SOURCE: "The Nearness of Two Worlds," in Commonweal, Vol. LIX, No. 3, October 23, 1953, pp. 70-71.

In the following review, Fremantle calls Narayan's Grateful to Life and Death "a tour de force, as perfect as it is pure."

Mr. Narayan's first novel, The Financial Expert, was a delicious comedy, subtle and gay. His second book, [Grateful to Life and Death,] about a teacher of English in a college in India, is one of the rare novels dealing with marriage which suggests the truly sacramental nature of the physical relationship. The hero, Krishna, his lovely wife, Susila, and Leela, their little daughter; his parents, her parents, the old family retainers; his colleagues, his friends, the little dusty town where they all live, are delicately chiseled, and the over-all impression is of a filigree carving, in sandalwood or ivory. We see, and smell, the jasmine that Susila always wears, and that is...