful to say the least. Now back to this wondrous and magical work. Do try it. You may find that you love it as I did! In fact I’m sure you will. This is one of those ultimate reading experiences. When I read the last page, I must confess that I felt a lump in my throat. Yes, I do indeed wax lyrical here and can you blame me?
March 14, 2024
Writing a decent novel is hard enough, and writing a good poem perhaps even harder, so combining the two seems on the face of it to be an unwelcome challenge to set yourself if you're a writer. Most of the more popular verse novels (Robin Robertson's The Long Take, Claudia Rankine's Citizen) rely mainly on free verse, which, let's be honest, is easier. Not all do, though. My favourite example of the genre is Anthony Burgess's Byrne, which is written in Ariostan ottava rima, and Vikram Seth is doing something similarly daunting here, working with Onegin sonnets.
And he commits to the form more completely than most: the dedication, table of contents, and ‘About the Author’ sections are in verse, too, which has to make even the most sceptical reader smile. It's a strange form to choose for someone writing about 1980s America (Seth speaks of using ‘The dusty bread molds of Onegin / In the brave bakery of Reagan’), but when it works, the results can be very affecting:
Problems, however, arise whenever we move away from lush description to the other functions that novels typically need to grapple with: dialogue, interaction, conflict and the basics of plot progression. Conversations become a kind of choppy stichomythia with no stage directions – the rhymes in such passages jangle rather than harmonise, and it often sounds more like music-hall patter than great poetry:
Seth also relies a bit too heavily on aposiopesis – just cutting phrases short in order to make the rhyme or rhythm work. Once or twice would be fine, but when you start to notice it on every page it feels like cheating. The following stanza, which has four or five examples, will serve to illustrate what I mean:
I think behind all these quibbles is a general worry that while the form of The Golden Gate is never less than interesting, its content is never more than dull. The main characters are a group of NorCal yuppies who all have bland, metre-friendly monosyllables for names (John, Ed, Sue, Liz, Paul, Chuck, Phil, Jan), and you do struggle sometimes to remember who's who – particularly since what they're doing (sleeping with each other and breaking up) is hardly the stuff of epic. As I write that I realise that most epics are full of nothing but people sleeping with each other and breaking up again, but you know what I mean. It's hard to shake off a sense that we don't really care much about the lives of these self-absorbed, gormless San Franciscans, despite Seth's often excellent language.
The language, therefore, ends up constituting the book's main attraction. Seth is always alert to the playful possibilities of what he's writing, and his tetrameters can be long, monosyllabic falling phrases (‘Says John with some heat, “well, Jan, maybe…”’) or as short as a single word (‘Irreconcilability’). Sometimes he throws in a crazy flourish: when some kids are messing around in a room where others are listening to classical music, we get the couplet: ‘Thus the young yahoos coexist / With whoso list to list to Liszt…’ (which is very Anthony Burgess).
Whether such pleasures are enough to carry you through this will depend on your tastes, and your tolerance for middle-class arguments about winemaking, ballet and the tribulations of lonely hearts columns. For me it never really generated much interest – but the ambition here is so fantastic that the will to overlook its problems is very strong.
And he commits to the form more completely than most: the dedication, table of contents, and ‘About the Author’ sections are in verse, too, which has to make even the most sceptical reader smile. It's a strange form to choose for someone writing about 1980s America (Seth speaks of using ‘The dusty bread molds of Onegin / In the brave bakery of Reagan’), but when it works, the results can be very affecting:
How beautiful it is, when waking,
To find one's lover at one's side;
The delicate slow light is breaking
Irresolutely through the wide
Bay windows of their bedroom, falling
On Liz's hair, and John's recalling
How last night she untied it, how
It flowed between his hands; but now
She lies asleep, unswiftly breathing;
Her thoughts are not with him, her dreams
Traverse the solitary streams
Of inward lands, yet her hair, wreathing
The pillow in a mesh of light,
Returns to him the fugitive night.
Problems, however, arise whenever we move away from lush description to the other functions that novels typically need to grapple with: dialogue, interaction, conflict and the basics of plot progression. Conversations become a kind of choppy stichomythia with no stage directions – the rhymes in such passages jangle rather than harmonise, and it often sounds more like music-hall patter than great poetry:
“How are the cats?” “Just fine.” “And you?”
“Great.” “And the sculpture?” “Yes, that too.”
“Your singing group?” “Oh, not too badly.
But I came here to hear your song.
Now sing!” “Jan, I don't know what's wrong.”
Seth also relies a bit too heavily on aposiopesis – just cutting phrases short in order to make the rhyme or rhythm work. Once or twice would be fine, but when you start to notice it on every page it feels like cheating. The following stanza, which has four or five examples, will serve to illustrate what I mean:
“How did it—” “Can you see it clearly?”
“Oh no, it's very faint—but if
You're at this angle…” “So it's nearly…”
“What was it, Phil—a lovers' tiff?”
“I…guess so.” “When?” “Last week.” “Fantastic!
You've gone back to your orgiastic
Pre-Claire routine! Now, play by play,
And man to man, let's hear…” “No way!
It's private.” “Nonsense!” John says, frowning:
“You've grilled me—come on—fair is fair—
Shake off that surreptitious air.
Who did that to you? Quit the clowning!”
“Who do you think?” “I must confess
I can't so much as start to guess…”
I think behind all these quibbles is a general worry that while the form of The Golden Gate is never less than interesting, its content is never more than dull. The main characters are a group of NorCal yuppies who all have bland, metre-friendly monosyllables for names (John, Ed, Sue, Liz, Paul, Chuck, Phil, Jan), and you do struggle sometimes to remember who's who – particularly since what they're doing (sleeping with each other and breaking up) is hardly the stuff of epic. As I write that I realise that most epics are full of nothing but people sleeping with each other and breaking up again, but you know what I mean. It's hard to shake off a sense that we don't really care much about the lives of these self-absorbed, gormless San Franciscans, despite Seth's often excellent language.
The language, therefore, ends up constituting the book's main attraction. Seth is always alert to the playful possibilities of what he's writing, and his tetrameters can be long, monosyllabic falling phrases (‘Says John with some heat, “well, Jan, maybe…”’) or as short as a single word (‘Irreconcilability’). Sometimes he throws in a crazy flourish: when some kids are messing around in a room where others are listening to classical music, we get the couplet: ‘Thus the young yahoos coexist / With whoso list to list to Liszt…’ (which is very Anthony Burgess).
Whether such pleasures are enough to carry you through this will depend on your tastes, and your tolerance for middle-class arguments about winemaking, ballet and the tribulations of lonely hearts columns. For me it never really generated much interest – but the ambition here is so fantastic that the will to overlook its problems is very strong.
February 16, 2011
Here's one of those Goodreads non-reviews in which the author uses a Great Work of Literature as a platform to talk about himself. Ready? Here goes:
When I was a high school student in Palo Alto, I used to go to Printer's Ink Bookstore Cafe on California Ave to visit my friend Gregory, who had a job slinging coffee there.
Blah blah blah, personal anecdote et cetera. The point is: there were many regulars at this place. One of them was Vikram Seth. I believe he describes the coffee bar in one of the sonnets in this book. I think I even watched him write part of The Golden Gate, although I didn't particularly notice or care at the time. Some guy, drinking coffee, writing in a notebook; that describes everybody in the place, myself included. If you were a writer in Palo Alto, where else would you hang out?
I never met him, never even spoke to him. His brother made a pass at a friend of mine, that's the best I can do. I certainly had no idea he was writing this masterpiece, but when it came out I was a senior at Paly High. At the time I was very much enjoying my membership in a little cult of high school literati who met once a week to read stories out loud to one another while enjoying non-alcoholic beverages and jellied scones. We all adored The Golden Gate! The very idea that this amazing young poet had sanctified our home, our region, our era and so much of the culture of that time and place with his astonishingly limber verse ... why, it made us feel even more the center of the universe than we would have already felt as high school intellectuals.
It's funny how eras recede. I read this in the eighties and felt it captured everything around us. I read it again ten years later and it felt truly dated. I flipped through it recently, and I see it as a great history of a great era in a great place. A place that's kind of gone to hell since, IMHO, although San Francisco will always be San Francisco for those who can afford it. My feelings for the Bay Area and my feelings for this book are somewhat at war with one another, but I'll spare you the carnage.
It was considered ultra-bold at the time -- still is, really -- to write a novel in verse. To write verse at all, in fact; much of the poetry world seems to have moved on from rhyme, just as they have from meaning. But this book is poetry and prose at the same time, a thing that nobody seems to want to do, or believe is possible. Or for whatever reason, it seems that the reading public, or at least the bookselling public, is dumbfounded at first by books that span categories. But this is a great book just for widening the idea of what a book can be.
When I was a high school student in Palo Alto, I used to go to Printer's Ink Bookstore Cafe on California Ave to visit my friend Gregory, who had a job slinging coffee there.
Blah blah blah, personal anecdote et cetera. The point is: there were many regulars at this place. One of them was Vikram Seth. I believe he describes the coffee bar in one of the sonnets in this book. I think I even watched him write part of The Golden Gate, although I didn't particularly notice or care at the time. Some guy, drinking coffee, writing in a notebook; that describes everybody in the place, myself included. If you were a writer in Palo Alto, where else would you hang out?
