Product Description

Young lovers Sophie and Matteo are dissatisfied with their middle-class upbringing and travel to India in search of spiritual fulfillment, but the realities of life on an ashram intensify the lovers' differences, until they learn that wisdom is found in the journey itself, not its destination. Reprint. NYT.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1660330 in Books
• Published on: 1996-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
A disaffected European couple drift apart while seeking enlightenment in India.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The author of Baumgartner's Bombay (LJ 3/15/89) offers another intriguing novel of India. During a seriocomic search for Eastern enlightenment, European newlyweds Matteo and Sophie encounter a living saint, the Mother. Matteo becomes a disciple, but Sophie resists, even as their stay in the Mother's model ashram stretches into years. As Matteo increasingly withdraws from a previously passionate marriage, Sophie vows to destroy her husband's spiritual obsession. To prove that the Mother is less than holy, Sophie explores the saint's past, beginning with rumors about a colorful dancing career. The quest leads Sophie along strange roads to even stranger characters in Egypt, France, Italy, and the United States. Back in India with assorted facts but few answers, she finds shocking news and a challenge waiting. An ambiguous denouement reiterates the haunting questions about sacred and profane love that echo throughout the book. Fine fare for thoughtful readers with a taste for exotic settings.?Starr E. Smith, Marymount Univ., Arlington, Va.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"A daring, colorful novel almost impossible to absorb in one reading... Anita Desai is a fluent artist, working from one vivid salience to the next. She knows the different lights of India, and she sees everything under the sun."

-- Paul West, The New York Times Book Review

"A triumph... What distinguishes the voice of Anita Desai is the physical intensity of her prose, the range of her capacious intelligence, her unsentimental compassion... Her work is an illumination and a blessing."

-- Pearl K. Bell, The New Republic

"A rich tapestry of the contemporary human condition in an alien environment ... Desai creates images rooted in the external environment that leave indelible imprints on our internal landscapes."

-- Mandira Sen, San Francisco Chronicle

"Powerful...a wonder of exquisitely crafted prose. As she piles detail upon detail, the intensity of India is seamlessly conjured up."

-- Judith Weinraub, Washington Post Book World

"A marvelous writer ... The book is exhilaratingly alive."

-- Esther Harriott, New York Newsday -- Review

Customer Reviews

Disappointing
I did not find this book interesting. I had to struggle to finish it. What distinguishes Anita Desai's work is her vivid and beautiful description of nature. The second half where Sophie goes on a journey to discover the roots of 'Mataji' does not connect well with the readers. A lot of time the book was very boring and going nowhere in the name of spirituality. I read this novel with great anticipation as I liked Desai's 'Clear Light of The Day' very much. If you are expecting something like that then this novel will come as an disppointment.

The story of a troubled relationship
Matteo and Caroline were both brought up in Italy. Caroline was sent to a convent school in Milan and Matteo to a school in Turin which had been recommended by his uncle. However Matteo performed very poorly: he was bad at maths, could not sing and played football in a disastrous way so that he was constantly bullied by his classmates. Finally his parents decided to take him back home and they found a tutor, Fabian, for his education. But he remained a rebellious student, learning nothing, eating nothing. Whenever his father talked to him about a career in banking or in the family silk business, Matteo would simply smile faintly. Finally in the summer of 1975, he married Sophie, the daughter of a German banker and together they left for India taking with them Matteo's much beloved copy of Hermann Hesse's "The Journey to the East".
In Bombay they met Pierre Eduard who took them to an elderly woman who performed a few tricks as a form of worship to the glory of Shiva. Whilst Sophie remained unimpressed with what she called "party tricks", Matteo on the other hand was quite transfixed by what he had seen. Later they met Mr Pandey, a "deus ex machina" as Sophie called him in her exasperation, who suggested that they go and live in an ashram. After that Matteo came up with the idea that they replicate the journey which a famous saint had undertaken on foot to a shrine where he obtained enlightenment. But Sophie could not share Matteo's enthusiasm about searching for "the mystery that is the heart of India" during the exhausting expedition and even after such a short time spent in the country, she had no doubt that it was a culture to which she would never belong. Matteo on the other hand was literally seized by madness with his quest for the "devine light" despite the warnings that "the gods are destructive in this country". Will Matteo's studying with a swami at a distant ashram help him recover his senses? Will Matteo and Sophie go through this adventure together and recover their love?
Mrs Desai shows hard and driven people in her novel, the mutual contempt of a wife and a husband, the rejection foreigners may experience in India and also a man deluding himself in an impossible quest. Perhaps the author's other novels like "Baumgartner's Bombay" or "In Custody" are more accessible, less obscure.

Gorgeous.
Desai is a writer who repays re-reading. This book is subtle and textured. The author plays marvelously with time and consciousness in ways reminiscent of Virginia Woolf, brought up to date.