Two Lives

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Seth describes his dealings with the couple as he became friends with them as their lodger when he was studying in England. But the book is principally an account of their own relationship, which Seth learns about through a series of interviews with his uncle and through the fortuitous discovery, late in the process of writing the book, of a suitcase of his aunt's correspondence with her circle of friends in Berlin during and after the war. These two lives couldn’t have been more different, yet more alike, than either of them could have imagined…overcoming racial and ethnic hatred, and genocide, their lives become fulfilled and realized, with the inclusion of Vikram Seth into their family. This is a memoir weaved straight from cultural threads, threads of understanding and love, woven into a quilt of unconditional love, compassion and the overcoming of adversity. I haven't read the book: instead I listened to the six CDs of the audio version, read by Seth himself, with a small cast of excellent actors playing the parts of his relations. Seth's own voice gives a unique depth to his story. Its melodies combine with his precise and restrained language to build a picture that is utterly engrossing. Recounting the two lives gives the author the opportunity to illustrate and reflect on the devastation wrought by the second world war, both, in Shanti's case, through the personal calvary of an Indian fighting for the colonial motherland and being maimed in the process and, in Henny's, through the deportation of her closest relatives and the suffering of those surviving in Berlin after the war. Apart from the author's own interaction with Henny, which gives some indication of her character, the rest of her life is not so clear. One wonders what it was really like being a German Jewish woman in London married to an Indian? There is no discussion of any prejudice towards Henny and Shanti, possibly the result of the paucity of information about the lives of "ordinary" people. As the author actually interviews Shanti for the book and also because he lives longer, his story is more comprehensive, but even here, the struggles are more about overcoming the difficulties of being a dentist with only one arm rather than any other existential problems. This contrasts with the author's mention of the racism suffered by his brother Shantum in Leicester. But one could also interpret this as being true to the times in which the protagonists of the book lived, for them the overwhelming event which affected their lives was the second world war.

Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth As a foreigner in the Third Reich, Shanti was prevented both from practising dentistry and from carrying out postgraduate research, and in 1937, much against his will, he moved to Britain. The world was also closing in on the Caros, who were Jewish: many of their non-Jewish friends drifted away, too afraid to visit them, and Henny lost her job with an insurance company. Thanks to Hans's father, she got out a month before the war, to stay with a family called Arberry in London. Her mother and sister Lola were less fortunate. At first glance, the lives of Mary Louise Quarry and Emily Delahunty couldn't seem more different. Mary Louise, an Irish farm girl and the heroine of "Reading Turgenev" has lived in a home for the mentally and emotionally disturbed and impaired for the past thirty-one years. Repressed and emotionally fragile, the only experience Mary Louise has ever had of love, despite an early and ongoing marriage, revolves around her dying cousin, Robert, who lived with his mother in a crumbling Irish country house and who shares his love of Turgenev with Mary Louise. We can find lots of information about these Teachers in the works by Helena and Nicholas Roerich in which their cooperation with the Great Teachers is also reflected. The same Teachers were the guardians of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky – the author of “The Secret Doctrine” and founder of the Theosophical Society in 19th century.Two Lives' is an amazing book. It takes you into different worlds and lives. It is a story of author' Uncle Shanti who came to Germany from India to study dentistry, not knowing that he would live his entire life abroad. His whole journey was extraordinary. However, the author was least aware of the significant aspects of his uncle's history till his parents showed him letters that uncle Shanti wrote to his German wife, Henny. Even as a young boy, the author knew his uncle and aunt, and in fact had stayed with them in his teens. Consequently, the rest of his life he remained close to them, he was particularly fond of his aunt, Henny. Since the couple did not have a child of their own, they also grew attached to Vikram. While Vikram knew them as his uncle and aunt, he did not know about their past and what they went through in their early lives. The first time his parent showed him uncle Shanti's letters after his death, the writer in Vikram found enough material for a book. There was much in these letters that made him write about these two extraordinary lives.

The book is a rich and evocative account of the author's family history, and it provides an in-depth understanding of the culture, lifestyle, and people of pre-partition India. The book is filled with vivid and evocative descriptions of the country and the people that inhabited it, and it provides a fascinating insight into the history of the region. C. E. Antarova was performing a lot with symphony orchestras. Her artistic and social activities broke suddenly when she lost her husband in the Stalin’s Gulag.While Mary Louise's life constantly turns inward, Emily Delahunty, the outgoing romance novelist who takes center stage in "My House in Umbria," looks to others for emotional sustenance. The abandoned daughter of carnival performers, Emily's always made her own way in the world, and unlike Mary Louise, she's had a great deal more experience of love than most. At least the "business" side of love, and it's this business side that's paid for her charming villa in the Umbrian countryside not far from Siena. The two spinster sisters of her husband who she has to live with are splendid villainesses. You might say it's a narrative about the lengths some women will go to not to have sex and the mental health problems such a renunciation leads to! William Trevor, KBE grew up in various provincial towns and attended a number of schools, graduating from Trinity College, in Dublin, with a degree in history. He first exercised his artistry as a sculptor, working as a teacher in Northern Ireland and then emigrated to England in search of work when the school went bankrupt. He could have returned to Ireland once he became a successful writer, he said, "but by then I had become a wanderer, and one way and another, I just stayed in England ... I hated leaving Ireland. I was very bitter at the time. But, had it not happened, I think I might never have written at all." No one apart from the two parties concerned understands a marriage and what goes on in it and often enough, not even they. There were two books in this collection Reading Turgenev and My House in Umbria. I am curious as to whether the author or the publisher decided they should belong together.