{"product_id":"the-bachelor-of-arts-phoenix-fiction-9780226568331","title":"The Bachelor of Arts (Phoenix Fiction)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"There are writersTolstoy and Henry James to name twowhom we hold in awe  writersTurgenev and Chekhovfor whom we feel a personal affection  other writers whom we respectConrad for examplebut who hold us at a long arms length with their courtly foreign grace. Narayan (whom I dont 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  Offering rare insight into the complexities of Indian middle-class society  R. K. Narayan traces life in the fictional town of Malgudi. The Dark Room 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 Mr. Sampath  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 Swami and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts. 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.  \"The experience of reading one of his novels is . . . comparable to ones first reaction to the great Russian novels: the fresh realization of the common humanity of all peoples  underlain by a simultaneous sense of strangenesslike ones own reflection seen in a green twilight.\"Margaret Parton  New York Herald Tribune\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45272347115573,"sku":"ByrdShop_0226568334","price":66.75,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780226568331.jpg?v=1780477005","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-bachelor-of-arts-phoenix-fiction-9780226568331","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}