SOURCE: "A Piquant Infusion of India," in Christian Science Monitor, Vol. 62, No. 72, February 19, 1970, p. 10.

In the following review, Millar discusses the character studies in the stories of Narayan's A Horse and Two Goats.

Mother India has many gentle children. This book [A Horse and Two Goats] is written with the gentleness of strength.

R. K. Narayan is a novelist of distinction who follows no trend but humanity, no vision but his own—kindly, level, comical, moved.

A Horse and Two Goats is a collection of short stories, all (one suspects) wholly Indian in spirit. Each of them is a character study, a glint of mankind, an infusion of India.

The surface is comedy and tragicomedy. Sometimes grief lies under it, but never despair. And each story deserves to be read at least twice—in an age when much contemporary fiction may not deserve to be read once.

Mr...