Red Earth and Pouring Rain

by Vikram Chandra

Combining Indian myths, epic history, and the story of three college kids in search of America, a narrative includes the monkey's story of an Indian poet and warrior and an American road novel of college students driving cross-country.

Genres: Fiction, India, Fantasy, Indian Literature, Magical Realism, Literature, Asia

542 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Vikram Chandra was born in New Delhi.

He completed most of his secondary education at Mayo College, a boarding school in Ajmer, Rajasthan. After a short stay at St. Xavier's College in Mumbai, Vikram came to the United States as an undergraduate student.

In 1984, he graduated from Pomona College (in Claremont, near Los Angeles) with a magna cum laude BA in English, with a concentration in creative writing.

He then attended the Film School at Columbia University in New York. In the Columbia library, by chance, he happened upon the autobiography of Colonel James "Sikander" Skinner, a legendary nineteenth century soldier, born of an Indian mother and a British father. This book was to become the inspiration for Vikram's novel, Red Earth and Pouring Rain. He left film school halfway to begin work on the novel.

Red Earth and Pouring Rain was written over several years at the writing programs at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Houston. Vikram worked with John Barth at Johns Hopkins and with Donald Barthelme at the University of Houston; he obtained an MA at Johns Hopkins and an MFA at the University of Houston.

While writing Red Earth and Pouring Rain, Vikram taught literature and writing, and also worked independently as a computer programmer and software and hardware consultant. His clients included oil companies, non-profit organizations, and the Houston Zoo.

Red Earth and Pouring Rain was published in 1995 by Penguin/India in India; by Faber and Faber in the UK; and by Little, Brown in the United States. The book was received with outstanding critical acclaim. It won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book and the David Higham Prize for Fiction.

A collection of short stories, Love and Longing in Bombay, was published in 1997 by Penguin/India in India; by Faber and Faber in the UK; and by Little, Brown in the United States. Love and Longing in Bombay won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (Eurasia region); was short-listed for the Guardian Fiction Prize; and was included in "Notable Books of 1997" by the New York Times Book Review, in "Best Books of the Year" by the Independent (London), in "Best Books of the Year" by the Guardian (London), and in "The Ten Best Books of 1997" by Outlook magazine (New Delhi). Two of these stories have been formerly published in the Paris Review and The New Yorker. The story "Dharma" was awarded the Discovery Prize by the Paris Review, and was included in Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (St. Martin's Press, 1998).

A novel, Sacred Games, was published in 2006 by Penguin/India in India; and by Faber and Faber in the UK. It will be published in January 2007 in the United States by HarperCollins.

In June 1997, Vikram was featured in the New Yorker photograph of "India's leading novelists." His work has been translated into eleven languages.

He has co-written Mission Kashmir, an Indian feature film starring Sanjay Dutt, Hrithik Roshan, Preity Zinta, and Jackie Shroff, that was released internationally in late October, 2000.

Vikram's mother, Kamna Chandra, is the writer of several Hindi films including Prem Rog and 1942: A Love Story; she has also written plays for All India Radio and Doordarshan. His sister, Tanuja Chandra, is a director and screenwriter, who has directed several films including Sur and Sangharsh. His other sister Anupama Chopra is a film critic and senior correspondent for India Today; she has written Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, a BFI book about the hugely popular 1995 hit. Her first book, Sholay: The Making of a Classic, won the Swarn Kamal, a national award for the best Indian book on cinema in 1995. Vikram's father, Navin Chandra, is a retired executive.

Vikram Chandra currently divides his time between Mumbai and Berkeley, California, where he teaches creative writing at the University of California. He lives with his wife Melanie Abrams, who is also a novelist.

Reviews

[Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The main things this book had going for it:
• Stories within stories within stories. You might get lost like I did, but I found I didn’t really care about what level I was in as long as the stories kept unrolling and enrapturing me;
• Beautiful, vivid and lyrical language: descriptive, character-illuminating, sometimes philosophical;
• A typewriting monkey! I mean, a TYPEWRITING MONKEY!

