SOURCE: "May You Always Wear Red," in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Dec. 11, 1994, p. 9.

This review of The Grandmother's Tale highlights the subtlety, elegance, gentleness, and profundity of Narayan's work.

There is a saying in India, "May you always wear red," a phrase spoken among women, and offered as a sort of benediction. Widows, who do not have an easy time of it in India, are prohibited by custom from wearing the color red. And so what this saying means is: May you die before your husband. May you be spared the indignities of a solitary old age.

It's the sort of detail, a way of looking at things, that an American might never think of but which is an integral part of the world of R. K. Narayan, who has for many decades, in 13 novels, a half a dozen story collections, and in his memoirs and...