{"product_id":"swami-and-friends-the-bachelor-of-arts-the-dark-room-the-english-teacher-isbn-9781400044764","title":"Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher","description":"\u003cp\u003eR. K. Narayan (1906—2001) witnessed nearly a century of change in his native India and captured it in fiction of uncommon warmth and vibrancy. The four novels collected here, all written during British rule, bring colonial India into intimate focus through the narrative gifts of this master of literary realism.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eSwami and Friends \u003c\/i\u003eintroduces us to Narayan’s beloved fictional town of Malgudi, where ten-year-old Swaminathan’s excitement about his country’s initial stirrings for independence competes with his ardor for cricket and all other things British. \u003ci\u003eThe Bachelor of Arts \u003c\/i\u003eis a poignant coming-of-age novel about a young man flush with first love, but whose freedom to pursue it is hindered by the fixed ideas of his traditional Hindu family. In \u003ci\u003eThe Dark Room\u003c\/i\u003e, Narayan’s portrait of aggrieved domesticity, the docile and obedient Savitri, like many Malgudi women, is torn between submitting to her husband’s humiliations and trying to escape them. The title character in \u003ci\u003eThe English Teacher\u003c\/i\u003e, Narayan’s most autobiographical novel, searches for meaning when the death of his young wife deprives him of his greatest source of happiness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese pioneering novels, luminous in their detail and refreshingly free of artifice, are a gift to twentieth-century literature.\u003c\/p\u003e“There are writers–Tolstoy and Henry James to name two–whom we hold in awe, writers–Turgenev and Chekhov–for whom we feel a personal affection, other writers whom we respect–Conrad for example–but who hold us at a long arm’s length with their ‘courtly foreign grace.’ Narayan (whom I don’t hesitate to name in such a context) more than any of them wakes in me a spring of gratitude, for he has offered me a second home. Without him I could never have known what it is like to be Indian.” –Graham Greene\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eThe English Teacher\u003c\/i\u003e is] an idyll as delicious as anything I have met in modern literature for a long time. The atmosphere and texture of happiness, and, above all, its elusiveness, have seldom been so perfectly transcribed.” –Elizabeth Bowen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Narayan’s humour and compassion come from a deep universal well, with the result that he has transformed his imaginary township of Malgudi into a bubbling parish of the world.” –\u003ci\u003eThe Observer \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The first writer of his kind…A more accurate guide to modern India than the intellectually more ambitious writers of recent years.” –Pankaj Mishra, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books. \u003c\/i\u003eR. K. Narayan (1906–2001), born and educated in India, was the author of fourteen novels, numerous short stories and essays, a memoir, and three retold myths. His work, championed by Graham Greene, who became a close friend, was often compared to that of Dickens, Chekhov, Faulkner, and Flannery O'Connor, among others. October 10, 2006, is the centennial of Narayan's birth.\u003cp\u003eINTRODUCTION\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eby Alexander McCall Smith\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eA novelist of all humanity\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eR. K. Narayan’s  novels are like a box of Indian sweets: a highly-coloured container conceals a range  of delectable treats, all different in a subtle way, but each one clearly  from the  same place. There are fourteen novels in the oeuvre — enough to create a world. Enthusiasts  of his work will read them all and return to them time and again. The busy, or the  less committed, may open the box and take out one at random — it does not really  matter which order one reads them in. But be warned: the consumption of one leads  to a strong craving for more.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNarayan’s life spanned the twentieth century, which  meant that he belonged both to an old world and a new. At the time of his birth in  1906, the British Raj, that astonishing imperial conceit, was firmly in place, as  were those iron-clad notions of caste that were to prove so difficult to shrug off.  The British presence in India had brought with it a large civil service, an educational  system, and railways — to all of which institutions the people of the subcontinent  took with enthusiasm. But it had also brought with it a language, and the literature  which that language created, and it is this which proved a most productive legacy.  The British took English to India and the Indians gave back a literary tradition  which continues to delight and enrich us to this day. Contemporary writers such as  Vikram Seth, Rohinton Mistry, or Anita Desai, whose novels have given such pleasure  to readers in Europe and North America, stand rooted in a tradition which R. K. Narayan,  as one of the earlier Indian novelists to write in English, did a great deal to establish.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlthough Narayan did not draw attention to his personal life, he did write a memoir, \u003ci\u003eMy Days\u003c\/i\u003e, which tells us a great deal about his boyhood years and the inception and  development of his literary career. His childhood was fairly typical of that of a  middle-class boy of the time. His father was the headmaster of a school, a somewhat  stern figure in his professional life, and this connection with the world of education  is very much apparent in the earlier novels, where schools, colleges, and the whole  business of becoming educated play a major role. His father’s job required mobility,  and Narayan spent a number of childhood years living with his grandmother in Madras.  Eventually, though, he joined his parents in Mysore, where he attended the school  presided over by his father.