The Golden gate is story of love; the saga of untold affection. The simple yet touching "golden gate" is therefore a poem of life. Written in verses and depicted in a most simple langugage against the back drop of "Sanfransisco" the novel is a remarkable unification of poetry and drama while bringing out the very best Vikram Seth.
Born in June 20 1952, Vikram Seth is better known as an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, author, children`s writer, biographer and also memoirist. He born in the city of joy, Kolkata where is father Prem Seth was a shoe company executive and mother Laila Seth served as a judge. After his primary education in the city he left india to study further at Oxford University. He further studied in Stanford University as well. While at Stanford, Seth was also a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing. During a period from 1980-1982, he studied classical Chinese poetry and different languages at Nanjing University, China. Seth was passionate about writing poetry. In his writing career Vikram Seth has published eight notable works, six collections of poetry and two novels while many are lying in the pipeline. In 1986 Vikram Seth wrote his first novel `The golden gate`. He is an unusually forthcoming writer whose published material is full of disguised details as to the personal lives of him. The innovative recovery of `unfashionable` and `traditional` forms are the characterization of Seth`s work. He is often compared with Salman Rushdie and Amitabh Ghosh because of his style of going against the current of cross pollination between genres and rhetorical experimantalism.
Synopsis:
Golden Gate: a novel in verse is one of a nearly extinct breed. It receives some unique pleasures as well as uncertain reception at some hands. The Golden Gate is a novel composed entirely of rhyming sonnets. All total they are 690 to be precise. This is a satirical romance describing the stories of young professionals in San Francisco throughout their quests and questions to find and then deal with, love in their own lives and also each other`s. The novel also describes the experience of a young book of friends while the backdrop is California. Vikram Seth has a brilliant style, where ordinary words, events as well as people stand up and present emotions in delicate detail. This novel in verse is a fine story of love and loss irrespective of His wit, and wordplay. This book is really engrossing and endearing. Vikarm speaks in soft and simple language. He works under so many different styles like travel book, longest novel in English, poetry, novel in verse, novel set in 1950-60s India, novel set in San Fransisco, and London, and Tibet, etc and all with such mastery is a mark of his genius.
Being published by Vintage Books USA this verse novel by Vikram Seth is unputdownable till the end. The language used is very simple and easy that can give the reader an enchanting feeling.
Vikram Seth is glorified by his versatility and this creation of his is of no exception. In this piece of work `The golden gate` the author produced work in prose and poetry that remark on such diverse places as China, California, and India. This work is praiseworthy for his wit and humor and his ability to evoke a sense of the cultures about which he is writing. As a whole this is a remarkable piece of Vikram Seth.
