such a long journey rohinton mistry summary

"Such a Long Journey" Summary

By Rohinton Mistry

fiction | 424 pages | Published in NaN

It is Bombay in 1971, the year India went to war over what was to become Bangladesh. A hard-working bank clerk, Gustad Noble is a devoted family man who gradually sees his modest life unravelling. His young daughter falls ill; his promising son defies his father’s ambitions for him. He is the one reasonable voice amidst the ongoing dramas of his neighbours. One day, he receives a letter from an old friend, asking him to help in what at first seems like an heroic mission. But he soon finds himself unwittingly drawn into a dangerous network of deception. Compassionate, and rich in details of character and place, this unforgettable novel charts the journey of a moral heart in a turbulent world of change.

Estimated read time: 1 min read

One Sentence Summary

A man in 1971 Bombay grapples with family, politics, and personal turmoil.

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Such a Long Journey FAQ

What is 'such a long journey' about.

The novel 'Such a Long Journey' by Rohinton Mistry is set in Bombay in the early 1970s and follows the story of Gustad Noble, a bank clerk. The book explores themes of political turmoil, family dynamics, and personal growth.

Who is the author of 'Such a Long Journey'?

The author of 'Such a Long Journey' is Rohinton Mistry, an Indian-Canadian writer known for his insightful and emotionally resonant storytelling.

What are the major themes in 'Such a Long Journey'?

Some of the major themes in 'Such a Long Journey' include political unrest, friendship, loyalty, family relationships, and the impact of historical events on individuals.

Is 'Such a Long Journey' based on true events?

While 'Such a Long Journey' is a work of fiction, it is set against the backdrop of real historical events, providing a vivid portrayal of life in Bombay during a period of significant political and social change.

What is the writing style of 'Such a Long Journey'?

Rohinton Mistry's writing style in 'Such a Long Journey' is characterized by its richly detailed descriptions, nuanced character development, and a blend of humor and poignancy.

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SUCH A LONG JOURNEY

by Rohinton Mistry ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 25, 1991

A first novel from Mistry (the notable story collection Swimming Lessons, 1989) about a family man in 1971 India who experiences a political scandal firsthand. Set at the time of India's war with Pakistan over Bangladesh, it convincingly dramatizes how an honest but naive man can be compromised by events he doesn't understand. Gustad Noble is a bank clerk faced with an assortment of family problems—an inexplicable low-grade illness of daughter Roshan; a son (Sohrab) who wins a college scholarship but refuses to accept it; and a nostalgic dream for a mythical golden age. Evocative instances of domestic humor and travail (Noble, for instance, decides to bring home a live chicken for a feast, with amusing consequences) and local character sketches (notably that of Tehmul, a man harmless but brain-damaged, whom we first meet ``directing traffic around the demon tree'') give way to undercover intrigue when Major Bilimoria, an old friend who works for Indira Gandhi's secret police, recruits Noble to receive mysterious parcels and deposit sums of money (under a false name) in the bank where he works. The plot thickens (dead animals begin to appear on Noble's doorstep) as domestic travail tightens (no medications seem to help his daughter) before scandal erupts. Bilimoria is arrested: it turns out he's either a sort of Oliver North, officially transferring funds to aid guerrillas in East Pakistan, or a crook. Noble, confused, his world in disarray, travels form Bombay to Delhi for a chilling meeting with Bilimoria, who is now near- delirious. The agent admits his guilt: he intended to line his own pockets and those of his friends, including Noble. Amidst revelations of gross governmental corruption, Bilimoria dies—but Noble survives as the war begins to ``liberate'' Bangladesh. A finely textured look at India in a time of upheaval.

Pub Date: April 25, 1991

ISBN: 0-679-40258-6

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1991

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BOOK REVIEW

by Rohinton Mistry

by Elin Hilderbrand ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2015

Once again, Hilderbrand displays her gift for making us care most about her least likable characters.

Hilderbrand’s latest cautionary tale exposes the toxic—and hilarious—impact of gossip on even the most sophisticated of islands.

