On The Surface

This Sunday, Siddhartha Deb's Surface is reviewed by Arundhathi Subramanium in The Times of India, by Anita Roy in The Indian Express and by Prema Nandakumar in Deccan Herald. Not one of these reviews mentions the fact that the book has strong thematic, and even structural, affinities with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Given that Deb himself has an epigraph by Conrad in his book, one wonders whether there's some substance to Tarun Tejpal's rant after all.

Fortunately, however, Jai Arjun Singh's Business Standard review doesn't make the omission.

(Yes, The Times of India now has a books page. Guess it's in their DNA too. Hee-hee.)