Red Earth and Pouring Rain: A Novel
by Vikram Chandra
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Book Summary Information
Author: Vikram ChandraEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1995
ISBN: 0316132934
Number of pages: 542
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Book Reviews of Red Earth and Pouring Rain: A Novel
Book Review: Monkeying Around or Not?
Summary: 3 Stars
I have to admit that this novel is quite a mixture of many things: humors, satires, Indian history (during the initial British East India period), romance and some other issues. It started as Abhay, a recently returned undergraduate student from the US to his hometown in India. He got annoyed by a monkey for its intrusion into Abhay's daily livelihood, like doing things an infant would do without knowing it is annoying for other people.
So one day, Abhay shot this monkey. During its twilight stasis (half-death, half-alive), Yama, the god of death came to pick the monkey up. Thus, this is when the humor started. Yama likes to converse his ideas to this monkey, which is known by his name: Sanjay. It turned out to be Yama and Sanjay knew each other for a long time. Sanjay was indeed a human many years ago, before he died and reincarnated. While Yama was enjoying the pain of death from Sanjay, Hanuman (the monkey god) interfered and disallowed Yama to take Sanjay's soul without a struggle.
Thus, a deal was struck between these two Indian gods and the monkey. The monkey really got up to everybody's head in Abhay's household, which eventually lead to the whole India knowing a dying monkey typing stories for several days in a row to entertain all his audience. If Yama detected a faint disinterest in Sanjay's stories, Sanjay will be immediately taken to the gates of Hades. Therefore, there are many funny stories involved with Sanjay the Poet's plot.
Sometimes, Sanjay was too tired telling stories. Thus, Abhay will took over and told his. Sanjay was a mischievious person during his lifetime, therefore Yama knows if his monkey subject is pulling any tricks. Another hilarious incident involved another chubby god taken out from inside the walls of Abhay's house for making too much a commotion. Even Hercules, British heroes, an Indian witch, modern American college life and Alexander the Great, plus some oriental wisdoms and poetry were involved in this very long novel.
It would be a five star read, if only Mr. Chandra did not exploit the story about Abhay's college reminiscence too long. It dwelled just too much on mundane daily experiences of Abhay and his buddies, which I found grossly uninteresting and annoying, like some regular popular novels. Thus, the parts of which I explained in great lengths above were given a five star, but the remainder a 1-2 stars. My final rating: a three point three (3.3) star reading.
Summary of Red Earth and Pouring Rain: A Novel
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.Men's Adventure Books
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