Comments on: English, August

by: Anupam

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:54:19 +0100

It’s always nice to find something to read online about ‘English, August’. I read the book about 2.5 years back n loved it instantly. Yet to watch the movie…hoping to find a copy somewhere!

by: Zafar Anjum

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 02:51:42 +0000

Thanks for this. I am glad for August’s American debut. BTW, the blog is shaping up well.

by: fingers

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 15:23:28 +0000

The film is interesting, has its moments. The frog in the bathroom is funny. It isn’t anything like the book, though. The book lets each reader think of a different degree of heat in the Madna summer, etc. The film, gives you one constant.
Book’s superb. And the bit about Agastya telling his uncle Pultu Kaku, ‘Doesn’t anyone understand the absence of ambition, or the simplicity of it?’. All wonderful. What a book!

by: reeya

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 06:01:24 +0000

So I just stopped by during a break from my nightly procrastination and saw this post and became insanely happy. My dad handed me his copy of English, August a few years ago in an effort to explain what might have become of him had he listened to his father and sat for the IAS exam after college. Quite possibly one of the funniest books I have ever read. I’ve always wished I could take a class where English, August was being taught, but in many respects I don’t know how successful it would be given the fact that, as you say, Chatterjee “hasn’t tried to cultivate an audience that doesn’t recognize his world immediately.” The story is so sublimely absurd at times that I think would confuse the hell out of people who have no context (or logical entry-point) into this world. I was about to ask if you’d seen the film version but the above commentor beat me to it. I haven’t seen it, and to tell the truth, I have no idea how anyone could take that book and somehow make it visually compelling. I’m sitting here now envisioning long interminable scenes in Agastya’s living quarters while he smokes pot and contemplates his existance. There’s so much hilarious inner monologue in the book that I think would be lost (or ineffective) on film. (But then, I haven’t seen it, so maybe I’m wrong…)

by: Vikash Singh

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 03:35:25 +0000

Really good book. Did you ever watch the film “English, August”? It has Rahul Bose in it. Never found a copy.

by: aswin

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 03:04:30 +0000

Thanks for this post! I read English, August as an undergraduate in an engineering school in Allahabad and agree when you say the world he wrote about was “immediately recognizable.” And here is an interview in The Hindu that might interest you - Upamanyu Chatterjee on his latest book - Weight Loss. http://www.hindu.com/mag/2006/02/19/stories/2006021900050200.htm

Aswin.