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe became a voracious reader, wading through the books  and magazines which arrived on his father’s desk for the school library. As he wrote  in \u003ci\u003eMy Days\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMy father did not mind our taking away whatever we wanted to read —  provided we put them back on his desk without spoiling them, as they had to be placed  on the school’s reading-room table on Monday morning. So our week-end reading was  full and varied. We could dream over the advertisement pages in the \u003ci\u003eBoys’ Own Paper \u003c\/i\u003eor the \u003ci\u003eStrand Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e. Through the \u003ci\u003eStrand \u003c\/i\u003ewe made the acquaintance of all English  writers: Conan Doyle, Wodehouse, W.W.  J acobs, Arnold Bennett, and every English  fiction writer worth the name . . . Through \u003ci\u003eHarper’s \u003c\/i\u003eand the \u003ci\u003eAtlantic\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eAmerican  Mercury \u003c\/i\u003ewe attained glimpses of the New World and its writers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis sense of distance,  of being a participant in a culture and yet not being of it, is a familiar feature  of the literature of what is now the British Commonwealth and it is  vividly portrayed   in Narayan’s novels. Colonialism hurt and damaged those subjected to it, but it  would be inaccurate to portray the process as being a simple matter of subjugation  and humiliation; it was far more complex than that. The writer in the colonized country  tended to soak up the culture of the colonial power and feel a familiarity and some  affection for it, even though the experience of colonialism may have demoralized  and destabilized his own colonized culture. This damage, although it may later be  seen for what it is, is passed over: in his mind he is a member-in-waiting of a broader  community of letters. His aspirations, though, are likely to be dashed; his yearning  unfulfilled. Although he may not realize it, the metropolitan culture is largely  indifferent to him and his world: the literary circles after which he yearns are  distant, impossibly out of reach. Of course, the conquest is feasible, and literary  doors may open. Narayan himself made it, as did others, although some did so by leaving  the culture in which they had been brought up. Narayan remained in India — an Indian  writer who was happy to be read by those outside India but who remained firmly within  the world into which he had been born.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe young Narayan was not a great scholar.  Having failed his university entrance examinations, he spent a year reading and writing  before he eventually succeeded in being admitted to the BA course at Maharaja’s College.  During this year he acquired a copy of a book called \u003ci\u003eHow to Sell your Manuscripts \u003c\/i\u003eand started to send his literary efforts off to magazines in London. He met with  no success, encountering for the first time those pieces of paper so familiar, and  yet so devastating, to the aspiring writer — the printed rejection slip. In due course  he completed his studies and graduated as a Bachelor of Arts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere then followed  various attempts by his father and others to secure him a position. These were mostly  unsuccessful, although they eventually bore fruit in the shape of a teaching post  where he was immediately required to teach Tennyson’s \u003ci\u003eMorte d’Arthur \u003c\/i\u003eto a class of  burly and uncooperative boys who had no interest in poetry. His teaching career was  a dismal failure and shortly afterwards he walked out of the school and returned  home. That was that: he would become a writer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHow many have made that decision,  and how many have failed. And how many aspiring writers have written their first  novel in the belief that it is fiction, only to discover that it is really about  them, and, quite commonly, about their childhood. \u003ci\u003eSwami and Friends\u003c\/i\u003e, Narayan’s first  novel, is a novel of boyhood which draws heavily on his own experiences. Narayan  sent the typescript to a series of publishers in London and became accustomed to  having it returned at regular intervals. He experienced similar rejection with the  short stories which he was now writing, although he eventually succeeded in his ambition  to get into print abroad when a piece he wrote for \u003ci\u003ePunch \u003c\/i\u003emagazine in London was accepted  and produced a handsome fee of six guineas.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNarayan was to use this small measure  of success to persuade his future father-in-law that the financial prospects of a  writer were not entirely gloomy. But he needed more than this: the unsuitability  of his horoscope was seen by his intended bride’s family as being a major drawback  to a possible match, and it was only after lengthy discussions that the marriage  was able to go ahead. Narayan’s personal experience of the vagaries of matrimonial  astrology was later reflected in the highly amusing account of astrological discussions  in his second novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Bachelor of Arts\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNow married, Narayan began to earn a  living as a journalist. \u003ci\u003eSwami and Friends \u003c\/i\u003ewas still doing the rounds in London, with  no success, and in desperation he wrote to a friend in Oxford, advising him that  if the manuscript were to be returned to him from the publisher who was then considering  it, he should weigh it down with a stone and throw it in the Thames. Fortunately  the friend ignored this instruction and continued to show the manuscript to prospective  publishers. Eventually he showed it to Graham Greene, who was then living in Oxford,  and asked him to read it. It sat on Greene’s desk for some weeks and then eventually,  in one of those moments of great good fortune which occur from time to time in literary  history, Greene was sufficiently excited by the book to recommend and secure its  publication in October 1935.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe publication of a first novel is one thing, security  in the literary world is another. \u003ci\u003eSwami and Friends \u003c\/i\u003ewas well-reviewed, but was not  a commercial success. In the years that followed, Narayan had to seek a variety of  different publishers, and it was to be some time before his reputation was secured  amongst a wide international audience. His personal circumstances were also sometimes  difficult. In 1939 his wife, Rajam, died of typhoid. Narayan was devastated. In \u003ci\u003eMy  Days \u003c\/i\u003ehe wrote:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eI have described this part of my experience of her sickness and death  in \u003ci\u003eThe English Teacher \u003c\/i\u003eso fully that I do not, and perhaps cannot, go over it again.  