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Benign Flame: Saga of Love
The attractions Roopa experienced and the fantasies she entertained as a teen shaped a male imagery that ensconced her subconscious. Insensibly, confident carriage came to be associated with the image of maleness in her mind-set. Her acute consciousness of masculinity only increased her vulnerability to it, making her womanliness crave for the maleness for its gratification.
However, as her father was constrained to help her in becoming a doctor, she opts to marry, hoping that Sathyam might serve her cause though the persona she envisioned as masculine, she found lacking in him. But as he fails to go with her idea, she becomes apathetic towards him, and insensibly sinks into her friend Sandhya’s embrace, for lesbian solace.
Soon, in a dramatic sequence of events, Tara, a suave call girl, tries to rope Roopa into her calling; Roopa herself loses her heart to Sandhya's beau Raja Rao, and Prasad, her husband’s friend falls for her. And as Prasad begins to induce Sathyam to be seduced by whores to worm his way into her affections, Roopa finds herself in a dilemma. However, as fate puts Raja Rao into Roopa’s arms in such a way as to lend novelty to fiction, this ‘novel’ nuances man-woman chemistry on one hand, and portrays woman-woman empathy on the other.
Who said the novel is dead; 'Benign Flame' raises the bar as vouched by -
The plot is quite effective and it’s a refreshing surprise to discover that the story will not trace a fall into disaster for Roopa, given that many writers might have habitually followed that course with a wife who strays into extramarital affairs - Spencer Critchley, Literary Critic, U.S.A.
The author has convinced the readers that love is something far beyond the marriage tie and the fulfillment love can be attained without marriage bondage. The author has achieved a minor revolution without any paraphernalia of revolution in the fourth part of the novel – The Quest, India.
The author makes free use of – not interior monologue as such, but – interior dialogue of the character with the self, almost resembling the dramatic monologue of Browning. Roopa, Sandhya, Raja Rao and Prasad to a considerable extent and Tara and Sathyam to a limited degree indulge in rationalization, trying to analyse their drive sand impulses – The Journal of Indian Writing in English.
Overall, Benign Flame is a unique attempt at exploring adult relationships and sexuality in the contemporary middle-class. All the characters come alive with their cravings and failings, their love and their lust. Benign Flame blurs the lines and emphasizes that life is not all black and white - it encompasses the full spectrum of living - Indian Book Chronicle.
This novel is scripted in
1. Ramaiah’s Family
2. Realities of Life
3. Hapless Hope
4. Turn at the Tether
5. Moorings of Marriage
6. World within the World
7. Roopa’s En Passant
8. Threshold of Temptation
9. Sathyam’s Surrender
10. Sandhya’s Sojourn
11. Match in the Making
12. Poignant Moment
13. Wedding Season
14. Veil of Fate
15. Naughty Nuptials
16. Tidings of Love
17. Tentative Moves
18. Fetishes of Fantasy
19. Curtain of Courtesy
20. Blueprint in the Offing
21. Enduring Longing
22. Villainy of Life
23. Playboy at Play
24. Scheming the Theme
25. Device of Deceit
26. Software of Detour
27. Tara’s Theory
28. Night of the Mates
29. A Brimming Romance
30. Euphoric Forays
31. Living the Dream
32. Chat at the Bar
33. Amour on Rein
34. Surge of a Merge
35. Date with Destiny
36. Threesome Sail
37. End of an Innings
38. Subdued Beginning
Links to the free ebook-
Google Books https://books.google.co.in/books?id=t...
Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing Press
http://self.gutenberg.org/eBooks/WPLB...
Wattpad https://www.wattpad.com/story/1744623...
However, as her father was constrained to help her in becoming a doctor, she opts to marry, hoping that Sathyam might serve her cause though the persona she envisioned as masculine, she found lacking in him. But as he fails to go with her idea, she becomes apathetic towards him, and insensibly sinks into her friend Sandhya’s embrace, for lesbian solace.
