R. K. Narayan Writings

Introduction

R. K. Narayan is considered one of the three best Indian authors writing in English; the other two are Rao Raja and Mulk Raj Anand. Narayan's fiction contains a unique blend of Indian mysticism and English form. His fictional world, Malgudi, is one of everyday concerns and common language set in southern India, which he successfully portrays through subtle prose and humor.

Discussion

Narayan was born in Mysore, India, in 1906. His father was an administrator and headmaster at several government schools and instilled in Narayan a love of literature. He did not have much academic success, however, having difficulty with his college entrance exam in English. In 1926, he enrolled in the B.A. program in English in Maharaja College, Mysore, after which he embarked on a short-lived teaching career. Finding the academic life was not for him, Narayan turned to writing. After being turned down by several publishers, Narayan gave the manuscript of his first novel, Swami and Friends (1935), to a friend and gave him permission to destroy it (Walsh, pp 23-182). The friend showed the novel to Graham Greene, who was impressed and found a publisher for the book. Narayan's writing career was born and the prolific writer went on to publish novels, several volumes of short stories, collections of essays, and his memoirs, entitled My Days (1974).

After completing eight years of education at the Lutheran Mission School near his grandmother's house in Madras, he studied for a short time at the CRC High School. When his father was appointed headmaster of the Maharaja's High School in Mysore, Narayan moved back in with his parents. To his father's consternation, Narayan was an indifferent student and after graduating high school, he failed the college entrance exam in English because he found the primary textbook to be too boring to read. He took the exam again a year later and eventually obtained his bachelor's degree from the University of Mysore. One of the few Indian-English writers who spent nearly all his time in India, he went abroad to the United States in 1956 at the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation. Narayan's first published work was the review of a book titled Development of Maritime Laws of 17th-Century England (Prasad, pp 23-94). He began his literary career with short stories which appeared in The Hindu, and also worked for some time as the Mysore correspondent of Justice, a Madras-based newspaper. He also took up teaching at a government school, but left the job within two days (Pousse, pp 334-292).

Works Analysis

Narayan's fiction inhabits the world of everyday events and common people in a fictional place called Malgudi. He incorporates traditional Hindu mythology and legends in stories of modern events. He tells stories of ordinary people who rely on Hindu principles to guide them through the ethical dilemmas and problems of modern life. Narayan's fiction avoids being overtly political or ideological. His early novels focus on the conflict between Indian and Western culture. Swami and Friends chronicles an ...