As such Sunetra Gupta’s debut novel, Memories of Rain, is nothing new. There have been countless of time where we have read about an Indian living abroad and the various cultural difficulties. However Gupta does approach this often used plot differently.
Here the power lies in the writing style. Gupta is very descriptive and a good number of them take up quite a few pages. It is not only material objects either, Gupta excels when she is describing the raw emotions running though her characters.
Plot-wise it is quite easy to summarise
English man (Anthony) goes to India to visit
Falls in love with Indian girl (Moni) and brings her to the U.K.
Man has an affair
Indian girl wants to escape.
As I said before it’s the words which change everything and Gupta is a wordsmith of the first degree. Plus the concept of time is all mashed together so past present and future do not have any boundaries.
Unfortunately I cannot say that I loved this novel. It can be exhaustive and at times the incredibly long sentences made me impatient but I did keep on reading and wondering how Moni will cope with her situation.
Not the worst I’ve read but not the best either.
The Bobsphere 