Masterly But One-Dimensional

Chandak Sengoopta begins his review of Sujit Saraf's The Peacock Throne with a peroration designed to warm the hearts of the likes of Pankaj Mishra: "It's great that the West is finally trying to overcome its near-pornographic fixation on India's poverty and destitution, but the shiny new India that we are being urged to drool over is almost as fictitious, alas, as the dying lepers that journalists and missionary-types used to find so regularly on the pavements of Indian cities." Sengoopta goes on to praise the novel, calling it a "masterly work in its own way and a terrific read", but finds it in the final analysis "a little too one-dimensional to be a real masterpiece".

(Note to The Independent sub-editing team: It's 'Sujit', not 'Sukit'.)