Narayan, R. K. - Alfred Kazin (review date 21 July 1985)

Alfred Kazin (review date 21 July 1985)

SOURCE: "A Calm Eye on Daily Disasters," in New York Times Book Review, July 21, 1985, p. 19.

[Kazin teaches English at the City University of New York Graduate Center and the author of An American Procession. In the following review, he praises Narayan's use of the short story form in Under the Banyan Tree.]

Rasipuram Krishnaswami Narayan is on the threshold of 80 still India's most notable novelist and short-story writer in English. Quite apart from the beautiful traditionalism of his middle name, there is good reason to note his full Indian name. Mr. Narayan is an elegant, deceptively simple stylist who cleverly reports—or translates—the speech of his Indian characters into inflated schoolroom English. "How can we blame the rains when people are so evil-minded?" "A good action in a far-off place did not find an echo, but an evil one did possess that power." Yet everything he describes...

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