The Romantics: A Novel (Paperback)

THE ROMANTICS is a rather late coming-of-age story of Samar, a Brahmin who has come to stay on the banks of the Ganges to read and "find himself," I guess. He meets and falls in love with a rather Bohemian Frenchwoman, Catherine, who, it seems, has very little love for him. Instead, Catherine focuses her energies on another man of Indian origin, Anand. In this way, THE ROMANTICS seems to be a book about "East meets West," or rather "East is East and West is West." Mishra seems to be telling us that westerners can't possibly understand the East and vice versa.

There's very little plot in THE ROMANTICS and the "love story" between Samar and Catherine isn't really a "love story," at least not in the conventional sense. Despite that fact, the book's very best moments take place when Catherine and Samar travel together to the Himalayan hill station of Mussoorie. This section, which is all too brief, is rather poignant and it does show us the vast differences between easterners and westerners far better than do Samar's encounters with the fiery Rajesh (who seems to be a symbol of the East).

THE ROMANTICS is a quiet book (no Salman Rushdie pyrotechnics here) and, at times, it's a very delicate and gracefully nuanced book. Most of the time, however, THE ROMANTICS is simply boring and trite and downright awkward. Samar is even reading Flaubert's SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION. Mishra also has a tendency to spell everything out, to tell us what he's just shown us and this tendency destroys much of the book's grace. As yet, Mishra certainly lacks the insight of another "quiet" Indian writer, V.S. Naipaul. Mishra, however, hasn't been displaced. Naipaul has.

Overall, I found THE ROMANTICS to be a dismal debut. The plot is "barely there," the characters are stock (Rajesh, the fiery, lower caste political activist; Catherine, the westerner who simply "can't understand the East; Samar, the Braham intellectual who's been so sheltered and protected he's actually startled when he realizes just how materially poor 99% of India is), and there's really nothing at stake.

I didn't find the book completely without merit, however. Mishra has a wonderful eye for detail and a lovely, nuanced prose style...some of the time. At other times he's way too ponderous. While reading THE ROMANTICS, I felt Mishra had a lot of insight into India to share but he needs to work on characterization and coherence...a lot. Readers want characters who come alive, not clichés. I really can't recommend this book to anyone at all.

That being said, the main character was presented as someone aimless, whose only love and ambition was to read. He spent his time reading western literary critics, philosophers and hanging with his closest westerners acquaintances. The writer did well in using the character's pleasure in reading to blend western and eastern ideas. But the protagonist seemed to have no other passion but for books. However noble this appeared one is inclined to think he did so for his quest for knowledge, also so he could associate easily with his western colleagues. Ironically, one cannot really say he has close friends, as he shy away from closeness, a notion that may be blamed on the lesson learned from his stoic father about maintaining aloofness.
The only instance that revealed a hint of passion for this young man was expressed on the trip to Kalpi, northern region of India on the base of the Himalayas. It lead him to truly experience his only passionate moment. "I like this place." he blurted out to his traveling companion, Catherine, who agreed. He would later return to this region, not by his own design though, to spend the rest of his adolescent years, but those years were also spent in complete isolation, with minimal social contacts.
The most disappointing point in the book was that the character never completely resolves his aloofness. The closest passionate relationship he had never came to fruition. Ok, I am not going to make much of this since this was not a Harlequin Romance Series and I didn't necessarily expect a they-all-live-happily-ever-after sort of thing. Nonetheless, Ms. West, his neighbor, mentor, and a supposedly friend should have not been left hanging when she asked him about his brief encounter with Catherine. While he returned to Benares to see her, they spent only a few moments together and upon her mentioning her departure to him, we did not get any reaction. One would at least thought he would reveal in some way to Ms. West what happened in Kalpi or at least offer a revelation to her, which would have been sufficient to Ms. West and to this reader. He did go back to Benares to see his past and Ms. West was great part of that. Was he maintaining his life long philosophy of remaining aloof and not going back to the past? Was that why he offer Ms. West nothing? He would acknowledging her goodbye take him back to the past because he already said it once, a few years ago?