SOURCE: "Dreams in Old Delhi," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4040, September 5, 1980, p. 948.

In the review of Clear Light of Day below, Annan discusses characterization and plot, concluding that the ending of the book is too explicit.

"The sense of dullness and hopelessness that reigned over their house took on an aspect of intense waiting." That is how one of the two sisters in this Indian novel [Clear Light of Day] remembers her childhood, and she sounds like one of Chekhov's three. The two works have much in common: the theme of frustrated expectation, an elegiac mood, and a tender amusement at people's absurdities.

The novel begins with the triennial visit of the younger sister Tara and her diplomat husband to the old family home, a decaying, suburban mansion on the banks of the Jumna outside Old Delhi. Here Bim, the older sister, lives with the youngest brother...