So the stories -- lots of stories -– form a Scheherazade-style framework with the monkey telling tales to both visiting gods and townspeople to save his own life: tales of romance, adventure, war, family, love, birth, death, and growing up, the magical and the mundane, from 18th century India to 1980s California. The framework around the stories, each of which has its own conflict and arc, has a conflict of its own, the challenge every storyteller has: to keep his audience intrigued. Or else.

Today the television cameras came, and also the death threats. We have been warned by several organizations that the storytelling must stop. The groups on the very far right – of several religions – object to the ‘careless use of religious symbology, and the ceaseless insults to the sensitivities of the devout.’ The far-left parties object to the sensationalization and falsification of history, and the pernicious Western influences on our young.’ Everyone objects to the sex, except the audience.

We have become a national issue. Questions have been raised in parliament. Sir Patanjali Abhishek Vardarajan, the grand old man of Indian science, has offered a reward of fifty thousand rupees to ‘anyone who can demonstrate the existence of a typing monkey under laboratory conditions.’ . . .

‘We will not be bullied,’ Saira said. “Type on.’

I was almost a hundred pages into this before I learned that Chandra had studied writing with John Barth at Johns Hopkins. Well, no wonder I was loving it. This has the same sort of sprawling scope and playful tone as many of Barth’s longer works, blending the mythical, historical and the everyday in a similar fashion. It’s certainly not on a level in terms of prose or structure, of course, but it’s still awfully good. And once I knew the connection, I could plainly see the master’s fingerprints, the DNA is there.

I’m not going to lie to you. I didn’t enjoy every page of this. Sometimes the epic battle scenes were too detailed and the play-by-play of a cricket match left me restless and skimming. But then, I’m such a girl, I don’t enjoy war and sports that much. However, most of it was delightful.

So there are stories within stories, which are also stories about stories. There’s a reverence for storytelling that permeates the whole, with the frequent interjection:

“Listen . . . . “

And we do.

[Don Dada · Rating 5 out of 5]

A young man returns to India after going to college in Los Angeles. While tangled in a web of identity issues, the young man shoots a monkey that had stolen his levis ( symbolism anyone?). This is a big no-no in their neck of the woods and the young man's family rushes to save the monkey.

While nursing the monkey back to health, it becomes clear that the shooting had flipped a switch in the monkey that allows him to remember his past life as a poet. The monkey proceeds to climb up to the typewriter and begin telling his story. Yama, the god of death, comes down and says, "Stop what you're doing, cuz I'm about to ruin the image and the style that you're used to" and tries to put an end to the monkey's ... er ...monkeying around. While Yama is dragging him from this mortal coil, the monkey prays to Hanuman (god of monkeys and poets) to save him. Hanuman kicks in the door wavin a .44 (not really, but i'm trying to keep the hip-hop/Hindu gods thing going) and talks Yama into a bet. They will assemble a crowd and the monkey will climb up to the typewriter and begin telling his story. If the crowd becomes bored at any point during his story, Yama can take the monkey with him. But if the monkey tells a good story, he gets to kick it. Deal.

The monkey starts telling his story, but because he is still recovering from being shot, he needs the young man to pick up the slack - afterall, he's the one who got the monkey in this mess. So the young man sits down and begins telling his story about life in America. This is where the book actually begins.

If you can believe it, I have only told you the first 20 pages. The rest of the book is occupied by the two stories revolving around one another in a fairly astounding fashion. This is an incredible book. I cannot recommend it enough

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

The multiple stories in this truly epic novel make it a hard one to follow yet even h arder to put down. For a westerner quite unfamiliar with Indian culture, I was constnatly researching India's history, language, cuisine, gods, castes, and religion as I moved through this story. However - it was brilliant. The time spent researching to understand was quite worth it, and the information I gained in the process I should have already had. The story is brilliant, told for the most part by an ancient Indian warrier reincarnated as a money, and/or by an Indian student sharing details of his time spent in Los Angeles.