Soon, in a dramatic sequence of events, Tara, a suave call girl, tries to rope Roopa into her calling; Roopa herself loses her heart to Sandhya's beau Raja Rao, and Prasad, her husband’s friend falls for her. And as Prasad begins to induce Sathyam to be seduced by whores to worm his way into her affections, Roopa finds herself in a dilemma. However, as fate puts Raja Rao into Roopa’s arms in such a way as to lend novelty to fiction, this ‘novel’ nuances man-woman chemistry on one hand, and portrays woman-woman empathy on the other.
Who said the novel is dead; 'Benign Flame' raises the bar as vouched by -
The plot is quite effective and it’s a refreshing surprise to discover that the story will not trace a fall into disaster for Roopa, given that many writers might have habitually followed that course with a wife who strays into extramarital affairs - Spencer Critchley, Literary Critic, U.S.A.
The author has convinced the readers that love is something far beyond the marriage tie and the fulfillment love can be attained without marriage bondage. The author has achieved a minor revolution without any paraphernalia of revolution in the fourth part of the novel – The Quest, India.
The author makes free use of – not interior monologue as such, but – interior dialogue of the character with the self, almost resembling the dramatic monologue of Browning. Roopa, Sandhya, Raja Rao and Prasad to a considerable extent and Tara and Sathyam to a limited degree indulge in rationalization, trying to analyse their drive sand impulses – The Journal of Indian Writing in English.
Overall, Benign Flame is a unique attempt at exploring adult relationships and sexuality in the contemporary middle-class. All the characters come alive with their cravings and failings, their love and their lust. Benign Flame blurs the lines and emphasizes that life is not all black and white - it encompasses the full spectrum of living - Indian Book Chronicle.
This novel is scripted in
1. Ramaiah’s Family
2. Realities of Life
3. Hapless Hope
4. Turn at the Tether
5. Moorings of Marriage
6. World within the World
7. Roopa’s En Passant
8. Threshold of Temptation
9. Sathyam’s Surrender
10. Sandhya’s Sojourn
11. Match in the Making
12. Poignant Moment
13. Wedding Season
14. Veil of Fate
15. Naughty Nuptials
16. Tidings of Love
17. Tentative Moves
18. Fetishes of Fantasy
19. Curtain of Courtesy
20. Blueprint in the Offing
21. Enduring Longing
22. Villainy of Life
23. Playboy at Play
24. Scheming the Theme
25. Device of Deceit
26. Software of Detour
27. Tara’s Theory
28. Night of the Mates
29. A Brimming Romance
30. Euphoric Forays
31. Living the Dream
32. Chat at the Bar
33. Amour on Rein
34. Surge of a Merge
35. Date with Destiny
36. Threesome Sail
37. End of an Innings
38. Subdued Beginning
Links to the free ebook-
Google Books https://books.google.co.in/books?id=t...
Project Gutenberg Self-Publishing Press
http://self.gutenberg.org/eBooks/WPLB...
Wattpad https://www.wattpad.com/story/1744623...
399 pages, ebook
Published June 9, 2006
4 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
About the author
B.S. Murthy
12 books70 followers I’m an Indian novelist, playwright, short story, non-fiction 'n articles writer, translator, a 'little' thinker and a budding philosopher in ‘Addendum to Evolution: Origins of the World by Eastern Speculative Philosophy’ that was originally published in The Examined Life On-Line Philosophy Journal, Vol. 05 Issue 18, Summer 2004.
Born on 27 Aug 1948 and having been schooled in letter-writing, in my mid thirties, I happened to articulate my managerial ideas in thirty-odd published articles, and later penned Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels), Glaring Shadow: A stream of consciousness novel, Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Of No Avail: Web of Wedlock, a novella, Stories Varied: A Book of Short Stories and Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays.
