SOURCE: "Sitting Pretty," in The New York Review of Books, Vol. XLI, No. 10, May 27, 1993, pp. 22-6.

Desai is an Indian novelist, short story writer, and author of books for children. In the following review, she examines character and style in A Suitable Boy.

The character Vikram Seth chooses in his novel A Suitable Boy to represent himself is not one of the central characters; it is Amit the poet who "was sitting pretty in his father's house and doing nothing that counted as real work," which happens to be the writing of an historical novel. In an uncharacteristically confiding moment, he compares writing fiction to Indian music.

I've always felt that the performance of a raag resembles a novel—or at least the kind of novel I'm attempting to write. You know … first you take one note and explore it for a while, then another to discover its...