I never met him, never even spoke to him. His brother made a pass at a friend of mine, that's the best I can do. I certainly had no idea he was writing this masterpiece, but when it came out I was a senior at Paly High. At the time I was very much enjoying my membership in a little cult of high school literati who met once a week to read stories out loud to one another while enjoying non-alcoholic beverages and jellied scones. We all adored The Golden Gate! The very idea that this amazing young poet had sanctified our home, our region, our era and so much of the culture of that time and place with his astonishingly limber verse ... why, it made us feel even more the center of the universe than we would have already felt as high school intellectuals.
It's funny how eras recede. I read this in the eighties and felt it captured everything around us. I read it again ten years later and it felt truly dated. I flipped through it recently, and I see it as a great history of a great era in a great place. A place that's kind of gone to hell since, IMHO, although San Francisco will always be San Francisco for those who can afford it. My feelings for the Bay Area and my feelings for this book are somewhat at war with one another, but I'll spare you the carnage.
It was considered ultra-bold at the time -- still is, really -- to write a novel in verse. To write verse at all, in fact; much of the poetry world seems to have moved on from rhyme, just as they have from meaning. But this book is poetry and prose at the same time, a thing that nobody seems to want to do, or believe is possible. Or for whatever reason, it seems that the reading public, or at least the bookselling public, is dumbfounded at first by books that span categories. But this is a great book just for widening the idea of what a book can be.
Read
June 11, 2015Although this novel is written in verse, the reader almost forgets that fact after a while because in all other respects, this is just like any other novel with a well paced plot, varied cast of characters, plenty of dialogue and the usual suspense about who is going to hook up with who plus some wry commentary from the author about the challenges of writing in verse.
May 24, 2010
The main problem with Vikram Seth's exquisitely crafted verse novel about the personal lives of yuppies in the Bay Area of the 1980s is, well, the personal lives of yuppies. They're just not that interesting. Not even the most beautifully turned phrases, the most glowing imagery, can keep over 300 pages of rather shallow individuals and their quotidian concerns from occasionally dragging. In fact, I think Seth did this intentionally, contrasting the the elevation of the poetry with the banality of everyday life. And that was fascinating! But there was kind of a lot of it, and even I, who grew up in San Francisco in the 1980s, sometimes found it a bit too tedious. Especially the middle section, with its repetitive alternation between John and Liz quarreling over the ill-behaved cat, and Ed and Paul fighting about the problem of Ed's religious scruples in their relationship. But Seth usually manages to throw in an especially beautiful line or thought-provoking idea just when the hebetude is getting too heavy to bear. Here are a stanza and a half I particularly loved:
Again tonight the moon advances,
A casual crescent, fine and high,
A sort of innocent passerby
Across the city of Saint Francis,
Across the freeway, red and white,
With last month's curvature and light.
13.4
Patron of your beloved city,
O San Francisco, saint of love,
Co-sufferer in searing pity
Of all our griefs, whom from above
Birds would alight on, singing, feeding
Within your hands--hands pierced and bleeding
With Christ's own signs--who, stigmatized
As dupe and clown, apostrophized
The sun in its white blistering starkness
As brother, and the blistered moon
As sister, and who, blind at noon,
Opened your heart and sang in darkness--
And where it was, sowed light, look down.
Solace the sorrows of your town.
Again tonight the moon advances,
A casual crescent, fine and high,
A sort of innocent passerby
Across the city of Saint Francis,
Across the freeway, red and white,
With last month's curvature and light.
13.4
Patron of your beloved city,
O San Francisco, saint of love,
Co-sufferer in searing pity
Of all our griefs, whom from above
Birds would alight on, singing, feeding
Within your hands--hands pierced and bleeding
With Christ's own signs--who, stigmatized
As dupe and clown, apostrophized
The sun in its white blistering starkness
As brother, and the blistered moon
As sister, and who, blind at noon,
Opened your heart and sang in darkness--
And where it was, sowed light, look down.
Solace the sorrows of your town.
November 29, 2018
I read A Suitable Boy years ago and loved it. Because I did, I then read An Equal Music, which I liked a lot. But knowing Seth's first novel, this one, was in verse, I put it off. If I'd remembered it, after reading its inspiration, Eugene Onegin, I may have read it sooner; but at least the mention of ASB by a non-GR friend got me to take this out of the library.
It took a little while to get into the rhythm, so to speak, but once I did, it was smooth sailing. (I was even dreaming in rhymed sentences last night -- don't ask me what they were, though.) I was drawn in to the lives of the characters, the narrative voice (Vikram himself), the story with its range of emotions; but what I liked the most, I think, was its prevailing tone, which, even with its sometimes serious topics, is just plain fun.
*
Seth wrote this while working toward a PhD in the economic demography of China while at Stanford. I wonder if he ever finished that ...
And according to Wikipedia, he's working on a sequel to ASB called "A Suitable Girl," to be published in 2013. I look forward to that, as I think Seth is brilliant.
It took a little while to get into the rhythm, so to speak, but once I did, it was smooth sailing. (I was even dreaming in rhymed sentences last night -- don't ask me what they were, though.) I was drawn in to the lives of the characters, the narrative voice (Vikram himself), the story with its range of emotions; but what I liked the most, I think, was its prevailing tone, which, even with its sometimes serious topics, is just plain fun.
*
Seth wrote this while working toward a PhD in the economic demography of China while at Stanford. I wonder if he ever finished that ...
And according to Wikipedia, he's working on a sequel to ASB called "A Suitable Girl," to be published in 2013. I look forward to that, as I think Seth is brilliant.
March 17, 2008
I was expecting to enjoy this book, but even so it really knocked my socks off.
Total times I missed my bus stop as a result of this book and had to walk home from Bosworth and Mission: 2.
Total times I have ever missed that bus stop: 3.
That will tell you how involved I got reading this book. Seth is a charming writer. The characters were fully-fleshed-out and interesting to read about, the places were very real (as a Bay Area resident, it was very exciting to see places like the Cafe Trieste showing up--and reading about traffic on 101 while being stuck in traffic on 101 was a great meta-experience).
This is on top of the conceit of the book, an epic poem told in fifteen chapters of approximately 50 sonnets each, all in iambic tetrameter. Even the table of contents and author's biography were in sonnets, and it worked really well. The form managed to encapsulate the time and place in a way it wouldn't have if it were merely a novel about people leading relatively unexciting lives in the bay area in the early 1980s. It was an EPIC POEM about people doing the mundane in the 1980s. Brilliant.
Total times I missed my bus stop as a result of this book and had to walk home from Bosworth and Mission: 2.
Total times I have ever missed that bus stop: 3.
That will tell you how involved I got reading this book. Seth is a charming writer. The characters were fully-fleshed-out and interesting to read about, the places were very real (as a Bay Area resident, it was very exciting to see places like the Cafe Trieste showing up--and reading about traffic on 101 while being stuck in traffic on 101 was a great meta-experience).
This is on top of the conceit of the book, an epic poem told in fifteen chapters of approximately 50 sonnets each, all in iambic tetrameter. Even the table of contents and author's biography were in sonnets, and it worked really well. The form managed to encapsulate the time and place in a way it wouldn't have if it were merely a novel about people leading relatively unexciting lives in the bay area in the early 1980s. It was an EPIC POEM about people doing the mundane in the 1980s. Brilliant.
June 17, 2020
A remarkable achievement. I didn't think anyone could pull off a novel in sonnets, but Vikram Seth has done so with distinction, grace, and a felicity with language that is as smooth and supple as it is enviable. By turns funny, contemplative, romantic and tragic, here's a classic example of a work where its self-imposed constraints only serve to enhance its beauty. Highly recommended.
November 28, 2020
The Golden Rate
“The Book of Disquiet and Infinite Jest,”
I’d reply are my favourite books when pressed.
Countless times on here, I’ve wondered,
what sets, for me, the best books asunder?
Some chess books I have given the distinction,
‘t’was amazing’—you’re just glad to read, be alive
for and award those stelliformed epaulettes, five.
But in these musings I’m focusing on fiction,
objects that contain infinite time and space—
from my past to your future, every moment and place.
Where do I start? I’ve been yearning
to write this for many months, stomach churning,
each time I realised I didn’t have the verses
to explore the essence of these dear universes.
The time has come now, it appears—
due to some changes in circumstance,
gaps may be filled, as well as distance—
when we finally face up to our fears.
So I ask for your patience in reading these stanzas
I dedicate to these extravaganzas.
Let’s start with Pessoa’s beautiful words—
those introspective, melancholy birds
who gaze out of an apartment window in Lisbon.
Our inner snowfields, where reflection is borne
aren’t unique to us, others have their seas
frozen deep inside, but usually lulling,
instinctively avoiding the 2020s’ culling
of things beyond what the eye hears and sees.
Everything is everything, and, and yet,
for one trivial moment we can a month fret.
His musings are piercing, yet are so soft;
as humble as the ground, yet lift us aloft.
His lines are unhappy, yet make us smile;
the whole universe is here, just sit awhile,
play with that thought, observe that feeling,
replay that dream, and fashion some scribbles;
retreat inside, and life’s many quibbles
become a ball you can bounce to the ceiling,
as its rhythmic beat echoes around
in that one room, there is no bound
to travelling without ships or planes,
but mentally transcending all sorts of planes.
That forest in Kyoto, the city of Rome;
many places, which, for a few days were home.
