Red Earth And Pouring Rain [Import] [Paperback]

Vikram Chandra (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Faber and Faber (2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0571234496
• ISBN-13: 978-0571234493
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I ought to have enjoyed it more than I did, December 4, 2001

By 

G. ADAIR - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Red Earth and Pouring Rain: A Novel (Paperback)

You won't read a bad review of this book anywhere. Many will claim it is a work of greatness, other will use the word 'genius'. Most will tell you that the charm of the book comes from the characterisation, the vivid images of India (and Indian culture) and the warmth of the narrative.

All true.

I have only one gripe: I'm not the fastest reader in the world, and as such I tended to read this book in small chunks, day to day. The trouble is that this book is composed of un uncountable number of seemingly unconnected stories, sometimes nested one inside another. No sooner have you met one character and situation than the author introduces another. And another. And another.
By half way through the book I was persistently looking back through the pages to remember who characters were and their significance to the story. Some characters also seemed to change names part-way through the book, which didn't help.

Another upshot of this writing style is that by half way through the book the reader (ie. me) hasn't yet come to grips with the overall plot, or direction, that the novel is taking. Any other book you read, you get yourself immersed in the story and by halfway you're starting to guess how things might work out. With this book you spend the first 300 pages digesting dozens and dozens of seemingly unconnected episodes involving disparite characters, and you never really get into the 'flow', making it difficult to care about what's going to happen next. I had to really force myself to carry on at one point.

By the time you've reached the last third of the book these 'episodes' are beginning to merge into a single narrative, which helps enormously.

Overall impression then? Oddly disjointed, sometimes frustratingly episodic (in the first half), but in the end a rich and satisying read.

36 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On Being Enchanted, February 24, 2002

By 

Kirby Metcalfe (Fort Worth, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Red Earth and Pouring Rain: A Novel (Paperback)

I am your basic omnivorous reader. I delight in stories of almost any kind (certain genres excluded) that are well-told. I make my living in the creative arts and so honor imagination wherever I find it.

Two weeks ago, while at the library, I searched the fiction shelves looking for treasure. As usual, I started at the top of the alphabetical arrangement of authors methodically pulling out titles and reading flyleaves. (I hope this technique will afford me a chance to read all of the great works of fiction. So far I haven't managed to get past the "C's" and I've been doing this for over 15 years.)

Chandra's book seemed to leap into my hands. I felt as if I should hug it or cradle it or in some other way protect it lest some other reader's psychic need draw it from my grasp into theirs. Without even reading the flyleaf I was certain I had found a book of serious magic.

As I will, I found two other books as safeguards against the possibility that I wouldn't enjoy Red Earth and Pouring Rain. I could have saved the effort.

For two weeks now I have devoured the book. I read excerpts to everyone I can tie down. I laugh out load if not at some humorous segment then simply in outright delight. I cry as I identify with the sorrows Chandra so perfectly portrays.

This is a steller work. Vikram Chandra has here worked a piece of art in mixed media. It is both realism and abstraction. It is infinitesimally jewel-like and thunderously monumental.

I am a 62 year old male. I have been feeling my age of late. September 11th sorrowed me for my country and my feelings for all humanity. Two things have restored my hope: the 2002 Winter Olympics and Vikram Chandra's wonderful gift.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT BOOK!!, March 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Red Earth and Pouring Rain: A Novel (Paperback)

What's not to like? An historical warrior romance and a road trip with reincarnation and a sentient beastie holding the great god death at bay!! A big windswept novel to curl up in with lots of little paths and byways to meander into. I liked the slipping between "cultures" and historic times. I found a strength there not present in straight forward narratives. Maybe it's generational thing, the channel surfers versus those who watch TV programs from start to end, but to my mind this novel had more "reality" in it due to the switching from one voice to a different one. I found the sense of tropics was as strong and alive and present as the slightly dislocated U.S. highway. Hey, the jet is a time machine and modern life happens in lots of realities simultaneously.