“The Best Seller” by Arunabha Sengupta is one of the most interesting novels that I read in the recent times. This is the story of a writer who is struggling to become a successful author.
Sandeep - the protagonist is not just a struggling author. He is also a tai chi expert, an investigative journalist, a ghost blogger, and a voracious reader. He also knows karate, has great knowledge in world cinema and capable of talking about anything on the earth - science, history, mathematics, literature or Bhagavad Gita. He is basically a true multi-faceted person like the author of the novel.
The 681 pages of interesting novel are about the struggle of our protagonist writer to become a successful author and his interactions with the other colorful characters. There are interesting and unique characters such as the protagonist’s Dutch friend, the respectful professor in Kolkata, and psychiatrist. There are many other characters similar to those with whom we interact in the typical corporate scenario in the contemporary world.
I would like to specially mention about a particular character, who is equally interesting as Sandeep. That is Shruti – a lovely and pleasant character. The interactions between Sandeep and Shruti throughout the novel is poetic. I wouldn’t want to divulge the story in the name of a review. Let me just quote few lines from a chapter where Shruti and Sandeep interact. This is just to give you an idea about how interesting the interactions between these two characters throughout the novel.
Now the excerpt:
“Don’t you think births and rebirths will make the conversation too labored?”
“This is becoming too painful to bear.”
“I was not expecting that.”
“I guess there will be pregnant silence from now on till you deliver your story”
Many authors and poets of India have imagined and depicted Lord Krishna as a lover, son, king, guru, and even as a servant. However, I am not sure if anybody has depicted him as a modern-day consultant. No one would have thought that his ideas, which are believed to be 5000 years old, can be used by consultants for the modern day economic crisis. Interesting right? There are many such novel ideas and unique thought throughout the book.
The novel is purely contemporary, meaning, rather than merely having paragraphs and paragraphs of content, it’s written in a different way – it has sms messages, blog posts, twitter messages, and emails along with the typical content. In his previous book “Big Apple Two Bites” the author used a unique technique of referring the protagonist in the second person. In this novel, he uses all the contemporary techniques to represent the content of his novel. It’s really innovative and interesting.
The novel deals with various dimensions – how the writers struggle to publish their work, how the books are being reviewed by the people without reading the books, how the publishers reject the authors’ work without even going through the manuscript, the rat race in corporate world, how the people in the corporate world are ready to do anything for their own sake, love, infatuation, Gita, Upanishads, the thought process and behavior of typical consultant, tai chi training…….it’s endless man!
The humor and sarcasm throughout the book makes it more interesting to read this long novel. Overall, it’s a great work by Arunabha once again. I am looking forward for his next book.