The currents of the Rhine, streets of Ho Chi Minh;
Philadelphia hotel, ice rink in Chennai;
I was lucky to travel so much, and I
know there’ll be many more places I’ll turn in
for the night, turn the lights out,
and smile at my daytime doubt
as I drift to that utopia where
my ‘06 and current I share
those emotions from 2013.
Fields of memories, shining lime green;
skies of REM, a calm navy blue;
a gaze of a youth, with that excited
anticipation, yet so short-sighted
of what the future will make us rue.
The alchemist of dreams was Fernando
who transcribed them on paper, and oh,
he unites us from the Underground who
shrug at civilisation’s much ado
about everything and nothing, as well as
secretly wish we could feel any pizzazz.
Storms nest inside the clouds, too quiet,
humour inside the grim and serious;
isn’t reality so mysterious?
It makes us sigh, and silently it
coldly holds us prisoner.
Can you possibly envision a
reason, or two, to embrace this life?
Pessoa shows they aren’t so rife;
but from inside his cage, this subzero sun—
he loves life more than anyone.
At, my friends, the end of the day,
we’re all just some cells, some chemistry and a
vessel passing on some DNA.
This author, deep down, wanted to say:
“I love this world, and stupid humanity
but I won’t let them dote on me or my vanity.”
Boy, writing about The B of D
always takes a lot out of me.
Let’s move on and let me tell you
about the magnum opus of DFW.
Where do I start? This humble doorstop
foreshadows its title taken from Hamlet.
It’s a dangerous drug, pray don’t let
yourself be consumed by this candy shop.
Eternal entertainment, that’s one way to go
out of this grim and finite circus show.
The book or reality? They’re always the same.
Drugs and tennis, singing je t’aime
in a 1104-page cadenza:
there was a boy called Hal Incandenza,
eidetic memory but empty, hits balls,
complicated family, substance issues;
curious, each time he put on his shoes,
was it more for the sport or to build more walls?
Fuck, writing about a novel just isn’t as easy
compared to the above Disquiet squeezy.
Talking about characters isn’t my goal;
the story’s fabulous, but that’s only the bread roll.
It’s something inside that defines a book;
something that permeates every cranny and nook.
Is it the writing? We’ll have to define
what exactly that big word means.
An author’s style, their literary genes,
those elements that allow them to shine.
Is it their vocab, their figure of speech?
No, we’re clearly still out of reach
of hitting the nail on the head of our pursuit;
that cheeky fugitive, using a parachute
to escape from our sight, to evade detection
like when you’re called on to stage with an erection.
Wallace’s book is a magnifying glass on
modern humanity’s ever-expanding flaw
wanting nothing but more, more, more,
only the higher moments in a Poisson.
Success and attention, just give me that praise,
validate my existence in all sorts of ways.
We’re all broken products,
living capitalist aqueducts
wasting so much time
because there’s no warning chime.
The problem’s more abstract,
we try and shut it out, but
we all know, deep down in our gut,
we crave almost anything to distract
ourselves from a pain that’s always there
an ubiquitous status with no option to share.
David showed this on a monumental scale
in his postmodern, encyclopaedic tale
with the structure of a Sierpiński gasket.
I’m glad I put it into my basket;
there are 388 essential endnotes,
brief and hideous, curious moments,
temporal and narrative, agile adjournments,
but thankfully, not all Charles Kinbotes.
It was just such an engrossing ride
like the first time floating in the tide—
you’re confused by your surroundings at first,
but soon after, when the bubbles burst,
you’re just going with the wondrous flow
that only a great author’s mind can bestow.
Modern consciousness laid Pooh bare
with depth and breadth of touching drama
all alloys of meta and all walks of dharma
“Just read the damn thing,” I just want to share
this novel, which shook my mind to the core,
the kind that recalibrates you as a reader and more.
Well, those two are my fav, no doubts about that,
have I found more clues now than a brain in a vat?
It’s awfully hard to pinpoint our taste;
intertwining variables, cut, copy and paste.
Each night I return and re-read this Word doc—
have I said enough on my two ‘6-star’ works?
The 5-star books wait in line, doin’ twerks
I guess I’ll appease them, though ad hoc,
each time these books helped me as some key
to find and unlock what lay inside of me.
Let’s open Proust’s In Search of Lost Time—
a series as agreeable as the scent of lime.
Not quite as sour, but a sweetness to revel in,
memories flow out with the taste of a madeleine—
seven volumes following a Parisian life.
For a long time, going to bed early
to the inevitable beckoning of the pearly
gates, after many stills and strife.
Though translated, his distinctive prose
is for me the most beautiful rose.
A rich cocktail of time lost and regained;
divulging hearts, both sunny and rained
upon by love, jealousy and pain,
destinies intertwined with an iron chain.
Vinteuil’s sonata, on the winds, teeters,
from Combray to the Balbec beach;
Bergotte’s prose, like an exotic peach,
served in salons and various theatres;
Elstir’s art, speaking of truth,
reflected on deep down, managing to soothe
the pure, or organic, voices in our hearts—
light but strong like F-1 carts;
but to let out, they’re too disentangled
only to realise when a dear one gets mangled
by the indiscriminatory wheels of fate—
letters too late, promises postponed,
due to the selves and shadows we’re loaned.
Nothing is forever, today’s calendar date
might be the one we look back on with smiles,
one phrase bridging a thousand miles.
These books I remember with a fond reminiscence,
remembrances with an eternal iridescence.
The covers of the books, with colourful flowers
reminding me of the charm, over countless hours,
of dipping into magic preserved for the future.
Madames and Monsieurs under a daguerreotype,
‘the French classic that even surpasses the hype.’
Mademoiselle, my literacy teacher
I look to penning a life of thoughts and excel—
there is no one else but Marcel.
Now, to my other favourite writer,
who, though initially small like a lighter,
ignited my real fire for reading,
though I didn’t know, it’s what I was needing
as a 20-year-old, to have my eyes opened
to lie down in the lilies of literary fiction
from all over the world, a range of diction.
If I didn’t read him, what would have happened?
Maybe I would have been anyway, lucky,
but I owe a lot to my dear Haruki.
He pointed me to Proust and Dostoyevsky,
cooking pasta and drinking whisky;
classical music, and going to the gym;
early 20’s me was really influenced by him.
His novels, short stories, even interviews;
essays and reports, the whole arsenal.
Perhaps because reading him is so personal,
I haven’t managed to write many reviews.
In 2012 it began with 1Q84
which I gladly re-read a few months ago.
How can I condense? Dozens of books;
everywhere in my psyche, like rambling rooks.
His Nihongo prose, with a Western tinge
was the perfect mix for my tastes to binge.
A part of me always misses Nippon;
reading Murakami is like traveling there.
The cities, the nature, the very air
from where my ancestors’ roots, on a map would blip on.
Modern Japan, and its loneliness
printed on urushi-e with loveliness.
Disappearing lovers, dried-up wells,
urban ennui: stylistic tells.
You only need Google, ‘Murakami Bingo’
to get an idea of his thematic lingo,
but again, they don’t show the whole picture
how his tales make me feel, those impressions
parallel worlds, cat chat sessions
a longing for something, a delicate mixture
of the magical and realism,
a hard-boiled egg-tangular prism.
The End of the World, to Underground;
Chasing sheep, on the Ground
Floor of the natsukashii Dolphin Hotel;
After the Quake, pray don’t tell
the Little People my itinerary:
South of The Border, West of the Sun,
Hearing the Wind Sing with Nakata-san.
My adoration, not only literary—
I just love his worlds, the people, the plot;
how they enriched my life, I once forgot.
His many metaphors make me happy;
linking the disparate, an AI’s nappy.
His writing isn’t perfect, there’s weird sex
and a noticeable portrayal of the fairer sex
but thanks to the tree of spring, I think
I’m on this website typing these rhymes.
I’ll read his stuff still many more times,
perhaps even when my grey stuff will shrink.
“For me he will always be the novelist
who made me a reader”—2020 Obelisk
I have a few other noteworthy novels
in my town of favourites, well-maintained hovels,
but I think my top 2, top series and writer
will more than suffice to construct and light a
flame to inspect the materials inside,
to propose some sort of logical H0
that will be a tad more reliable than Nero
and see if there’s anything that might reside
in these piles of papers, pretty please, perhaps,
after years of investigative mishaps.
—I’m kidding, I knew…that I’m unlikely to find
any special dessert after I’ve outlined
my go-to dishes at these beloved diners.
Well, don’t think me so heinous,
641 days it took,
from finishing Seth’s singular story
to working on this in my laboratory
(cue the OK sign of a cook.)
I’ve finally done it, though to what end?
You might have a better idea, feel free to send.
Thanks to Vikram for The Golden Gate,
the catalyst to titillate
my first such write-up in the double
of the above number of days I was in a bubble
of wanting to write, but something was amiss.
Inspiration and motivation—
perspiring time, awaiting cultivation
of a special kind of grapes, sun-kissed.
Writing this was a joy and pleasure,
boasting online about my troves of treasure.
Won’t you write about your Golden Rates?
We’re all friends here, as well as pirates
looking for that next pot of gold, to spy
that literary apple or perhaps mince pie.
Because every book is exceptional,
and as humble readers, so are we,
your next review might just be
the one that satisfies someone’s conditional
antenna looking for That One Book—
so walk to your bookshelf and have a look.
28 November, 2020
“The Book of Disquiet and Infinite Jest,”
I’d reply are my favourite books when pressed.
