R.K. Narayan As a Novelist (An Old and Rare Book)

R.K. NARAYAN's first novel was published in 1935 and his latest in 1986. His fame in India and abroad has, during this half century, grown steadily, and there is no disputing the fact that among all Indian writers of fiction in English he holds pride of place.

What makes for Narayan's greatness is his intimate portraiture of life as it is in a middle-class Indian home, and the streets and lanes where the poor and dispossessed carry on their occupations. His sense of humour and his irony are such as can often elude the academics and those so used to our conditions as to be incapable of questioning them. His rootedness in our culture and traditions gives him at the same time an ambivalence which can irritate a foreigner or a superficial reader.

It is the purpose of this book to elucidate what lies beneath Narayan's seemingly simple. surface, and then to judge him by the highest standards. Narayan can stand this test. Not only the foreigner but the Indian too will. realise after reading this book how much of value apart from sheer pleasure Narayan has to offer. At the same time his occasional faults are not overlooked.

P.S. SUNDARAM had a distinguished career as a student of the Universities of Madras and Oxford, and taught English for nearly forty. years as Professor at Lahore, Cuttack, Bareilly and Jaipur. He was elected President of the All-India English Teacher's Conference in 1968, and Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Journal of English Studies in 1978-79.

He is the author of a book on R.K. Narayan published by Arnold-Heinemann, India in 1973. The present book is entirely a new one on the same novelist.

In addition to many essays and lectures on English and American authors published and delivered, Professor Sundaram has of late been translating Tamil and Sanskrit classics. into English verse. His translation of the poems of Subramania Bharati was published. in 1981.

He translated the Kural of Tiruvalluvar and the Tiruppavai and the Nacchiyar Tirumoli of Andal in 1987. His translation of the Saundarya Lahan, the Sivananda Lahari and other stotras of Sankaracharya has well been. received.

R.K. Narayan is probably the best known and most widely read among Indian writers in English of the last fifty years and more. His output from 1935 onwards has been continuous and of a consistently high quality. And he has achieved popularity without resorting to themes like sex and violence or emphasis on psuedo-spirituality.

That Narayan is easy to read does not make him easy for the critic. The latter is called upon not to "explain" his author but to communicate enthusiasm to the reader avoiding mere assertions and exclamations. Scholarship, rare and wonderful as it is, can be checked and evaluated: is objective. Sensitivity is purely subjective, and requires like feelings in the reader before the critic can make an impression.

I wrote a book on R.K. Narayan fourteen years ago for another publisher, and have had to be on guard not to repeat myself. In writing this volume I have kept specially in mind the needs of the non-Indian reader. The fact that I, too, like Narayan, belong to South India and the same language group, class, caste and sub-caste should enable me to interpret him fairly adequately to those requiring explanations of certain customs and peculiarities. But the important thing is not "explanation" of the peculiar: it is to try and bring home the universal.

When I read Swami and Friends for the first time I was startled to find how closely Swaminathan's experiences in school and at home resembled my own, even in matters of minor detail. In my fifth year in school, when I was a pupil in the Second Form A Section, a glamorous youngster joined my class exactly like Rajam in all respects, even curiously enough, being the son of the District Superintendent of Police. I had the same excitement entertaining my new friend to afternoon "tiffin" in my house as Swami had in entertaining Rajam. Passages in the book which recall Chesterton and James Joyce describe exactly my experiences in the Kalyanasundaram High School at Tanjore. May it not also be that in spite of differences in names, backgrounds and beliefs, there are things in Narayan's novels with which an American or English reader can claim kinship?

**Contents and Sample Pages**