Customer Reviews

Malgudi Days

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I reread Malgudi days after 20 or so years! It was a delight just as it was when I read them the first time. Only this time; being in the US, made the Characters more endearing! Looking through the mist of time the village with all its sounds sights and smells looked prettier than a real one. This is a book for you all ex-pats to curl up on a snowy winter day with a hot cup of tea (even better if someone makes hot Pakoras to go with!) and enjoy.

To the non-Indian friends, may be a hot coffee and some chicken nuggets (or soy nuggets!) and winter days.

To the couple of readers who were disappointed! Well the whole point behind these stories is to capture the life as it flows. The climax is in the journey itself.

Malgudi Days was my introduction to R.K. Narayan and frankly I have been wondering where he's been all my life. These stories are wonderful. They are the kind of stories that will stay with me for several days after reading them. Narayan brings you to a time and a place with each story. His characters are believable, his stories moving, his writing impeccable. Each story is full of humanity. I love this classic author! I really enjoyed this collection and look forward to reading more of his work.

Indian village despite its problems of scarcity of drinking water,electricity, poor sanitation, unemployment and lack of health care, holds a charm to all Indians. Mahatma appealed to all Indians to return to villages, Ambedkar asked Dalits to escape them.

More Indians now leave their villages than ever to come to cities.

However, even if they leave their village, its memory remains with them for rest of their life. People call it by different names. Author R K Narayan calls it Malgudi Days!

A delightful book.

R. K. Narayan is one of those authors who conveys a lot of expressions with a few words, and that is clearly displayed in Malgudi days. Each short story is unique and each character given space. A good book, to say the least.

Few people will contest the contention that R.K. Narayan is the best Indian writer in English. Malgudi Days is a collection of short stories centered around the fabled town of Malgudi, which is the author's own creation.

Once when he was in New York, Narayan was asked where Malgudi was. To which the reply was "Malgudi is everywhere. I find Malgudi right here in New York. The doorkeeper at one of the restaurants reminds me of persons I have come across elsewhere."

This book will make you live the Malgudi experience that has captivated so many readers. Enchanting, the short stories are too good that you will relaize that their greatness lies in their extraordinary simplicity. As someone said, the only thing that makes Narayan's books extraordinary is that they are extraordinarily ordinary! I bet you can relate to each of these characters. The stories are so close to real life that it will be tough not to experience a hangover.

Narayan is dead, but the legend of Malgudi will live on. Narayan is definitely one of the greatest authors English literature has ever seen. And nothing can quite match Malgudi...

Malgudi Days by R.K. Narayan offers the reader a wonderful chance to experience the ordinariness and pleasant magic of life on the Sub-Continent.

This collection of short stories provides an array of vantage points from which the reader can consider Indian life. While meant to be tongue-in-cheek commentaries or light hearted reflections on the social and political realities of India, Narayan doesn't fall short of capturing and relaying a truly authentic feel.

Personally, this book made a wonderful traveling companion as I toured the South of India. The details of the stories were more manifest in the environment around me than in any other part of the country, yet the story themes were in no way constrained by locale. They very much hold a universal appeal.

If you enjoy the writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, then you will enjoy the work of R.K. Narayan.

This book is a collection of short stories written in very simple language. What really makes the difference is the connection it establishes with the readers. Stories are about simple people and simple issues in life. RNK is one of the best authors I have read. He has his own style of writing.

R.K Narayan brings to life the people and places as he narrates the story. I would strongly recommend this book for the people interested in Indian culture.

Beautifully written. It's hard to find a writer who conveys so much without ever raising his voice!

I really should have read Malgudi Days a long time ago - I'm not sure why I never got around to it. R. K. Narayan is one of India's most famous writers, and this is a collection of his short stories, set in and around the fictional south Indian town of Malgudi. Most of the stories are slice-of-life, set from the perspective of a variety of people, from poor beggars and food vendors to schoolboys to rich nonagenarians. Some of them are touching, some are humourous, some are ironic, and some just are. They work really well together to describe the various kinds of people that make up a small town in India.

R. K. Narayan's style of writing is really simple and unpretentious, but every word he writes conveys so much. His characters are all really approachable, and they might even seem simple, but it is my opinion that it's really hard to do simplicity well, and no one is better at it than Narayan.

Pretty much all of the stories are about a single minor incident that occurs in the protagonist's life, and how they react to it. A retired security guard receives a letter in the mail and is driven almost insane by the thought of what it might contain. An old gardener has to say goodbye to the house he has worked in for decades. A man takes temporary responsibility for a lost child and dreams about the family he might have had.

One of the most amazing things about Narayan's writing is how much sympathy he can arouse for almost any character in a couple of paragraphs. His stories are often about very different people, often flawed or annoying, but they're inevitably lovable, no matter what stupid decisions they make. I often get unreasonably frustrated with characters that have lapses of judgement, so this is truly a remarkable feat.