This is not a story I'd recommend to all, but it certainly is well-crafted, incredibly entertaining, and engaging in all ways.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Abhay comes home to India after studying in America, and he shoots a monkey that's been bothering the family for years. Wounded, they take the monkey in and nurse it, hopefully back to health. The monkey starts having flashbacks and realizes that it's a reincarnation of his former human self. the God of Death, Yama appears to the monkey, aka Sanjay in his former life, and wants to take him but Hanuman, the God of monkeys appears when he's appealed to by Sanjay. They strike a bargain and if Sanjay can keep an audience enthralled with stories for 2 hours a day, he will be allowed to live, perhaps in another life form, but at least out of the final clutches of Yama.

Abhay and his family, including a precocious little girl, named Saira, are captivated by this monkey who can't speak (and we learn later why not) but who can type. Saira manages to gather up an audience of school children the next day when the story-telling sessions begin and what occurs next is a little like an Indian version of 1001 Arabian Nights.

We are treated to the unfolding drama and saga of Sanjay's life, from the time before his mystical conception to his current condition. The stories are interspersed of course with breaks in time because there's only so much a monkey can type, and also the stories were supposed to only last for 2 hour sessions at a time. The stories include that of his equally mystically conceived brothers, Chotta and the famous warrior Sikander, and their journey from reckless boyhood, through harsh family trials, accidents, quests and wars between the Indians and their English masters.

The stories are so well told that we are immersed in each moment, and forget that it's being told by a typing monkey.

During the intervals between the passages of time in the stories, we are brought back to the present, and find that the elephant God, Ganesh, has joined the other 2 celestial beings, and there is light banter amongst them all.

The only odd notes in this book was that the author felt the need to have Abhay contribute some of his own stories, of a portion of his life in America to the mix, ostensibly because Sanjay's monkey paws were cramping from prolonged typing. I thought his trite stories of college partying, some drug use, and road trips rather jarring to the overall lyrical tone of the book. Thankfully, there weren't too many of Abhay's stories to be too distracting.

It is truly Sanjay's stories of his epic life journey that make this book a compelling read.

[Jeffrey Mervosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an endeavor. Written largely as a story-within-a-story, Red Earth and Pouring Rain relates the tales of two story-tellers - one, an Indian poet reincarnated in the form of a red monkey (whose human consciousness emerges after an accident), and the other, a newly-returned student sent to the United States for university. The two stories leapfrog back and forth, with each being told a chapter at a time. They tell the coming of age of two vastly different characters in vastly different periods of Indian history - both form complicated relationships with their own identity and with the people of Western backgrounds that surround them.

Neither story has the weight to stand on its own - both feel rambling, and while there are definite high points, a great deal of momentum is lost by both the format and the tendency of the author to get lost in details and asides. As a result of three (or four) simultaneous storylines and ensembles, the cast of characters can get a bit confusing. Despite the great attention to detail and the ability of the author to capture emotion well, the protagonists are still largely shrouded in mystery. Even Sanjay, the central figure in the epic storyline with most depth, does not seem fully formed. His erratic behavior and vague value system can leave the reader befuddled as to his actions.

Altogether, this book was interesting, and worth the read. I can't shake the feeling that the project was perhaps too ambitious, but there are threads of good stories here. The author is upfront that the format is that of mere story-telling; the narrative is borrowed from oral history and recollections of individual characters; it is not a true novel in that sense. There is a touch of the mythological that hints at weighty issues of meaning and justice, but these are largely circumnavigated by the angsty rebellion of Sanjay against the concept of fate. In the end, Vikram Chandra's work disappoints not because it is bad - but because it stops short of being something special. Like his characters, this work feels incomplete.

[Inderjit Sanghera · Rating 5 out of 5]

At some point in the novel the various narratives which form part of 'Red Earth and Pouring Rain' coalescence into a single story which has multiples essences but which centres on the theme of dislocation; the dislocation of Sanjay and Sikander as they are sundered from their families and martial cultures due to the expansion of colonial England, the dislocation of Abhay as he circumnavigates his way through late 20th century America and the vagaries of an India which seems increasingly surreal to him and the dislocation of a monkey, who is the reincarnation of a sagacious revolutionary, whose fight against the British took him from the printing press, to fratricide to a battle with the Jack the Ripper in the guise of an immortal and malevolent doctor. 

