[As] a South Indian [R. K. Narayan] knew he must come to terms with the power which in his novels he shows shaping Malgudi physically, giving it the plan of streets created by the mythical Sir Frederick Lawley, the schools and colleges, the municipal government, the railways and mills and printing presses, the whole structure of a western city superimposed on a native life that, with its temples and household shrines and vegetarian Brahmin food and astrologers and untouchables and arranged marriages, had remained obstinately unchanged. In Malgudi the two worlds are shown as indissolubly linked—even though no more than three actual Englishmen appear in minor roles during the whole cycle—and linked (Narayan seems to imply) forever, since on the public level India has become as inevitably dominated by twentieth-century progress as on the private level it has remained loyal to the Hindu past, to the...