RAG Demo

Tag: Epic

  • Sacred Games

    Sartaj Singh is a divorced, middle-aged Sikh inspector in the Mumbai police, good at his job but going nowhere. An anonymous call leads him to a bunker-like house where the notorious gang lord Ganesh Gaitonde has holed up, and the confrontation leaves Sartaj with a set of questions that pull him into an investigation spanning intelligence agencies, gurus and terror networks.

    Alternating chapters are Gaitonde's own story, narrated in a swaggering voice as he rises from a petty smuggler to a criminal empire builder with links to politicians and Bollywood. Interludes, called Insets, step away to tell unrelated lives across the subcontinent, from Partition refugees to a Kashmiri agent.

    At around 900 pages, Vikram Chandra's novel is crime fiction on an epic scale, saturated with Bombay slang and the texture of the city's police stations, slums and film sets. It was adapted as India's first Netflix original series in 2018. Its sheer length is part of the experience.

    Book details

    AuthorVikram Chandra
    First published2006
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreThriller
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)900
    SettingMumbai, with episodes across India and abroad, 1940s to early 2000s

    Themes

    • Organised crime
    • Police corruption
    • Religious extremism
    • Masculinity
    • The city

    Who should read it

    Readers who love sprawling crime epics and want an inside view of Mumbai's underworld.

  • Les Miserables

    In 1815, Jean Valjean is released after nineteen years in the galleys for stealing bread and trying to escape. Shunned everywhere because of his yellow ex-convict's passport, he is taken in by the Bishop of Digne, whose act of mercy after Valjean betrays him changes the course of his life. Years later, under a new name, he has become a prosperous manufacturer and mayor.

    His path crosses that of Fantine, a young factory worker forced into destitution to support her daughter Cosette, who is being exploited by the innkeepers Thenardier. Inspector Javert, who believes the law is absolute, never stops suspecting the mayor's past. The story follows Cosette's growing up in Paris, her love for the student Marius, and the 1832 June Rebellion at the barricades.

    Hugo fills the novel with digressions on the Battle of Waterloo, convents, Parisian slang and the sewers of Paris. Published in 1862, it is a sweeping indictment of poverty and injustice and a meditation on grace, conscience and the law, later adapted into one of the world's most successful musicals.

    Book details

    AuthorVictor Hugo
    First published1862
    Original languageFrench
    Translated byNorman Denny
    GenreHistorical fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)1463
    SettingFrance, 1815-1832

    Themes

    • Redemption
    • Justice and law
    • Poverty
    • Revolution
    • Love and sacrifice

    Who should read it

    Readers who want a sweeping historical epic about mercy, injustice and the poor of nineteenth-century France.

  • War and Peace

    War and Peace opens in a St Petersburg salon in 1805, where the talk is of Napoleon, and follows several aristocratic families over the following years: the warm, chaotic Rostovs, the proud Bolkonskys and the scheming Kuragins. At its centre are three figures: Pierre Bezukhov, an awkward illegitimate son who unexpectedly inherits a fortune; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, an ambitious, disillusioned officer; and Natasha Rostova, whose vitality lights up the book.

    Tolstoy alternates between ballrooms, country estates and battlefields, including Austerlitz and Borodino, and the French occupation and burning of Moscow in 1812. Historical figures such as Napoleon and the Russian commander Kutuzov appear beside the fictional characters. Pierre's search for meaning takes him through Freemasonry, a disastrous marriage and captivity.

    Lengthy essays argue that history is shaped by countless individual actions rather than by great men. Huge in cast and scope yet intimate in its psychological detail, the novel is widely regarded as one of the greatest ever written. Readers often worry about its length, but its short chapters and vivid scenes carry the story forward.

    Book details

    AuthorLeo Tolstoy
    First published1869
    Original languageRussian
    Translated byLouise and Aylmer Maude
    GenreHistorical fiction
    TypeFiction
    Pages (approx.)1225
    SettingRussia and Austria, 1805-1820

    Themes

    • War
    • History and free will
    • Love and marriage
    • Meaning of life
    • Russian society

    Who should read it

    Ambitious readers ready for an epic that combines family saga, war story and philosophy of history.