Countless times on here, I’ve wondered,
what sets, for me, the best books asunder?
Some chess books I have given the distinction,
‘t’was amazing’—you’re just glad to read, be alive
for and award those stelliformed epaulettes, five.
But in these musings I’m focusing on fiction,
objects that contain infinite time and space—
from my past to your future, every moment and place.
Where do I start? I’ve been yearning
to write this for many months, stomach churning,
each time I realised I didn’t have the verses
to explore the essence of these dear universes.
The time has come now, it appears—
due to some changes in circumstance,
gaps may be filled, as well as distance—
when we finally face up to our fears.
So I ask for your patience in reading these stanzas
I dedicate to these extravaganzas.
Let’s start with Pessoa’s beautiful words—
those introspective, melancholy birds
who gaze out of an apartment window in Lisbon.
Our inner snowfields, where reflection is borne
aren’t unique to us, others have their seas
frozen deep inside, but usually lulling,
instinctively avoiding the 2020s’ culling
of things beyond what the eye hears and sees.
Everything is everything, and, and yet,
for one trivial moment we can a month fret.
His musings are piercing, yet are so soft;
as humble as the ground, yet lift us aloft.
His lines are unhappy, yet make us smile;
the whole universe is here, just sit awhile,
play with that thought, observe that feeling,
replay that dream, and fashion some scribbles;
retreat inside, and life’s many quibbles
become a ball you can bounce to the ceiling,
as its rhythmic beat echoes around
in that one room, there is no bound
to travelling without ships or planes,
but mentally transcending all sorts of planes.
That forest in Kyoto, the city of Rome;
many places, which, for a few days were home.
The currents of the Rhine, streets of Ho Chi Minh;
Philadelphia hotel, ice rink in Chennai;
I was lucky to travel so much, and I
know there’ll be many more places I’ll turn in
for the night, turn the lights out,
and smile at my daytime doubt
as I drift to that utopia where
my ‘06 and current I share
those emotions from 2013.
Fields of memories, shining lime green;
skies of REM, a calm navy blue;
a gaze of a youth, with that excited
anticipation, yet so short-sighted
of what the future will make us rue.
The alchemist of dreams was Fernando
who transcribed them on paper, and oh,
he unites us from the Underground who
shrug at civilisation’s much ado
about everything and nothing, as well as
secretly wish we could feel any pizzazz.
Storms nest inside the clouds, too quiet,
humour inside the grim and serious;
isn’t reality so mysterious?
It makes us sigh, and silently it
coldly holds us prisoner.
Can you possibly envision a
reason, or two, to embrace this life?
Pessoa shows they aren’t so rife;
but from inside his cage, this subzero sun—
he loves life more than anyone.
At, my friends, the end of the day,
we’re all just some cells, some chemistry and a
vessel passing on some DNA.
This author, deep down, wanted to say:
“I love this world, and stupid humanity
but I won’t let them dote on me or my vanity.”
Boy, writing about The B of D
always takes a lot out of me.
Let’s move on and let me tell you
about the magnum opus of DFW.
Where do I start? This humble doorstop
foreshadows its title taken from Hamlet.
It’s a dangerous drug, pray don’t let
yourself be consumed by this candy shop.
Eternal entertainment, that’s one way to go
out of this grim and finite circus show.
The book or reality? They’re always the same.
Drugs and tennis, singing je t’aime
in a 1104-page cadenza:
there was a boy called Hal Incandenza,
eidetic memory but empty, hits balls,
complicated family, substance issues;
curious, each time he put on his shoes,
was it more for the sport or to build more walls?
Fuck, writing about a novel just isn’t as easy
compared to the above Disquiet squeezy.
Talking about characters isn’t my goal;
the story’s fabulous, but that’s only the bread roll.
It’s something inside that defines a book;
something that permeates every cranny and nook.
Is it the writing? We’ll have to define
what exactly that big word means.
An author’s style, their literary genes,
those elements that allow them to shine.
Is it their vocab, their figure of speech?
No, we’re clearly still out of reach
of hitting the nail on the head of our pursuit;
that cheeky fugitive, using a parachute
to escape from our sight, to evade detection
like when you’re called on to stage with an erection.
Wallace’s book is a magnifying glass on
modern humanity’s ever-expanding flaw
wanting nothing but more, more, more,
only the higher moments in a Poisson.
Success and attention, just give me that praise,
validate my existence in all sorts of ways.
We’re all broken products,
living capitalist aqueducts
wasting so much time
because there’s no warning chime.
The problem’s more abstract,
we try and shut it out, but
we all know, deep down in our gut,
we crave almost anything to distract
ourselves from a pain that’s always there
an ubiquitous status with no option to share.
David showed this on a monumental scale
in his postmodern, encyclopaedic tale
with the structure of a Sierpiński gasket.
I’m glad I put it into my basket;
there are 388 essential endnotes,
brief and hideous, curious moments,
temporal and narrative, agile adjournments,
but thankfully, not all Charles Kinbotes.
It was just such an engrossing ride
like the first time floating in the tide—
you’re confused by your surroundings at first,
but soon after, when the bubbles burst,
you’re just going with the wondrous flow
that only a great author’s mind can bestow.
Modern consciousness laid Pooh bare
with depth and breadth of touching drama
all alloys of meta and all walks of dharma
“Just read the damn thing,” I just want to share
this novel, which shook my mind to the core,
the kind that recalibrates you as a reader and more.
Well, those two are my fav, no doubts about that,
have I found more clues now than a brain in a vat?
It’s awfully hard to pinpoint our taste;
intertwining variables, cut, copy and paste.
Each night I return and re-read this Word doc—
have I said enough on my two ‘6-star’ works?
The 5-star books wait in line, doin’ twerks
I guess I’ll appease them, though ad hoc,
each time these books helped me as some key
to find and unlock what lay inside of me.
Let’s open Proust’s In Search of Lost Time—
a series as agreeable as the scent of lime.
Not quite as sour, but a sweetness to revel in,
memories flow out with the taste of a madeleine—
seven volumes following a Parisian life.
For a long time, going to bed early
to the inevitable beckoning of the pearly
gates, after many stills and strife.
Though translated, his distinctive prose
is for me the most beautiful rose.
A rich cocktail of time lost and regained;
divulging hearts, both sunny and rained
upon by love, jealousy and pain,
destinies intertwined with an iron chain.
Vinteuil’s sonata, on the winds, teeters,
from Combray to the Balbec beach;
Bergotte’s prose, like an exotic peach,
served in salons and various theatres;
Elstir’s art, speaking of truth,
reflected on deep down, managing to soothe
the pure, or organic, voices in our hearts—
light but strong like F-1 carts;
but to let out, they’re too disentangled
only to realise when a dear one gets mangled
by the indiscriminatory wheels of fate—
letters too late, promises postponed,
due to the selves and shadows we’re loaned.
Nothing is forever, today’s calendar date
might be the one we look back on with smiles,
one phrase bridging a thousand miles.
These books I remember with a fond reminiscence,
remembrances with an eternal iridescence.
The covers of the books, with colourful flowers
reminding me of the charm, over countless hours,
of dipping into magic preserved for the future.
Madames and Monsieurs under a daguerreotype,
‘the French classic that even surpasses the hype.’
Mademoiselle, my literacy teacher
I look to penning a life of thoughts and excel—
there is no one else but Marcel.
Now, to my other favourite writer,
who, though initially small like a lighter,
ignited my real fire for reading,
though I didn’t know, it’s what I was needing
as a 20-year-old, to have my eyes opened
to lie down in the lilies of literary fiction
from all over the world, a range of diction.
If I didn’t read him, what would have happened?
Maybe I would have been anyway, lucky,
but I owe a lot to my dear Haruki.
He pointed me to Proust and Dostoyevsky,
cooking pasta and drinking whisky;
classical music, and going to the gym;
early 20’s me was really influenced by him.
His novels, short stories, even interviews;
essays and reports, the whole arsenal.
Perhaps because reading him is so personal,
I haven’t managed to write many reviews.
In 2012 it began with 1Q84
which I gladly re-read a few months ago.
How can I condense? Dozens of books;
everywhere in my psyche, like rambling rooks.
His Nihongo prose, with a Western tinge
was the perfect mix for my tastes to binge.
A part of me always misses Nippon;
reading Murakami is like traveling there.
The cities, the nature, the very air
from where my ancestors’ roots, on a map would blip on.
Modern Japan, and its loneliness
printed on urushi-e with loveliness.
Disappearing lovers, dried-up wells,
urban ennui: stylistic tells.
You only need Google, ‘Murakami Bingo’
to get an idea of his thematic lingo,
but again, they don’t show the whole picture
how his tales make me feel, those impressions
parallel worlds, cat chat sessions
a longing for something, a delicate mixture
of the magical and realism,
a hard-boiled egg-tangular prism.
The End of the World, to Underground;
Chasing sheep, on the Ground
Floor of the natsukashii Dolphin Hotel;
After the Quake, pray don’t tell
the Little People my itinerary:
South of The Border, West of the Sun,
Hearing the Wind Sing with Nakata-san.
My adoration, not only literary—
I just love his worlds, the people, the plot;
how they enriched my life, I once forgot.
His many metaphors make me happy;
linking the disparate, an AI’s nappy.
His writing isn’t perfect, there’s weird sex
and a noticeable portrayal of the fairer sex
but thanks to the tree of spring, I think
I’m on this website typing these rhymes.