Besides Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More), a ‘novel’ narrative, possibly in a new genre, and the critique Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for their Revocation) in the arena of non-fiction, my literary endeavours in the translation zone had been the versification of the Sanskrit epics, Vyasa’s Bhagvad-Gita as Treatise of self-help and Valmiki’s Sundara Kãnda as Hanuman’s Odyssey in contemporary English idiom,
Later, as a prodigal son, I took to my mother tongue, Telugu, to craft the short story తప్పటడుగులు (Missteps)
While my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.
MY body of work as above is in the public domain as free ebooks https://www.google.com/search?q=bs+mu...
More over, some of my articles on management issues, general insurance topics, literary matters, and political affairs published in The Hindu, The Economic Times, The Financial Express. The Purchase, The Insurance Times, Triveni , Boloji.com are reproduced in Academia.edu
https://independent.academia.edu/Bulu...
I, a graduate mechanical engineer from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India, had been a Hyderabad-based Insurance Surveyor and Loss Assessor from 1986 - 2021.
-----------------------------------------
More about me in "My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility" https://g.co/kgs/6z2djV
Born on 27 Aug 1948 and having been schooled in letter-writing, in my mid thirties, I happened to articulate my managerial ideas in thirty-odd published articles, and later penned Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels), Glaring Shadow: A stream of consciousness novel, Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Of No Avail: Web of Wedlock, a novella, Stories Varied: A Book of Short Stories and Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays.
Besides Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A Critical Appraisal of Islamic Faith, Indian Polity ‘n More), a ‘novel’ narrative, possibly in a new genre, and the critique Inane Interpolations in Bhagvad-Gita (An Invocation for their Revocation) in the arena of non-fiction, my literary endeavours in the translation zone had been the versification of the Sanskrit epics, Vyasa’s Bhagvad-Gita as Treatise of self-help and Valmiki’s Sundara Kãnda as Hanuman’s Odyssey in contemporary English idiom,
Later, as a prodigal son, I took to my mother tongue, Telugu, to craft the short story తప్పటడుగులు (Missteps)
While my fiction had emanated from my conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all my body of work was borne out of my passion for writing, matched only by my love for language.
MY body of work as above is in the public domain as free ebooks https://www.google.com/search?q=bs+mu...
More over, some of my articles on management issues, general insurance topics, literary matters, and political affairs published in The Hindu, The Economic Times, The Financial Express. The Purchase, The Insurance Times, Triveni , Boloji.com are reproduced in Academia.edu
https://independent.academia.edu/Bulu...
I, a graduate mechanical engineer from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India, had been a Hyderabad-based Insurance Surveyor and Loss Assessor from 1986 - 2021.
-----------------------------------------
More about me in "My ‘Novel’ Account of Human Possibility" https://g.co/kgs/6z2djV
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 29, 2012
Interior Dialogues are freely used, monologues being a little dramatic. Very well penned love and romance in a sublime and aesthetic way, full of grace and feminine sensitivity and sensuality. The plot is quite effective. A nice write-up..
March 8, 2014
Well.. first thanks to goodreads for sending this on giveaways! I guess was just testing it ;)
And coming to the book.. the story is set in AP.. and me coming from there - the usage of telugu words once in a while feels good while reading.. however at times I felt the author was trying to showoff his command over english and that was a dampener for me..
Coming to the story.. since the story is set out in a li'l older era when women working isn't the norm of the day, I'm not sure if ppl really used to think that way.. I kinda hated the main female character Roopa from the beginning.. her main problem as I see it is that the man who she agrees to get married to isn't like a he-man sorts of her dreams.. him not allowing her to get to work adds to her woes though.. but her marriage not working is mostly her own doing.. I don't have any issues with lesbianism I think it still counts up-to infidelity whether the affair is with a woman or man.. felt really sorry for her husband for most part.. and I still cant believe any woman would like to share her man with any other woman how much ever she loves her!!
The books tries to hit many other subjects like parenthood, communal riots, woman liberation, bribery etc while going through the love story.. The monologues in the book were interesting giving out a clear picture of what's going on their minds.. the encounters in the love triangle were sensuous..
might not be relevant in the current era.. but a good read nevertheless..