Throughout Chandra's prose is imbued with a kind of baleful beauty, as the novel perpetually teeters on the brink of violence under the eyes of its simian Scheherazade as he explores the conquest of the British from its early days, to the mutiny of 1847 to its height in late Victorian England as England grew fat on the riches it stole from its colonies. Amidst all this there exist beautiful princesses and legendary warriors,  familial betrayals and all of the other things which you would form part of great myths, yet Chandra subtly upends many of these myths; the great Rajput warrior Sikander ends up serving the very people he vowed to fight and the bookish intellectual Sanjay ends up sowing the seeds of revolution; the princesses, whilst being beautiful, are far from helpless and end up bewitching the mighty warriors who sought to ensure them and who end up being consumed with a sense of emptiness and ennui.

It is difficult to sum up a novel as varies as Chandra's, a novel which has multiple different narrations, some of which are never picked up again and some of which lead nowhere, but there is something unmistakably brilliant about the novel as a whole, as Chandra explores over 200 years of Indian history and the sense of wonder and awe it creates in others.  

[Neha Gupta · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having read Vikram Chandra before it seemed to be a safe bet to pick up again. So I chose 'Red Earth & Pouring Rain' - the title seemed enticing and the brief seemed interesting with a monkey as the story teller and a lot of mythical characters thrown in to create the mysticism.

In 'Sacred Games' one realizes that Vikram believes in storytelling and has seriously attempted to do that, succeeding in some & failing in others , but in this book Vikram is all the time speaking about how storytelling is so important and the single most goal of his book, but ends up telling about & everything which adds up in nothing. There were too many stories just for the sake of count like say one narrator talks about this guy who becomes narrator for another guy in another story and so on and so forth. You don’t even realize when a story starts or ends infact there is no flow or depth in any story. The author has created sections in the book with certain themes like The Book of revenge or The book of mistakes, etc, but nowhere that theme is visible in the stories The stories break abruptly and get into other unrelated stories. The author has not even done enough character sketch or research as the characters keep jumping from one story to another, confusing as to who is who, and how did this guy land here whereas he was part of some other story. As per authors most of the characters are heroic with a mystic aura around them winning wards & born to fulfill destinies, but the presentation and the flow of stories depict the characters as shallow & lifeless.

The book was a mixture of too many themes. At many places the author was trying too hard to create a Rushdie, with traces of Midnight's children or children born with super powers or labyrinth of stories, well here Vikram needs to be told that even Rushdie has not been able to create another Midnight's children so Vikram should not even try. At other places it seemed like a writing by one of the NRI authors like Jhumpa or Chitra or 100s of others who try to create the dilemmas of being an Indian or American and how they are neither. Sometimes Vikram also tried to create a mythical world of Indian Gods, usage of priests & sages & age old writings, but all these have been wasted entirely and these Gods seemed more like comedians than possessing any mysticism or powers.

I would strictly advice not to read this & waste your time. I had read most of it hoping for something to happen but it just didn’t. The climax is the biggest weakness of Vikram, he starts off well but he kills his stories with the kind of endings he writes, which are so drab & dull. Vikram my advise to you would be – to really try your hands at short stories before writing something like an epic of short stories and then connecting them randomly.

[planetkimi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Red Earth and Pouring Rain is a whirlwind of a book, and a heavy whirlwind at that. The book itself is weighty, and its contents are jammed full of an overwhelming amount of characters.

I had trouble remembering who did what, what the effect was, and how things influenced each other later. So to me, it seemed in parts like one random thing happening after another.

I really enjoyed the first third or so of the book, and then I think things all started to jumble together. I think I finally lost track of what was going on about halfway through. But I kept reading, hoping that everything would work itself out in the end. For me, it didn't.

[Jennifer Rhodes Wynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book holds a special place in my heart. My husband brought this to book on our first date...when ever I see it or re-read it I think of that night.