I’ll read his stuff still many more times,
perhaps even when my grey stuff will shrink.
“For me he will always be the novelist
who made me a reader”—2020 Obelisk
I have a few other noteworthy novels
in my town of favourites, well-maintained hovels,
but I think my top 2, top series and writer
will more than suffice to construct and light a
flame to inspect the materials inside,
to propose some sort of logical H0
that will be a tad more reliable than Nero
and see if there’s anything that might reside
in these piles of papers, pretty please, perhaps,
after years of investigative mishaps.
—I’m kidding, I knew…that I’m unlikely to find
any special dessert after I’ve outlined
my go-to dishes at these beloved diners.
Well, don’t think me so heinous,
641 days it took,
from finishing Seth’s singular story
to working on this in my laboratory
(cue the OK sign of a cook.)
I’ve finally done it, though to what end?
You might have a better idea, feel free to send.
Thanks to Vikram for The Golden Gate,
the catalyst to titillate
my first such write-up in the double
of the above number of days I was in a bubble
of wanting to write, but something was amiss.
Inspiration and motivation—
perspiring time, awaiting cultivation
of a special kind of grapes, sun-kissed.
Writing this was a joy and pleasure,
boasting online about my troves of treasure.
Won’t you write about your Golden Rates?
We’re all friends here, as well as pirates
looking for that next pot of gold, to spy
that literary apple or perhaps mince pie.
Because every book is exceptional,
and as humble readers, so are we,
your next review might just be
the one that satisfies someone’s conditional
antenna looking for That One Book—
so walk to your bookshelf and have a look.
28 November, 2020
March 4, 2016
It seems a bit crazy to read a book written wholly in sonnets, although not as crazy as choosing to write one. At least that's what I thought when I stumbled on 'The Golden Gate' in a charity shop. I still felt it 10 pages in.. this wasn't going to work for me… A verse novel of the late twentieth century recording a few years in the life of yuppies in early 80s San Fran, all in soapy sonnets that range the gamete from humorous to tragic? But this work, treading the fine line between madness and genius, draws you in. Two days later I had gorged on its contents and was, even before the end, a blubbering mess. There is such powerful depiction of loss, extraordinary within the confines of the structure, and it felt to me the kind of loss that calls out to the reader, hence ten minutes of OOC sobbing that did me much good.
Don't get me wrong, there were some squelchy moments. You want to enjoy the rhythm of the work, and you do, but then the rhythm missteps… but this is a pretty small grievance- you'd have not to be A genius but The genius to pull this off with flawless rhythm and rhyme. The vacuity of modern life, too, seems a strange subject matter for Petrarchan sonnets but, running alongside powerful and diverse subject matter as it does, it works. So much of life is vacuous, after all. Seth explores the nature of love, loss, grief and its attendant emotions, bisexuality, creativity, bigotry, urban isolation, corporate greed, belief systems and much more. I personally loved the powerful pro-environment sermon sited in the very heart of the work, reflecting as it does the central themes of care and compassion. It is also a good advertisement for San Francisco itself. The districts and seasons of the city are captured beautifully and (as the title suggests) these Petrarchan sonnets, named after a love-sick poet, are part of a love letter to Frisco itself. It's been 12 years since I visited- as this unique novel also works phenomenally as a memento mori it may just lead me to book a return journey soon. The Golden Gate is, itself, redemptive.
February 6, 2020
This was quite a book. Vikram Seth is known for compendious works (A Suitable Boy), and this is a 300 page novel in verse. I love novels in verse. It's always breathtaking to see it done, and this is written not only in verse, but in Petrarchian sonnets--like Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, a demanding poetic form. Even the cheeky Acknowledgements and Dedication are written in sonnets. By the time you finish the book, you will be thinking in Onegin iambic tetrameter (four beats to the line as opposed to Shakespearian iambic pentameter). There's something witty in the tetrameter, light and breezy--it takes a genius like Pushkin to wrest tragedy from it.
Golden Gate is a novel in verse about a small group of friends in 1980s San Francisco, and is perfectly pitched to tell that tale. The wit and self-absorption of the era, the 'lifestyle' orientation. The love of the good life is stamped on every page in the characterization of yuppies and bohemians alike. We open with John, a yuppie tech guy, formerly the lover of Jan, a sculptor and drummer for a punk band. John is lonely, and to help her old flame, Jan puts an ad in the personal columns (such an '80s thing to do) for her clearly missing-out ex mate. Despite skepticism, John falls into mutual love with Liz, a lawyer, who responded to Jan's ad.
Add John's best friend Phil into the mix, the unemployed stay at home single dad (following a sad breakup with heart's desire Claire). The robust and irrepressible Phil begins a sudden passionate affair with Ed, Liz's brother, who cannot accept his own queerness and ruins a perfectly good affair with religious guilt. Etcetera. A round robin of loves and quirks and enmities, protests against a military tech corp. and love of San Francisco in this breezy tetrameter form.
Here's the very beginning, 1.1:
"To make a start more swift than weighty,
Hail Muse. Dear Reader, once upon
A time, say, circa 1980,
There lived a man. His name was John.
Successful in his field though only
Twenty-six, respected, lonely,
One evening as he walked across
Golden Gate Park, the ill-judged toss
Of a red frisbee almost brained him.
He thought, "If I died, who'd be sad?
Who'd weep? Who'd gloat? Who would be glad?
Would anybody?" As it pained him,
He turned from this dispiriting theme
To rumination less extreme."
And thus the tone is set: word-play, humor, wit galore, intelligence, and all about ordinary life and the human heart. It was an incredibly joyous experience, and one marvels at the feat. 300 pages, gosh! But Seth is not Pushkin and it takes more than fertility of hand and heart to make 300 pages of light verse really soar, and plunge, as Pushkin did. There's no bitter edge to Seth's wit, no dark chiaroscure. Though people love and die, one does not care as one should--or most likely would, had the book been written in conventional prose. The playfulness ultimately works against the building of drama, and so, it's more and more of much the same. Yet, it is a legendary work, and one well worth reading. You laugh out loud just in admiration of the literary pirouettes. The '80s are perfectly characterized--well fed and preoccupied with trivialities, the form of Brunch its apogee, in love with its friends and coterie, affectionate and pleasing in detail.
Golden Gate is a novel in verse about a small group of friends in 1980s San Francisco, and is perfectly pitched to tell that tale. The wit and self-absorption of the era, the 'lifestyle' orientation. The love of the good life is stamped on every page in the characterization of yuppies and bohemians alike. We open with John, a yuppie tech guy, formerly the lover of Jan, a sculptor and drummer for a punk band. John is lonely, and to help her old flame, Jan puts an ad in the personal columns (such an '80s thing to do) for her clearly missing-out ex mate. Despite skepticism, John falls into mutual love with Liz, a lawyer, who responded to Jan's ad.
Add John's best friend Phil into the mix, the unemployed stay at home single dad (following a sad breakup with heart's desire Claire). The robust and irrepressible Phil begins a sudden passionate affair with Ed, Liz's brother, who cannot accept his own queerness and ruins a perfectly good affair with religious guilt. Etcetera. A round robin of loves and quirks and enmities, protests against a military tech corp. and love of San Francisco in this breezy tetrameter form.
Here's the very beginning, 1.1:
"To make a start more swift than weighty,
Hail Muse. Dear Reader, once upon
A time, say, circa 1980,
There lived a man. His name was John.
Successful in his field though only
Twenty-six, respected, lonely,
One evening as he walked across
Golden Gate Park, the ill-judged toss
Of a red frisbee almost brained him.
He thought, "If I died, who'd be sad?
Who'd weep? Who'd gloat? Who would be glad?
Would anybody?" As it pained him,
He turned from this dispiriting theme
To rumination less extreme."
And thus the tone is set: word-play, humor, wit galore, intelligence, and all about ordinary life and the human heart. It was an incredibly joyous experience, and one marvels at the feat. 300 pages, gosh! But Seth is not Pushkin and it takes more than fertility of hand and heart to make 300 pages of light verse really soar, and plunge, as Pushkin did. There's no bitter edge to Seth's wit, no dark chiaroscure. Though people love and die, one does not care as one should--or most likely would, had the book been written in conventional prose. The playfulness ultimately works against the building of drama, and so, it's more and more of much the same. Yet, it is a legendary work, and one well worth reading. You laugh out loud just in admiration of the literary pirouettes. The '80s are perfectly characterized--well fed and preoccupied with trivialities, the form of Brunch its apogee, in love with its friends and coterie, affectionate and pleasing in detail.
June 27, 2022
Seth’s way with the “Onegin stanza” is wonderful but his characters are deathly dull. Some reviews call them “yuppies,” to which I say, If Only! Materialistic, pleasure-seeking 80s status jockeys might have made better subjects of Seth’s wit. To me John and Liz and Phil and Ed read as earnest grad students or aging academics. Ban the Bomb/Save the Whales types, whose cats are major personalities in their lives, and whose couplings are inescapably prim and donnish. This is a “campus novel,” really.
January 18, 2019
I've been on an emotional rollercoaster with The Golden Gate (1986) by Vikram Seth
When I discovered that this novel, my latest book group choice, was written entirely in verse my heart sank.
However, after a cursory glance at the numerous rave reviews I became more hopeful.
