more than suitable

Tonight I'm going to skip my favourite date of the week in favour of a reading by one of my favourite authors, Vikram Seth. In general, I give big fat (I'm talking phone directory fat!) novels a wide berth as I (often wrongly, think Ulysses) associate them with trivial bestsellers. Thankfully, though, I overcame my prejudices in the case of Seth's A Suitable Boy, an epic novel about the lives of 4 Indian families. My copy has almost 1,500 pages and in fact the German translation which I bought for my Mum was published in 2 volumes. It's the kind of book that comes in handy when you want to swat flies or knock burglars unconscios. Summer 2000 must have been particularly ...uhm... busy @ Coma HQ because it took me less than 2 weeks (and I read it in the office only) to devour this brilliant novel. I haven't read Seth's most recent book, Two Lives, which he is going to read from tonight, but am determined to force my way through the crowds and get him to sign my well-worn copy of A Suitable Boy. Although it's a normal bite-sized novel in terms of length (then again, I suppose anything is, compared to A Suitable Boy) I didn't really like An Equal Music, perhaps because it lacked the exotic appeal of the Indian setting.

I don't know what it is with Indian (born) novelists (is it something in the water?), but being a literary genius almost seems to be a concomitant phenomenon of Indian parentage . To name but 2 of my favourites - Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance is one of the most heart-rending (in a good, non predictable-tear-jerker way) works of fiction I know and Jhumpa Lahiri's short stories made me overcome yet another prejudice - that short stories are just not "my kind of thing".

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On my way to the subway on Friday night, Mr. Nosexnodrugsnoalcohol asked me for money again. Again at the same spot on Herrengasse. Must be a good spot, that.

Lunch-break purchases: I had a proper lunch-date today, hence no purchases other than food.