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Book Reviewed by:A heartrending new book - the story of a marriage and the story of two lives - from the author of the international bestselling novel A Suitable Boy.
A heartrending new book -- the story of a marriage and
the story of two lives -- from the author of the international bestselling
novel A Suitable Boy
Shanti Behari Seth was born on the eighth day of the eighth month in the
eighth year of the twentieth century; he died two years before its close. He
was brought up in India in the apparently vigorous but dying Raj and was
sent by his family in the 1930s to Berlin -- though he could not speak a
word of German -- to study medicine and dentistry. It was here, before he
migrated to Britain, that Shanti's path first crossed that of his future
wife.
Helga Gerda Caro, known to everyone as "Henny" was also born in 1908, in
Berlin, to a Jewish family -- cultured, patriotic, and intensely German.
When the family decided to take Shanti as a lodger, Henny's first reaction
was, "Don't take the black man!" But a friendship flowered, and when Henny
fled Hitler's Germany for England just one month before war broke out, she
was met at Victoria Station by the only person in the country she knew:
Shanti.
Vikram Seth has woven together their astonishing story, which recounts
the arrival into this childless couple's lives of their great-nephew from
India -- the teenage student Vikram Seth. The result is an extraordinary
tapestry of India, the Third Reich and the Second World War, Auschwitz and
the Holocaust, Israel and Palestine, postwar Germany and 1970s Britain.
Two Lives is both a history of a violent century seen through the
eyes of two survivors and an intimate portrait of their friendship,
marriage, and abiding yet complex love. Part biography, part memoir, part
meditation on our times, this is the true tale of two remarkable lives -- a
masterful telling from one of our greatest living writers.
Even if the reviews had not been as glowing as they are I would have been tempted to recommend Two Lives simply for the gratitude I feel to Vikram Seth for introducing me to the wonderful world of Indian authors. When my father (who is normally found nose deep in Trollope or histories of World War II) gave me a copy back in 1993 I must admit I was surprised that he would have read, let alone enjoyed, a story of extended families set in 1950s India - but the essence of a true classic is that it transcends the borders of genre and can be appreciated even by those who might not normally read that 'type' of book. Needless to say, if you haven't already read A Suitable Boy, I do encourage you to do so in all its 1,470 page glory!..continued
Full Review
(546 words)
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Vikram Seth was born in India and educated there and in
England, California, and China. He has written acclaimed books in several
genres: verse novel, The Golden Gate; travel book, From Heaven
Lake; animal fables, Beastly Tales; epic novel, A Suitable Boy,
and a couple of books for children.
Partial bibliography:
Novels
The Golden Gate (1986)
A Suitable Boy (1993)
An Equal Music (1999)
Poetry
Mappings (1981)
Humble Administrator's Garden (1985)
All You Who Sleep Tonight (1990)
Beastly Tales (1991)
Three Chinese Poets (1992)
Non-Fiction
From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang And Tibet (1983)
Two Lives (2005)
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Simon Winchester
I cannot remember ever being quite so moved by a memoir... [Seth's] achievement has exceeded all possible expectations.
