Books: That Summer in Paris

That Summer in Paris

Author: Abha Dawesar

Publication: Random House India

Price: Rs 295

When author Abha Dawesar began work on her third novel, she chose Paris as her setting.

Not only because it’s easy to get started on cobble-stoned alleys, flaky pastries, and Pomerol wines. But more so because love, lust, and discourses on literature become far more readable against a backdrop that’s French.

And so does That Summer in Paris, Dawesar's most complex work so far.

It’s an unlikely relationship. Prem Rustam, a 75-year-old highly acclaimed, reclusive Indian author and 20-something Maya, an aspiring writer.

The two spend a summer in Paris, where over million coffee glugs, Maya cannot but help compare the author Rustam from the man Rustam is, and secretly prefer too.

And Rustam cannot help use Maya to come to terms with his own past sexual diffidence. He cannot help but cast her as a character in his own life.

Line between life and literature is thin, and in an impressionist Paris, it bleeds and blurs to effect beauty.

However, being fraught with too many subplots and tedious exchanges on art and writing, the general reader is likely to find himself turned off at times.

Some timely editing could have kept the narrative rather taut. Yet a great read, especially if you have a taste for oddball writing.