Eddie and Grace Pancik are known for their beautiful Nantucket home and grounds, financed with the profits from Eddie’s thriving real estate company (thriving before the crash of 2008, that is). Grace raises pedigreed hens and, with the help of hunky landscape architect Benton Coe, has achieved a lush paradise of fowl-friendly foliage. The Panciks’ teenage girls, Allegra and Hope, suffer invidious comparisons of their looks and sex appeal, although they're identical twins. The Panciks’ friends the Llewellyns (Madeline, a blocked novelist, and her airline-pilot husband, Trevor) invested $50,000, the lion’s share of Madeline’s last advance, in Eddie’s latest development. But Madeline, hard-pressed to come up with catalog copy, much less a new novel, is living in increasingly straightened circumstances, at least by Nantucket standards: she can only afford $2,000 per month on the apartment she rents in desperate hope that “a room of her own” will prime the creative pump. Construction on Eddie’s spec houses has stalled, thanks to the aforementioned crash. Grace, who has been nursing a crush on Benton for some time, gives in and a torrid affair ensues, which she ill-advisedly confides to Madeline after too many glasses of Screaming Eagle. With her agent and publisher dropping dire hints about clawing back her advance and Eddie “temporarily” unable to return the 50K, what’s a writer to do but to appropriate Grace’s adultery as fictional fodder? When Eddie is seen entering her apartment (to ask why she rented from a rival realtor), rumors spread about him and Madeline, and after the rival realtor sneaks a look at Madeline’s rough draft (which New York is hotly anticipating as “the Playboy Channel meets HGTV”), the island threatens to implode with prurient snark. No one is spared, not even Hilderbrand herself, “that other Nantucket novelist,” nor this magazine, “the notoriously cranky Kirkus.”

Pub Date: June 16, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-316-33452-5

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: May 20, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015

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by Elin Hilderbrand

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PERSPECTIVES

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen ) has a compulsive impact.

"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

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by J.D. Salinger

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Such a Long Journey Paperback – June 2, 1992

Purchase options and add-ons.

• Print length 339 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Vintage
• Publication date June 2, 1992
• Dimensions 5.21 x 0.8 x 7.96 inches
• ISBN-10 9780679738718
• ISBN-13 978-0679738718
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Amazon.com review, from publishers weekly, from the inside flap, from the back cover, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., such a long journey, vintage books usa, product details.

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0679738711
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (June 2, 1992)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 339 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780679738718
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679738718
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.8 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.21 x 0.8 x 7.96 inches
• #3,055 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
• #9,718 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
• #40,981 in Literary Fiction (Books)

About the author

Rohinton mistry.

Rohinton Mistry was born in 1952 and grew up in Bombay, India, where he also attended university. In 1975 he emigrated to Canada, where he began a course in English and Philosophy at the University of Toronto.He is the author of three novels and one collection of short stories. His debut novel, Such a Long Journey (1991), won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book and the Governor General's Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was made into an acclaimed feature film in 1998. His second novel, A Fine Balance (1995), won many prestigious awards, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and the Giller Prize, as well as being shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Irish Times International Fiction Prize. His collection of short stories, Tales from Firozsha Baag, was published in 1987.In 2002 Faber published Mistry's third novel, Family Matters, which was longlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize.

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Such a Long Journey

70 pages • 2 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

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Chapters 1-8

Chapters 9-14

Chapters 15-22

Character Analysis

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Discussion Questions

Blackout Paper

When India and China went to war, Gustad covered his apartment windows in blackout paper, like all the citizens of Bombay. Prime Minister Nehru, convinced his counterpart in China was a friend and ally, was depressed and weakened from the war. This mood affected both the national feeling in India and the personal feelings of Gustad Noble, who decided not to remove the paper when the war ended. Instead of returning to the light, Gustad preferred to leave things dark, telling Dilnavaz at first that the darkened windows helped the children sleep. Three years later, when conflict arose with Pakistan in Kashmir, citizens were again ordered to blacken their windows, and Gustad felt vindicated. The apartment windows are still darkened when the novel opens in early 1971: “The family grew accustomed to living in less light, as if blackout paper had always covered the windows” (11).

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Related Titles

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Sunday book pick: In ‘Such a Long Journey’, how an ordinary heart travels in turbulent times

‘such a long journey’, rohinton mistry’s debut novel, was published in 1991..

My first introduction to Rohinton Mistry was in class ten. The school library stocked his books and there was something about his 2001 novel Family Matters that appealed to me. We were allowed to borrow a book for a week at a time and I remember devouring the 400-plus page novel in a matter of a few days – quite a feat for a board exam year.

Over the next few years, I read his other books A Fine Balance and Tales from Firozsha Bagh . Mistry hasn’t written a book in nearly two decades so when I bought Such a Long Journey in 2021, I saved it as a treat for the right time. I finally decided to read the book a few days ago – the heat is unbearable and the screen tires the eyes, Mistry seemed like the friend to turn to on a tiresome day.