[Ieva Visockienė · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oho, jaučiuosi kaip į Everestą užkopus
https://perskaiciau.lt/vikram-chandra...

[Trishita (TrishReviews_ByTheBook) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poet, reincarnated as a monkey, churning out stories to keep himself alive, and his friend, a human also churning out stories to keep the said monkey alive turns into a story within a story within many stories becoming a reverential saga about stories themselves and how they are what keeps us going. The stories find their audience in the Gods themselves who descend on Earth vying for the monkey’s soul, but regular people also join in, the crowds get larger as the stories sprawl out into an epic spiel of myth, history, magic, and belonging.

In about 700 (long and dense) pages, the story of 18th century India meanders alongside the story of 20th century India and America, and the story of kings, poets, uprisings and revolutions in pre-colonial/colonial India take shape beside a campus narrative turned friends’ roadtrip seeking heaven in America, making stories and histories overlap into other stories and histories, helping us make sense of the history narrated in the novel. It’s classic and contemporary turn by turn, and rich, evocative and magnificent at all times.

One story ends, another begins and they all become one long story, as we probably are, one long story within many short stories. And with this intertwining of too many stories and too many people, it gets muddled, more than once, but every thread is neatly woven back into the narrative, only sometimes it takes a long time to connect the dots, and attention wavers because there’s just too much. But with a concept so fascinating, everything else zooms out of scope. We’re constantly reminded to ‘listen’ - and listen we must because in life, our story begets another and it comes back to the same point because it must. Oh how beautifully this novel captures the very essence of life and storytelling, and their entwining providence in the scheme of things.

I’m quite prone to do unprecedented things in life, and adding to that rich collection, I took off from work for two days before the weekend, so I could be engrossed in this book without interruption for four whole days, and what a rewarding experience. This novel is everything I love about literature, it is why I love literature. 4 stars!

[Dree · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel flip flops between early 19th century India, and 1990s India and California/Texas. It is about coming home and what is home, family and what is family, and identity. The cover is not lying, there is a typing monkey.

Many of Chandra's early 19th century characters were real people. I am not well-versed in Indian history (especially Indian military history), so I spent a fair amount of time reading about James Sikander Skinner, George Thomas (Jaharai Jung), Begum Sumroo, and more on Wikipedia. I looked up foods and places and wars. I am sure that someone with good knowledge of Indian history and culture would get a lot more out of this book than I did.

But I did enjoy this. Stories within stories, characters across time, gods, cricket in Houston, college in LA, driving long distances, characters in the 19th century and the 20th century wondering who they are and where they belong.

[Angela · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kind of feel like Vikram Chandra said to himself 'what do I want to read? what do I want to see happen in a story?' then gathered every idea he had ever had and smooshed it into a book. He covers every single genre in one way or another and at times the book so compacted I couldn't remember who people were and why they were there. Abhay's story contrasted so sharply with the rest of the book that Chandra could have left it out and still achieved the same outcome. I didn't see the point of Abhay's immature antics with his rich, miserable friends. It was a whole other book slid between a story of battle, Indian Gods, love and struggle. A book that was strangely put together, I wouldn't read it again.

[Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an awesome read, one of those "magic realism" books that take you places where your imagination wouldn't even dream of taking you. This sort of novel, where what is real, what is surreal and what is legend, all intertwine to the point of being indistinguishable seems to be a specialty of Indian and South American literature and I admit, I suck it up. An Indian warrior reincarnated as a typewriting monkey, relating his life story while a team of gods and mortals look on... wow!

[Veeral · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was disappointing in the sense that it seemed detached from its own story line. I wish it was not the case.

Nevertheless I am pretty much hopeful about Sacred Games by this author which I plan to read in the future.

[Degenerate Chemist · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Red Earth and Pouring Rain" is a one of the most unique novels I've ever read. I am having a hard time trying to put the novel into words.

This is a book about storytelling. As other reviewers have stated it is framed in the same way 1001 Arabian Nights - the end of one tale becomes the beginning of the next. Events on one story have consequences that will play out in another.. Our Scherazade is a typewriting Monkey and a college student who has returned home after studying in America. The book very explicitly deals with the British colonization of India as well as its aftermath.

