Reviews: Bachelor of Arts and Dorian Gray....and Jet Airways

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The flight over and back allowed me to do something I hadn't done in a while: read a book!
I finished two novels that I'd meant to get to for a while: R.K Narayan's Bachelor of Arts and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray

But first a thumbs up for the airline on which I did majority of the reading: Jet Airways is now my favorite way to fly to India: great service, great leg-space and seats, and a great entertainment system (caught like 3 movies + 1 TV show+ 4 parts of movies on the two flights.)
 
On to the books,

Bachelor of Arts
The last R.K. Narayan stories I'd read were quite a few years ago and most of my reading of his work was from when I was in school and this short stories were part of my English textbook. So I'd completely forgotten just how brilliant he really was, and was able to appreciate the novel in a very different way from when I read them as a child. Its hard for me to articulate, and perhaps its just me, but there's a directness to his voice that's very, very different, and he's able to make you feel what the character feels much more directly than any other author I've read.. The story and characters themselves are great and you love following along on the journey that Chandra takes.
I can't recommend this highly enough; not just for the story which is incredibly imaginative and engaging, but also for the intellectual meanderings that Dorian Gray and Lord Henry Wotton go on.

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