{"product_id":"the-dark-room","title":"The Dark Room","description":"\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"There are writers—Tolstoy and Henry James to name two—whom we hold in awe, writers—Turgenev and Chekhov—for whom we feel a personal affection, other writers whom we respect—Conrad for example—but who hold us at a long arm's length with their 'courtly foreign grace.' Narayan (whom I don't hesitate to name in such a context) more than any of them wakes in me a spring of gratitude, for he has offered me a second home. Without him I could never have known what it is like to be Indian.\"—Graham Greene\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eOffering rare insight into the complexities of Indian middle-class society, R. K. Narayan traces life in the fictional town of Malgudi. \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe Dark Room\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e is a searching look at a difficult marriage and a woman who eventually rebels against the demands of being a good and obedient wife. In \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eMr. Sampath,\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e a newspaper man tries to keep his paper afloat in the face of social and economic changes sweeping India. Narayan writes of youth and young adulthood in the semiautobiographical \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eSwami and Friends\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eThe Bachelor of Arts.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e Although the ordinary tensions of maturing are heightened by the particular circumstances of pre-partition India, Narayan provides a universal vision of childhood, early love and grief.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cbr data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\u003cspan data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003e\"The experience of reading one of his novels is . . . comparable to one's first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples, underlain by a simultaneous sense of strangeness—like one's own reflection seen in a green twilight.\"—Margaret Parton, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eNew York Herald Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Rivendell Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42807036706976,"sku":"","price":9.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0582\/8637\/5072\/products\/108540.jpg?v=1669573780","url":"https:\/\/rivendell-books.com\/products\/the-dark-room","provider":"Rivendell Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}