And coming to the book.. the story is set in AP.. and me coming from there - the usage of telugu words once in a while feels good while reading.. however at times I felt the author was trying to showoff his command over english and that was a dampener for me..
Coming to the story.. since the story is set out in a li'l older era when women working isn't the norm of the day, I'm not sure if ppl really used to think that way.. I kinda hated the main female character Roopa from the beginning.. her main problem as I see it is that the man who she agrees to get married to isn't like a he-man sorts of her dreams.. him not allowing her to get to work adds to her woes though.. but her marriage not working is mostly her own doing.. I don't have any issues with lesbianism I think it still counts up-to infidelity whether the affair is with a woman or man.. felt really sorry for her husband for most part.. and I still cant believe any woman would like to share her man with any other woman how much ever she loves her!!
The books tries to hit many other subjects like parenthood, communal riots, woman liberation, bribery etc while going through the love story.. The monologues in the book were interesting giving out a clear picture of what's going on their minds.. the encounters in the love triangle were sensuous..
might not be relevant in the current era.. but a good read nevertheless..
January 26, 2013
Benign flame is elegantly written love dilemma of protagonist "Roopa". Roopa compromised for the prince of her dream and get married to Sathyam. In her desolate marital life she found love in her lesbian mate, Sandhya's husband, Raja Rao. In a conundrum of maintaining her love life to Sandhya and try to wooing Raja Rao, she is having indifference for her husband.
B.S. Murthy's writing was very elegant and cogent. How he describe the character of his book, nuptial engagement between them and ambiance and nuances of there conclave union, is of all praise. Although, the script was not very tempting to stick the reader to the book. Also I feel that this book deserve a better ending than it has. Specially bringing the riot part was bit disruptive in the flow of the reading.
At last I would say Benign flame deserve a place in anyone's book shelf for author's elegant and precise usage of his words.
B.S. Murthy's writing was very elegant and cogent. How he describe the character of his book, nuptial engagement between them and ambiance and nuances of there conclave union, is of all praise. Although, the script was not very tempting to stick the reader to the book. Also I feel that this book deserve a better ending than it has. Specially bringing the riot part was bit disruptive in the flow of the reading.
At last I would say Benign flame deserve a place in anyone's book shelf for author's elegant and precise usage of his words.
February 28, 2013
A beautifully written love story revolving around Roopa - a village born girl with big dreams and in search of love - the story shows how love can be found anywhere if you really look for it. Roopa enters into a dull marriage against her better judgement - as a result of which she tries to find love in her best friend Sandhya and her husband - yet only after a tragic loss does she truly understand that the love she was looking for was always there in front of her.
The only thing I didn't like about the story is that at some points the story seemed to move along very slow and stretch a lot.
The only thing I didn't like about the story is that at some points the story seemed to move along very slow and stretch a lot.
November 26, 2012
A traditional backdrop; a plot that challenges hypocritical prudery; characters willing to taste the forbidden!
Despite the erotic space available, 'Benign Flame' stays subtle yet sensuous in its depiction of intimate encounters. The author's command over English is impeccable, though at times he is needlessly wordy.
'Benign Flame' may not be an international bestseller as yet, but it does leave you with a pleasant feel.
Despite the erotic space available, 'Benign Flame' stays subtle yet sensuous in its depiction of intimate encounters. The author's command over English is impeccable, though at times he is needlessly wordy.
'Benign Flame' may not be an international bestseller as yet, but it does leave you with a pleasant feel.
May 5, 2013
Beautifully crafted. I thank the author for providing this work as a precious gift under "Giveaway" program last year. Present work depicts the dreams of a child, the compromises of a girl and struggle of a woman about her wants and needs in crafty yet balanced way. Just one suggestion, please pickup a nice cover design that complements the true meaning of the story, not just a single part.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews