THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 8, 1995 TAG: 9510050502
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY RON SIMMONS
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
RED EARTH AND POURING RAIN
VIKRAM CHANDRA
Little, Brown. 542 pp. $24.95.
Red Earth and Pouring Rain is one of the most exciting adventure stories you will ever read. It captivates you, spanning centuries and continents. The characters are well-drawn and believable. The writing is challenging and descriptive.
This first novel by Vikram Chandra begins with the shooting of a white-faced monkey, who reveals himself as Sanjay, a reincarnated person born of a good Brahmin, and bargains with Yama, the devil, for another life: ``Yama, with the green skin and the jet-black hair, with the unmoving flashing dark eyes and the curling mustache. . . ''
He must tell a story and keep the interest of the audience or live the rest of his life as a crustacean at the bottom of the ocean, a fate worse than death. When Sanjay tires, Abhay picks up the story to satisfy the audience and Yama.
Chandra's descriptions are imaginative and vivid. The monkey, unable to speak, uses a typewriter to communicate. He thus describes his dilemma: ``To construct an elaborate simile in the manner of the ancients, my soul prowled about restlessly like a tiger caught between a forest fire and a raging river.''
The action is riveting, weaving the mystique of the gods with the frailties of humans.
You will be able to suspend disbelief and ride the train of imagination through some of the most exotic and breathtaking scenery, and ordinary places made exciting, where you will meet the oddest assortment of people - turbaned warriors and swarthy magicians, drug dealers and scholars, from nobility to commoners, all engaged in spectacular activities.
Much of the story parallels Chandra's life. As a young man, trained at Western schools - Pomona College, Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University - he struggled, as do his central characters, to understand the old and the new ways, in his native India and throughout the world. The rigid and comfortable traditions of the past and the uncertain culture of the future, with its vestiges of British occupation and influences of Western culture, confused and inspired him.
Red Earth and Pouring Rain is, quite simply, good fiction, pure enjoyment. MEMO: Ron Simmons is a professor of humanities at the University of Virginia
in Charlottesville. by CNB