SOURCE: "A Sonnet to San Francisco," in Newsweek, Vol. CVII, No. 15, April 14, 1986, pp. 74-5.

Lehman is an American poet and critic. In the following review of The Golden Gate, he praises Seth for revitalizing the novel in verse.

Vikram Seth is scarcely your conventional first novelist. Born in Calcutta 34 years ago, educated at Oxford, he's the author of a "Tibetan travel book" titled From Heaven Lake and is currently completing a dissertation at Stanford University on the economic demography of China. But nothing about his background will quite prepare you for The Golden Gate, Seth's utterly original and utterly delightful novel about Yuppiedom in "light-pearled, / Fog-fingered" San Francisco, "the loveliest city in the world." What distinguishes the novel from any other you'll pick up this year is its form. Inspired by Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, The Golden Gate consists of close to 600 sonnets. Everything from the dedication, acknowledgments and...