Dreams Of Rivers And Seas - Softcover

Tim Parks

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099513358 ISBN 13: 9780099513353

Synopsis

'For some time now, I have been plagued, perhaps blessed, by dreams of rivers and seas, dreams of water.'
Just days after Albert James writes these lines to his son John, in London, he is dead. Abandoning a pretty girlfriend and the lab where he is completing his PhD, John flies to Delhi to join his mother in mourning.
A brilliant and controversial anthropologist, the nature of Albert James's research, and the circumstances of his death, are far from clear. On top of this, John must confront his mother's coolness, and the strangeness of the cremation ceremony that she has organised for his father. No sooner is the body consigned to the flames than a journalist arrives, determined to write a biography of the dead man. The widow will have nothing to do with the project, yet seems incapable of keeping away from the journalist.
In Tim Parks's masterly new novel, India, with its vast strangeness, the density and intensity of its street life, its indifference to all distinctions between the religious and the secular, is a constant source of distraction to these westerners in search of clarity and identity. To John, the enigma of his father's dreams of rivers and seas appears to be one with the greater mystery of the country.

About this title

About the Author

Tim Parks studied at Cambridge and Harvard. He lives near Verona with his wife and three children. His novel Europa was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Destiny and Judge Savage were longlisted in 2000 and 2003.

Edition details

• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0099513358
• ISBN 13: 9780099513353
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448