The Golden Gate is an incredible achievement. Vikram Seth must have laboured long and hard on creating the 590 Onegin stanzas (sonnets written in iambic tetrameter, with the rhyme scheme following the ABABCCDDEFFEGG pattern of Eugene Onegin). Not only is it all in verse, it's done really well. Imaginative and well written.
Alas I found the verse structure very distracting, and frequently annoying. Some reviewers mentioned that they stopped noticing the structure after a while. I held onto this promise and tried reading for 30 minute periods to immerse myself in the story but it didn't work. This failure was compounded by a boring narrative. It all felt inconsequential and superficial. The 80s yuppie characters were mainly a dull and uninspiring lot. At around the halfway point I had to wave the white flag. I then read the plot summary on Wikipedia, felt vindicated by my decision and relieved it was all over.
Sorry Vikram Seth, it's not you it's me
Onwards and upwards
2/5
The Golden Gate (1986) by Vikram Seth
When I discovered that this novel, my latest book group choice, was written entirely in verse my heart sank.
However, after a cursory glance at the numerous rave reviews I became more hopeful.
The Golden Gate is an incredible achievement. Vikram Seth must have laboured long and hard on creating the 590 Onegin stanzas (sonnets written in iambic tetrameter, with the rhyme scheme following the ABABCCDDEFFEGG pattern of Eugene Onegin). Not only is it all in verse, it's done really well. Imaginative and well written.
Alas I found the verse structure very distracting, and frequently annoying. Some reviewers mentioned that they stopped noticing the structure after a while. I held onto this promise and tried reading for 30 minute periods to immerse myself in the story but it didn't work. This failure was compounded by a boring narrative. It all felt inconsequential and superficial. The 80s yuppie characters were mainly a dull and uninspiring lot. At around the halfway point I had to wave the white flag. I then read the plot summary on Wikipedia, felt vindicated by my decision and relieved it was all over.
Sorry Vikram Seth, it's not you it's me
Onwards and upwards
2/5
The Golden Gate (1986) by Vikram Seth
April 12, 2021
গুডরীডস রিভিউ-এর নামে কিছুক্ষনের গালগল্প, জীবনের-এক-টুকরো টাইপের ভ্যাজর ভ্যাজর করা'ই যায় অন্য দিনের মতন ...কিন্তু এই বইটাকে আবার বড্ড বেশি ভালো লাগে যে আমার । তার চেয়ে যদি রিভিউ না করে, এই অ্যাত্তোবড় একটা রেকমেন্ডেশন দিয়েই যদি ক্ষান্ত দিই ?
যদি উপক্রম হয়, নিশ্চয়ই পড়বেন এই বইখানি ।
তবে একটু সময় দিয়ে পড়তে হবে। বিক্রম শেঠের ইংরেজি ভাষা সামুরাই-এর তলোয়ারের মতো ক্ষুরধার, কিন্তু দুর্বোধ্য নয়, বইটা আমাদের মতন সাধারণ মানুষের পড়ার জন্যেই লেখা। তবে কবিতার ছন্দে লেখা তো, ছন্দটাও বুঝে পড়লে হয়তো বেশি ভালো লাগবে।
অর্থাৎ, একটু ভালোবেসে, একটু আদর করে পড়বেন বইটা - আমি নিশ্চিত, যতটা দিয়েছেন, তার থেকে অনেকটা বেশি ভালোবাসা ফেরত পাবেন বইটার কাছ থেকে।
যদি উপক্রম হয়, নিশ্চয়ই পড়বেন এই বইখানি ।
তবে একটু সময় দিয়ে পড়তে হবে। বিক্রম শেঠের ইংরেজি ভাষা সামুরাই-এর তলোয়ারের মতো ক্ষুরধার, কিন্তু দুর্বোধ্য নয়, বইটা আমাদের মতন সাধারণ মানুষের পড়ার জন্যেই লেখা। তবে কবিতার ছন্দে লেখা তো, ছন্দটাও বুঝে পড়লে হয়তো বেশি ভালো লাগবে।
অর্থাৎ, একটু ভালোবেসে, একটু আদর করে পড়বেন বইটা - আমি নিশ্চিত, যতটা দিয়েছেন, তার থেকে অনেকটা বেশি ভালোবাসা ফেরত পাবেন বইটার কাছ থেকে।
August 6, 2019
As I finished this novel in verse I was left conflicted. I loved the language, the soaring images. I did not care for the characters. Personally I was hoping a mighty wave would’ve swept all of them away. Anticipating Franzen’s rank and file, Seth gives us a half dozen achievers who universally succeed in annoying me to no end. I just didn’t care but I read to the end, enjoying the Sunday trips to the coast and the fate of an ancient pickup.
February 1, 2022
A book that exhausts all superlatives. And makes a mockery of anything so paltry as a star system of ratings. Find me some other measure, some other metric to describe this—this THING! because that’s what is needed if any justice is to be done.
The Golden Gate is sui generis, a novel in a category of one. It is a brain-melting miracle, a prodigy of wit and skill, of unbelievable ambition and unending verbal invention that sprawls over 307 pages and even as you throw up your hands and get used to the mad genius of it all, it is a work that never ceases to astonish you with the sheer ballsiness of its daring and the Himalayan scale of its achievement.
So it’s the 1980s - the harsh light of Reagan’s Morning in America - and this foreign student from India, pursuing a PhD in economics, lands in Reagan’s own state, California. In Northern California - Stanford to be exact. He chances across Pushkin’s Onegin - not the Falen translation which I love and which may not have appeared back then - no, he reads the Johnston translation, is suitably bowled over and decides - isn’t this all just fucking crazy?!! - he decides that he too will write a long novel in verse, using none other than the Onegin stanza - that is to say, the Pushkin sonnet and the Pushkin rhyme scheme.
Not only that, he will tell a tale, in tetrameter, not of India, not of postcolonial poverty and preciousness, no indeed - this outsider, this foreigner figures he will have a go at the Great California Novel itself. Trust me when I say that The Golden Gate has as sound a claim to that title as anything else in print, it is as essentially Californian, as exactly Californian as any book written by Steinbeck or Chandler, by Kerouac or James Ellroy or any of the other obvious candidates whose names might come up in this contest. It is as good or better - and more, it was created within the craziest bounds of constrained optimization.
Seth chooses a group of youngish white characters, and uses them to explore the themes of love and hate, war and peace, heartbreak and bitterness and unspeakable tragedy. You could call them yuppies, or you could call them something else - but this is clearly a crowd that Seth observed with the forensic interest of an entomologist. Their manners and mores, their habits and attitudes, even their favoured professions of law and tech and defence, all are laid down here with an almost anthropological exactitude, so that if you really want to know what white middle-class life was like in the Golden State in the Age of Reagan, you need look no further. It is in a very real sense the West Coast counterpart of McInerney's Big City, Bright Lights, or Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities - icons of eighties New York fiction, representative snapshots of a time and place and people that have become a kind of mythical shorthand.
It would be unpardonable to write a Northern California novel and to ignore its landscape - so Seth turns on the descriptive fireworks there too. His story spans the rich variety of all of California’s seasons, as he cruises from Frisco’s bright open urbanscapes to the fertile wine valleys of the interior; he even expends, as any right-thinking Cali hack would, inordinate amounts of time on the febrile moods of the beguiling Pacific Ocean.
And all of this in the Onegin sonnet. It is impossible to describe without extensive quotes just how much inspiration and imagination (and there must have been seas of sweat too) Seth put to work to bring out the deep subtlety of human emotions and the baffling complexity of human relations in this his chosen medium. For good measure, he explores the public square too, analysing nuclear disarmament and anti-gay prejudice at some length. And there are tributes to Saint Francis and to Tintin! If it did not exist, you really would not believe that it could be done. But Seth put down the proof of concept and challenged the reader to cope with it. He wanted to pay homage to Pushkin? What he did instead was go toe-to-toe with the Russian warlord for 300 pages - I am all but certain the sainted Alexander Sergeyevich would have doffed his cap at the disciple who matched the master.
*
A book then that is, quite simply, unique in modern English literature. Or American literature or Indian literature, cos damn if Seth doesn't handily cover those genres too! One can only wonder at the precise nature of the demonic possession that must have overpowered him in the writing - I for one can find no earthbound explanation for the existence of a book like this. It is that unique. If you haven’t made the time to read it, you are missing out on something that I can safely say you will never EVER come across as long as you live. Kim Tarvesh, from the depths of my depths, I thank you.
PS. It does appear that the Onegin verse novel is actually a thing (see the tome The Genealogy of the Verse Novel). I was particularly tickled to read that HRF Keating was inspired to write a mystery called Jack the Killer in Onegin stanza after he read Seth's work!
The Golden Gate is sui generis, a novel in a category of one. It is a brain-melting miracle, a prodigy of wit and skill, of unbelievable ambition and unending verbal invention that sprawls over 307 pages and even as you throw up your hands and get used to the mad genius of it all, it is a work that never ceases to astonish you with the sheer ballsiness of its daring and the Himalayan scale of its achievement.
So it’s the 1980s - the harsh light of Reagan’s Morning in America - and this foreign student from India, pursuing a PhD in economics, lands in Reagan’s own state, California. In Northern California - Stanford to be exact. He chances across Pushkin’s Onegin - not the Falen translation which I love and which may not have appeared back then - no, he reads the Johnston translation, is suitably bowled over and decides - isn’t this all just fucking crazy?!! - he decides that he too will write a long novel in verse, using none other than the Onegin stanza - that is to say, the Pushkin sonnet and the Pushkin rhyme scheme.
