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标题：The Invention of India in Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy
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作者：Neelam Srivastava
期刊名称：International Institute for Asian Studies Annual Report
出版年度：2003
期号：32
出版社：International Institute for Asian Studies
摘要：ASuitable Boyprovides a synchron-ic look at post-Independence Indi-an life of the 1950s, in many ways atranche de vie. It aspires to provide anidea of India through a realisticapproach that has an almost photo-graphic quality. Seth's narrative tech-nique has invited comparisons withnovelists such as R.K. Narayan, GeorgeEliot, and Leo Tolstoy, because his noveldisplays a rare belief in the possibilityof representational 'authenticity', whichit seeks to achieve through an impres-sively detailed and documented recon-struction of Indian society around thetime of the first general elections.Amidst the anti-realist tendencies ofpostmodern fiction, Seth's novel isstriking for its reappropriation of therealist mode, which is characterized byan omniscient narrator, linear chronol-ogy, and psychologically coherent char-acters, all immersed in a 'universe ofordered significance'