Krishna teaches English literature at the Albert Mission College in Malgudi and lives a comfortable but dissatisfied bachelor life in the hostel. When his wife Susila and their baby daughter Leela come to join him, he rents a house and discovers the pleasures of domestic life: house-hunting, small quarrels, shared reading and the ordinary rituals of a young family.
A sudden illness changes everything, and the second half of the novel follows Krishna as he struggles with loss, raises his daughter and becomes involved with a medium who claims to pass on messages. He also grows close to an unconventional headmaster running a school for small children, which makes him question the colonial English education he has spent his life delivering.
The novel is Narayan's most personal, drawing on the death of his own wife Rajam in 1939. It completes a loose trilogy with Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts, and is notable for the tenderness with which it treats marriage and mourning. Its closing chapters are unusually spiritual for Narayan.
Book details
| Author | R. K. Narayan |
|---|---|
| First published | 1945 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Classic |
| Type | Fiction |
| Pages (approx.) | 184 |
| Setting | Malgudi, South India, 1930s |
Themes
- Grief
- Marriage
- Education
- Spiritualism
- Self-discovery
Who should read it
Readers looking for a quiet, moving novel about love, loss and starting again.