Not only that, he will tell a tale, in tetrameter, not of India, not of postcolonial poverty and preciousness, no indeed - this outsider, this foreigner figures he will have a go at the Great California Novel itself. Trust me when I say that The Golden Gate has as sound a claim to that title as anything else in print, it is as essentially Californian, as exactly Californian as any book written by Steinbeck or Chandler, by Kerouac or James Ellroy or any of the other obvious candidates whose names might come up in this contest. It is as good or better - and more, it was created within the craziest bounds of constrained optimization.
Seth chooses a group of youngish white characters, and uses them to explore the themes of love and hate, war and peace, heartbreak and bitterness and unspeakable tragedy. You could call them yuppies, or you could call them something else - but this is clearly a crowd that Seth observed with the forensic interest of an entomologist. Their manners and mores, their habits and attitudes, even their favoured professions of law and tech and defence, all are laid down here with an almost anthropological exactitude, so that if you really want to know what white middle-class life was like in the Golden State in the Age of Reagan, you need look no further. It is in a very real sense the West Coast counterpart of McInerney's Big City, Bright Lights, or Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities - icons of eighties New York fiction, representative snapshots of a time and place and people that have become a kind of mythical shorthand.
It would be unpardonable to write a Northern California novel and to ignore its landscape - so Seth turns on the descriptive fireworks there too. His story spans the rich variety of all of California’s seasons, as he cruises from Frisco’s bright open urbanscapes to the fertile wine valleys of the interior; he even expends, as any right-thinking Cali hack would, inordinate amounts of time on the febrile moods of the beguiling Pacific Ocean.
And all of this in the Onegin sonnet. It is impossible to describe without extensive quotes just how much inspiration and imagination (and there must have been seas of sweat too) Seth put to work to bring out the deep subtlety of human emotions and the baffling complexity of human relations in this his chosen medium. For good measure, he explores the public square too, analysing nuclear disarmament and anti-gay prejudice at some length. And there are tributes to Saint Francis and to Tintin! If it did not exist, you really would not believe that it could be done. But Seth put down the proof of concept and challenged the reader to cope with it. He wanted to pay homage to Pushkin? What he did instead was go toe-to-toe with the Russian warlord for 300 pages - I am all but certain the sainted Alexander Sergeyevich would have doffed his cap at the disciple who matched the master.
*
A book then that is, quite simply, unique in modern English literature. Or American literature or Indian literature, cos damn if Seth doesn't handily cover those genres too! One can only wonder at the precise nature of the demonic possession that must have overpowered him in the writing - I for one can find no earthbound explanation for the existence of a book like this. It is that unique. If you haven’t made the time to read it, you are missing out on something that I can safely say you will never EVER come across as long as you live. Kim Tarvesh, from the depths of my depths, I thank you.
PS. It does appear that the Onegin verse novel is actually a thing (see the tome The Genealogy of the Verse Novel). I was particularly tickled to read that HRF Keating was inspired to write a mystery called Jack the Killer in Onegin stanza after he read Seth's work!
July 3, 2007
To write a contemporary love story, intertwining the lives of 6 people that you and me can completely relate to, and delving deep into their everyday lives, struggles, loves and lamentations...and to be able to do this entirely using sonnets and poetry....simply UNBELIEVABLE! This poem/story/work of fiction is a must read for anyone that thought poerty is hard to read or too hard to understand. The simple language, yet strong prose makes this book a delightful, magical read. You'll fall in love with Janet and Liz and Phil and Ed...not to mention the books protagonist, John!
May 15, 2020
Video review
At once atonishingly virtuosistic and heartbreaking in its brutal simplicity.
At once atonishingly virtuosistic and heartbreaking in its brutal simplicity.
February 15, 2011
I reread this book every five years or so, and I always do it when nobody is around because, really, I look like an idiot when I cry in public, and the last chapter of this book does it to me every time.
This is a novel about San Francisco in the 80s, written completely in verse. The plot is fairly simple. It's a little soap opera about a few friends looking for love, success, and their places in the world. However, it's all written in what I'll call Onegin stanzas, that tetrameter sonnet form Pushkin used in his masterpiece. It's a goofy poetic form to use. The author is forced into some awkward and sometimes hilarious rhymes, as was Pushkin. As Pushkin did with Onegin, Seth does with Golden Gate. He sets up a humorous little tale and slowly, almost invisibly, little conflicts work their ways in until there are massive feuds and heartbreaking misunderstandings with fatal results.
What really annoys me about this book is that it is so damned obvious: this is how to write a book of poetry. Instead, every poet out there wants to do a collected works of whatever he or she happened to write in this decade or the other and hopes the world will care about it. Protip: nobody cares what poems you wrote over the past few years. Give us a compelling narrative, and we will take notice.
This is a novel about San Francisco in the 80s, written completely in verse. The plot is fairly simple. It's a little soap opera about a few friends looking for love, success, and their places in the world. However, it's all written in what I'll call Onegin stanzas, that tetrameter sonnet form Pushkin used in his masterpiece. It's a goofy poetic form to use. The author is forced into some awkward and sometimes hilarious rhymes, as was Pushkin. As Pushkin did with Onegin, Seth does with Golden Gate. He sets up a humorous little tale and slowly, almost invisibly, little conflicts work their ways in until there are massive feuds and heartbreaking misunderstandings with fatal results.
What really annoys me about this book is that it is so damned obvious: this is how to write a book of poetry. Instead, every poet out there wants to do a collected works of whatever he or she happened to write in this decade or the other and hopes the world will care about it. Protip: nobody cares what poems you wrote over the past few years. Give us a compelling narrative, and we will take notice.
May 28, 2008
This book was fabulous - imagine an entire novel written in verse! How could you? when I started, I couldn't imagine that I would finish it. But Seth does such a fabulous job with the rhyme scheme, with choices of words, and with the story itself that I couldn't put it down. It actually worked best when my wife and I took turns reading it aloud to one another. Then you can really "hear" the poetry in it as well as enjoy the story.
Seth said that he was inspired by Eugene Onegin by Pushkin - using the same rhyme scheme, but when I went to read Eugene Onegin, I was very disappointed. Perhaps it is the difficulty of translation from Russian, possibly the translation across time. I suspect, though, that the difference is Seth's playfulness with language.
Seth said that he was inspired by Eugene Onegin by Pushkin - using the same rhyme scheme, but when I went to read Eugene Onegin, I was very disappointed. Perhaps it is the difficulty of translation from Russian, possibly the translation across time. I suspect, though, that the difference is Seth's playfulness with language.
May 18, 2016
This is an excellent effort - a novel entirely in sonnet format (including the chapter titles). I read this ages back, and was not very impressed. Since then I have become a fan of Seth's poetry, and I think if I read this now, it will go up by one star.
March 12, 2021
I had borrowed this from the library, but I was enjoying it a lot and I wanted to own it, so I ran to the nearest bookstore to buy a personal copy before continuing to read.
A novel in verse, fully written in sonnets! But don't be intimidated. The rhyme makes it fun and lucid.
And, even if it were written in prose, the story is marvelous and an emotional hurricane. It is crazy how such modest ingredients - ordinary young characters and ordinary life events, can result into an extraordinary novel. The secret spice is honesty. It is so well grounded that its realness hits you like you were hit by a truck.
Every character grapples with self-conflicts while they are merely trying to live out their lives. They have moral dilemmas about the nature of their love and have doubts in their choice of vocation. Some are selectively sensitive while they complain about other's insensitivity, and some trust time to mend relationships yet they make decisions in haste. They disapprove each other's rigid beliefs while they themselves are driven by their higher purpose.
It is funny, romantic, witty and tragic, and the entire story is set in picture-postcard 1980s San Francisco.
A novel in verse, fully written in sonnets! But don't be intimidated. The rhyme makes it fun and lucid.
And, even if it were written in prose, the story is marvelous and an emotional hurricane. It is crazy how such modest ingredients - ordinary young characters and ordinary life events, can result into an extraordinary novel. The secret spice is honesty. It is so well grounded that its realness hits you like you were hit by a truck.
Every character grapples with self-conflicts while they are merely trying to live out their lives. They have moral dilemmas about the nature of their love and have doubts in their choice of vocation. Some are selectively sensitive while they complain about other's insensitivity, and some trust time to mend relationships yet they make decisions in haste. They disapprove each other's rigid beliefs while they themselves are driven by their higher purpose.
It is funny, romantic, witty and tragic, and the entire story is set in picture-postcard 1980s San Francisco.
March 1, 2024
Today I wish to review my very latest read for you
It’s a novel in verse by the inimitable Vikram Seth
About young pals-John, Liz, Janet, Ed, Phil and Sue
Set in 1980’s, it unfolds in city of ‘The Golden Gate’
When a lonely John sets out to look for an apt partner
Pressed by Janet, his ex-a sculptor and band drummer
They come across a plethora of people and situations
Find old friends, heartbreaks, odd and taboo relations
Apart from jealous cats, wines, iguana, art, revolution,
Sleights, breakups, confessions, marches and confusion
Author’s lucid verses keep the reader glued to the tale
He finely etches all characters and lives in good detail
Our author was born in Kolkata, West Bengal in 1952
Though an economist he entered literature, a field new
His first novel, this came out in 1986, by Faber&Faber
And since has won hearts of its readers the world over
Composed in 14-line sonnet form; inspired by Pushkin
After author read both translations of ‘Eugene Onegin’
So now, I have one more title to appreciate and collect
No brownie points for guessing, it is ‘The Golden Gate’
December 30, 2016
This is sheer intellectual & gripping....the closet conversations are out...
