2 stars, because it is well written and shows a plethora of well rounded characters and a view into an important time in  Indian History. 

BUT: what really made my blood boil and wanted me to give it even negative stars is how the author handled telling the story ark of Saeeda Bai and Tasneem. The way he just didn't give any importance to the violence against women in his story. 

When Maan attacked first Saeeda Bai and then Firoz, him strangling her nearly to death and her persistent injury and the effects on her voice (her livelihood) is only mentioned in passing. There is no remorse or guilt described in Maan, while the guilt and worry for Firoz nearly eats him up and is described in detail. Not even at their next meeting, the only focus is on how he might have fallen out of love with her and no word about what he had done to her and what she had actually done for him in pretending it never happened and lying for his sake to the police. But even worse was how Seth wrote about the issue with Tasneem. The big scandal being that she was the Nawab Sahib's illegitimate daughter and Feroz's half sister while the fact that Feroz's father actually FUCKING RAPED 15 YEAR OLD SAEEDA BAI AND GOT HER PREGNANT is only mentioned in passing. If there wouldn’t be a child, this would literally not have been an issue. No reason to feel bad about or for any of the characters to acknowledge it, after they learned about it. The widely respected Nawab Sahib drunkenly raped a 15 year old child and 15 years later Maan Kapoor nearly strangled her to death out of jealousy.

 
These facts shouldn't be treated so nonchalantly as if that's a normal part of life and the way you just treat women.  Normalising violence against women is not okay today and it wasn’t okay in 1993 when this book was published. 

When you read a book this long (1474 pages), you can start to get so comfortable with the writing and with the world and with the characters that it becomes a pleasure every time you pick it up. That's what happened to me. When I got near the end, I wanted to put off reading because I didn't want the story to end. The ending was absolutely shocking to me because

I could not believe that she married Haresh when she was clearly in love with Kabir. The way she chose a safe, expected husband that pleased her mother went against everything literature has been telling a Western reader like me for centuries, so it shocked me that she made the choice she did. Perhaps that is part of the joy of reading of book from a culture different from mine: the characters make decisions I wouldn't make and don't even necessarily understand. In that sense, the book was highly educational for me.

In a book of nearly 1500 pages, there are course many characters and plots, but I found nearly all of them engaging, complex, and worth reading about. The central plot focuses on Lata Mehra, an English literature student in Brahmpur, Purva Pradesh and her mother's search for a suitable boy for Lata to marry. Over the course of the novel we encounter Lata's suitors and get to enjoy her reactions to these men, as well as the reactions of her mother and the rest of her family. Alongside Lata's plot towards marriage, we follow the lives of her family members, the families of both her married siblings, and several other families with more distant connections. There is a pretty hefty engagement with some of the politics of 1950s India, with the 1952 election playing a key role in several of the characters' lives. I cried at characters deaths, at beautiful scenes of family and love, and at some of the hilarious moments. I was pleasantly surprised that same-sex relationships were explicitly acknowledged and even described once, particularly because the novel is set in the 1950s (Wikipedia says the author is bi-sexual, so perhaps it is not surprising). The book deftly takes you through conflicts of family, religion, gender, misunderstandings, love, class and caste, shoe company politics, and violence, including several scenes of crowded violent events. I've heard that Seth compared his book to Dream of the Red Chamber or The Story of the Stone by Cao Xuequin, but it reminded me most of George Eliot's Middlemarch in scope and style (it's even directly alluded to when one of the characters describes writing a very long novel against their better judgement because they still "carry the scars of Middlemarch.")

Despite (or maybe because) some of the plotlines did not unfold as I would have expected or even wanted, I found the book irresistible. It challenged my expectations and assumptions about literature, about love, and certainly about India. I would highly recommend the book to anyone, especially those unfamiliar with Indian culture. However, it is perhaps best recommended to those with a fierce commitment to finishing long books. I was lucky to be reading the book with others for a book club, and that accountability was helpful to push me to keep reading and finish the book. 

Honestly think finishing this book may rank in my 2023 achievements. A Suitable Boy is one of the longest novels in the English language, clocking in at just under 1500 pages and, to be brutally honest, really, really doesn't need to be.

Set in 1951 and 1952 in post-colonial and post-Partition India, A Suitable Boy technically follows the story of Lata, a young female student whose mother is set on finding 'a suitable boy' for her to marry. Alongside Lata's search to find a husband we also dip into the life of her brother-in-law Pran's attempts to modernise the curriculum at the university, his brother Maan's romantic entaglement with the courtesan Saaeda Bai, his father Mahesh's career in Indian politics during an especially turbulent time along with Lata's other in-laws the Chatterji's irrevent and snobby lives in Calcutta and Maan's family friends the Khans, grappling with being both Muslim and landowners at a time of significant change for both these groups. We also get detailed sidebars from musicians, tutors along with local and national politicians.

It is a truly sprawling narrative and there's much to enjoy here. Seth's prose is - usually - entertaining and humerous, especially when it comes to following the lives of his characters. When we're with Lata and her slightly ridiculous mother (think Mrs Bennet from Pride & Prejudice), the chaotic Chatterjis and generally exploring relationships; this feels very well drawn. These characters feel vibrant and their homes seemingly leap off the page. However, other characterisation is not as solid, surprisingly Lata's love interests all come across as fairly flat, and largely defined by one characteristic (Muslim, Poet, Shoemaker respectively). Given that this is the plot hook, I did expect to be slightly more interested in these characters and in Lata's ultimate choice.

Whilst the characterisation is generally strong, I felt that this novel felt at its most bloated when Seth attempts to zoom out and provide wider context; or goes on random side quests with minor characters to give us, for instance, detailed views of a local music scene, spirituality or the history of shoemaker in India. I feel that Seth was probably trying to draw comparisons with authors like Tolstoy but I just found these sections an absolute slog. Indeed, I was rarely motivated to pick up this book because I wanted to know what happened, but because I just wanted to finish the thing. It did feel to me that Seth's points could have been made with far less detail, and I wish he'd had an editor who'd trimmed some of this excess. The decades he's spent writing A Suitable Girl makes me think this won't have changed.

It's undeniable that this novel provides a detailed insight to life in India in the 1950s, to a society that is trying to work out what its identity is after colonial rule and hints at the rifts that form part of Indian society today. I would say it is worth a read if you want to get this detailed, detailed insight.

Four families in the fictional Indian city of Brahmpur juggle familial expectations, post-partition politics, and their own desires in the search for suitable matches. After spending 1350 pages with Seth’s sparkling, multifaceted characters, I cannot help but long for a few more pages.