A FEW MONTHS before January 1994 when I set off for my first visit to India, my soon-to-be wife gave me a copy of the recently published A SUITABLE BOY by Vikram Seth.

I began reading it, and gave up after the first 300 pages.

33 years later, in September 2026, I began reading it again, and I have just finished reading the entire novel.

The book has over 1470 pages. Each one of them is a joy to read – not one of them is dull.

After having visited India more than 50 times and lived with my wife’s Indian family, the contents of the book make a great deal of sense to me. Words, traditions, and ways of life, which made little or no sense to me when I first tackled the novel in 1993, enhanced my second reading of the book. However, if one is not familiar with India and its recent (1950s) history, a reader might get less enjoyment fom the book than I have. That said, the novel provides a panoramic survey of the lives of various strata of Indian society during the first few years after 1947, when the country became independent.

It is amazing that the author has written a novel that remains compelling, exciting, interesting, and amusing over so many pages.

Anyone with even the slightest interest in India will gain much from reading “A Suitable Boy”.