July 15, 2013
I have read Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’ and ‘An Equal Music’ and liked both of them very much. ‘A Suitable Boy’ was the longest book that I had ever read at the time I read it – at 1360 pages, it comfortably beat its competition which included ‘Gone with the Wind’ by Margaret Mitchell (1106 pages) and ‘Destiny’ by Sally Beauman (960 pages). I think it still is the longest I have ever read. However after reading ‘An Equal Music’, I liked it a little bit more. I have wanted to read his novel in verse ‘The Golden Gate’ since then. When the book club I am part of, decided to read ‘The Golden Gate’ this month, I was quite excited.
‘The Golden Gate’ is set in California in the middle ‘80s. It follows the lives of a five characters who are all in their middle twenties. John is working in an electronics / computer firm. He is successful in his work and is happy with his job. But he doesn’t have a life outside work. He used to date Janet but that didn’t work out, though they are still friends. So now, he is a lost soul outside his work and feels that life doesn’t seem to have any meaning. Janet offers to help him. She puts an ad in the personal section of the local paper. John gets many responses and he meets some of the women who wrote to him. One of them, Liz, is a lawyer. John hits it off with her in a big way and realizes that they are perfect together. Things move at a breakneck pace and before they realize it, John and Liz are living together. Meanwhile, John’s friend Phil, has left the technology company he was working in and organizes protests against nuclear weapons. John is not able to understand why he does that. Once, John and Liz bump into him at a concert. They invite him to a party that they are holding. Phil is divorced from his wife and has a son who lives with him. Phil goes to the party and meets Liz’ family. At some point Phil meets Ed, Liz’ brother and they fall in love. Phil and Ed enjoy the passionate evenings that they spend together, but Ed is also a staunch Christian and so feels that what he is doing is sinful. Phil and Ed have long conversations about that.
I think I will break off here. I don’t want to continue and tell you the rest of the story. I think I will recommend that you read the book for that. If I have to give you a clue, it is this – one thing leads to another, there are a few surprises in store as the love lives of Phil and Ed and John and Liz don’t go according to plan, and there is an unexpected ending.
This is the first time I have read a novel in verse. My knowledge of this style is limited, but I think Seth was probably the first modern novelist to attempt this form. It is beautiful and it works. The story is told in a collection of sonnets, and in one of the chapters Seth says that it is written in the tetrameter, in contrast to the pentameter which is more commonly used in English poetry. (Of course, this didn’t make much of a difference to me, because I can’t identify meters, but to the more discerning and sophisticated reader, this might have added richness to the reading experience.) The wordplay was beautiful and I loved reading some of my favourite sonnets from the book again. There were some places where it was obvious that Seth had overworked his thesaurus to get the right words in place so that the poem will rhyme with rhythm, but, in general, the word play was natural and was a pleasure to read. There were lines like this :
“…Don’t put things off till it’s too late.
You are the DJ of your fate.”
And this :
Work, and the syndrome of possessions
Leave little time for life’s digressions.
And this :
…Phil falters,
Halts in mid-utterance and alters
And this :
No matter how the poet strives
To weave with epithets and clauses
Your soundless web, he falters, pauses,
And your enchantment slips between
His hands, as if it’s never been.
And this :
This story’s time lens is retreating –
Not with intention to confuse
But rather to update the news.
And this :
“…Why condense
The happiness that floats above you
By seeding it with doubt and pain,
Crystals that force it down as rain?”
When I read this line, it made me smile :)
…these days all
I do is buy books. I can’t read ‘em.
That is, as the Japanese say, the Tsundoku life :) (Tsundoku = buying books and not reading them; letting books pile up unread on shelves or floors or nightstands.)
My favourite characters from the book were Phil and Charlemagne, Liz’ cat. I also liked Janet and Liz. But I have to say that most of the characters were interesting in their own way.
The story has an unexpected ending. I was disappointed with it, because I felt that the author introduced a deliberate twist to break readers’ hearts, but on thinking about it and discussing it with friends, I realize that there is a beauty to it too.
I don’t care about blurbs much, but I loved the one on Vikram Seth’s book. It went like this :
“The Golden Gate doesn’t only compellingly advocate life’s pleasures; it stylishly contributes another one to them.”
I couldn’t have put it better. Whether you love poetry or you get intimidated by it, I think you will like ‘The Golden Gate’.
Have you read Vikram Seth’s ‘The Golden Gate’? What do you think about it?
‘The Golden Gate’ is set in California in the middle ‘80s. It follows the lives of a five characters who are all in their middle twenties. John is working in an electronics / computer firm. He is successful in his work and is happy with his job. But he doesn’t have a life outside work. He used to date Janet but that didn’t work out, though they are still friends. So now, he is a lost soul outside his work and feels that life doesn’t seem to have any meaning. Janet offers to help him. She puts an ad in the personal section of the local paper. John gets many responses and he meets some of the women who wrote to him. One of them, Liz, is a lawyer. John hits it off with her in a big way and realizes that they are perfect together. Things move at a breakneck pace and before they realize it, John and Liz are living together. Meanwhile, John’s friend Phil, has left the technology company he was working in and organizes protests against nuclear weapons. John is not able to understand why he does that. Once, John and Liz bump into him at a concert. They invite him to a party that they are holding. Phil is divorced from his wife and has a son who lives with him. Phil goes to the party and meets Liz’ family. At some point Phil meets Ed, Liz’ brother and they fall in love. Phil and Ed enjoy the passionate evenings that they spend together, but Ed is also a staunch Christian and so feels that what he is doing is sinful. Phil and Ed have long conversations about that.
I think I will break off here. I don’t want to continue and tell you the rest of the story. I think I will recommend that you read the book for that. If I have to give you a clue, it is this – one thing leads to another, there are a few surprises in store as the love lives of Phil and Ed and John and Liz don’t go according to plan, and there is an unexpected ending.
This is the first time I have read a novel in verse. My knowledge of this style is limited, but I think Seth was probably the first modern novelist to attempt this form. It is beautiful and it works. The story is told in a collection of sonnets, and in one of the chapters Seth says that it is written in the tetrameter, in contrast to the pentameter which is more commonly used in English poetry. (Of course, this didn’t make much of a difference to me, because I can’t identify meters, but to the more discerning and sophisticated reader, this might have added richness to the reading experience.) The wordplay was beautiful and I loved reading some of my favourite sonnets from the book again. There were some places where it was obvious that Seth had overworked his thesaurus to get the right words in place so that the poem will rhyme with rhythm, but, in general, the word play was natural and was a pleasure to read. There were lines like this :
“…Don’t put things off till it’s too late.
You are the DJ of your fate.”
And this :
Work, and the syndrome of possessions
Leave little time for life’s digressions.
And this :
…Phil falters,
Halts in mid-utterance and alters
And this :
No matter how the poet strives
To weave with epithets and clauses
Your soundless web, he falters, pauses,
And your enchantment slips between
His hands, as if it’s never been.
And this :
This story’s time lens is retreating –
Not with intention to confuse
But rather to update the news.
And this :
“…Why condense
The happiness that floats above you
By seeding it with doubt and pain,
Crystals that force it down as rain?”
When I read this line, it made me smile :)
…these days all
I do is buy books. I can’t read ‘em.
That is, as the Japanese say, the Tsundoku life :) (Tsundoku = buying books and not reading them; letting books pile up unread on shelves or floors or nightstands.)
My favourite characters from the book were Phil and Charlemagne, Liz’ cat. I also liked Janet and Liz. But I have to say that most of the characters were interesting in their own way.
The story has an unexpected ending. I was disappointed with it, because I felt that the author introduced a deliberate twist to break readers’ hearts, but on thinking about it and discussing it with friends, I realize that there is a beauty to it too.
I don’t care about blurbs much, but I loved the one on Vikram Seth’s book. It went like this :
“The Golden Gate doesn’t only compellingly advocate life’s pleasures; it stylishly contributes another one to them.”
I couldn’t have put it better. Whether you love poetry or you get intimidated by it, I think you will like ‘The Golden Gate’.
Have you read Vikram Seth’s ‘The Golden Gate’? What do you think about it?
March 21, 2007
Anyone who can write an entire novel in sonnet form in this day and age and still weave a story that taps into the complex core of the heart and love is, simply put, amazing.
August 25, 2016
I got this book as a gift and was honestly a bit wary at first because the concept—a novel told entirely in sonnets!—seemed a bit hokey and pretentious to me. But in general it's really quite lovely and clever, even if the plot is a bit thin (with the exception of one incredibly shocking moment toward the end). Plus, Seth captures the feel of the Bay Area really well. You were right, dear gift-giver!
August 3, 2020
I'm so in awe of this book. It almost feels like I had to read the book twice - one verse at a time. One time to read it for the meat and once to admire the verse and rhyme scheme.
Oh Vikram Seth. You spoil us with your genius. What a brilliant plot and what a way to go about putting it out there in the world. Superb.
Oh Vikram Seth. You spoil us with your genius. What a brilliant plot and what a way to go about putting it out there in the world. Superb.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 493 reviews