The Silver Castle
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.67 (844 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0330353896 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 263 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 0000-00-00 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"A Silver Castle With Golden Prose" according to A Customer. Forget Patrick White; Clive James is the best writer to ever emerge from our post-colonial back woods. Like Joseph Heller who has never been able to match his stunning debut Catch 22 (possibly the greatest novel of the century) it appeared as though Clive James would have trouble living up to the genius of his autobiographical trilogy, Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England, and May Week was in June. If Brrrmmmm Brrrmmmm, The Remake, and Brilliant Creatures however saw the emergence of a talented novelist, then The Si. A sad story told with humour A Customer This was my first Clive James book. I loved it. I've not yet been to Bombay, or any part of India, but having read the book, I feel like it's a place that I must (but not necessarily want to) visit.It's a sad story about the life a young boy growing up in poverty in Bombay. It is tragic, but it is told with such objectiveness that you cannot cast judgment upon any of the characters involved.This is a brilliant display of James' talent of telling things how they are, without imposing a moralistice slant. You'll even laugh a. A thought-provoking, insightful novel Susan Thrasher The sad and moving story of a young life lost. Told with wit and grit, the tale at first engenders the reader's sympathy for the young, precocious Sanjay growing up under deplorable conditions. And then by some curious trick, James allows the reader to distance himself/herself from Sanjay just enough to accept the "return to roots" ending without tears. Perhaps the trick is that you never really know what is in Sanjay's heart. Perhaps he doesn't have one: he is simply an opportunist who climbs the shakey ladder of success
. But he overdoes the cocktail-party and filmic chatter, and the satire of India's escapist movie industry palls and the steamy accounts of Sanjay's affairs with sexually voracious Miranda and with previous girlfriends cannot help but seem meretricious, stuck as they are in the middle of this nobly intentioned if not always successful look at the misery hidden underneath India's much-touted economic boom. Writing like an empathetic cultural anthropologist, James tracks Sanjay through successive phases: runaway from a physically abusive family; gang member; boy prostitute catering to male tourists; movie stuntman; bodyguard to a leading lady named Miranda. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. A critic and popular BBC talk-show host, James is, as usual, an urbane, digressive guide through the Third World's maze of customs, superst
-- Sunday Telegraph (London)"There is much to enjoy here, flair, colour, a real feel for the countryWe all know about Clive James the great wit. Imagine Voltaire writing Candide in Calcutta in 1997.In this magical novel, which has been acclaimed as his finest fiction to date, James tells the heartbreaking yet hysterically funny story of a young Indian boy named Sanjay who escapes from the world of abject poverty and cons his way into India's lavish and decadent film scene. The Silver Castle is both entertaining and perceptive. This book confirms the wit has a sensitive heart". He touches on the heartfelt issues in modern-day India, such as class and the clash between the traditional and the secular."The most gripping, entertaining, funny and moving novel I've read for a long timea novel which held me in tears and laughter and back again to tears, throughtout its pages". A dark fairy tale by one of Britain's wittiest and most popular personalities that plays to the fascination with India. James appeals to all emotions in an affectionate, sexy, and ultimately tragic comedy written with his trademark dry wit. -- Daily Express (London)