Our simian protagonist, Prashar, makes a deal with Yama, the death god, to be allowed to live after being fatally shot. He promises the God a story which he draws out over several nights. He is assisted by Abhay, the college student returned home and the man who shot him. Other Hindu dieties come to hear the story and eventually this story comes to national attention.

The book can sort of be split into three interwoven parts. The meat of this story is Prashar's narration of his past life during the 19th century. The second story is the tale Abhay tells of his life as a student in the US. The third story is about the storytelling itself and the affect it has on God's and humans alike.

All of these plotlines are connected in some way. I found it helpful to take notes while I was reading. Further complicating things, this book is steeped very heavily in the teachings of the Hindu faith and the history of colonial India. I had to do a lot of research while reading because I know very little about either of those things.

This story is multifaceted and beautifully written. The parts where I struggled were due mostly to my own ignorance on certain topics. This is not a book for everyone. It does require some work from western audiences because Chandra will not hold your hand. And I have to be honest, I love reading an author who respects his audience's intelligence.

In short, this is a beautiful book that straddles the line between magical realism and historical fiction. There were a few places where reading this started to feel like a chore which is why I could not give this one a full five stars. While these sections did hurt the novel they did not really detract from the really excellent sections of this novel. I am filing this one under re-read.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a donation to my Little Free Library Shed. It had a special plastic cover over it, and it had originally been part of the Sweet Briar College library, donated through The Babette Levy Library Book Fund. It sounded like an important book to garner all that attention.

On the back of the cover it said, "'The New York Times Book Review' described it as "huge, magical cinematic." An unforgettable reading experience."

It had everything I needed to be intrigued. I put it on my TBR pile. A year later I picked it up to read. I am now bringing my review to Goodreads.

The author delves into the pages of Indian history to recreate characters with the novelist's imagination. He depicts fortune-seeking heroes and their gory battles with poetic mysticism, imparting magic to a world where boundaries between kingdoms are interesting and energetic.

The effect of his writing is rich, many-layered and fairly deliberate. Lots of imagery. Magical Realism. Political satire.

It is a sweeping story with two plot lines. Sometimes intermixing in a way that it gets to be overwhelming. Almost like reading two books in one. A little confusing at times.

Still...

There is much to gain here in its richness and magic. A debut worth checking out.

[Liutauras Elkimavičius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Einu su šuniu šlapia pieva. Tos smilgos buvo tokios geltonos, dabar viskas ruda, varna skrenda, ne šarka, įdomu jos valgomos, juodai balta ne toks ir retas derinys gamtoj, pingvinas, panda, oranžinė panda pralošė rinkimus, bet kaip tiek žmonių vis tiek už tą imbecilą balsavo, oi kiek šliužų ant takelio, užmint taip šlykštu, o jei neminsiu, ateis į svečius, bus pzdc pomidoriukams, gal kitais metais nebesodint, užtektų braškių, blin kaip noriu braškiųųųųųųųų. Maždaug taip. Maždaug taip atrodo kokia pusė minutės mano smegenų. Maždaug taip atrodo ir šita knyga. Bet tokiom sugedusiom smegenim, tai pats tas. Atradau sau dar vieną mylimą indą. #LEBooks #Recom #VikramChandra #RedEarthAndPouringRain

[kat · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried, I really tried. It's so long and full of petty cruelty, from a person shooting a monkey with a BB gun to bullying to wars and culture loss via colonization. The narrative is convoluted and there are multiple frame stories and some super annoying fourth-wall-breaking commentary. I was constantly confused about why anyone was doing anything, because there's not a lot about what the characters are thinking/feeling and they just randomly do things that kind of suck? And at best people are kind of indifferent to each other? Plus I could not keep track of everything that happened and all the different characters and none of it really seemed to matter.

