Swami and Friends (Phoenix Fiction Series) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "It was Monday morning..." (more)
Key Phrases: six paise, ten mangoes, fifteen annas, Board High School, Market Road, Albert Mission (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"There are writers--Tolstoy and Henry James to name two--whom we hold in awe, writers--Turgenev and Chekhov--for whom we feel a personal affection, other writers whom we respect--Conrad for example--but who hold us at a long arm's length with their 'courtly foreign grace.' Narayan (whom I don't hesitate to name in such a context) more than any of them wakes in me a spring of gratitude, for he has offered me a second home. Without him I could never have known what it is like to be Indian."--Graham Greene

Offering rare insight into the complexities of Indian middle-class society, R. K. Narayan traces life in the fictional town of Malgudi. The Dark Room is a searching look at a difficult marriage and a woman who eventually rebels against the demands of being a good and obedient wife. In Mr. Sampath, a newspaper man tries to keep his paper afloat in the face of social and economic changes sweeping India. Narayan writes of youth and young adulthood in the semiautobiographical Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts. Although the ordinary tensions of maturing are heightened by the particular circumstances of pre-partition India, Narayan provides a universal vision of childhood, early love and grief.

"The experience of reading one of his novels is . . . comparable to one's first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples, underlain by a simultaneous sense of strangeness--like one's own reflection seen in a green twilight."--Margaret Parton, New York Herald Tribune

Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (October 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226568318
• ISBN-13: 978-0226568317
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #936,369 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply delightful, February 16, 2005

By	Raghuveer - See all my reviews

Call it a trip down the memory lane or a story of a little boy, this is one book to delight all and sundry. Graham Greene calls it 'A book in ten thousand'. It is that and much more.

R K Narayan is without any doubt one of the most famous Indian writers. His books echo the simple lives and daily trials of the people of 'Malgudi'. This in fact is Narayan's first foray into the world of literatue.

The book is about a little boy Swamy who hates school, loves to play all the time (what else but cricket?), snuggles beside his grandma every night and has his own gang of friends. Swami's family life mirrors the typical Hindu brahminical household. There is no central plot in the book and it is more episodic. One fictitious incident of the Indian freedom struggle is superbly shown through the eyes of a child.

More than anything, the book is a reflection of our own childhood days when longed for the classes to end, the teachers we loved and hated, the school bully with whom it was great to strike up a friendship, the special kid whom we had to impress and the peon who, we were sure, knew all the questions of the examination.

There are books more profound than this running into hundreds of pages. But we realize that sometimes simple words and plain language of an effective writer can make a bigger impact if it is something we can relate to. This is a story that can be read pretty quickly but one that you will stay with you for a while.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Swami and Friends is fantastic, May 1, 2005

By	Mridula Dwivedi "Book Worm" (New Delhi, India) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Swami and Friends (Oxford Illustrated Classics) (Hardcover)

Swami and Friends is the story of idyllic childhood, when life for some lucky kids consists entirely of avoiding the homework and playing all the time in the street with friends. Swami is one such lucky boy, studying in standard 1 A, at Albert Mission High School. We are soon introduced to his class mates and they are a reasonable lot. Shanker's specialty is to top every exam, the `Pea' and Somu occupy the middle positions but Mani is Swami's best friend who sits on the last bench and takes more than one year to clear some classes. Together Swami and Mani lord over the class and just barely manage to scrape past the exams. They live for summer vacations.

But this peaceful setting is disturbed occasionally by the stern headmaster of the school and sometimes by the religious study teacher, Ebenezar. Though real chaos happens when a new boy, Rajam, comes to study in Swami's class. Rajam's father is the police commissioner of the town. In 1930, that would mean working for the British Government. After some scuffles that threaten to involve wooden clubs on Mani's part and an air gun on Rajam's, peace descends on 1 A again and Swami, Mani and Rajam become fast friends. We see them getting involved in forming a cricket club and harassing cart drivers.

But all good things come to an end, and Swami manages to get thrown out from his school. He participates or rather gets caught in Anti-British protests. Next day, when his headmaster tries to cane him, he runs away swearing he will never come back. His father is forced to change the school. Still, his friendship with Mani and Rajam totters along, till Swami manages to run away from the second school too. He feels that now there is nothing left but to run away from home also. Eventually Swami returns home, only to find one of those childhood's great calamities, lying in wait for him. The book ends on a bitter-sweet note.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The most respectful, truest, funniest recreation of childhoo, February 23, 1999

By A Customer

Shaw said that people laughed hardest when he told the simple truth. This book might have been written to illustrate the profundity of that remark, as tiny Swaminathan, so profoundly imagined that we leave the book understanding (and loving) him, enables us to feel a deep tenderness not only for him but for all children (including ourselves). Swami loves (and hustles) his mamaji, loves (and trembles, needlessly, before) his father, loves (and stoutly patronizes and instructs) his Granny, generally conducting his life in school and among his friends with an endearing combination of courage, ablomp, cheek, incomprehension, and vulnerability. Narayan is the writer that Graham Greene admires most in the English language; Swami and Friends is a goodish argument why. The book illustrates how Narayan has come to command the respect of writers and the love of readers throughout the world.