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T H I S+W E E K If it's Tuesday, D E P A R T M E N T S The Surreal Gourmet
Postmark: Philadelphia
Passages:
Readers' Tips and Tales
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LA S T+W E E K Tuesday, May 13 Foucault au lait
A full list of all
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BY RUDYARD KIPLING | kipling's only full-length work of adult fiction is the story of a young sahib, Kim, and an aging holy man's journey across colonized India in the middle of the 19th century, when the British Empire was at its heyday. The orphan Kim, known as "Little Friend of all the World," is a hybrid of British ancestry and India's complex mix of religions and cultural mythology. Orphaned by his British parents in the streets of Bombay, he wanders chameleonlike -- switching from a proper English boy to an Indian beggar -- through the streets until he meets up with a strange and foreign lama. They set off together on separate spiritual quests: The lama, on a journey to the four Holy Places of Buddhism, seeks the river of a vision that he believes will free him finally from the Wheel of all Things. Kim seeks his birthright, also a vision of sorts. Through their journeys across this diverse and ever-changing continent, Kipling unveils an India rich with culture, religion and war. And the complex friendship that emerges between the lama seeking freedom from existence and the boy coming of age is a touching metaphor for the journey that is life.
BY ALEXANDER FRATER | during a trip in Chinese Turkistan, Frater severely injures his neck in a freak incident of whiplash. Although he recovers from his initial partial paralysis, he is left permanently disabled. During a routine hospital visit he bumps into a couple and from them learns of the mystical, rejuvenating powers of India's monsoon season. Drawn to powerful displays of weather since childhood -- he was born on a South Pacific island during a torrential downpour -- Frater decides to head to India and experience the enigmatic, powerful monsoon for himself. The sporadic and moody storm leads him up the western coast of India and into the east, from Cape Comorin (at India's southwestern tip) to the border of Burma. Along the way, Frater traces newspaper leads, local folklore and myth and India's deep monsoon history as he follows the storm across the country.
BY V.S. NAIPAUL
| naipaul was born in Trinidad. His grandparents on his mother's side had immigrated from India and had brought with them their cultural and religious heritage, which they guarded furiously. For Naipaul, who left for England at the age of 17, India is both a part of him and an alienating mystery: a world he's grown up with but never known -- and rejected regardless. His journeys through India, recorded in this moving book, are as much a philosophical and spiritual questioning of the country and culture of India as they are a self-exploration into his own past and heritage. Naipaul is regarded as one of the greatest living "British" writers, and this travel narrative is no exception to his body of masterfully written works. In language dense and poignant, Naipaul captures the sadness and poverty of a country that's shaped his existence but will never be fully his.
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