They live in their own reality and it rarely coincides with anyone else’s. Try Prime Hello, Sign in Account & Lists Sign in Account & Lists Orders Try Prime Cart. [Poets, man! Interest lost forever. This dive into the life of the Bombay poets was so satisfying. Life is too short to spend reading 500 pages of irrelevance, when there are so many great authors to read!

To order a copy for £15.29 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Unable to add item to Wish List. When it comes to narrative voices, timescales and locations, The Book of Chocolate Saints happily shifts through all of this with some frequency. Walk among them as if you’re in a den of goddamn vipers. As Xavier says, “your anger curled, your grief dies, your talent fades on the page… you understand that thought is the enemy, the source of all lesions, tumours and sarcomas; then thought becomes flesh becomes the emblem of your shame”. Highly pretentious, arrogant and an intellectual snobbery.

I picked this one on a sentimental whim at the airport while returning from a wistful, laid-back holiday in lush and sunny North Goa.

It makes you want to flesh out madly flamboyant characters that you know exist somewhere in your head. They have no feck at all. Holding a copy of Jeet Thayil’s ‘The Book of Chocolate Saints’ in your hands can be somewhat intimidating, mostly because it gives every indication of being a weighty tome in every sense of the word. Completely immersive and illuminating.
Beautifully written - especially in the description of the cities it takes place in.

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Every surface had been colonised, “Isn't violence a failure of the imagination, after all? Welcome back. There are some authors who hypnotise me with their writing. Borges, Cortázar, Cărtărescu, Alameddine, Vuong, and now Thayil. I just finished The Book of Chocolate Saints. Please try your request again later. © 2008-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. More than money, less than time. Start by marking “The Book of Chocolate Saints” as Want to Read: Error rating book. To be re-read. There is no one-to-one correspondence between the real people and the fictional, and. Her... To see what your friends thought of this book. A great ride of a book written as only this author can. Read this book. The only ones you can trust are the short-story writers because they’re like poets in at least one respect. About Newton Francis Xavier, a Poet (blocked), a painter, a philosopher and a womanizer in equal measure from Goa, who found all his above mentioned abilities in Bombay (and New York), who started living in New York along with his muse Goody Lol and who is on his trip back to India after several years for his final exhibition/show is the main protagonist of this book. 3-4* Jeet Thayil-Jazz musician, poet, and novelist.

Jeet Thayil touches every conceivable subject in this book- be it untouchability or the poetry movement in the 70s or racism in America post September 11 or writer's block. The book looks up to women with the highest regard and the brilliance and shortcomings of Newton Franc. The book had the familiar place-names, a casual flip revealed a fair capture of the sights, the sounds of the places I was leaving behind and I was deeply intrigued by the book’s unusual premise to chronicle the forgotten modernist poets of India from the 70s and 80s. This is his second book and it's a "big book." You will also come across scriptwriters and screenplay doctors. Brilliant character development, lyrical writing, lively story. Its evocation of numerous worlds, ranging from 50s Soho to modern Delhi, makes for a rich, languorous and seductive saga. Whether he is heading there for artistic inspiration or in search of absolution is left tantalisingly unclear; in any case, Thayil skilfully draws parallels between his protagonist’s fading health and declining artistic achievements. In part, the structure keeps it moving along, as it is built around a series of interviews with key characters who have known the hero, a crazy painter by the name of Frances Newton Xavier, at various times in his very turbulent life. In part, the structure keeps it moving along, as it is built around a series of interviews with key characters who have known the hero, a crazy painter by the name of Frances Newton Xavier, at various times in his very turbulent life. You can confirm your order details before purchasing. I couldn't feel anything for a single character in it. Download one of the Free Kindle apps to start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, and computer. His first book.

The book is about Indian poets, but more specifically about one fictionalised poet whose life was a blur between alcohol, paintings, writings and sex. Mostly though it is chock full of the avant-garde even when it seeks to do as it declares which is to fictionalize the lives of “a lost tribe of brother. It's not easy to sustain a reader's interest for nearly 500 pages nowadays, but this novel definitely does it. If you read one novel this year, make it this one. Learn more

Jeet Thayil (born 1959 in Kerala) is an Indian poet, novelist, librettist and musician. They’ll be the first to disappear. A book that saw me (going) through hard times. And how much was it worth in the end? I couldn't even muster up pity or any meaningful emotion for the main character. I doubt if the author has some attention deficiency disorder. Although it is not named, the book Wilde refers to is JK Huysmans’s À Rebours. In my mind I collect imaginary moments of happiness (next to the real ones I store in my heart) and one of them would be to sit on the floor with all of these writers, in silence, and listen to them converse about literature. Jeet Thayil (born 1959 in Kerala) is an Indian poet, novelist, librettist and musician. The Book of Chocolate Saints: 9780571341498: Books - Amazon.ca. By now steeped in alcoholism, then short reform period, Newton makes for a very interesting read. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Count on nothing and you’ll be okay. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages that interest you. This book is like its protagonist Xavier.

Jeet Thayil touches every conceivable subject in this book- be it untouchability or the poetry movement in the 70s or racism in America post September 11 or writer's block. Except for Arvind Krishna Mehrotra , the others are apt as cardboard cut-outs. Eighteen thousand.. There is no one-to-one correspondence between the real people and the fictional, and the real themselves make appearances in fictional garb — without shedding their real names. “The Book of Chocolate Saints” by Jeet Thayil is an original novel, constructed of a narrative plot in prose, of poems, as well as of interviews (or r Borges, Cortázar, Cărtărescu, Alameddine, Vuong, and now Thayil. Highly pretentious, arrogant and an intellectual snobbery. This book has so much, verses, poetry, absurdly remarkable prose, but the greatest quality of this book would be it's ability to make you want to write. What a niche fringe concern for a subcontinental novel, and I took an instant like to this commitment to chart literary artists and bring it to a more mainstream audience. Two days later, I was Jeet Thayil fan. • The Book of Chocolate Saints by Jeet Thayil is published by Faber (£17.99). Meta-fiction about a couple of poets, and, by extension, a whole generation of poets — the Hung Realists.
In his second novel The Book of Chocolate Saints, one of his characters reminds the reader of that: “Why has no one written about the Bombay poets of the seventies and eighties, poets who sprouted from the soil like weeds or mushrooms or carnivorous new flowers, who arrived like meteors, burned bright for a season or two, and vanished without a trace?”. No Kindle device required. 2.5 rounded off to be exact. “The Book of Chocolate Saints” by Jeet Thayil floating captions informed the viewer about how many calories she would consume. Read it. Don’t waste your time with fucking scriveners.

To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. by Faber & Faber. Loved reading about the roads and cafes of SoBo and Bandra, about New York, London and Bangalore and later Delhi and to the local cultural references throughout. was an engaging read and I am happy to have bought it. Be the first to ask a question about The Book of Chocolate Saints. By now steeped in alcoholism, then short reform period, Newton makes for. Very promising from the beginning. They have an authenticity that is lacking in the whitewashed, westernised attitudes towards literature and life that Thayil satirises, whether or not they merit the description “chocolate saints”.

Its English title, Against Nature, would serve perfectly as an alternative description of Jeet Thayil’s beguiling second novel, which also seems to be imbued with the heavy odour of incense. The idea of book as a series of interviews might sound appealing in theory, but it lacked depth and didn't give much room for character development.