William Shakespeare’s King Lear a Monumental Tragedy

Summary:

              Rohinton Mistry's Such a long Journey is a fascinating book, a deserving winner of several prizes: the Governor Genera's Award, the commonwealth Writers Prizes for best book and smith book in Canada first novel award. The story of gustad noble a moral man trying to cope with life's difficulties is both involving and multi-layered.

              The novel is set in Bombay in 1971. Gustad noble the protagonist is family man,"a man swimming in the tidewater of his fifth decade of life". And life seems good. His older son, sohrab had done well on his university exams. He is happy in his home, although his wife, Dilnavaz complain that the blackout paper, which Gustad put up in 1962 during India's war with China, blocks the light from the rooms and attracts spiders and cobwebs. His daughter Roshan, is about to celebrate her ninth birthday and Gustad is planning a family dinner, his father's bookstore went bankrupt. But Gustad has  just received a troubling letter from an old friend, Major Jimmy Bilimoria whose request for aid will plunge Gustad into the morass of Indian politics and conflicting loyalties.

              In the letter, Major Bilimoria asks Gusted to receive a package for him. And as if the letter itself is harbinger of disaster, other problems begin piling up. Sohrab refuses to go to IIT, the Indian institute of Technology, the father and son quarrel and Sohrab leaves home while Gustad disowns his son. Roshan falls ill. The contents of the package jeopardize Gustad's job as a bank clerk. And the tranquillity of the family apartment itself is threatened when the municipal government requisitions some land in order to widen a road.