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Book Review: The Guide by RK Narayan The Guide by RK Narayan is a very interest

Book Review: The Guide by RK Narayan The Guide by RK Narayan is a very interesting book about the metamorphosis of this man named Raju. Raju went through three stages in his life – as a tour guide, as a manager of a dancer and then finally a spiritual guide. The dancer Rosie/Nalini caused him to shift into his manager role and then going to jail transformed him into a spiritual guide. The book exhibits a lot of Indian culture and it is set in a fictional town called Malgudi near Madras or Chennai. In fact, it was very interesting to see that a lot of the words were left untranslated like ‘dhobi’ to show that a lot of the words can’t be understood by outsiders without understanding Indian culture. What I found to be especially unique about this book from other books was how names were not given any importance in the book. There are many characters that are left unnamed like the layer or the shopkeeper. Moreover, even the surnames are not mentioned for any characters except for a foreigner named James Malone, perhaps to emphasize that he didn’t belong with the Indians. Narayan is challenging the western notions about giving you all the names of the characters and showing that a novel can be completely written without giving you all the information about the characters. Raju’s name changes throughout the book to show his transformations throughout the book. As a tour guide he is called ‘Railway Raju’. As the dancer’s manager, he is called ‘Raj’ as if he is a king. Then finally, he is known as ‘Swamiji’. The dancer in the book also changes her name from Rosie to Nalini in order to be better accepted as an Indian classical dancer. It was to become more traditional. In the book, there is also a character named Marco who is Rosie’s estranged husband. Marco is not his real name. Rajugives him this name because he thought he looked like he was about to go on an expedition. This further shows how Narayan is trying to convey that the name is not important. The manner in which the book is written is also very unique. The back and forth from past and present gets the reader to draw parallels between Raju’s past and present. It further emphasizes how Raju’s ‘essence’ doesn’t change throughout the book. He is always some form of a guide, whether a tour guide or a personal manager or a spiritual guide. If the story was linear, then it would have been much harder for the reader to relate between all of these three portrayals of Raju. Narayan goes between third person and first person throughout the book as well. The first person point of view gives you a better insight into Raju’s character and the third person point of view gives you a less biased view of the story as well and an outsiders perspective too. Overall, the book is very different from books that I have read before because of its writing style and philosophical kind of story. The book really makes you think about what the ‘self’ is and how it can easily change throughout your life. I really liked how Indian culture was inculcated in this book so well in this book too. There were insights into the rural Indian when Raju was ‘Swamiji’, the average Indian when he is ‘Railway Raju’ and also the rich Indian when is ‘Raj’. Of course the book is set in the past, perhaps 50 years ago which was also very interesting. uploads/Societe et culture/ book-review-of-the-guide.pdf