8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilariously factual!, June 19, 1998
The book is probably the most candid and frank exposition of an Indian man's discovery of sex with all its 'cosmic' implications! Switching rapidly from the mundane and the comic to the more serious and profound, Crasta is able to get to the very core of the Indian duplicity towards a very important and basic aspect of our lives. At the same time, it takes a wry look at attempts for political change and tries to find out their roots and underlying motives. The book is hilarious and I have read it on more than a couple of occassions. Highly recommended. Mohit Misra.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely hilarious and inventive. A pleasure!, June 16, 1998
By A Customer
Any book that can force me, against my will, to guffaw out loud while reading it in public places is to be treasured. "The Revised Kama Sutra" was as rife with inventive comic imagery as "A Confederacy of Dunces," as insightful and subtly searing as "Catcher in the Rye," and as sensuous as the Kama Sutra itself. Although I've never been to India, I felt I experienced the lively streets, people, colors, aromas, shapes and sounds of the cities mentioned in the book right along with the author. It's a cliche to say, "you'll laugh, you'll cry!," but that truly is the case with this book--I recommend it, you'll savor each page.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Should Be a Recognized Classic, August 26, 2010
Affected by the Western rationalism and science of his school books, the poor but brilliant Vijay rejects the rigid code of South Indian Catholicism, giving up God, religion, and his dream of becoming a saint. From there, Vijay's story becomes a search for meaning in a godless material world.
To borrow a bit from a perceptive previous review, Revised Kama Sutra is an exuberant Catcher In The Rye, a South Indian Confederacy of Dunces, spiced with the author's indefatigable love of hilarious word play. Unlike Catcher and COD, though, Kama is auto-biographical (if not, my apologies to the author!).
So far, so good. You might want to read it. But if I add it's a story about obsession with sex (not that Vijay gets much), will you change your mind? Can't be helped. It's the gut-busting hilarity of Vijay's quest to lose his virginity that keeps the story moving.
We are all obsessed. The difference between most of us and Vijay is that we hide away our obsessions or sublimate them under something more suitable for public viewing.
So there it is. That's what the book's about. But good stories usually have something more. A Western reader learns: what Pax Brittania and Pax Americana look like from the other side; about grinding third world poverty seen not through the eyes of Western pity but as a normal everyday reality; how traditional power structures dominate traditional societies despite a veneer of outside Western values (ie, not much chance we're going to make any real societal changes in Afghanistan and Iraq with an army); the way the English language permeates everything, is pursued by everyone, and becomes something new in the process (this last, fascinating to me as a linguist).
Revised Kama Sutra is not your standard novel by a long shot. For those who want to avoid such things, there are sections in which it is x-rated in content and vocabulary. But, ultimately and thankfully, this story is uplifting and powerful at the end when the author realizes, in spite of himself, there must be something more.
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