Memories of Rain: A Novel [Paperback]

Sunetra Gupta (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 24, 1994

'Memories of Rain marks the triumphant debut of a gifted and compelling voice...Gupta has built upon tradition and rendered it new and compelling. And she has done so in writing of the highest quality, perceptive, precise, and wholly original.'--Shashi Tharoor, The Washington Post

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A stunning, luminous debut set in Calcutta and London by a young, true heir to Virginia Woolf. The forward action of Gupta's hypnotic novel takes place during a single weekend: Calcutta-born Moni, despondent over her English husband's infidelity, secretly plans to take their daughter and return to India on the child's sixth birthday. But the stream- of-consciousness narrative weaves together memories and images, providing not just the history of a fragile love but of a woman's psychology and soul: Moni's brother first brings Anthony home in the rain-swollen dark of a Calcutta floodstorm. She and the English student fall in love, expecting an unconsummated passion and years of satisfying, sorrowful memories. Instead, they marry and make their home in London, where Moni--intense but too silent--soon disappoints. When Anthony begins to stray--even when his mistress becomes practically a member of the household--Moni believes his divided heart will add an edge to their painful, eternal love; she cannot bear it when his manner changes to kindness and indifference. Moni's sensibility--formed by the poetry (both English and Bengali) of anguished passion, darkness, and death--is the basis for gorgeous prose that flickers between romantic longing and exquisite detail. Gupta is impossible to quote briefly. In her sinuous sentences past and present, London and Calcutta, reality and shadow and the painful phrases of Tagore songs melt into one another in long continuous streams. A rare shimmering dream of a book. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 198 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; First edition. edition (January 24, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080213341X
• ISBN-13: 978-0802133410
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,016,755 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Memories of Rain will remain in your memory long after you.., August 29, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Baltimore, Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Memories of Rain: A Novel (Paperback)

I read Memories of Rain over a year ago, and even though I've read many books since then, I find myself often thinking about this beautifully written novel.

Immerse yourself in the stinking, steamy, strangely beautiful city of Calcutta. Moni, languid, imaginative, ready for experiences beyond the cloistered life she leads, falls hard for the polished, sophisticated British student.

Married in London, Gupta brilliantly exposes Moni's fears and insecurities as she watches her new husband lose interest and stray. She is paralized and shocked by the disintegration of the relationship and humiliated by his blatent disrespect for her being.

Her emotions are heightened and accented superbly by the gray of the British weather, the drab buildings, and the bewildering pace of life in a new country. Gupta masterfully contrasts the fecund, languid beauty of faraway home with the bleak internal and external circumstances in which Moni now finds herself. Gupta's images rise exotic, beautiful, yet instantly recognizable, from her twining, flowing coils of sentences.
The action, which is mostly internal, takes place over the course of a weekend and leads up to Moni's final departure with her young son. Tension builds as she weighs the consequences and finally makes her decision.

I hope this author is working on her next book right now, I am greedy for more of this! I highly recommend this wonderful book

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing and Impressive, January 29, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Memories of Rain: A Novel (Hardcover)

Sunetra Gupta's deeply absorbing tale simply took me away with its meandering stream-of-consciousness narrative cloaked in rich prose. With passionately rendered impressions, she weaves a tale that is at once truthful and heartbreaking. I *felt* this story as much as read it. Even though this is fiction this kind of human drama surely occurs again and again. What makes this telling of it so interesting is the way it is told--with thick slices of experience slathered with the truths of human feelings. Having been to India myself (though not in the rainy season) the mood, the feeling of the place, is captured in these pages. When I finally put down this book and looked around, the world around me had changed. I felt as though waking from a long dark dream with eyes that now looked more closely at the world and my own story of how I had lived it. Like coming out into the light from a very dark place--the way sadness can give depth and girth to life. Though some might find it's run-on style tedious, I relished every passage. Take some time and feel your way through this fine literary work. It'll move you.

3 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hypnotic, July 14, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Memories of Rain: A Novel (Paperback)

While I was reading this book, I didn't know whether to like it or not. When I got to the second chapter, I was very disappointed, but since this book had been regarded so highly, I finished it. I hate poetry that wants to be fiction. When I wasn't bored with the plot and the people, I was irritated at being plunged into prose that could drown a whale. I really did not care for this book. I love poetry and fiction. This book represents a marriage of the two that should have ended in divorce.