Some Time, Origins, Pico

✍ Scribed by Frank Neary

• Tongue: English
• Weight: 17 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

Ethiopia : prayers in the wilderness -- Nepal : movie days in Kathmandu -- Tibet : the life and times of the Potala Palace -- The East India Company : Oxbridge-on-the-Hooghly -- Bombay : Hobson-Jobson on the streets -- The new world's new world : making itself up and over -- New York : a city in black and white -- A hermitage in California : a life outside time -- Norman Lewis : a curious collector of curiosities -- Tenzin Gyatso : Tibet's guiding star -- Peter Matthiessen : in search of the crane -- Peter Brook : autumn of the rebel patriarch -- Welcome to the age of tropical classical -- A junglified Victoria : reef by Romesh Gunesekera -- Jane Austen in Calcutta : A suitable boy by Vikram Seth -- The mailman from Malgudi: Malgudi days by R.K. Narayan -- Prosaic justice all around : Salman Rushdie vs. the Ayatollah -- Pop goes the culture: East, West by Salman Rushdie -- In praise of folly : Three continents by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala ; The web by Andrew Harvey -- The spiritual import-export market : Journey to Ithaca by Anita Desai -- Waiting upon history : The remains of the day by Kazuo Ishiguro -- A Martian in Mittel Europe : The unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro -- A small, bewildered foreigner : Paddington's storybook by Michael Bond -- Tourists at home : The Misalliance by Anita Brookner ; Persian nights by Diane Johnson -- The meek inherit no earth : Grace abounding by Maureen Howard ; No fond return of love by Barbara Pym -- Richard Burton in the Peace Corps : The happy isles of Oceania by Paul Theroux -- An Englishman in Paradise : Spring street summer by Christopher Hudson -- Private eye, public conscience : the works of Raymond Chandler -- An American song of enthusiasm : Henry Miller at 100 -- Searching for America : Sundog by Jim Harrison -- A connoisseur of fear : White noise by Don DeLillo -- Black-magic realism : The crossing by Cormac McCarthy -- In the shadow of the '60s : The burning house by Ann Beattie -- A waiting room for death : A match to the heart by Gretel Ehrlich -- In praise of the humble comma -- Excusez-moi! Speakez-vous Franglais? -- For Japan, see Oscar Wilde -- Through the Cuban looking glass -- The rise of minority terrorism -- History? Education? Zap! Pow! Cut! -- Authors' photos and the tyranny of the image -- Perhaps the best article on blurbs I've written today -- The contagion of innocence -- A midsummer night's dream : The sequel -- The ultimate near-life experience -- Of weirdos and eccentrics -- 9/9/1991 -- Sleeping with the enemy -- The competitive advantage of seasons -- Confessions of a frequent flier -- The new enemies of promise -- The Lears : an American tragedy -- A game of instants -- Silence.;In Tropical Classical the author of Video Nights in Katmandu and The Lady and the Monk visits a holy city in Ethiopia, where hooded worshippers practice a Christianity that has remained unchanged since the Middle Ages. He follows the bewilderingly complex route of Bombay's dabbawallahs, who each day ferry 100,000 different lunches to 100,000 different workers. Iyer chats with the Dalai Lama and assesses the books of Salman Rushdie and Cormac McCarthy. And he brings his perceptive eye and unflappable wit to bear on the postmodern vogues for literary puffery, sexual gamesmanship, and frequent-flier miles. Glittering with aphorisms, overflowing with insight, and often hilarious, Tropical Classical represents some of Iyer's finest work. From the Trade Paperback edition.