More than any other book, \u003ci\u003eThe English Teacher \u003c\/i\u003eis autobiographical in content, very  little part of it being fiction . . . The toll that typhoid took and all the desolation  that followed, with a child to look after, and the psychic adjustments, are based  on my own experience.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter the publication of his fourth novel, \u003ci\u003eThe English Teacher\u003c\/i\u003e,  in 1945, Narayan’s writing entered a period of greater maturity and confidence. The  autobiographical element which had been so obvious in his earlier writing became  less prominent, allowing him to develop his characters more freely.With the growing  critical success of his novels in the West, he began to lead the life of the successful  literary figure both in India and abroad. He travelled widely and, in time, was showered  with honours. He did not leave his accustomed milieu, though, which was Mysore, where  he built himself a house, went for rambling and talkative walks, and savoured the  quotidian pursuits of life, including agriculture, which he studied with interest.  In 1989 he was appointed to membership of the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of the  Indian Parliament. His inaugural speech there was on the subject of Indian children.  Children, he said, were being deprived of time to play or to look at birds and trees.  In 2001 he died. His mind was clear to the end, and on his death-bed he spoke of  his desire to write another novel. This was the man who had confessed to friends:  ‘I have become lazy since I entered my nineties.’\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNarayan’s novels are sometimes  described as simple. The prose is indeed limpid, the descriptions clear, and the  emphasis is on direct and intelligible storytelling, invoking a  cast of vivid characters.  To the modern reader, accustomed to artifice and allusion, this may give the books  a slightly dated feel, and yet it is this quality of simplicity and directness which  makes them such fine works of art. Narayan is a storyteller first and foremost, a  characteristic which puts him in the company of the great nineteenth-century novelists  as well as those twentieth-century writers, such as Somerset Maugham, who believed  that the novelist’s business is to narrate. His storytelling, though, sometimes has  a somewhat rambling flavour, with plots that can wander and which sometimes betray  an absence of resolution. But this is not necessarily a flaw: real lives are often  aimless and unresolved, and when we read of such lives in literature we are quick  to recognize their authenticity. There is nothing false in the world which Narayan  creates — quite the opposite, in fact: these novels convey the taste and texture  of India with a vividness which strikes the reader as utterly true. Even those who  have no first-hand experience of India will feel that what they experience in reading  these books is a taste of the real place.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe favoured setting of Narayan’s novels  is Malgudi, an imaginary town which he describes as having ‘swum into view’ when  he sat down to write \u003ci\u003eSwami and Friends\u003c\/i\u003e. Malgudi provides the strong sense of place  which suffuses these books. This is India distilled — an urban India, but one in  which a hinterland of jungle, of small villages, of wide plains is still present.  When we read about Malgudi we feel we are there, and this powerful impression is  created not by detailed descriptions of the countryside or buildings, but by the  characters themselves and the suggestive nature of their thought and their speech.  It is the voice which is distinctive here. It is a voice which is rooted in a world-view  quite different from that which we will encounter in, say, a modern novel located  in North America or Western Europe. This voice is sensitive to a distinctive tradition  in which the accumulated beliefs and social practices of centuries inform the smallest  act. It is a wholly different way of looking at the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe four novels in this  volume form the first phase of Narayan’s career as a novelist. In them we see the  author working through a number of concerns which, as a young man, were very much  on his mind. These include boyhood (\u003ci\u003eSwami and Friends\u003c\/i\u003e), education and the finding  of a role in life (\u003ci\u003eThe Bachelor of Arts\u003c\/i\u003e), and marriage (\u003ci\u003eThe Dark Room \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe English  Teacher\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003ci\u003e. \u003c\/i\u003eIn these early novels, we also see the development of Narayan as a writer,  as he makes his way to the more mature and confident vision of the later novels. \u003ci\u003eSwami and Friends \u003c\/i\u003eis episodic in nature, which is exactly what the life of a young  boy tends to be. Boys on the whole do not to have a long-term plan; they live for  the moment, act on impulse, they pursue new enthusiasms and abandon old. Boyhood  friendships, though, can persist, even if they may be tempestuous and competitive.The  portrayal of Swami’s relationship with Rajam, the son of a senior police officer,  reveals how posturing and social embarrassment can loom large in the dealings a boy  has with his friends. So many of us can remember the strength of that childhood feeling  that our friends have more impressive parents, houses, cars, than we do. Narayan  paints a deft picture of that particular anxiety.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Everyman's Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304491012325,"sku":"NP9781400044764","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400044764.jpg?v=1767737644","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/swami-and-friends-the-bachelor-of-arts-the-dark-room-the-english-teacher-isbn-9781400044764","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}