The Painter of Signs (Penguin Classics) [Mass Market Paperback]

R. K. Narayan (Author), Monica Ali (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: Penguin Classics | Publication Date: August 29, 2006

For Raman the sign painter, life is a familiar and satisfying routine. A man of simple, rational ways, he lives with his pious aunt and prides himself on his creative work. But all that changes when he meets Daisy, a thrillingly independent young woman who wishes to bring birth control to the area. Hired to create signs for her clinics, Raman finds himself smitten by a love he cannot understand, much less avoid-and soon realizes that life isn't so routine anymore. Set in R. K. Narayan's fictional city of Malgudi, The Painter of Signs is a wry, bittersweet treasure.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

R. 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.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (August 29, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143039660
• ISBN-13: 978-0143039662
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.5 x 7.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,390 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh, fun, and full of charm., April 28, 2003

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Painter of Signs (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)

This bittersweet novel is as fresh and charming today as it was when originally published in 1976. Telling the story of Raman, a conscientious sign-painter, who is trying to lead a rational life, the novel is filled with busy neighborhood life and gossip, the alternating rhythms and sounds of the city from morning till night, and the pungent smells and tantalizing flavors of home cooking, as Narayan portrays everyday life in Malgudi. The city is growing and changing, as its inhabitants try to carve out some individual successes within the juggernaut of "progress."

Raman, a college graduate, brings a sense of professionalism to his sign-painting, taking pride in his calligraphy and trying to create exactly the right sign, artistically, for each client. Living with his aged aunt, a devout, traditional woman whose days are spent running the house and tending to her nephew's needs and whose evenings are spent at the temple listening to the old stories and praying, Raman prefers a rational approach to life. Then he meets Daisy. A young woman devoted to improving the lives of women and the standard of living of the country through strict family planning, Daisy becomes his biggest customer, commissioning signs for all the family planning clinics she helps establish through the city and outlying rural areas. Ram soon finds his attraction to Daisy more powerful than this desire to remain "rational."

Narayan is a master of domestic scenes, presenting the major and minor conflicts of family life through the different points of view of the participants. Respect for his characters and a good-humored (and often humorous) presentation of their issues give warmth to his scenes and allow the reader to feel real empathy with the characters. Raman's belief in his own rational enlightenment and his simultaneous vulnerability to Daisy's manipulations provide the author with unlimited opportunities for dramatic irony. Scenes between Ram and his devout, elderly aunt provide a glimpse of the conflicts between old and new India, in addition to the generational conflicts every family faces between its young and its old. Scenes between Ram and Daisy reflect the changes in the role of women in society, as women become more assertive and liberated. Though he is presented as a unique, individualized character, Ram, the painter of signs, is, in a sense, Everyman, facing his coming-of-age as all men before him have done in cultures around the world. Only the details (and the sights, and sounds, and smells) are different. Mary Whipple

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intro to Feminism?, February 22, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Painter of Signs (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) (Paperback)

One of Narayan's most imaginative works; it speaks of human agency and feminism. Its aimless male protagonist becomes infatuated with a visionary career woman; she alone infuses meaning into his tepid life. The novel is short and easy to read by design (perhaps)- it leaves its reader unsatisfied and begging for more. My favorite Narayan novel so far.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just a charming travelogue, March 11, 2007

By 

Anthony Covatta (cincinnati, ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Painter of Signs (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

Narayan's The Painter of Signs is considerably more than a charming travelogue or a narrow slice of provincial Indian life. While giving us all of that and with considerable charm, Narayan creates characters and situations that touch the heart and delve deeply into the essential contradictions of human life.

While some, including Monica Ali, who wrote the informative introduction to the latest edition call Narayan a comic writer, he can more accurately be called a serio-comic one. This book, like many of his novels, has its tragic components.

There is a basic dichotomy within Daisy, the committed family planner and sexually repressive young woman. Similarly, Raman yearns to be a rationalist but finds himself overcome by sexual thoughts. Thus, when the two young people inevitably get together, it creates a hopeless tension that finally destroys their relationship.

The complications of their "modern" love story is played out against the tranquil life of Raman's aunt, who has her act together. This would all seem cheery if we didn't know that the aunt is leaving Malgudi to go to Benares, the holy city, to die, alone, separated from Raman, her surrogate child. (Raman's parents were victims of modern life--killed in a railway accident.)

While the book gives us considerable insight into daily Indian life, it gives us even more into the lives of young people trying to find their way in a world changing before their very eyes. Narayan does not avoid the controversies of the times. Set in the days of Mrs. Gandhi's Emergency, Painter of Signs deals with the contradictory impulses of family planning: to make a good life for some, we deny potential life for others, an ironic opposition almost no one on either side of the issue is willing to confront, probably because it is basically unsolvable. And Narayan sees that. At the end of the book, Daisy is off on her Quixotic quest to limit births; the aunt is deprived of her home; and Raman is left with only his memories of the time with Daisy. He returns to the lesser life of The Boardless and his cronies , and his own business life as a minor artist, a painter of signs.

Narayan has painted for us a very charming and deceptively simple picture of the complexities of Indian and human life.