The Nobles and friends

From the very first sentence, I was reminded of why I love Mistry’s fiction so much. Lengthy descriptions of the Parsi life, South Bombay before it was SoBo, and humdrum of life which is simultaneously unexciting and poetic. The streets are dirty, there’s a permanent shortage of water, and the milkman expertly dilutes the milk with water – the residents of Khodadad Building live in dismal conditions but their strong sense of self and community makes them worthy of a novel’s subject.

Gustad Noble, the protagonist, is a middle-aged man who prides himself on his honesty, uprightness, and being the true family man. He’s a bank employee with a meagre salary but his son successfully clearing the IIT entrance exam has brought him relief and joy. Never mind that the young man has no interest in studying engineering. Gustad’s friend at the bank, Dinshawji, is given to flirting with the mini-skirt-clad Catholic assistant and making crude jokes but Gustad is devoted to his wife and does not feel the need to speak poorly of her to fit in with his friends.

His other friend, Major Bilimoria was once a respected army general but the change in national circumstances – this was the time when India was trying to help Bangladesh attain independence from Pakistan – throws him into a sticky situation where he’s forced to do corrupt bidding on behalf of the prime minister. Gustad and his wife Dilnavaz are in obvious distress when Bilimoria draws Gustad into his plans and makes him undertake journeys through shady lanes of Bombay and an overnight train ride to Delhi to see the deceit to its end.

In the meantime, Gustad’s youngest daughter Roshan falls sick – an unexplained stomach ailment that doesn’t go away with tried and tested medicines, and the doctor’s intervention. Defeated by constant sickness, Dilnavaz asks her spinster neighbour Ms Kutpitia for help – a staunch believer in black magic and evil eye, her every new remedy is more bizarre than the last.

Tehmul, the resident retard, inadvertently gets caught up in Dilnavaz and Ms Kutpitia’s madness. A moving shadow in the Khodadad Building, he is witness to secrets that the Noble family – and perhaps everyone else – is trying to hide. His slurred speech, ungainly ways, and limited physical and mental capacity make him an easy target for the resident’s uncaring cruelty. Only Gustad sees him for what he is – a slow child trapped in a man’s body, and tries to be kind to him as much as he can.

The wheels go round and round

Like all of Mistry’s novels, the cast of characters in Such a Long Journey is diverse and abundant. I have always taken pleasure in reading about the Parsis of Bombay, their foods, rituals, and distinct manner of speaking. The South Bombay of the 1970s is charming despite its infrastructural shortcomings. Remarkable shifts in political landscapes hurry on their slow-moving lives.

Indira Gandhi is at the helm and the common man is getting sick of her. Mistry’s sharp criticism of Mrs Gandhi’s regime is highlighted through the Nobles’s struggle to make ends meet as inflation and taxes reach record highs. Her despotic thwarting of opposing voices brings no assurance either. The only ray of hope in this misery is Bangladesh’s spirited fight for independence and India’s support for a just cause. The men in South Bombay cheer Pakistan’s downfall as Bangladesh’s courage grips their spirits. The nation’s collective pride at being on the right side of history is unmissable.

A lot of things go wrong with the Nobles – starting with when Gustad’s father loses his business and wealth thanks to a scheming uncle. Since then, his life has been marked with all manners of sadness if not always full-blown tragedies. Personal strife aside, Gustad is unexpectedly drawn into the war that until now he was happy to witness from the sidelines.

As the Nobles try to make sense of their daughter’s illness, a rebellious son, eccentric neighbours, and friends who appear and disappear, Gustad makes the fated – if solitary – journey into his own heart. He’s tossed around between life and death and secrets and morality as he tries to preserve as much of his (and his family’s goodness) in an increasingly turbulent world.

As always, Mistry’s strength lies in his wickedly humorous descriptions, intimate portrayal of family life and bringing alive a time in history in precise, evocative detail. Though ultimately a story of a five-member family, the author does not shy away from criticising the fascist politics of the Shiv Sena and Congress and India’s tendency to incite riots at the slightest provocation. Set in the 70s and written in the 90s, Mistry’s warnings would ultimately be ignored time and again as Bombay and various other cities find themselves in the throes of ghastly violence.

Mistry has published three novels till now, all of which have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize – the only writer to achieve it. At 71, it’s unlikely that Mistry will come out with a new novel anytime soon. The Parsi community that exists so vibrantly in his novels are dwindling in numbers too. Nevertheless, he has given us books that are not just marvellous documentation of one of India’s smallest minorities, but also timeless in their moods and worthy of several revisits.