The Book of Chocolate Saints - Hardcover

Thayil, Jeet

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0571341497 ISBN 13: 9780571341498

Verlag: Faber & Faber, 2018

Über diesen Titel

Críticas:

This novel is a rich harvest; it moves with the strange and flawless certainty of a dream ... It is superbly written, and its madness is also its strength. (Edna O'Brien)

The most original, formally adventurous and captivating novel to come out of India in a long time. (Salman Rushdie)

That rare thing, a recondite entertainment of the first order, bearing news that stays news of the international man with his roots in India, of art as meaning and transaction, of indulgence and existential dread, madness and loneliness, love and loss. In its range of topics and sweep of time, Saints is epic, but Thayil packs every line full of wit and wonder. I really loved this book. (Joshua Ferris)

An ambitious and often thrilling addition to contemporary Indian literature . . . A rich, languourous and seductive saga . . . The rich, heady poetry here leaves readers little choice but to surrender.

(Observer)

Having learned from Borges and Nabokov that the preposterous is hugely more entertaining than mere absurdity, Jeet Thayil delights not just in pushing the bounds of possibility, but in smashing them to smithereens ... A Citizen Kane-style inquiry ... There is, in short, a daringly poetic agenda to this novel, whose appreciation of the undertow of everyday life easily matches that of its brilliant predecessor, Narcopolis, shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2012. What marks The Book of Chocolate Saints out as an unmissable read, however, is its concern not just with the more entertaining aspects of human behaviour - the sinful, the grotesque and the preposterous - but also with what is, or could be, holy in our works. (John Burnside Guardian 'Book of the Day')

'A big, exuberant, explosive novel . . . The same rattling pace, huge ambition and enormous cast of characters [as Narcopolis].' (The Times)

Exuberant but melancholic, Thayil's sprawling polyphony salutes the daring - and counts the cost - of bohemian lives pushed to the edge of martyrdom. (Boyd Tonkin 1843 [The Economist])

Scathing and witty about whitewashing and sainthood in the literary world. . . A profound and often very funny meditation on worship, representation and reality. (Guardian)

With its cast of dissolute, feuding poets and metafictional gameplay, The Book of Chocolate Saints inevitably recalls Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives. Yet there is nothing secondary or derivative about Thayil's novel. On the contrary, it is dense, dazzling and ferociously intelligent. As in Narcopolis, the author's command of language is frequently virtuosic in both its range and versatility, able to vault from character to character and shift seamlessly from carefully observed realism to the high-octane rush of words and images that dominate its latter half. . . A remarkable achievement, bursting with energy, ideas and an appetite for risk-taking that is too rare in contemporary fiction. (Spectator)

'Every sentence in this book is a feast. . . a gluttonous surfeit of good writing' (Financial Times)

Reseña del editor:

LONGLISTED FOR THE DSC PRIZE FOR SOUTH ASIAN LITERATURE 2018 'Easily the most original and formally inventive novel to come out of India in years.' Salman Rushdie, Guardian Francis Newton Xavier has lived a wild existence of excess in pursuit of his uncompromising aesthetic vision. His paintings and poems - which embody the flamboyant and decadent jeu d'esprit of his heroes like Baudelaire - have forged his reputation, which is to be celebrated at a new show in Delhi. Approaching middle age in a body ravaged by hard-living, Xavier leaves Manhattan following the 9/11 attacks with his young girlfriend - and his journey home to India becomes a delirious voyage into the past. From his formative years with an infamous school offin de siecle Bombay poets - as documented by his biographer, Diswas, in these pages - Xavier must move forward into an uncertain future of salvation or damnation. His story results in The Book of Chocolate Saints: an epic novel of contemporary Indian life that probes the mysterious margins where art bleeds into the occult, and celebrates the artist's life itself as a final monument. It is Jeet Thayil's spiritual, passionate, and demented masterpiece.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Faber & Faber
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0571341497
• ISBN 13: 9780571341498
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 496