I truly did not like anyone in this entire book. The main characters in particular are so unlikeable and also their actions and choices are totally inconsistent throughout the book. The story gives the impression of constantly setting up something and then just shifts away, leaving you wondering what happened to that guy anyway, did anything ever come of that sub-plot, why did you spend all this time telling me this stuff and then it just fades into the background? It's as if the author wasn't even interested in his own stories or characters, just in the act of storytelling, and in proselytizing about the act of storytelling itself, which doesn't really work if you don't have a good story to tie it together. It's a Peer Gynt onion that turns out to contain nothing at all beneath all the layers of trapping, and hopes you won't notice.

There's some magical realism elements but it's mainly gods showing up to talk to people and then a few other random events that seem essentially meaningless. I don't know, the whole thing was just exhausting. It's like an Indian version of 100 Years of Solitude where a bunch of people with confusingly-similar names make opaque choices for incoherent reasons and tragedy follows everything.

[Ingrid · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was so disappointed with this book. I love Indian novels and books by Indian authors and have read many, but just could not get into this book. I tried. The premise was great - a poet reincarnated as a monkey who has made a deal with the God of Death, Yama, that as long as he can keep telling stories (a prescribed number of hours a day) he may stay alive. Of course he cannot speak so he types out stories which are read out to the people who gather on the maidan. As long as Yama is entertained, he lives. GREAT! But the stories - ugh. Long, tedious tales of ancient wars and battles, words that I know but can't understand their significance in the sentence, stories about people I don't care about, etc.. These alternated with stories written by the young man in the home, his tales were of his modern adventures as a college student in the US, but even these I couldn't get into after a while. I feel badly to give it one star... not sure I've ever done that before. Sorry.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confession: I didn't get all the way through this, despite my huge admiration of Chandra's talents. This book has one of the best first chapters I've read, and is intermittently brilliant thereafter. But it's so maddeningly uneven that I found it gradually more exhausting than enjoyable.

This was his first novel, so it's no surprise that Chandra may not have been in full control of his powers yet. His follow-up story collection, Love and Longing in Bombay, is much more assured.

[Meg · Rating 1 out of 5]

No. Not my thing.

[Carmel]

Dropped at 55%

Slow and repetitive. I wish I got the last month back.

[Andrew Pollard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listen—

Red Earth and Pouring Rain is sprawling tangle of a masterpiece. This book is a library unto itself; stories toppling over stories in a symphonic blur of history and realism, myth and mysticism. I can't begin to understand how Chandra brought all of this together.

It's easy to point to certain moments that will leave you floored, but more impressive is the unerring momentum that Chandra carries through his effortless prose. These stories have the efficiency and focus of ancient fables and oral traditions—thirty years pass without warning, central characters die mid-paragraph, impossible feats occur sporadically and forgo explanation; what needs to happen happens—yet somehow the messaging is never heavy-handed, even as the anti-colonial stance comes through blisteringly and without compromise. 

A natural consequence of the book's (books'?) structure is that not all stories are created equal. Canonically, Abhay can't match Sanjay as an orator, and I went back and forth while reading on the necessity of including the former at all, or the entire framing narrative for that matter. Chandra won me round in the end, though. This is a story about storytelling, and Sanjay's tale is all the stronger because of this.

It's a decidedly bold move to hang your book on the idea that the narratives spun within are so compelling that they grab the attention of an entire nation and its pantheon of gods. I braced myself to find this aspect a bit embarrassingly unbelievable, something to grit my teeth through despite the admittedly interesting set up.

But what can I say? The mad bastard did it.

[Sean Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book, very sprawling and all over the place. It shifts in tone and form often. Sometimes this made it a bit of a slog, especially early on before I really got to grips with what it was trying to achieve. I don't think it's perfect but it really started to come together well at the end. It's themes of story telling, myth, identity and history were well realized, even if it was in a very subtle and mysterious sort of way, I did find myself captivated by the emotional resonances which were slowly built up over the course of the book. I think this one will stay with me for a long time.

[Trzcionka]

Dziwny, ciężki język przez co bardzo trudno się czytało. Niby zapowiadało się ciekawie, ale po paru stronach wciąż zastanawiałam się o co chodzi i o czym w ogóle ma być ta książka. Pozycja dla wytrwałych..

