The Vendor of Sweets
by R. K. Narayan
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At a glance:
- Author: R. K. Narayan
- First Published: 1967
- Type of Work: Comic realism
- Time of Work: The 1960’s
- Setting: The mythical town of Malgudi, South India
- Characters: Jagan, The Cousin, Mali, Grace, A Dye-maker
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism, Postcolonial literature, Novel
- Subjects: Culture, Values, 1960's, Self-discovery, Race, India or East Indian people, Widows or widowers, Hindus or Hinduism, Generation gap, Materialism
- Locales: Asia, India, Malgudi, India
The Novel
Close to sixty, an age when orthodox Hindus are supposed to enter a new spiritual phase of detachment from worldly affairs, Jagan is a prosperous widower who combines handsome profits from his sweets business with high-minded Gandhian principles. The contradictions between Jagan’s greedy materialism and his ascetic sense, however, are all too evident. A former activist in Gandhi’s satyagraha movement in the turbulent 1940’s, who received a jail sentence as a result, he is now experimenting with nature diets and cures. His book on the subject still awaits...
(The entire page is 1858 words.)
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