Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher: Introduction by Alexander McCall Smith (Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series)

This was the stuff I was looking for: The English Teacher contains a thinly veiled autobiographical account of the death of Narayan's wife. It was very interesting to learn about Hindu death and cremation services. The account of how he used a medium to get in touch with her spirit, who was constantly watching over him and their child, was riveting.

I just re-read The Dark Room, which has stayed with me for years and years. I found it even more heartbreaking than before. Narayan helps the reader inhabit and personalities and feelings of characters very quickly. Years ago, I remember being terribly moved by The English Teacher, which I will re-read again soon. He is a treasure.

buy it, sit with it and forget everything else. nothing else to say. had to put in a few more words so that i can submit this review.

I am writing this review for the Kindle version of R.K.Narayan's set of 4 novels, "Swami and friends", "Bachelor of arts", "The Dark room" and "The English Teacher".Though the novels are great by themselves, the reason I am rating 3 for this is because of the following reasons:1) At many places, the formatting of the punctuations, word splits, spelling of proper nouns, etc are incorrect and hence can get irritating at times while reading in a good flow.2) Also, in certain chapters of Swami and friends, the story gets disconnected and abruptly some other chapter's part comes in, which is of course highly undesirable.So, I would suggest any of you to rather pay more and get a better Kindle version than this one.Thanks.

RK Narayan tells a good story. His stories unfold with clarity and accessibility to the reader. The prose is lucid and evocative especially for some one like me who grew up in South India.

An excellent selection of four modern classics by one of India's most influential writers.

Book was in great condition.

This book contains four novellas. In reality it is 2400 pages in only 600. While many writers take twenty pages to write what should have taken up no more than ten, Narayan took those ten pages and wrote them better in five.He draws you into the world of his characters so quickly and thoroughly you are amazed that so much was told in such a small space. Each of these four novellas take place in Malguti, a fictional town in South India. Narayan wrote these in the 1930's and 40's, While it would be helpful to have some knowledge of the India at that time, it isn't required to enjoy his writing. This Everyman's Library edition has a time line of his career along with world and literary events for each time period. This was most helpful as an introduction to Narayan's works.--------Swami and Friends: This is an example of "boys will be boys" no matter where they live. They can be studious or laggard; helpful or cruel; friendly or surly; humble or haughty or all at the same time. As I read this I kept thinking of the "Little Rascals". Those of you too young to know about them (aka "Our Gang") owe it to yourself to try to find copies to watch.Swami is an underachiever who lacks self-confidence and tries to get it vicariously from his friends. This is both an amusing and moving novella. Like so many of us in youth, Swami, to others, is so ignorant; but to himself his brilliance knows no bounds. He is a master at rationalizing his actions, yet so in need of love and support.--------The Bachelor of Arts: Young men will also be young men. We journey with Chandran from college (What do I want to do when I grow up?) to after (I've grown up! What am I going to do?). There's love and disappointment. There's hope and disillusionment. There's growing up for real and ???.This is more serious than the first novella. Narayan lets us see into the mind of Chandran as he battles with himself to find his place. Malgudi may be fictional but it is truly part of the real world.----------The Dark Room: Middle-aged men will be idiots. Middle-aged women will be ... perfect of course (I'm not that dumb). This is about "He who rules the castle and all in it." vs "She who wants a life (or does she?)." I did not like this as much as the other three. It is very stereotyped but the writing is still great.----------The English Teacher: I so wanted the protagonist to be an old man to continue the progression. It was not to be. Our hero this time is a teacher and want-to-be poet. Looking for his place in life, following family tragedy, he ventures away from the norm to try the new. This one is said to be somewhat autobiographical and is very moving.-------In looking back on the four, the first and last are my favorites. The characters are drawn from life and placed in real world situations. Narayan's concise style continues throughout and draws the reader in to Malgudi. Fortunately there are many more that follow for me to read.

Beautiful print, absolutely love *all* of Everyman's Library editions/prints, particularly love their extra research and initial pages on the chronology of things, following the author's life and influences as he/she wrote all his/her books over time. And RK Narayan is a brilliant author, stories are incredibly quaint and entertaining. Highly recommend any Everyman's Library reprint of classics.