Indian Nocturne (New Directions) [Paperback]

Antonio Tabucchi (Author), Tim Parks (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 17, 1989 | Series: New Directions

"An enjoyable, well-crafted little book."—The Complete Review

Translated from the Italian, this winner of the Prix Medicis Etranger for 1987 is an enigmatic novel set in modern India. Roux, the narrator, is in pursuit of a mysterious friend named Xavier. His search, which develops into a quest, takes him from town to town across the subcontinent.

Editorial Reviews

Review

An enjoyable, well-crafted little book. Recommended. -- The Complete Review

Language Notes

Text: English, Italian (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: New Directions (March 17, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811210804
• ISBN-13: 978-0811210805
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #359,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a magic trip, December 1, 1999

By 

Chiara Guarascio (Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Indian Nocturne: A Novella (Hardcover)

The traveller is someoene who is looking for a friend who got lost in India, but we realize very soon that he's actually looking for himself. A trip full of incredible encounters with people who are the soul of India, and places described in such a way that we could almost smell, hear and see what the author felt while he was there.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "To light and shadow", October 21, 2001

By 

Doug Anderson (Miami Beach, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Indian Nocturne: A Novella (Hardcover)

This Medicis Prize('89) winning book is an exploration of the frontiers of identity within very ancient India. It may all be a dream as the "Author's Note" which precedes this 100 page text describes the narrative as an "insomnia" and a "search for a shadow". You can make of that what you like but those evocative sentences only partially set the tone for Tabucchi's book is a playful series of encounters that his unnamed narrator-protaganist has with fellow travelers and interesting Indian characters along the way to finding a missing friend. The several encounters read like enquiries, but pleasant ones, and ones with philosophical as well as humorous overtones(in one encounter identity is compared to a suitcase). Some of the sequences are so strange you think it all must be a dream as when a female thief breaks into the narrators hotel room only to be invited to stay the night. Other meetings are full of a very engaging and speculation rich kind of conversation as in the meeting with the Hugo and Pessoa quoting eastern intellectual. If it is all a dream it is a very literate one. The last meeting takes place in the old Portugese port of Goa and there the narrator meets a lovely charming stranger to share a dinner with as he waits for a chance to spy a glimpse of his old searched for friend. But as they eat the narrator relates his "story' in a way that makes one suspect there was no one and nothing to search for after all(modern fiction indeed it is). But you are left after putting this book down with a feeling of having had several intriguing conversations and having met a lovely woman. Not at all a bad feeling. An insomnia well spent.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book hooked me on Tabucchi, August 5, 2000

By 

M. J. Smith (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Indian Nocturne (New Directions) (Paperback)

The first time I read this book was when I also read for the first time Carrere's The Mustache - a fortunate accident as they both pose a question of identity. Tabucchi sets his tale in India in the form of an unnamed man trying to find a man, perhaps his brother, who has been missing for about a year. His search takes him to a brothel in Bombay, to a Bombay hospital, to the Theosophical Society in Madras, to the library of a religious order in Goa ... Along the way he encounters a dying Jain, a deformed saddhu/fortune teller, a former Philadelphia mailman, a photographer of human misery ... An interesting story, well written, with an unexpected ending. A movella well worth your time.