[Andrius Bagdonavicius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Įveikti 600+ puslapių apie mistifikuotą Indiją, kuri persipina su indo emigranto/studento dabartinių įvykių pasakojimu, nėra lengva.

Iš esmės - knyga apie Hindustano vidaus kovą tarp genčių ir susivienijimą kovai prieš anglus.

Bet visur tave lydi hindų mitologiniai slėpiniai.

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully written and found the layered story to be very artfully composed... the sudden short Jack the ripper bit really threw me... not cliche exactly in this scenario but something I've had enough of... aside from that was thoroughly enjoyable

[Praveen Palakkazhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listen.-

I used to think that Sacred Games, which I had read almost a decade ago, was Vikram Chandra’s magnum opus. But, while that tale was a gripping thrill ride with wonderfully etched characters, at the end of the day it was a relatively easy to pin down cops and robbers saga in the gritty underbelly of Mumbai.

But this. This, his first novel published in the mid-nineties, has to be his epic. Starting with a wonderful nostalgia inducing title (for a non-resident Malayalee, the phrase evokes a certain place and a certain time with longing) that is taken from an ancient Tamil poem, this book is an ode to storytelling in its finest form. It gets convoluted, it gets messy and it gets utterly complex at times with the profusion of characters and myth intermingling to form a heady concoction of daze in the reader’s head. But it enthralls and entertains with its mix of history and magic realism, a proud nod to Rushdie and Marquez while wholly creating its own unique space with its drawing from Hindu traditions and tales to weave its story.

The storytelling also takes its basic form from Scheherazade, she of the thousand and one nights and all. We have Abhay, a US educated youth returned from his American sojourn to his family home. He decides to put an end once and for all to the menace of a monkey who has been tormenting his family by stealing their food and clothes from the terrace for a while. His parents accept the monkey as a regular visitor, but Abhay decides to gun it down. While recovering, the monkey gains its senses and knowledge of its past life as Parasher, or Sanjay, a poet in nineteenth century India. Yama, the God of death, lies in wait for him, but with the help of Hanuman and Ganesha (who make appearances in the household too), they strike a bargain. If Sanjay can keep his audience entertained with a story for a certain period every day, Yama may just decide to relent. After the contract has been signed and the audience summoned, the monkey starts. Oh, and since he can’t really speak yet, he types it all out on the typewriter.

The tale he tells delves into multiple layers and goes back into a history of colonialism and old world values, but centers mainly on Sanjay and his friend Sikander, named after the all-conquering (until he mysteriously retreated from India) Alexander of Macedonia. Their genesis itself is an act of wonder, a result of mysteriously assembled ladoos and a yearning erstwhile Rajput princess, now the wife/concubine of the conquering British officer. Prior to this we are introduced to an Irish sailor who adopts India as his homeland and fights wars which ultimately lead to his connection with the boys. There is also a Frenchman who becomes a leader of armies in India. There are characters and more characters. These sections of the story are interspersed with a contemporary account of Abhay’s travels and college life in the United States. There are stories which come alive within the main stories, like the sudden diversion into the life story of a prostitute Abhay and his friends come across, all delivered in a monologue. Towards the end it takes on further elements of the supernatural and also delves into thriller territory with a reference to the Jack the Ripper murders which gripped London at one time.

It’s not a perfect book for sure. Some of the threads get too muddled on reading and it gets tough to remember all the myriad characters and incidents. Abhay’s narrative, while a nice detour from the heavy handedness of the historical tale, does not convey its message effectively enough, if there was one. It feels more like some random musings thrown together into the story. And it’s a long and exhausting read, only to be attempted if your attention span is capable of the heft this book needs and deserves.

But, eventually, it’s a story about storytellers and as a character says, once the story has left your pen, it ceases to be yours and becomes the reader’s. And so it does, for us to listen and draw our own meanings from the inexhaustible well of wonder that words can provide.

So. Listen.

[Shona smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some lovely prose. Got slightly lost in the third quarter, but managed to stick it out to a rewarding end.