Literature Network » Hermann Hesse

Quest for the fabulously Absolute

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From: The Independent - London
Date: 19950528
Author:MAGGIE TRAUGOTT

THE West has paddled and plunged into Indian holy waters throughout this century, and in her first novel for seven years, Anita Desai cunningly examines this phenomenon. She focuses on two eras: the 1920s, when Europe and America were nibbling Tagore and finding Indian performing arts "exotic", and the 1970s when itinerant hippiedom was, for some, turning into dedicated spiritual quest.

Desai's cast is multinational: a cosseted Italian called Matteo, whose English tutor put in his hands at a formative age Hermann Hesse's The Journey to the East, which sent him giggling mystically into the ...

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